cloud

Good news for those who have been waiting and anticipating the arrival of Dropbox for Windows 8, it is now available. The popular cloud storage and sharing service has built a reputation as one of the more ubiquitous ways that folks like to share files and so its arrival on Windows 8 as a metro app is significant for the new platform.

The app is available to download for free and will work on both Windows 8 and Windows RT machines allowing you to download and share files at will.

Anyone who makes use of GPS functionality on a smartphone understands the impact such connectivity has on the limited battery supply that's packed inside the device. Unfortunately, we're not quite at the stage where 10,000mAh batteries are utilised, so Microsoft Research has been working on a cloud-powered GPS chip that will reportedly slash battery consumption on smartphones.

Microsoft has released an official SharePoint app for Windows Phone, enabling users to stay connected with colleagues using service backend functionality and features. Newsfeeds from SharePoint sites are displayed, which can be added to, with the ability to follow people, access documents, tags and more.

Windows Phone 8 OneNote has now been released from the Office hub and is now its own app. With that comes some neat advantages such a quicker, more direct access to your notebooks, bypassing the need to go into Office first to find your notes.

OneNote for Windows Phone 8 is now uses a live tile to show you which note was updated last, at a glance information to help you get things done quicker.

Yes folks it’s finally here, the week that will see Microsoft launch Windows 8, spearheading its massive 2012 product launch schedule. It’s keystone of the ‘Three Screens & Cloud’ play and this is where we see how it’s all going to shake out.

The pre-orders for Surface have started and even run dry in some regions, invites to the various launch events have gone out and now it’s time to put all the cards on the table. With such a wide ranging spruce-up of the entire product line from Xbox to Windows Phone, we’re in for a wild ride. Windows 8 will be at the centre of these launches, not just because it’s Windows but because with it we will see a whole host of services light up to enable the entire eco system.

The familiar Recycle Bin, coming to SkyDrive soon?

With the new SkyDrive having been rolled out last week with the new modern UI, it looks like Microsoft still has some plans for the service for adding new features.

One of those features being planned is evidently a Recycle Bin, which has been found via the coding within the site itself and was earlier tipped to LiveSide.net back in the spring.

No details have been given as to the exact functionality of such a feature but it’s easy to assume that it will allow you un-delete items for a period of 30 days or so as a sort of safety-net for your content. Any delay in rolling out this feature most likely has to do with getting the service up and running via their mobile apps, since they will also need to be updated for this tool.

No word on exact release dates but at the rate which Microsoft is moving these days, it probably won’t be too long.

Source: LiveSide.net

Box is available for Windows Phone

The team at Box, a cloud-based storage and sharing service, have published a blog article detailing the release of their Windows Phone app, which has been published since June. The app joins their catalogue of mobile apps for iOS, BlackBerry and Android.

The Windows Phone app is a native client so you're getting all the goodies offered from Box. So what's the service all about? Box enables users to upload, store and share files from computers to the cloud. Much like DropBox, SkyDrive and similar services, Box provides a limited amount of space (5GB) for free.

Microsoft yesterday announced commercial availability of their Microsoft Translator Hub. The service has been designed to allow developers and business to deliver tailored, real-time translation in up to 39 languages.  The real-time translation is available as an Azure Marketplace application, enabling users to leverage the Microsoft Cloud to deliver more relevant machine translation applications to their customers.

The applications vary for this service but as an example, it will allow for fluid, real time translation of live web chat interactions from customer services representatives. It goes beyond plain machine translation by allowing the output to be fully optimised for that particular application. A private set of data can be uploaded and using the Translator’s machine learning training system, output can then be tailored as required. Manipulating the output could allow exclusion of business specific nomenclature such as names of products or abbreviations. These customised translation scenarios can then be tested deployed so that they suit each application for which they are targeted. Once the solution is deployed, it can accessed through the familiar Microsoft Translator Service API, all the time being kept private or shared, depending on what you require.

An update is heading our way for the Sweet Sync for SugarSync app. Sugar Sync is a cloud storage option, similar to Dropbox or Skydrive, and Sweet Sync is your unofficial Windows Phone connection to the cloud service.

The update takes Sweet Sync to version 1.4 and brings background photo synchronization into the mix. When enabled the app will detect new photos on your Windows Phone and sync them upon startup.

The version 1.4 update also adds the option to sync only when your on wifi and select any sync folder in your account to sync to (or not to sync to). This is a nice data saving feature.

The update has just passed Marketplace certification so look for it to be pushed out in the next 24-48 hours. In the meantime, you can find Sweet Sync for SugarSync here at the Windows Phone Marketplace. There is a trial version with the full version of Sweet Sync for SugarSync running $1.29.