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New Office 2016 for Mac now available for purchase

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Microsoft has released the final version of Office 2016 for Mac. The company had released a preview back in March but now you can purchase the full version from Microsoft.

Office 2016 for Mac is a complete revamp of the old Office 2011. The new app brings the new UI design seen on the Windows and mobile versions of Office while harmonizing with the new design and features of OS X. It supports features like fullscreen mode, multi-touch gestures, and also has Retina assets for all the high resolution Macs. Read more »

Asus ZenFone 2 can run Windows 7 in case you really need it to

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The latest smartphone that can boot an OS it will likely never need is Asus ZenFone 2. A crafty XDA Developers member ported Microsoft Windows 7 to the Intel Atom-based smartphone.

The desktop OS was ported on the ZE551ML variant of the ZenFone 2. Read more »

Mac OS X El Capitan public beta goes live

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Apple released a public beta of Mac OS X El Capitan. The desktop OS joins the iOS 9 public beta in being available to anyone who’s interested to try it out.

Just like its mobile counterpart, OS X El Capitan public beta is a more polished release than the versions that have been available to developers since WWDC. Read more »

iTunes with Apple Music now available

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Apple finally rolled out iOS 8.4.yesterday on compatible iOS devices, which, among other minor things, brought with it Apple Music in a brand new music player.

However, if you are on the desktop, you’d have noticed that you couldn’t access Apple Music through iTunes, and that if you clicked the Beats 1 link it would tell you to install iTunes 12.2, which wasn’t out yet. Well, that’s not the case anymore. Read more »

Microsoft to retire the modern Skype app on July 7

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Microsoft announced today it is going to retire the modern version of the Skype app for Windows. As Windows 10 launch comes closer it makes sense for Microsoft to unify the user experience across its core apps.

As part of this process Microsoft has been working to optimize its desktop app equally well for touch and for mouse/keyboard input. Those efforts basically rendered the modern Skype app obsolete. Read more »

Apple enables ad blockers in Safari for new iOS and Mac OS versions

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Your favorite ad blocker may soon land in Safari – both the iOS 9 and the Mac OS X El Capitan versions. The new functionality allows apps to give Safari rules about blocking cookies, images, other resources, pop-ups and other content.

This should enable everything from ad blocking to privacy add-ons to work natively on Apple gadgets. Read more »

Microsoft Office 2016 Preview update improves file sharing, collaboration

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Microsoft released an Office 2016 Preview update. The new build of the productivity suite adds improved collaboration and file sharing to the platform.

Microsoft added Real Time Presence to Word 2016 Preview. Read more »

A simple string can send Skype into an endless crash loop

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Just a few days ago, information surfaced about a strange string that can crash the iOS Messages app. The bug became pretty viral, caused a lot of controversy and apparently sparked an interest in such exploits. So much so, that a similar hack has now been found for Skype.

The Microsoft-owned messenger also appears to be susceptible to malicious messages and it turns out that it requires a lot less effort than the complicated spell-like message that plagued Apple’s messenger. If you send any message containing the string “http://:” to a Skype contact their client will most-likely crash and keep on crashing after a restart. Read more »

Valve launches 2-week no fuss refund policy on steam games, DLC and more

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Valve’s game distribution service Steam has been updated with a new refund policy. Under the new Steam Refunds policy, you can file for a refund for any reason within 14 days of game purchase and game play of less than two hours.

No matter if your PC didn’t meet the hardware requirements, the game was purchased by mistake, or you just didn’t like the game after playing it for an hour – Steam will grant you a refund. Read more »

Auto upload Google Photos using Desktop Uploader app for Mac or Windows

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Google recently announced the new Photos service with unlimited storage for smartly organizing and arranging the photo collections. In addition to making it a standalone Android app, Google has now also released a Desktop Uploader app to help you add the photos on your computer to the Photos storage.

The Desktop Uploader app is available for the Windows and Mac platform for automatically uploading the images once set up. Google Photos does upload all your images but do note that it uses a compression method to accommodate all those images. Read more »

Windows 10 kicks off on July 29

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Microsoft announced today the official availability of the upcoming Windows 10 – July 29. That’s less than two months from now, which means Microsoft has nothing left to do but polish a few edges.

Windows 10 will introduce universal apps, Cortana, Microsoft Edge browser to replace the Internet Explorer, new Office 2016 included in Windows 10 for free, Xbox Live app and integration, new multimedia apps, among others. Read more »

Microsoft Windows 10 RTM build coming in July

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The much awaited Windows 10 operating system is expected to release publicly a couple of months from now. Back in April, AMD president and CEO Lisa Su spilled beans about Windows 10’s arrival in July.

Now the Russian Windows OS builds leaker WZor noted that the timeframe is actually about the Windows 10 RTM (Release to Manufacture) build The RTM build is sent to manufacturers so they can upload it to their PCs and is the last to come before the final public version. Read more »

Microsoft is working on Office Now personal assistant for mobile platforms

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Microsoft’s Office productivity suite will get its own personal assistant app called Office Now. Currently the application is being tested on Windows and might be released for iOS, Windows 10 Mobile, and Android.

Office Now gives a summary of one’s day at a glance. Read more »

Google updates Hangouts for Chrome

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Google axed its Talk messenger about three months ago and focused its push on Hangouts instead.

Now the search giant has updated the Hangouts app for Chrome browser with the Android’s Material Design language. The new design slices the page in two columns – right one shows current conversation and left side shows a stack of recent conversations. Read more »

Skype Translator preview is now open for everyone

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Skype Translator has been available as a closed preview since December of last year, but starting today everyone can use it. You just download it from the Windows Store, and start using it. You will however need to have either Windows 8.1 or the Windows 10 preview on your PC or tablet.

Skype Translator is the Sci-Fi-like bit of software that translates what you say into another language in near real-time. For spoken languages, it currently works with English, Spanish, Italian, and Mandarin. So you could be talking to someone in English, while that person would hear a Spanish translation of what you’ve just said – alongside a collapsible transcript window. Read more »