Microsoft news recap is a weekly feature highlighting the top Microsoft news stories of the past week. Sit back, grab some coffee, and enjoy the read!
Surface Duo 2 shows up on Geekbench ahead of possible Fall release
The successor to the original Surface Duo, the Surface Duo 2, has shown up on Geekbench. This could come ahead of a possible launch in Fall. The Geekbench data shows a number of improvements, including a RAM bump from 6 to 8GB, and sports Android 11.
Microsoft exec moves: Panos Panay joins Senior Leadership, new CVP comes from Amazon
A couple of executive moves took place this week. Notably, Panos Panay, who currently heads up Windows & Devices, has been promoted to the company’s Senior Leadership Team as an Executive Vice President. Whilst Charlie Bell, formerly of Amazon Web Services, has joined Microsoft as a Corporate Vice President, though the exact role us unclear at this stage.
Yes, “@awscloud and @microsoft will iron out the terms of a non-compete.”
Look, AWS has a lot of very impressive people who work there, but not a single one of you is brave enough to attempt to sue *Charlie Bell*. pic.twitter.com/UQ1ANnQu26
— Corey Quinn (@QuinnyPig) August 26, 2021
It’s official: Halo Infinite’s Campaign and Multiplayer modes are launching on Xbox and PC on December 8
Microsoft’s latest instalment into the Halo franchise, Halo Infinite, has finally received a launch date. The game will launch on Xbox and PC on December 8.
Cloud Gaming is coming to Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S consoles this holiday season
Xbox Cloud Gaming will be expanding its coverage to Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S consoles this holiday season. It will allow Xbox Game Pass subscribers to stream games directly to their Xbox consoles from the Xbox Game Pass library, with no need for any downloads.
This week in Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams meetings add support for org-wide backgrounds
Organisations can now provide custom backgrounds to all of their users to use, thanks to a new organisation-wide backgrounds feature. This feature could prove useful for businesses wanting to provide a more unified, branded approach to users’ backgrounds when in video meetings.
Microsoft Teams starts rolling out Reading Progress feature to education customers
A previously announced feature, called Reading Progress, has started rolling out in Microsoft Teams for Education, aimed at helping students improve their reading skills by allowing educators upload a single reading fluency passage, that students can then read out loud, have recorded, which teachers can later access and review.
Microsoft Teams is dropping support for iOS 13 and lower in October
iOS 13 and lower will no longer be supported by the Microsoft Teams app from October. Devices running iOS 13 or lower will still be able to use Microsoft Teams, but won’t receive future updates.
New Call Health Panel in Microsoft Teams lets meeting participants troubleshoot connection issues
Troubleshooting connection issues in meetings is to become easier, thanks to a new Call Health Panel, allowing participants to diagnose their connectivity issue through more detailed technical information.
That’s it for this week. We will be back next week with more Microsoft news.