Short Takes Daily: What went on in the world of Microsoft on Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Today in the news: We've got the rundown on which hardware manufacturers will be offering new hardware with Windows 10 pre-installed, we note the loss of App Sync in Windows 10, welcome Office 365 to IFTTT and see what Microsoft's latest quarterly results mean about the direction Satya Nadella has pointed the company.

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ON OUR SITES

Windows 10 Upgrades or New Hardware: The Fine Print — What's the 411 from your favorite hardware manufacturers about both the upgrade and availability of new hardware with Windows 10 pre-installed? Here's what we know and what you can expect.

No Start Menu and App Sync for Windows 10 — In Windows 8/8.1, users could sync the layout of their Start Screen between devices that used the same Microsoft Account, and new apps also appeared on all Start Screens if the user placed a tile for that application. Both those abilities are going away.

Office 365 joins IFTTT to automate routine tasks — The Office 365 team has created 30 published "recipes" on the Web service so users can automate several of their tasks.

Windows Media Center not Quite Dead Yet — Even though Windows Media Center will not make the jump to Windows 10, that doesn't mean that it's a completely dead product. We don't yet know what Microsoft is planning as a replacement for Windows 10, but a recent alignment with the Xbox One might be the first clue.

How to keep Internet Explorer 11 from crashing so many times every day — Q. My Internet Explorer 11 crashes many times a day.  I want to continue using IE 11. I’ve not found another Web browser to my liking. How can I stop the crashing?

OTHER SITES

Microsoft released its quarterly earnings report yesterday, and while many headlines focused on the $3.2 billion loss — best seen as a Learning Experience Tax on the $7.2 billion acquisition of Nokia — the interesting long-term news: cloud revenue has continued a smooth surge upward, swelling 88% over the past quarter to $1.7 billion, while Surface sales doubled to $118 million and total Xbox revenue increased by $244 million. These revenue streams reflect Microsoft's strategic repositioning under Satya Nadella, who insists that the Windows 10 release will bolster revenue in the classic computer market.

Microsoft Makes It Easier To Remove Revenge Porn Content From Bing, OneDrive And Xbox Live — "Microsoft will remove links to photos and videos from search results in Bing, and remove access to the content itself when shared on OneDrive or Xbox Live, when they are notified by a victim."

Microsoft's latest 'Garage' project is a dead-simple email app for iPhone — "The company describes Send as an "in-and-out" email solution that focuses on simplicity and brevity; it looks much more like a messaging app than it does your typical email client."

Inside Windows Cortana: The Most Human AI Ever Built — Over at Yahoo, Dan Tynan tells Cortana's origin story and how the team's worked to build a digital personal assistant that bridges the gap from "finding information" to "doing things for you."

Microsoft confirms required minimum specifications for Windows 10 Mobile — The company listed supported processor types as ARM (32-bit) and x86 SoCs.

6 reasons why Microsoft alumni often struggle in the startup world — What makes a superstar at a globally dominant company falter when they finally strike out on their own?