Star Wars on Xbox Video, Siri is jealous of Cortana and the self-charging Surface 3.
Contents
We have something new to announce at SamaGame Windows: starting today our short news section windows in short will spread, having several editions per week. Thus we seek to offer you a broader coverage of those news that, although they are “smaller”, are still relevant within the Microsoft world.
We start by reviewing the release on Xbox Video of the star wars sagawhich for the first time in history can be purchased in its entirety at HDDigital format, either through the Microsoft store, as well as competing services such as iTunes, Amazon and others. And although strictly speaking the movies can only be downloaded from this Friday, April 10, it is already possible to buy them in pre-sale format from the Xbox Video bazaar for 74.99 euros.
This digital edition will include all 6 movies in Full HD (1080p) quality, along with a bunch of never-before-seen bonus footage (edited scenes, behind-the-scenes videos, soundtrack, interviews, etc.) and other exclusives for Xbox users, such as an R2-D2 figure that we can add to our Xbox Live avatar, and a thematic expansion for the game free Pinball FX 2. In addition, those who buy the saga in pre-sale will have access to an exclusive 60-second trailer.
The Surface 3 that charged itself
For a moment it seems that Microsoft has managed to defy the laws of thermodynamics, but no. That is what many have thought upon discovering that it can be connect the entire USB port of the Surface 3 to its microUSB port through a charging cable. This causes the tablet to “believe” that we are charging its battery, since in reality it is only transporting energy through the cable, and losing some of it along the way, thus reducing its total duration.
This is hilarious to my simple little brain. pic.twitter.com/Yk0MP2iqUw
— Brad Sams (@bdsams) April 6, 2015
Fortunately, after a few minutes Windows is able to figure out what’s really going on, and stops the process while displaying a notice that the Surface is “plugged in but not charging.”
Siri is jealous of Cortana
This week an alleged screenshot has circulated online showing the iOS voice assistant, Siri, showing some jealousy when the user mistakes his name for Cortana’s (“maybe you should ask that Cortana for movie times”).
That particular image is most likely a fake, but Tom Warren still found that Siri does give somewhat sarcastic responses when mentioning Microsoft’s assistant. Cortana, for her part, seems not to be so provoked when we bring up Siri:
Microsoft completes 18,000 post-purchase layoffs from Nokia, and announces plan to hire people with autism
On a more serious level, Microsoft has just specified one last round of layoffs, with which it completes the 18,000 layoffs announced last year after the purchase of Nokia’s device division. With this restructuring, it is mainly sought avoid duplication of functions in which it could fall due to the fact that many employees of the old Nokia, now in charge of Microsoft, carried out tasks that were already carried out within Redmond.
On the other hand, and as part of the company’s anti-discrimination policy, a plan is being carried out to start hire people with autism full time within Microsoft. This was announced by the Vice President of Global Operations, Mary Ellen Smith, on the Microsoft on the Issues blog, where they point out that although they already carried out programs to integrate people with autism, they will now expand the scale of these initiatives, in order to provide opportunities for higher-ranking job.
This program adds to a series of policies that have allowed Microsoft to rank highly for the diversity of its workforce in recent years.
YouTube API changes complicate unofficial Windows Phone clients
To close, one of those news that we would like not to have to give. Google is making changes to the YouTube API that will restrict the amount of information third-party apps can access. The obvious consequence of this is that customers like myTube either tubecast they will be forced to offer a somewhat more limited experience, by not being able to show the length of the videos or the number of visits within the search results page, nor the recent videos of our subscriptions within the home page.
It’s not like this means we’re going to be without YouTube on Windows Phone either, as clients will continue to work and update, they’ll just lose some features due to Google’s restrictions.
Hopefully Microsoft reacts to events like this, and begins to pressure properly so that the company of the great G launches an official application on Windows once and for all.
