Weekend Recap: Touch-optimized Office for Windows 10 demoed, Xbox One updates, Dropbox app, and more

This week has been quite interesting in the world of Microsoft. We’ve covered a lot over the past week and chances are you most likely missed an important piece of news. Let’s take a look back in a feature we call “Weekend Recap,” highlighting the popular stories from the past week.

Following the release of Office for Android tablets and the updates for Office for iPhone and iPad earlier this week, Microsoft also demonstrated what the touch-optimized Office for Windows 10 looks like with a video. These new apps showcase how Microsoft is delivering the best experience they can to their customers, regardless of platform. Microsoft is dedicated to bringing one of their biggest brands to every device. 

Microsoft recently revealed that over a hundred new features and improvements were added to the Xbox One and Xbox One SmartGlass through 10 consecutive system updates within the 2014 year. These improvements included a low battery indicator, the ability to initiate game downloads from a remote location, turn off notifications during video playback, external storage, and many more. Now, as the year comes to a close, Microsoft has rolled out the last major update for the 2014 year. 

We also learned that Grand Theft Auto V is coming to the Xbox One on November 18th and it brings along ‘first-person mode’ with it. Far Cry 4 will also be available on November 18th. HaloFest 2014 is also taking place, in celebration of the launch of Halo The Master Chief Collection for Xbox One. And lets not forget Call of Duty Advanced Warfare, which was made available on November 4th.

As the holidays approach, Microsoft has introduced a ‘limited-time promotional offer’ for the Xbox One in the United States. You can now get $50 off the Xbox One console or any special edition bundle. This promotion starts today and ends January 3rd, 2015. 

Earlier this week, Microsoft’s IE team made a request for feedback on Twitter. The team is looking at making improvements and adjustments to the F12 developer tools which are built into Internet Explorer. These tools enable developers to debug their code and understand how the browser is processing what they have written.

Earlier this year, Microsoft acquired Mojang, the creator of the popular video game Minecraft for a whopping $2.5 billion, which managed to sell as much as 54 million copies as of June 2014 on several platforms. As with every other acquisition, it requires several regulatory approvals, and it seems Microsoft has completed its acquisition of the popular game developer. 

We learned this past week that Microsoft will make every attempt to hack its own Office 365 software to prevent security threats to the service. Microsoft is also powering new bedside terminals at hospitals to provide doctors with at-a-glance critical patient information, making data entry easier and quickly accessible.

We also learned this past week that the official Dropbox app for Windows Phone would finally be arriving. However, no concrete release date was mentioned, except that it would be arriving in the ‘coming months.’ This news comes after Microsoft and Dropbox formed a partnership when it comes to storing Office documents in the cloud.

AT&T and T-Mobile have added the HTC One M8 for Windows to their lineup. The device features a 5-inch display boasting a resolution of 1920 by 1080 pixels, and a quad-core Snapdragon 801 SoC with 2GB of RAM, and 32GB of internal storage coupled with a microSD card slot should you ever need more storage. The Duo camera setup is also present on the device, and comes with a 2,600 mAh battery.

At the start of the week, Microsoft released RemoteIE, a way to test Internet Explorer on Windows, Mac OSX, iOS and Android. RemoteIE uses similar technology to Microsoft’s remote desktop software to allow users to access an instance on their device regardless of the platform they are on. This technology allows for IE to be leveraged from a Mac, iOS, Android, or Windows Phone device with few compatibility concerns. 

That’s all for this edition of Weekend Recap. Stay tuned for another week of exciting news.