Microsoft News

If past experiences with sporting events are any indication, finding your way around can be a nightmare at times. Today, Microsoft announced some updates to its Bing Maps platform in order to alleviate some of those issues for this year's Super Bowl attendees.

Microsoft's Fiscal 2015 Q2 results are out and as the first set of numbers after the holidays we've got a clearer picture of how well Xbox performed through the busiest shopping time of the year. The numbers are generally good, with massive unit sales coming despite a drop in overall revenue.

This is in no small part due in both cases to aggressive pricing throughout. In the period around Black Friday and into the Christmas period, the Xbox One could be had with substantial discounts and there will have been a lot of consoles sold without Kinect. All-in-all great for getting the console out there, not so great for the immediate revenue figures.

Microsoft is releasing their Q2 Fiscal Year 2015 results, and the numbers are quite good, despite some ominous decreases in revenue (due to sales or acquisitions).

The Surface line has officially crossed the billion dollar mark for revenue demonstrating a 24% growth from the previous quarter. In other words, the big holiday season looks to have been successful in pushing the Surface Pro 3, which drove the growth, into more hands than ever.

Today on stage at the Windows 10 event, Microsoft announced that customers running Windows 7, Windows 8.1, and Windows Phone 8.1 will all be eligible for free upgrades to Windows 10. Free upgrades will be available to users running those systems for the first year of Windows 10, and users will get updates for the supported lifetime of their device.

Tomorrow at 9 am PT, Microsoft is set to unveil the next evolution of Windows 10. The event will be live streamed, which you can watch here (we'll embed it) along with our simulcast live blog.

I landed here in Washington this morning, and I'll be at the event all day tomorrow. Our crack team back home will be taking care of the backend, press-releases and breaking other stories. Here is all you need to know!

Microsoft has been granted a patent for a new "inconspicuous mode", which would automatically adjust settings on your phone in certain situations to make your phone less distracting. The company first filed for the patent about a year ago.

Microsoft has lashed out at Google for making a Windows 8.1 vulnerability public. Chris Betz, heading up the Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC), published a new blog post over on TechNet talking about security and how tech companies should work together to better protect consumers against threats from exploits in software, something the company feels Google disregarded.

Microsoft's Tech Days Online event is returning to the UK in 2015 for the fourth consecutive year running. The event will offer multiple sessions for anyone to tune into, covering a wide range of topics from Microsoft Azure to cross-platform development. If you fancy learning something new, we recommend you check the sessions out on February 3-5, 2015.

Microsoft seems to be shifting some things around on the backend to the Windows Phone Store as little issues are cropping up for some users. As Microsoft heads into 2015, unifying their Windows and Windows Phone Stores is a priority but such changes can bring hindrances as well.

Two issues that we have noticed starting about a week ago involve WindowsPhone.com and the Store on Windows Phone devices. At first, we thought these were just temporary glitches, but nearly a week later and for a few of us, they are still here.