Bing adds $1 billion to Microsoft's revenue

 Reports CNN

Microsoft Bing has emerged as the true underdog of search engines.
Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood said Thursday that Bing had finally achieved profitability in its first fiscal quarter of 2016, and that the search engine contributed more than $1 billion to Microsoft's revenue for this quarter. 

The last time Microsoft broke down the numbers on Bing, back in 2011, it was bleeding a billion dollars a quarter. And it has remained unprofitable over the last four years.
People were perplexed as to why Microsoft (MSFT, Tech30) kept pouring money into a seemingly dead investment. However, the tech giant now has results to show: Microsoft's search revenue, excluding traffic-acquisition costs, grew 29%.
Much of Bing's success can be attributed to its subtle presence. Not many people may actively log on to Bing, but it's everywhere. 

Obviously, Microsoft products push Bing -- Internet Edge and Cortana, the virtual assistant on Windows phones, search through Bing. Plus, Windows 10 was more positively received than it's predecessors, which has helped boost Bing's success. 

Facebook Finally Fix App That Makes Batteries Drain

 

A Facebook engineer announced on the social media site Friday that a bug with the app that’s been draining iPhone batteries has been fixed with a new update.

The developer, Ari Grant, wrote that Facebook “found a few key issues and have identified additional improvements.”

He explained that there were two main causes for the battery-killing app; a “CPU spin” within Facebook’s code. He described the term as “repeated processing [which] causes the app to use more battery than intended. The version released today has some improvements that should start making this better,” he said.

The second one is the audio sessions created by watching video via the app. It killed batteries too.

“If you leave the Facebook app after watching a video, the audio session sometimes stays open as if the app was playing audio silently,” he explained. But that has been fixed too.

The fix comes over a week after Facebook confirmed that it would be fixing the issue soon.

Microsoft begins worldwide distribution of Office 2016

Microsoft Corporation has begun the worldwide release of Office 2016. It said that the apps were the latest addition to Office 365, which is Microsoft’s cloud-based subscription service that helps people do their best work, together.

The company has also announced new and enhanced Office 365 services built for team productivity.

“The way people work has changed dramatically, and that is why Microsoft is focused on re-inventing productivity and business processes for the mobile-first, cloud-first world,” the Chief Executive Officer of Microsoft, Satya Nadella, said.

“These latest innovations take another big step forward in transforming Office from a familiar set of individual productivity apps to a connected set of apps and services designed for modern working, collaboration and teamwork,” he added.

Nadella recently wrote about the new Office on the official Microsoft blog, while the Corporate Vice President for the Office Client Applications and Services team, Kirk Koenigsbauer, provided more insights into         Office 2016 on the Office blog.

Roads will Charge Cars as they drive

Reports CNN

Electric cars are cool. Running out of juice -- not so much.                                                                                                                                    The British government is getting ready to test out new road technology that would allow electric cars to charge as they drive. The goal is to help drivers with electric and hybrid cars avoid frequent stops to recharge their vehicles.                                                                          parked on the streets. Wireless power charging "pods" are also available, but they too require the car to stop to get more juice.         Most electric cars get charged via plug-in chargers at home or while parked on the streets. Wireless power charging "pods" are also available, but they too require the car to stop to get more juice. 

The new charging roads proposed by the U.K. government will work kind of like wireless phone chargers, using magnetic induction technology.