Microsoft Support & Discussions

Google has finally released a Photo Sphere camera app for iPhone. Now you can shoot huge panoramas just by moving your device around you, and upload the final product to the cloud to share with friends. If you've ever used Street View in Google Maps, you'll be familiar with the kinds of shots this can produce. Final creations can be geotagged so others can see where they were shot, and shared out to your various social networks from within the Photo Sphere app, including Google+. Photo Spheres are a big phenomenon on Android, and it's great to have access to them on iOS now as well. Anywhere in particular you would like to shoot one of these kinds of pictures? …

Sometimes it's best for your Mac to be seen and not heard. Applications and services often make a sound associated with their notification, but did you know that sound can be deactivated? Here's how. First of all, you can always mute the audio on your Mac all together — and sometimes that's a good idea. But other times you may want to hear audio from some apps (like iTunes, for example), but you may want to selectively shut off notification noises from others. It's pretty easy to tailor these sorts of sounds, though it can be an arduous process. Here's how to get started. To turn off notification sounds on your Mac Click on the  menu. Select System Prefer…

Simple has released a major update for its finance app for iOS devices, including an all new interface and a few new features to help people manage their money. In addition, the app now allows users to send money to other Simple customers for the first time on mobile via Simple Instant. The company says, "Sending money to another Simple customer is as easy as adding them as a contact and transferring funds." Also, there's been some updates on the mobile version of the Goals feature to make it easier for users to reach their financial goals. As far as the new UI for the Simple app, the company says: "We seriously considered the inclusion of each customer i…

Game Center comes built into every iPhone and iPad and lets you play multiplayer games against your friends. You can also compete for rankings and unlock achievements. However, if you don't want small children adding people without your consent or playing games with people they don't know, it's a good idea to restrict what they can do within Game Center without your permission. How to block adding friends and playing multiplayer games in Game Center Launch the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad. Tap on General. Tap on Restrictions. Tap on Enable Restrictions at the very top if they aren't turned on already. If they are, skip to step 6. Choose a 4-digit passcod…

Today Only: Buy the Seidio LEDGER Flip Case for iPad mini 2, iPad mini and save 50% This flip case is a combination of an Italian polyurethane and a cloth-like texture to provide impact protection while giving your device a snazzy look. What's more is the case folds into a personal viewing stand for two optional angles for typing and viewing media. Colors include dark gray and red. Continue reading...

Vector is a news and analysis show focusing on the biggest stories, hottest trends, and most important issues in technology and popular culture. On this week's show, we talk about Ferguson, Missouri, and the difference in coverage between traditional media and social networks and live streams, the lack of diversity in tech, the tension between expansion and maintenance of corporate culture, and the concerns over native advertising. With Guy English, Georgia Dow, Rene Ritchie, and special guest Serenity Caldwell. Subscribe in iTunes Subscribe in RSS Download directly Follow on Twitter Thing 1: Ferguson The Night Social Media Exploded Over Ferguson Thing…

Apple has confirmed a number of new acts for the 2014 iTunes Festival in London, which will take place next month. Artists already announced include the likes of Maroon 5 and Pharrel Williams who will now be joined by The Script, Ryan Adams and more. The company continues to prepare for 30 days of music as the month of September draws closer. Here's a list of new acts joining the 2014 line-up: Charlie Simpson Clean Bandit David Gray Elbow Eric Whitacre First Aid Kit Foxes Gregory Porter Jenny Lewis Jess Glynne Jessica Ware Lenny Kravitz Luke Sital-Singh Matthew Koma Mnek Paolo Nutini Robin Schulz Rudimental Ryan Adams Sohn The Script Chec…

Which social networks do you use? You can find me @reneritchie most of the time. That's because the social network I use most is Twitter. I use it on my iPhone on the go, on my Mac while I'm working, and on my iPad while I'm reading or browsing. I use it to follow a few people I know and a lot of people in my industry. I seldom look at RSS anymore. To find out what's going on, I use Twitter. To keep in touch with real-life family and friends, and a few other people in the industry who prefer it, I use Facebook on the iPhone or the web. I use Instagram as well — also @reneritchie — from my iPhone, and sometimes share to Twitter and Facebook from there. And... that's abo…

Sprint has announced its new Family Share Pack plans that replaces the company's Framily plans, and the new plans offer more data for less starting on August 22. According to the Now Network carrier, Sprint's plans will offer customers as much as twice the amount of data to comparable plans from rivals. That means that a family of four will get 20 GB of data, instead of 10 GB from AT&T and Verizon, on the $160 plan. Additionally, through 2015, Sprint is launching a promotional plan where users get 20 GB of shared data across all their lines, up to 10 lines for a family, for $100. Additionally, as an added bonus, customers will also get an additional 2 GB of da…

Verizon has announced that they will be including an extra gigabyte of data to customers who sign up for a new data plan. According to Verizon, you'll need to upgrade your phone or activate a smartphone on a More Everything plan with at least 1GB of data to get these free bits and bytes. This is in addition to the recent announcement of new 2GB single-line plans for $60 monthly that we heard about last week. Your free gigabyte is recurring, and you'll get it every month for the life of your new contract. While it's not a lot of data, Verizon reminds us that it equals watching two movies, 2,000 visits to the Internet or 10 hours of live NFL games. Not bad for free! S…

Effective Aug. 19, 2014, Steve Ballmer has stepped down from the Microsoft Board of Directors. Read Ballmer’s letter to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Nadella’s response. Continue reading...

Starting Tuesday, the HTC One (M8) for Windows, the first device to ship in the U.S. with the Windows Phone 8.1 Update, will be available exclusively through Verizon Wireless online and in stores. It comes loaded with features such as Cortana, Live Folders and Action Center. It also has a bevy of HTC features, including the HTC BlinkFeed app, which is integrated into the Live Tile layout and provides quick access to curated news from social networks. The HTC One (M8) for Windows is made from a single block of aluminum, which translates to no gaps in its construction as the brushed metal frame wraps around the entire body of the phone. It has a 5-inch Super LCD3 1080…

AssistiveTouch is an accessibility feature that comes built-in to every iPhone and iPad in order to help those that may have problems with specific gestures. Instead of having to perform them, AssistiveTouch can do them for you. If you need to use adaptive accessories such as a joystick, AssistiveTouch supports those as well. How to enable AssistiveTouch on iPhone and iPad Launch the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad. Tap on General. Tap on Accessibility. Tap on AssistiveTouch under the Physical & Motor section — it's towards the bottom. Turn On AssistiveTouch. Return to your Home screen and you'll notice a circle that now stays constant. Tap on it to ac…

Flappy Bird developer Dong Nguyen will be releasing his latest game, Swing Copters, on the App Store this Thursday. Like Flappy Bird, Swing Copters has an 8-bit art style, and asks you to guide your character through obsticals to get through the levels. It also shares a similar addictive nature to Flappy Bird, according to Touch Arcade: Swing Copters captures all the "just one more try" of Flappy Bird, and seems even more brutally difficult. In the game, you play as a little dude who has a propeller on his head. Swing Copters coaxes you to tap the screen, at which point you're airborne, wildly flying to one side. Tapping changes your flight direction, and the goal i…

Microsoft has updated the official iPhone and iPad Xbox One SmartGlass app with a number of new features, including a way to remotely purchase digital games for the game console from an Android smartphone or tablet. Here's the full change log for the new 2.8 version: Rate your favorite game clips and activity feed entries Purchase things on your phone or tablet and they will start installing on your Xbox Browse new and popular games, add-ons, and bundles Receive and view shared Activity Feed and Game Clips General stability and polish improvements Bug fixes What do you think of this latest update for the Xbox One SmartGlass app? Free - Download now …

Looking for the best iPhone apps to help you make sure the next party or event you have to plan goes off without a hitch? Whether you're throwing a surprise birthday party, organizing a conference, or planning a launch party, your iPhone can make your life a lot easier. From finding the perfect venue to collecting money for tickets, there are several apps that can help you cover all bases of event planning. These are the best event planning events for iPhone we don't think you should go without! Eventbrite Eventbrite is a great service that not only lets you find events going on around you, but lets you host and organize your own. From there you can collect mo…

Apple has released the sixth developer preview of OS X Yosemite. You can download DP 6 from the Mac App Store on a Mac running an older developer preview of Yosemite, as well as from the Mac Developer Center. This version is only for registered developers. However, Yosemite is also available in beta for certain customers as part of the public beta program. Source: Apple Continue reading...

Image submitted by iMore reader traveling2 Every day, millions of photos are taken around the world, and a good chunk of those are taken on an iPhone. It's no wonder why — the iPhone is super portable, has an amazing iSight camera and an incredibly easy to use Camera app. Combine that with the ability to share photos instantly via Twitter, Instagram and other social networks, and you have the perfect solution for capturing and publishing any moment imaginable. So, each week we're going to scour the social networks for uplifting, inspiring, touching, and all around amazing photos using #iphone #iphoneography #vscocam and similar hashtags and embed the best of what we fi…

Apple has won an Emmy Award for the category of outstanding commercial in 2014 for its Misunderstood ad. The commercial debuted late last year in the 2013 Holiday season and shows how the iPhone can be used to capture and record, edit, and share memories for the holidays. The Misunderstood campaign shows how Apple products work together, showcasing a misunderstood teen who sits by his lonesome apart from the family holiday festivities using his iPhone 5s. What his family doesn't understand until he shares with them on the Apple TV using AirPlay technology, was that he was filming these memories and editing them into a wonderful family keepsake movie. If you're int…

In its latest experiment, Twitter is receiving a lot of complaints from irked users when it decided to tweak its network to retweet messages that users mark as favorites. Users are complaining that they are seeing tweets that are favorited by those whom they follow in their Twitter timeline like a retweet, with many also getting notification alerts when others follow a new users. The experiment began on a smaller scale several weeks ago and it appears that Twitter is widening this experiment to more users according to a report from The Next Web. Most notably, former Wall Street Journal and All Things D editor, now with Re/Code, Peter Kafka is lamenting on the network…

T-Mobile already has a special promotional 4-line family plan with unlimited text and talk along with 10 GB of data total, and now it seems that the un-carrier network is launching an even larger family plan to accommodate groups of up to 6. The 6-line plan is similar to the 4-line plan and will cost $120 per month. Like the 4-line plan, each of the 6 lines will come with unlimited talk and text along with 2.5 GB of data during the promotional period per line, for a total of 15 GB across all lines. The promotional data will last until 2016, after which the data allotment per line will drop down to 1 GB for each line, for a total of 6 GB across all 6 lines. The …

In Godus, you are the creator of all things. That comes with the responsibility of making the world suitable for your followers. Sculpt and shape the world around you to help them grow and prosper. As you get further, you'll need to use your God powers in order to obtain the belief of your followers. The more they thrive, the more they believe in you. Belief isn't free and you'll have to use yours wisely, or you'll end up having to spend real money in order to get things done. Here are our top tips, hints, and cheats to building a thriving Promised Land in Godus! 1. Speed up time for instant belief and building completion Like many other games, Godus is also s…

Disruptive. According to Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary, it’s the adjective form of disrupt, which means to break apart or throw into disorder. But in the tech industry, it’s become the buzz word for transformation, tearing something down in order to create something new and better. Spend time talking with Dave Campbell, Chief Technical Officer of Microsoft’s Cloud and Services organization and one of the company’s elite corps of Technical Fellows and you understand why. “People have to recognize that there’s a need for disruption,” said Campbell. “There comes a time when you have to make a shift and take a run at the new world.” Campbell’s approach to work re…