Dedicated Amazon Prime Video App Now Available on All Windows 10 Devices Across Indian Market

Customers in India can now access Prime Video through a dedicated app available on the Microsoft Store on Windows 10 devices.

Using the new Amazon Prime Video for Windows app, customers are now able to stream Prime Video content online or download Prime Video content for offline viewing on their device. This feature only works through the app on the Windows 10 operating system and includes desktop PCs, laptops, and tablets. The online streaming experience will be the same as the current experience on the Prime Video website today.

Customers can find the new Amazon Prime Video for PC app through the Microsoft Store on their Windows 10 device.

JavaScript programming tools now from Google

With a project called Closure Tools, Google plans to start helping developers who aspire to match the company's proficiency in creating Web sites and Web applications. Google is a strong proponent of using JavaScript to write Web-based programs, which is a part of its Web-centric ethos, reports CNET News.

Indeed, the company has pushed the language to its limits with services such as Gmail and Google Docs, and it developed its Chrome browser in part to enable JavaScript programs to run faster. But writing, debugging, and optimizing heavy-duty JavaScript can be difficult - in part because a given JavaScript program sometimes works differently on different browsers. Google's open-source Closure Tools project is an attempt to help with some of these challenges.

The first in the suite of tools is the Closure Compiler, a software package designed to boil down a JavaScript program so it's smaller and runs faster. Along with the compiler come some extra tools that run in the Firefox browser. One, Closure Inspector, is an extension for Firefox's Firebug add-on designed to help programmers understand and debug the rewritten JavaScript. Another add-on for the Google Page Speed extension lets programmers see how much the compiler helped.

Google also plans to make the compiler available as a Web application hosted on its Google App Engine service. The second element is called the Closure Library, a collection of pre-built JavaScript codes that lets programmers handle relatively sophisticated technology - arrays and string manipulation, for example. Last are Closure Templates, more pre-written codes to ease creation of JavaScript and HTML user interfaces.

In an earlier era, programming tools were expensive packages bought by a select few, but open-source software, new marketing strategies, and new business methods have made that approach the exception rather than the rule these days. Now programming tools are often a means to another end - encouraging programmers to produce the software that will make Windows or the Palm Pre useful and therefore popular.

Agencies

Free computer security software from Microsoft released

Microsoft has released free software that people can use to protect computers against viruses, spyware and other malicious codes in arsenals of cyber criminals.

Microsoft Security Essentials is available for download at microsoft.com/security_essentials and is built on technology that the global software giant uses in computer security programs it designs for businesses.

"With Microsoft Security Essentials, consumers can get high-quality protection that is easy to get and easy to use, and it won't get in their way," said Amy Barzdukas, general manager for consumer security at Microsoft.

"Consumers have told us that they want the protection of real-time security software but we know that too many are either unwilling or unable to pay for it, and so end up unprotected."

Microsoft hopes that the free software will be broadly adopted, particularly by those who have not been vigilant about protecting computers from hackers, and thereby "increase security across the entire Windows ecosystem."

More than 90 percent of the computers worldwide run on Windows operating systems made by the US technology firm.

"Microsoft is helping to reduce some of the barriers that constrain consumers from running (anti-virus software)," said IDC security analyst Jon Crotty. "Microsoft is focused on the challenges that prevent consumers from running up-to-date anti-virus software today, particularly in emerging markets where there is a growing prevalence of malware."

Security Essentials is designed to run behind the scenes, defending machines against infection by malicious computer codes.

The real-time nature of the software means it is automatically kept up-to-date regarding viruses.

Computer security specialty firm Symantec downplayed the Microsoft offering, saying it is lightweight and isn't tuned for new forms of attack being used by hackers.

Symantec referred to Security Essentials as a stripped-down version of an old Microsoft OneCare product that got poor ratings.

"From a security perspective, this Microsoft tool offers reduced defenses at a critical point in the battle against cyber crime," Symantec said of the free offering that competes with Norton products sold by the firm.

"Unique malware and social engineering tricks fly under the radar of traditional signature-based technology alone -- which is what is employed by free security tools such as Microsoft's," it said.

Agencies

New servers for small companies from Microsoft

Microsoft Corp on Wednesday launched a new range of server systems for small companies, (SMBs) scaling down its existing offerings to attack one of the fastest-growing segments of the business computing market.

The world's largest software company is launching into the market for small companies as competitors introduce cheap, open-source alternatives to its relatively costly Windows-based servers, and the use of pirated Windows products proliferates.

Microsoft's new product line, called Windows Server 2008 Foundation, can accommodate up to 15 users and will cost less than $1,000 for the hardware and software combined, the company said.

A server is essentially a powerful computer that provides services to other computers. A doctor's office, for example, might use a server to allow staff to share files, access the same systems or maintain a website.

Analysts reckon the low-end server market for products costing less than $1,000 has grown four times faster than any other price range for comparable single processor servers.

Microsoft's new offering is a stripped down version of its Windows Server
family of products, which tend to be beyond the price range of small businesses.

The computer makers will set the prices for their products, which may vary by country.

Agencies

Yahoo offers iPhone-like Web for masses

Yahoo announced a new mobile service on Tuesday that will deliver an iPhone-like experience for people who cannot or will not splash out for the iconic but pricey Apple device as times get hard.

Yahoo Mobile will launch at the end of March in a form downloadable to any phone with a Web browser and from May in custom versions for hundreds of smartphones.

"There is a growing number of consumers out there who are not Apple iPhone users but want a rich starting experience," Marco Boerries, the head of Yahoo's mobile division, told the media in an interview.

Yahoo will also launch a version of Yahoo Mobile, designed to be a starting point for users to access the Internet, for the iPhone itself at the end of March. A test version for a limited number of public users is going live this week.

Yahoo Mobile offers a front page with colorful, boxy icons resembling the iPhone's for launching popular applications such as a Web browser, mail, news, weather and social network sites like Facebook.

Users also have the option to easily add any software or Web sites they choose to download on their phones.

The company plans in coming months to promote Yahoo Mobile via a series of 70 major operator partnerships it has struck to reach 850 million mobile subscribers around the globe.

Fifty of those partnerships already offer Yahoo services and the company expects the rest to adopt Yahoo Mobile in coming months, Boerries said.

Yahoo has developed versions that work on hundreds of mid-range and high-end mobile phones from BlackBerry maker RIM, Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and Motorola, as well as phones running Microsoft Windows.

Boerries defines the universe of phones that can effectively run Yahoo Mobile as "every phone that's shipped in the last two years that has a decent HTML-capable browser." He added: "We don't want to make lowest common denominator stuff."

A more general version of the service downloadable from the Web will also work on older phones but will not be tailored to those phones' specifications. Boerries demonstrated it on an old Sony Ericsson model.

Boerries said last year's on-again off-again talks with would-be buyer Microsoft had not significantly distracted his team, and said he had kept his key staff together for years.

After some prior delays in introducing services such as Yahoo Go, Boerries professed relief that his fuller vision of putting the Web on phones had arrived on time: "It is really, for me, making it all come together."

"This is like the uber-replacement of Yahoo Go."

Agencies

Microsoft delays Windows 7 beta download

Microsoft Corp said on Friday it has paused offering downloads of the public test version of its new version of Windows due to "high demand."

The "beta" launch of the highly anticipated update to Microsoft's Windows franchise began early on Friday, but the company had to halt downloads to add more servers.

"We are adding servers as fast as we can add them," a Microsoft spokesman said at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

He declined to say when Windows 7 downloads would resume.

Microsoft said at CES on Wednesday it would let consumers test the next generation of its computer operating system starting Friday.

Microsoft, the world's biggest maker of software, has said Windows 7 will incorporate touch screen technology and allow users to more easily personalize the system. It promised more user-friendly features, such as a new taskbar that previews all open windows from a single application by hovering over the program's icon.

Windows Live Search to be rebranded Kumo?

Microsoft is expected to rebrand and relaunch its Windows Live Search, according to various reports on the Web.

There have been tremors on the Web that Microsoft was considering a new brand name for Live Search, and now LiveSide.Net is reporting that Microsoft has taken control of the domain name Kumo.com from its registrar and directing internal traffic to it as a test site.

The rebranded site is expected to launch early next year, according to a TechCrunch report that cited a source within the company. According to that report, very few people in the company are privy to the chosen name of the new brand and it could still change.

And while this doesn't mean that Microsoft is definitely going to adopt Kumo as its new search brand, taken together it's pretty clear evidence that Microsoft has decided to focus on revitalizing its own search effort over its former ambitions for Yahoo's search business.

Microsoft's recent move to acquire Yahoo search talent is another sign that it is beefing up its own search muscle. Microsoft confirmed that it had hired Yahoo search executive Sean Suchter to be general manager of Microsoft's Silicon Valley Search Technology Center "working on Live Search."

Kumo--a Japanese word that means "cloud" or "spider"--is certainly sexier than Windows Live Search, but is it enough to jump start Microsoft's search effort?