Tech tidbits from around the web.
11/10/2016 3:04:29 PM
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I’m heading to Amsterdam
I’m heading to Amsterdam tonight; my wife, daughter, me, and some other folks—including Mary Jo Foley—will be checking out the city over a long weekend and then heading over to nearby Haarlem early next week. Mary Jo and I are there for the IT Unity Connect show, which my employer puts on, and we’ll be having a meet-up, and doing Windows Weekly, Wednesday at the normal time at Wortell, which is basically between Amsterdam and Haarlem. So if you’re in the area, please plan to come by Wednesday starting at 6 pm local time.
I’ll post more information about the meet-up and live Windows Weekly show early next week.
Office Lens picks up some nice accessibility improvements
It looks like this one is IOS only for now. Microsoft explains.
Today, we are pleased to announce two new features for Office Lens—the Immersive Reader and the Frame Guide for iOS. Combined, these new updates expand our toolbox, which we first brought to OneNote and are now bringing to OneNote Online, Word for the desktop and Word Online.
Previously, you could capture an image using Office Lens and then insert the image into OneNote to take advantage of Immersive Reader. With today’s updates, the Immersive Reader is now built directly into Office Lens. We are also proud to reveal an all-new tool within Office Lens called Frame Guide, which empowers the visually impaired with cues that help them capture images in Office Lens.
Parallels Between Europe’s Antitrust Cases Against Google and Microsoft
I wrote a bit about this earlier today. Here’s what the New York Times later said about the same topic.
In 2009, the European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, charged Microsoft with unfairly bundling its Internet Explorer browser with its Windows software, a move that officials said reduced consumer choice.
In April, the Europe competition authorities charged the search giant with unfairly using Android, which holds a roughly 75 percent share of the region’s smartphone market, to promote its own digital services over those of rivals.
In all, Microsoft has paid $3.4 billion in fines to the European Commission for its antitrust abuses.
If found to have broken Europe’s tough competition rules, Google could be fined up to $7.5 billion, or 10 percent of its annual revenue, though European officials have typically levied much smaller penalties in previous cases.
Google’s Daydream View VR headset is now available
But remember you must own a Google Pixel or Pixel XL to use it, which really limits the potential audience. Google explains:
Daydream brings you on immersive virtual reality adventures powered by a smartphone. And now you can experience it all with Daydream View, a VR headset and controller made by Google available in stores today.
The Daydream app, available on any Daydream-ready phone starting with Pixel and Pixel XL, lets you launch your favorite VR experiences and browse from an ever-growing collection of apps, games and videos. Plus, the app brings new featured content front and center so there’s always something fresh when you put on your headset.
With Daydream, you can experience some of the most popular Google apps like Google Photos and Google Play Movies in virtual reality. Visit 150 of the world’s most amazing places like the Pyramids and the Taj Mahal with Google Street View. And with YouTube VR, you can watch the entire library of YouTube videos on a virtual big screen and experience hundreds of thousands of immersive videos from top creators.