Skype’s wonderful Translator functionality has finally become reality. The feature was first demoed by Microsoft back in May, and now it’s available as a preview on Windows 8.1 and Windows 10.

At the moment, it only works between English and Spanish speakers. But it does do on-the-fly translation of voice calls. So you speak in one of these two languages, and the person at the other end of the ‘line’ will hear the other one. There is a slight delay, of course, but it’s perhaps smaller than one might have expected. Read more »

The recent leak of a Windows 10 consumer build (9901) has provided tech-enthusiast and Windows fans alike with information on a lot of previously unannounced features of the upcoming OS release. And while Xbox and Cortana integration are obviously on their way we are yet to see one of the exciting features boasted by Microsoft – ability to run Windows Phone applications on a desktop Windows distribution.

The leaked Windows 10 build in question has given us a possible glimpse of precisely this feature. An interesting picture popped up on twitter, showing HTC’s “Make More Space” app listed in the Windows 10 Store. The application is clearly intended for Windows phone, as evident from its listing. Read more »

A Windows 10 consumer build 9901 leaked out to reveal some of the features that the upcoming OS will bring. Microsoft will have a consumer presentation of Windows 10 in late January next year.

The latest technical preview of Windows 10 showcases the integration of Cortana. Read more »

If you are using Microsoft’s Xbox Music streaming service, you can now download 100 popular albums for free. Microsoft is giving those away those albums to citizens in the USA only (damn licensing rights!), who are subscribers to its music app with Xbox Music Pass activated.

Some of the free albums include TRON: Legacy OST, Swedish House Mafia – Until Now, U2 – All That You Can’t Leave Behind, Eminem – The Marshall Mathers LP2, Zedd – Clarity, Avicii – True, Lana Del Ray – Born to Die, Jessie J – Sweet Talker, Lil Wayne – Tha Carter III and Imagine Dragons – Night Visions. Read more »

Blu-ray won the optical format wars while MKV won on the digital side. That’s why there was plenty of cheers (by which we mean grunts “Finally!”) when it was revealed that Windows 10 will support MKV files natively. It turns out we don’t have to wait so long – Windows 8.1 now supports them too.

The pre-installed Xbox Video app has been updated and it can now play “most MKV files,” provided they don’t use an unsupported codec. Read more »

Skype has released an update for its Windows app today (the desktop Windows, mind you, not Windows Phone). Version 7.0 brings with it support for video calling people using Lync, as well as a few other things.

Audio calls and chats with Lync users have been possible since 2013, and now the video call functionality has finally been turned on between the two Microsoft-owned services. Lync is part of Microsoft Office, and it offers IM and presence, video conferencing, as well as telephony, being geared at businesses. Read more »

AirDroid for Android has been given a major update in v3.0. The app now has companion desktop apps for Windows and Mac that brings iOS Continuity like features to your Android device.

With the new desktop app, you can get notifications from your phone on your computer. You can reply to SMS from your computer or pick up or receive calls (calls can only be answered from the phone, however). You can also mirror apps on your computer, so you can, for example, reply to WhatsApp messages from your PC. Mirroring apps only works on rooted devices for now. Read more »

Gmail users can now edit office documents straight from their inbox. The button for the new feature is available alongside the options to download a file or save it to Google Drive.

When a user selects the newly available option, Gmail saves the file to Google Drive and automatically converts it to Google’s own office format. Read more »

The Pangu dev team has now released their iOS 8 jailbreaking magic for OS X.

The Pangu jailbreak tool has been the go-to iOS jailbreak tool for quite some time now. Its latest version has has been released a few days ago, allowing you to jailbreak any device running iOS8 or iOS8.1. This includes the new iPhone 6 and 6 Plus and the new iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 3. Unfortunately, it has only been available for Windows computers so far. Today, this has changed. Read more »

Amazon increased the price of its Prime service early this year but it keeps adding new features to make it worth the $100 a year. The latest addition is that Prime members get unlimited photo storage for free.

Photos go in the Amazon Cloud Drive where they can be viewed on various smart devices – from smartphones to certain Smart TVs from Samsung and LG and, of course, through Amazon’s Fire TV and Fire TV Stick. Read more »

Recently, a new version of Office for Mac was leaked. Although that is still in development, Microsoft has gone ahead and released the Outlook mail client for the Mac.

The new Outlook features a redesigned UI, new features, and improved performance. It is now available for download to Office 365 users. Read more »

Google Play Store is not the only content marketplace to get a refresh these days. Apple began rolling out redesigned iTunes Store app to users as well.

The new iTunes Store features design cues from OS X Yosemite and Apple iOS. Read more »

Adobe has outed a new update to its Creative Cloud family that not only brings new features to popular programs like Photoshop CC, but also adds new cloud-based sharing services.

These include curated content selections for user-created brushes and vectors, as well as workflow optimizations for designers and developers. Read more »

Windows 9 is close to announcement (September 30) and the leaks of some of the new features have already started cropping up. Today’s leak shows us something that looks like a centralized Notifications center and a new Multi-Desktops feature.

We already showed you the leaked video of the revamped Start menu, but this time the same source has shared demos of the new Notification center and the Multi-Desktop feature, which will be part of the new edition of Windows. Read more »

Microsoft recently reported that a large number of its Windows Store apps are misleading users with inaccurate titles and descriptions. This has prompted the company to purge more than 1500 apps from its app catalog.

The removal of the apps in question comes as part of an attempt by Microsoft to improve the quality of its app selection, and is also reflected by the company’s updated app certification requirements. Read more »