The huge Chinese market has a bunch of different expectations and needs than the US or other countries—so while Cortana nicknamed “Xiao Na” generally works the same way in China as the US and the rest of the world, China did get some “special features”. As you’d expect, in her notebook, she displays what she is tracking for you, so you can see and control it. You can set reminders and quiet hours with her. She understands the whole internet so she readily...

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The second handset is codenamed Tesla, and recently appeared in leaked images. Elop described the Tesla handset as an affordable high end phone with a PureView camera. Tesla will likely debut as a Lumia 720 replacement, and it mark a new effort by Microsoft to push PureView down to even lower price points. The handset looks similar to the squared Lumia 930, but we understand it will be thinner and less bulky. Elops revelation at Microsofts annual company meeting event indicates that the device...

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With .1 starting to dribble out to users via the ever slow wireless carriers, tech enthusiasts have already turned their attention to Windows Phone 8.1 Update 1. To date, there been very little information about this update, beyond the fact that it was a bucket of sorts for features that didn't make the original 8.1 cut. But thanks to a nice leak from—you guessed it—Microsoft, we now know quite a bit more. The leaks were made by Microsoft to its OEM partners, those companies that...

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One of the benefits of Cortana is that we can make updates behind the scenes on the servers that light up new capabilities without the need for a software update. We added the ability for Cortana to predict the winners in popular soccer matches in Brazil courtesy of Bing magic earlier this month. Starting today, Cortana will now proactively showcase local recommendations from Foursquare on devices running Windows Phone 8.1 in the U.S. To turn this on, go to Cortanas Notebook and then Interests...

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Cortana will also have specialized suggestions for China, including air quality information and local TV show results. In the UK Cortana users will get access to English Premier League scores, London Stock Exchange information, and train transport updates. Canadian, Indian, and Australian users will have to opt in to use an English language version of Cortana in its US or UK form, meaning it wont be fully localized for those regions just yet. Visually, Windows Phone 8.1 Update 1 is largely the...

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Battlefield 4 on Xbox One was 50% off an 3am UK time. I was going to get it as it was marginally more expensive than the physical version. Its since been removed. Fifa was also 50% off via the Xbox One dashboard and has since been removed. Ill pickup Fifa 14 for a pound when the new one comes out.

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Microsoft has posted the USDA data sets to theMicrosoft Azure Marketplace—they can be accessed by entering the search term “USDA”—to help make it easier for others to obtain data for analysis and apps. Those data and associated tools are provided by Microsoft Research as part of the Microsoft Azure for Research program.“Microsoft is working with the USDA on the CDI initiative,” says Dan Fay, director of Earth, Energy, and Environment for Microsoft Research,...

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At the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this year it was clear Microsoft had a problem: exciting new hardware like Pebble, Nest, and various fitness bands were not fully supported on Windows. Companies appeared to be ignoring Microsofts platforms in favor of iOS and Android. Thanks to Windows Phone 8.1, that might be about to change. Bluetooth support is greatly improved with the 8.1 update, and Fitbit is the first to take advantage of it with a new mobile syncing app for Windows Phone 8.1....

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