Pedro Hernandez

“Alexa, open Cortana.” Such a command may seem heretical now, but soon users will be able to access Alexa on their Windows 10 devices. Microsoft and Amazon today announced a new collaboration, essentially enabling Cortana to talk to Alexa and vice versa. Rather than regard one another as rivals, the voice-enabled virtual assistants will begin […]

Despite some early stumbles, Microsoft’s decision to enter the PC hardware market appears to be paying off. The Redmond, Wash. technology giant trails just behind Apple in the business PC laptop and desktop market, according to a Spiceworks survey of nearly 1,000 IT professionals in the U.S., Canada and the U.K. Three of percent of […]

HoloLens, Microsoft’s augmented-reality headset, is one way to experience the company’s mixed-reality technologies, which can convincingly blend situationally-aware computing and 3D graphics with real-world environments to produce engrossing new experiences. The downside is that the device costs $3,000, meaning that it is largely out of reach for all but the most devoted enthusiasts and businesses […]

Microsoft has extended Power BI Report Server reach, allowing customer organizations to glean insights from a greater variety of business information. Debuting earlier this year, Power BI Report Server allows users to host reports created with the business intelligence and data visualization software on their internal networks. In June, Microsoft added the ability to use […]

Microsoft is busy putting the finishing touches on the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update and to help get developers get up to speed, the software maker released a preview of Visual Studio 2017 version 15.4. Included among the many new features and enhancements is support for .NET Standard 2.0 and other capabilities meant to help […]

Microsoft is planning to release Windows Server version 1709 next month during the software giant’s annual Ignite IT conference. This year, Microsoft Ignite will run from Sept. 25 to 29 in Orlando, Fla. Last year, the company used the event to launch Windows Server 2016. In an Aug. 24 announcement from Jeff Woolsey, principal program […]

Getting to the bottom of connectivity issues affecting Azure virtual machines is now easier with a new diagnostics tool released by Microsoft. Connectivity Check, a new feature in the Azure Network Watcher network performance and health monitoring service, helps users unearth issues that can affect their cloud applications. Customers can use the tool to determine […]

In a sure sign that Microsoft’s coders are wrapping up development on the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, upcoming preview builds released to the Windows Insider Fast and Slow rings will feature more bug fixes and fewer new features. “We are now at the point of the development cycle for the Windows 10 Fall Creators […]

Microsoft kicked off a public preview of its Azure Archive Blob Storage service this week, offering customers a lower-cost cloud storage solution for rarely accessed data. Storage tiering is hardly a new concept, although it may be coming to an end thanks to the advent of solid-state drives and innovations in the storage and hardware […]

Microsoft’s latest system, dubbed Project Brainwave, uses field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) from Intel to process artificial intelligence (AI) workloads in real time, a capability that is coming soon to the Redmond, Wash., software giant’s cloud. Although AI is quickly becoming a mainstream technology, delivering AI-enabled software and services that run at an acceptable speed generally […]