Microsoft has announced the release of  Office Mobile for iPhone.

Office 365 Home Premium and Office 365 ProPlus subscribers can download the app for free from the App Store (U.S only for the moment) where they can access and edit Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents.

Once signed-in the formatting and layout of documents will remain the same when viewing or editing as a result of support for charts, animations, SmartArt graphics and shapes. So, when you view documents on a Mac or PC, they look exactly as they should.

Content can be accessed in the cloud on SkyDrive or SkyDrive Pro and with device syncing recently edited or viewed documents can be found in the Recent Documents panel.

The app has been optimized for the smaller screen of the smartphone – The Slide Navigator allows you to page through PowerPoint presentations quickly while Speaker Notes help you practice presentations on the go and you can pick up where you left off reading a document with the Resume Reading feature.

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The next generation of consoles will be among us by the end of this year, with the Xbox One and the PS4 both being released in the holiday season of 2013. The new Xbox has been confirmed as a November release, whereas we don’t yet have the exact date for the PS4.

Gaming has truly evolved since the previous generation of consoles though, and these giants of the gaming world are also now becoming all-encompassing entertainment systems rather than just a vehicle for big budget games.

E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo) 2013 started on Monday, 10 June and we finally saw what the PS4 looks like, with many other morsels of news being announced for both the consoles. Both Microsoft and Sony are preparing for a mammoth battle, so let’s see how things are shaping up. (more…)

Microsoft South Africa today kicked off a partnership with Government’s Jobs Fund that will train more than 3000 unemployed graduates to get permanent jobs in the technology sector in the next three years.

Launching the initiative in Newtown today, Jean-Phillippe Courtois, the president of Microsoft International, said the initiative would dramatically expand Microsoft’s existing skills development programmes through funding from the Jobs Fund and the company’s own 4Afrika initiative.

“The Government’s top priority is to get young South Africans working. As a company, we have long invested in South Africa and understand the need for us all to continue to develop solutions to this challenge. We remain committed to helping address the issue of youth unemployment, as we cannot let an entire generation of young people become long-term unemployed,” said Courtois.

Patrick Dlamini, chief executive of the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA), which administers the Jobs Fund, hailed the partnership with Microsoft as a major breakthrough in creating jobs in South Africa’s IT sector.

“We’ve been extremely encouraged by the way the private sector has risen to the challenge of helping create jobs in South Africa. Indeed, these types of partnerships between the private and public sector will be significant contributors to the more than 100 524 new permanent jobs which our current portfolio of approved projects aims to create by 2015. These projects will also place another 56 194 unemployed people in vacant positions,” he said. (more…)

In a new advertisement released for Windows 8,  titled Windows 8: Less talking, more doing, Microsoft is taking a fresh dig at the Apple iPad’s OS and pricing using its very own Siri.

In the advert, Siri acknowledges it’s inability to complete various tasks while the the Microsoft ASUS VivoTab Smart tablet with Windows 8, does so with ease using Powerpoint and side-by-side apps with Live Tiles.

Surrendering to Windows 8, Siri suggests playing chopsticks, in a parody of the iPad Mini Piano advertisement released in November 2012,

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Microsoft finally announced the new XBOX One yesterday (21^st of May) in Redmond, Washington. There was a lot of hype surrounding the announcement as Microsoft promised to show the actual console in action (*cough*cough* Sony…). There were many online sites covering the event live and I decided to hop on to GameSpot.com to see the reveal for myself.

The previous XBOX 360 made its debut 8 years ago, which is a long time in the world of technology. The new XBOX One will most probably be around for the next decade, so for buyers the ONE (or PS4 – which ever you support) will be their longest-term consumer electronics “investment”. Thus this reveal will kind of set the tone for the next few years in console gaming. Therefore Microsoft had to pull out all the stops, and that they did! The reveal took on a Samsung Galaxy type of vibe, with feature after feature being thrown at the crowd. Will the new XBOX be the ONE? (more…)

Nokia today introduced the Nokia Lumia 925, a new interpretation of its award-winning flagship, the Nokia Lumia 920 (one of our favourite phones of 2012). The Nokia Lumia 925 introduces a metal design and showcases the latest PureView camera innovation, new features and third party applications coming to the Nokia Lumia range.

The Nokia Lumia 925 includes the most advanced lens technology and next generation imaging software to capture clearer, sharper pictures and video, including the best low light images. The Nokia Lumia 925 also introduces the new Nokia Smart Camera mode, coming as an update to all Lumia Windows Phone 8 smartphones. Nokia Smart Camera offers an easy way to capture ten images at once and edit the pictures with options like Best Shot, Action Shot, and Motion Focus for creating better images. (more…)

Nokia has officially announced the Lumia 928 that will become available in the US from Verizon (no surprises here)  on the 16th May. Nokia will continue to reveal more information about its latest smartphone at an event in London on the 14th May.

Leading up to this much anticipated event, Nokia has released a teaser advertisement for the upcoming device on television sets in the UK.  The 20 second promo shows fairly abstract images of the handset as well as the camera lens.

Until recently Nokia had been teasing the flagship device for some time. The Lumia 928 was first spotted in the latest edition of the Vanity Fair magazine after which Nokia officially confirmed the device on its website.

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Vodacom is now offering its customers Nokia’s new windows Phone 8, the Nokia Lumia 720 on contract.

The Nokia Lumia 720 is available on a range of Smart plans that include Anytime Talk, Mobile Internet and Anytime Text.

The contract pricing on the Nokia Lumia 720 is as follows:

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