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121-515: Microsoft Inspire (formerly the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference , was a conference held annually by Microsoft Corporation for its partner community. It was announced in 2024 that it would be replaced by Microsoft's new virtual event, MCAPS Start for Partners. At Inspire, partners are taught about Microsoft's roadmap for the upcoming year, network and build connections, share best practices , experience

242-647: A BASIC interpreter for the device. Gates called MITS and claimed that he had a working interpreter, and MITS requested a demonstration. Allen worked on a simulator for the Altair while Gates developed the interpreter, and it worked flawlessly when they demonstrated it to MITS in March 1975 in Albuquerque, New Mexico . MITS agreed to distribute it, marketing it as Altair BASIC . Gates and Allen established Microsoft on April 4, 1975, with Gates as CEO, and Allen suggested

363-418: A monochrome CRT touchscreen that functioned both as display and sole method of input. The ECC replaced the traditional mechanical stereo , fan, heater and air conditioner controls and displays, and was capable of providing very detailed and specific information about the vehicle's cumulative and current operating status in real time . The ECC was standard equipment on the 1985–1989 Buick Riviera and later

484-485: A 20 MB hard drive. In order to keep up-to-date information during the event, the database of visitor information was updated and remotely transferred to the computer terminals each night. Using the touch screens, visitors were able to find information about the exposition’s rides, attractions, performances, facilities, and the surrounding areas. Visitors could also select between information displayed in English and Japanese;

605-528: A Microsoft operating system or a non-Microsoft operating system. In effect, the royalty payment to Microsoft when no Microsoft product is being used acts as a penalty, or tax, on the OEM's use of a competing PC operating system. Since 1988, Microsoft's use of per processor licenses has increased." Following Bill Gates's internal "Internet Tidal Wave memo" on May 26, 1995, Microsoft began to redefine its offerings and expand its product line into computer networking and

726-446: A bad reputation of being imprecise until 1988. Most user-interface books would state that touchscreen selections were limited to targets larger than the average finger. At the time, selections were done in such a way that a target was selected as soon as the finger came over it, and the corresponding action was performed immediately. Errors were common, due to parallax or calibration problems, leading to user frustration. "Lift-off strategy"

847-448: A call must verify on their respective ends. On October 7, Microsoft acquired Ally.io, a software service that measures companies' progress against OKRs . Microsoft plans to incorporate Ally.io into its Viva family of employee experience products. On January 18, 2022, Microsoft announced the acquisition of American video game developer and holding company Activision Blizzard in an all-cash deal worth $ 68.7 billion. Activision Blizzard

968-523: A chain of Microsoft-branded retail stores, and on October 22, 2009, the first retail Microsoft Store opened in Scottsdale, Arizona ; the same day Windows 7 was officially released to the public. Windows 7's focus was on refining Vista with ease-of-use features and performance enhancements, rather than an extensive reworking of Windows. As the smartphone industry boomed in the late 2000s, Microsoft had struggled to keep up with its rivals in providing

1089-722: A combination of AI, high-performance computing and quantum computing . The service includes Copilot, a GPT-4 based large language model tool to query and visualize data, write code, initiate simulations, and educate researchers. At a November 2023 developer conference, Microsoft announced two new custom-designed computing chips: The Maia chip, designed to run large language models, and Cobalt CPU, designed to power general cloud services on Azure. On November 20, 2023, Satya Nadella announced that Sam Altman , who had been ousted as CEO of OpenAI just days earlier, and Greg Brockman , who had resigned as president, would join Microsoft to lead

1210-525: A completely new user interface with a novel start button , and 32-bit compatibility; similar to NT, it provided the Win32 API. Windows 95 came bundled with the online service MSN , which was at first intended to be a competitor to the Internet, and (for OEMs) Internet Explorer , a Web browser . Internet Explorer has not bundled with the retail Windows 95 boxes, because the boxes were printed before

1331-456: A day after hosting a Sting concert for 50 people, including Microsoft executives, in Davos , Switzerland. On January 23, 2023, Microsoft announced a new multi-year, multi-billion dollar investment deal with ChatGPT developer OpenAI . In June 2023, Microsoft released Azure Quantum Elements to run molecular simulations and calculations in computational chemistry and materials science using

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1452-551: A deluxe version for $ 399.99. Increasingly present in the hardware business following Xbox, Microsoft 2006 released the Zune series of digital media players, a successor of its previous software platform Portable Media Center . These expanded on previous hardware commitments from Microsoft following its original Microsoft Mouse in 1983; as of 2007 the company sold the best-selling wired keyboard ( Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 ), mouse ( IntelliMouse ), and desktop webcam ( LifeCam ) in

1573-469: A graphical extension for MS-DOS , despite having begun jointly developing OS/2 with IBM that August. Microsoft moved its headquarters from Bellevue to Redmond, Washington , on February 26, 1986, and went public on March 13, with the resulting rise in stock making an estimated four billionaires and 12,000 millionaires from Microsoft employees. Microsoft released its version of OS/2 to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) on April 2, 1987. In 1990,

1694-471: A joint venture with NBC since 1996. On October 1, Microsoft announced its intention to launch a news operation, part of a new-look MSN , with Windows 8 later in the month. On October 26, 2012, Microsoft launched Windows 8 and the Microsoft Surface . Three days later, Windows Phone 8 was launched. To cope with the potential for an increase in demand for products and services, Microsoft opened

1815-423: A keyboard. An effective integration of this technology was aimed at helping flight crews maintain a high level of situational awareness of all major aspects of the vehicle operations including the flight path, the functioning of various aircraft systems, and moment-to-moment human interactions. EARLY 80s EVALUATATION FOR CARS - also, in the early 1980s, General Motors tasked its Delco Electronics division with

1936-530: A major target of the controversy, will leave the company after the acquisition is finalized. The deal was closed on October 13, 2023. In December 2022, Microsoft announced a new 10-year deal with the London Stock Exchange Group for products including Microsoft Azure; Microsoft acquired around 4% of LSEG as part of the deal. In January 2023, CEO Satya Nadella announced Microsoft would lay off some 10,000 employees. The announcement came

2057-416: A matrix of collimated lights shining orthogonally across the touch surface. When a beam is interrupted by a stylus, the photodetectors which no longer are receiving a signal can be used to determine where the interruption is. Later iterations of matrix based touchscreens built upon this by adding more emitters and detectors to improve resolution, pulsing emitters to improve optical signal to noise ratio , and

2178-622: A mode for the Windows operating system rather than a separate and unique operating system. In March the company also established guidelines that censor users of Office 365 from using profanity in private documents. In April 2018, Microsoft released the source code for Windows File Manager under the MIT License to celebrate the program's 20th anniversary. In April the company further expressed willingness to embrace open source initiatives by announcing Azure Sphere as its own derivative of

2299-567: A modern smartphone operating system, falling behind Apple and Google -sponsored Android in the United States. As a result, in 2010 Microsoft revamped their aging flagship mobile operating system, Windows Mobile , replacing it with the new Windows Phone OS that was released in October that year. It used a new user interface design language, codenamed "Metro", which prominently used simple shapes, typography, and iconography, utilizing

2420-587: A motion-sensing input device made by Microsoft and designed as a video game controller , first introduced in November 2010, was upgraded for the 2013 release of the Xbox One video game console. Kinect's capabilities were revealed in May 2013: an ultra-wide 1080p camera, function in the dark due to an infrared sensor, higher-end processing power and new software, the ability to distinguish between fine movements (such as

2541-605: A new 24/7 cable news channel, MSNBC . Microsoft created Windows CE 1.0 , a new OS designed for devices with low memory and other constraints, such as personal digital assistants . In October 1997, the Justice Department filed a motion in the Federal District Court , stating that Microsoft violated an agreement signed in 1994 and asked the court to stop the bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows. On January 13, 2000, Bill Gates handed over

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2662-418: A new advanced AI research team. However, the plan was short-lived, as Altman was subsequently reinstated as OpenAI's CEO and Brockman rejoined the company amid pressure from OpenAI's employees and investors on its board. In March 2024, Inflection AI 's cofounders Mustafa Suleyman and Karen Simonyan announced their departure from the company in order to start Microsoft AI, with Microsoft acqui-hiring nearly

2783-461: A nonorthogonal matrix to remove shadow readings when using multi-touch. 1963 INDIRECT LIGHT PEN - Later inventions built upon this system to free telewriting styli from their mechanical bindings. By transcribing what a user draws onto a computer, it could be saved for future use. See US 3089918A , Graham, Robert E, "Telewriting apparatus", issued 1963-05-14   . 1965 CAPACITANCE AND RESISTANCE - The first finger driven touchscreen

2904-646: A number of "holiday stores" across the U.S. to complement the increasing number of "bricks-and-mortar" Microsoft Stores that opened in 2012. On March 29, 2013, Microsoft launched a Patent Tracker. In August 2012, the New York City Police Department announced a partnership with Microsoft for the development of the Domain Awareness System which is used for Police surveillance in New York City . The Kinect ,

3025-486: A plastic pen and a plastic board with a transparent window where pen presses are detected. It was used primarily with a drawing software application. 1985 MULTI-TOUCH CAPACITANCE - The University of Toronto group, including Bill Buxton, developed a multi-touch tablet that used capacitance rather than bulky camera-based optical sensing systems (see History of multi-touch ). 1985 USED FOR POINT OF SALE - The first commercially available graphical point-of-sale (POS) software

3146-410: A portion if it were to go through. On August 5, 2020, Microsoft stopped its xCloud game streaming test for iOS devices. According to Microsoft, the future of xCloud on iOS remains unclear and potentially out of Microsoft's hands. Apple has imposed a strict limit on " remote desktop clients " which means applications are only allowed to connect to a user-owned host device or gaming console owned by

3267-500: A project aimed at replacing an automobile's non-essential functions (i.e. other than throttle , transmission , braking , and steering ) from mechanical or electro-mechanical systems with solid state alternatives wherever possible. The finished device was dubbed the ECC for "Electronic Control Center", a digital computer and software control system hardwired to various peripheral sensors , servomechanisms , solenoids , antenna and

3388-426: A prominent role in the design of digital appliances such as personal digital assistants (PDAs) and some e-readers . Touchscreens are important in educational settings such as classrooms or on college campuses. The popularity of smartphones, tablets, and many types of information appliances has driven the demand and acceptance of common touchscreens for portable and functional electronics. Touchscreens are found in

3509-601: A publishing division named Microsoft Press . Paul Allen resigned from Microsoft in 1983 after developing Hodgkin's lymphoma . Allen claimed in Idea Man: A Memoir by the co-founder of Microsoft that Gates wanted to dilute his share in the company when he was diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease because he did not think that he was working hard enough. Allen later invested in low-tech sectors, sports teams, commercial real estate, neuroscience, private space flight, and more. Microsoft released Windows 1.0 on November 20, 1985, as

3630-452: A record profit in 2007. The European Union imposed another fine of €899 million ($ 1.4 billion) for Microsoft's lack of compliance with the March 2004 judgment on February 27, 2008, saying that the company charged rivals unreasonable prices for key information about its workgroup and backoffice servers. Microsoft stated that it was in compliance and that "these fines are about the past issues that have been resolved". 2007 also saw

3751-492: A reflection of Australia’s overseas tourist market in the 1980s. It is worth noting that Telecom’s Expo Info system was based on an earlier system employed at Expo 86 in Vancouver , Canada . 1990 SINGLE AND MULTI-TOUCH GESTURES - Sears et al. (1990) gave a review of academic research on single and multi-touch human–computer interaction of the time, describing gestures such as rotating knobs, adjusting sliders, and swiping

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3872-443: A rudimentary computer to track and analyze automobile traffic data. Gates enrolled at Harvard University while Allen pursued a degree in computer science at Washington State University , though he later dropped out to work at Honeywell . The January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics featured Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems 's (MITS) Altair 8800 microcomputer, which inspired Allen to suggest that they could program

3993-421: A rugged multi-touch capacitive touchscreen, that could sense through a rigid, protective overlay - the sort later required for a mobile phone, was ever developed or patented by Boie. Many of these citations rely on anecdotal evidence from Bill Buxton of Bell Labs. However, Bill Buxton did not have much luck getting his hands on this technology. As he states in the citation: "Our assumption (false, as it turned out)

4114-506: A simple mouse or keypad that capacitively sensed just one finger through a thin insulator. Although not claimed or even mentioned in the patent, this technology could potentially have been used as a capacitance touchscreen. 1993 FIRST RESISTIVE TOUCHSCREEN PHONE - IBM released the IBM Simon , which is the first touchscreen phone. EARLY 90s ABANDONED GAME CONTROLLER - An early attempt at a handheld game console with touchscreen controls

4235-580: A simple x/y pen plotter, eliminating the need for expensive and complicated sputter coating, laser ablation, screen printing or etching. The resulting, incredibly flexible, touchscreen film, less than 100 microns thick, could be attached by static or non-setting weak adhesive to one side of a sheet of glass, for sensing through that glass. Early versions of this device were controlled by the PIC16C54 microchip. 1994 FIRST PUB GAME WITH TOUCHSCREEN - Appearing in pubs in 1994, JPM's Monopoly SWP (skill with prizes)

4356-503: A team around Rainer Mallebrein  [ de ] at Telefunken Konstanz for an air traffic control system. In 1970, this evolved into a device named "Touchinput- Einrichtung " ("touch input facility") for the SIG ;50 terminal utilizing a conductively coated glass screen in front of the display. This was patented in 1971 and the patent was granted a couple of years later. The same team had already invented and marketed

4477-620: A television factory in the early 1960s. Then manufactured by CERN, and shortly after by industry partners, it was put to use in 1973. 1972 OPTICAL - A group at the University of Illinois filed for a patent on an optical touchscreen that became a standard part of the Magnavox Plato IV Student Terminal and thousands were built for this purpose. These touchscreens had a crossed array of 16×16 infrared position sensors, each composed of an LED on one edge of

4598-453: A thumb movement), and determining a user's heart rate by looking at their face. Microsoft filed a patent application in 2011 that suggests that the corporation may use the Kinect camera system to monitor the behavior of television viewers as part of a plan to make the viewing experience more interactive. On July 19, 2013, Microsoft stocks suffered their biggest one-day percentage sell-off since

4719-572: A time, and few have had the capability to sense how hard one is touching. This has changed with the commercialization of multi-touch technology, and the Apple Watch being released with a force-sensitive display in April 2015. 2015 BISTATE PROJECTED CAPACITANCE - When used as a Projected Capacitance touchscreen, in mutual capacitance mode, diagonal wiring requires each I/O line to be capable of switching between two states (bistate), an output some of

4840-464: A touchscreen slider, which was later cited as prior art in the lock screen patent litigation between Apple and other touchscreen mobile phone vendors (in relation to U.S. patent 7,657,849 ). 1991 INERTIAL CONTROL - From 1991 to 1992, the Sun Star7 prototype PDA implemented a touchscreen with inertial scrolling . 1993 CAPACITANCE MOUSE / KEYPAD - Bob Boie of AT&T Bell Labs, patented

4961-493: A transparent implementation of an existing opaque touchpad technology, U.S. patent No.  3,911,215, October 7, 1975, which had been developed by Elographics' founder George Samuel Hurst . The resulting resistive technology touch screen was first shown on the World's Fair at Knoxville in 1982. 1982 MULTI-TOUCH CAMERA - Multi-touch technology began in 1982, when the University of Toronto 's Input Research Group developed

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5082-505: Is US$ 500,000 per year. Some analysts deemed this unthinkable ten years prior, however, as in 2001 then-CEO Steve Ballmer called Linux "cancer". Microsoft planned to launch a preview of Intune for Education "in the coming weeks", with general availability scheduled for spring 2017, priced at $ 30 per device, or through volume licensing agreements. In January 2018, Microsoft patched Windows 10 to account for CPU problems related to Intel's Meltdown security breach . The patch led to issues with

5203-595: Is best known for producing franchises, including but not limited to Warcraft , Diablo , Call of Duty , StarCraft , Candy Crush Saga , Crash Bandicoot , Spyro , Tony Hawk's , Guitar Hero , and Overwatch . Activision and Microsoft each released statements saying the acquisition was to benefit their businesses in the metaverse , many saw Microsoft's acquisition of video game studios as an attempt to compete against Meta Platforms , with TheStreet referring to Microsoft wanting to become "the Disney of

5324-549: Is considered one of the Big Five American information technology companies, alongside Alphabet , Amazon , Apple , and Meta . However it has been criticized for its monopolistic practices and the company's software has been criticized for problems with ease of use , robustness , and security . Childhood friends Bill Gates and Paul Allen sought to make a business using their skills in computer programming . In 1972, they founded Traf-O-Data , which sold

5445-600: Is currently the third-largest gaming company in the world by revenue, following the 2023 acquisition of Activision Blizzard for $ 68.7 billion. Microsoft has been market-dominant in the IBM PC–compatible operating system market and the office software suite market since the 1990s. Its best-known software products are the Windows line of operating systems , the Microsoft 365 suite of productivity applications,

5566-459: The Rollkugel mouse RKS 100-86 for the SIG 100-86 a couple of years earlier. 1968 CAPACITANCE - The application of touch technology for air traffic control was described in an article published in 1968. Frank Beck and Bent Stumpe , engineers from CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research), developed a transparent touchscreen in the early 1970s, based on Stumpe's work at

5687-613: The Azure cloud computing platform, and the Edge web browser. Its flagship hardware products are the Xbox video game consoles and the Microsoft Surface lineup of touchscreen personal computers. Other consumer and enterprise software it produces include Internet search with Bing ; digital services through MSN ; mixed reality through HoloLens ; cloud computing with Azure ; and software development through Visual Studio . Today, Microsoft

5808-460: The Department of Justice's Antitrust Division filed a competitive impact statement that said: "Beginning in 1988 and continuing until July 15, 1994, Microsoft induced many OEMs to execute anti-competitive 'per processor licenses. Under a per-processor license, an OEM pays Microsoft a royalty for each computer it sells containing a particular microprocessor, whether the OEM sells the computer with

5929-599: The Linux operating system. In May 2018, Microsoft partnered with 17 American intelligence agencies to develop cloud computing products. The project is dubbed "Azure Government" and has ties to the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) surveillance program. On June 4, 2018, Microsoft officially announced the acquisition of GitHub for $ 7.5 billion, a deal that closed on October 26, 2018. On July 10, 2018, Microsoft revealed

6050-470: The Microsoft Azure virtual machines reliant on Intel's CPU architecture. On January 12, Microsoft released PowerShell Core 6.0 for the macOS and Linux operating systems. In February 2018, Microsoft killed notification support for their Windows Phone devices which effectively ended firmware updates for the discontinued devices. In March 2018, Microsoft recalled Windows 10 S to change it to

6171-580: The Open Networking Foundation started on March 23, 2011. Fellow founders were Google , HPE Networking , Yahoo! , Verizon Communications , Deutsche Telekom and 17 other companies. This nonprofit organization is focused on providing support for a cloud computing initiative called Software-Defined Networking. The initiative is meant to speed innovation through simple software changes in telecommunications networks, wireless networks, data centers, and other networking areas. Following

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6292-515: The Surface Go platform to the public. Later in the month, it converted Microsoft Teams to gratis . In August 2018, Microsoft released two projects called Microsoft AccountGuard and Defending Democracy. It also unveiled Snapdragon 850 compatibility for Windows 10 on the ARM architecture . In August 2018, Toyota Tsusho began a partnership with Microsoft to create fish farming tools using

6413-604: The World Wide Web . With a few exceptions of new companies, like Netscape , Microsoft was the only major and established company that acted fast enough to be a part of the World Wide Web practically from the start. Other companies like Borland , WordPerfect , Novell , IBM and Lotus , being much slower to adapt to the new situation, would give Microsoft market dominance. The company released Windows 95 on August 24, 1995, featuring pre-emptive multitasking ,

6534-495: The Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S video game consoles. In February 2021, Microsoft released Azure Quantum for public preview.  The public cloud computing platform provides access to quantum software and quantum hardware including  trapped ion ,  neutral atom , and  superconducting  systems. In April 2021, Microsoft announced it would buy Nuance Communications for approximately $ 16 billion. The acquisition of Nuance

6655-653: The 1988–1989 Buick Reatta , but was unpopular with consumers—partly due to the technophobia of some traditional Buick customers, but mostly because of costly technical problems suffered by the ECC's touchscreen which would render climate control or stereo operation impossible. 1985 GRAPHIC TABLET - Sega released the Terebi Oekaki, also known as the Sega Graphic Board, for the SG-1000 video game console and SC-3000 home computer . It consisted of

6776-574: The CEO position to Steve Ballmer , an old college friend of Gates and employee of the company since 1980, while creating a new position for himself as Chief Software Architect . Various companies including Microsoft formed the Trusted Computing Platform Alliance in October 1999 to (among other things) increase security and protect intellectual property through identifying changes in hardware and software. Critics decried

6897-662: The Federal Trade Commission examined Microsoft for possible collusion due to the partnership with IBM, marking the beginning of more than a decade of legal clashes with the government. Meanwhile, the company was at work on Microsoft Windows NT , which was heavily based on their copy of the OS/2 code. It shipped on July 21, 1993, with a new modular kernel and the 32-bit Win32 application programming interface (API), making it easier to port from 16-bit (MS-DOS-based) Windows. Microsoft informed IBM of Windows NT, and

7018-484: The Microsoft Azure application suite for Internet of things (IoT) technologies related to water management. Developed in part by researchers from Kindai University , the water pump mechanisms use artificial intelligence to count the number of fish on a conveyor belt , analyze the number of fish, and deduce the effectiveness of water flow from the data the fish provide. The specific computer programs used in

7139-554: The OS/2 partnership deteriorated. In 1990, Microsoft introduced the Microsoft Office suite which bundled separate applications such as Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel . On May 22, Microsoft launched Windows 3.0 , featuring streamlined user interface graphics and improved protected mode capability for the Intel 386 processor, and both Office and Windows became dominant in their respective areas. On July 27, 1994,

7260-607: The Surface, in 2012, and the formation of Microsoft Mobile through Nokia . Since Satya Nadella took over as CEO in 2014, the company has changed focus towards cloud computing , as well as its large acquisition of LinkedIn for $ 26.2 billion in 2016. Under Nadella's direction, the company has also expanded its video gaming business to support the Xbox brand, establishing the Microsoft Gaming division in 2022, which

7381-543: The U.S. smartphone market in January 2016 was 2.7%. During the summer of 2015 the company lost $ 7.6 billion related to its mobile-phone business, firing 7,800 employees. In 2015, the construction of a data center in Mecklenburg County , Virginia led to the destruction of a historic African American cemetery despite archeological recommendations for preservation. On March 1, 2016, Microsoft announced

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7502-462: The United States. That year the company also launched the Surface "digital table", later renamed PixelSense . Released in January 2007, the next version of Windows, Vista , focused on features, security and a redesigned user interface dubbed Aero . Microsoft Office 2007 , released at the same time, featured a " Ribbon " user interface which was a significant departure from its predecessors. Relatively strong sales of both products helped to produce

7623-535: The Virtual Online events, it has been co-located with the Microsoft internal Microsoft Ready conference. 6,500 Microsoft employees Microsoft Corporation Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington . Founded in 1975, the company became highly influential in the rise of personal computers through software like Windows , and

7744-499: The ability to detect, decide and engage before the enemy." In November 2018, Microsoft introduced Azure Multi-Factor Authentication for Microsoft Azure. In December 2018, Microsoft announced Project Mu , an open source release of the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) core used in Microsoft Surface and Hyper-V products. The project promotes the idea of Firmware as a Service . In

7865-400: The alliance as a way to enforce indiscriminate restrictions over how consumers use software, and over how computers behave, and as a form of digital rights management : for example, the scenario where a computer is not only secured for its owner but also secured against its owner as well. On April 3, 2000, a judgment was handed down in the case of United States v. Microsoft Corp. , calling

7986-420: The city of Brisbane , Australia hosted Expo 88 , whose theme was “leisure in the age of technology”. To support the event and provide information to expo visitors, Telecom Australia (now Telstra ) erected 8 kiosks around the expo site with a total of 56 touch screen information consoles, being specially modified Sony Videotex Workstations. Each system was also equipped with a videodisc player, speakers, and

8107-488: The company , citing it abused its dominance with the Windows OS, resulting in a judgment of €497 million ($ 613 million) and requiring Microsoft to produce new versions of Windows XP without Windows Media Player : Windows XP Home Edition N and Windows XP Professional N. In November 2005, the company's second video game console, the Xbox 360 , was released. There were two versions, a basic version for $ 299.99 and

8228-541: The company an "abusive monopoly." Microsoft later settled with the U.S. Department of Justice in 2004. On October 25, 2001, Microsoft released Windows XP , unifying the mainstream and NT lines of OS under the NT codebase. The company released the Xbox later that year, entering the video game console market dominated by Sony and Nintendo . In March 2004 the European Union brought antitrust legal action against

8349-606: The company announced it was laying off 1,850 workers, and taking an impairment and restructuring charge of $ 950 million. In June 2016, Microsoft announced a project named Microsoft Azure Information Protection. It aims to help enterprises protect their data as it moves between servers and devices. In November 2016, Microsoft joined the Linux Foundation as a Platinum member during Microsoft's Connect(); developer event in New York. The cost of each Platinum membership

8470-504: The company has since expanded to Internet services, cloud computing , video gaming and other fields. Microsoft is the largest software maker , one of the most valuable public U.S. companies, and one of the most valuable brands globally. Microsoft was founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8800 . It rose to dominate the personal computer operating system market with MS-DOS in

8591-633: The company's war profiteering from a $ 480 million contract to develop virtual reality headsets for the United States Army . On March 26, 2020, Microsoft announced it was acquiring Affirmed Networks for about $ 1.35 billion. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic , Microsoft closed all of its retail stores indefinitely due to health concerns. On July 22, 2020, Microsoft announced plans to close its Mixer service, planning to move existing partners to Facebook Gaming . On July 31, 2020, it

8712-468: The concept of minimalism. Microsoft implemented a new strategy for the software industry, providing a consistent user experience across all smartphones using the Windows Phone OS. It launched an alliance with Nokia in 2011 and Microsoft worked closely with the company to co-develop Windows Phone, but remained partners with long-time Windows Mobile OEM HTC . Microsoft is a founding member of

8833-579: The creation of a multi-core unit at Microsoft, following the steps of server companies such as Sun and IBM. Gates retired from his role as Chief Software Architect on June 27, 2008, a decision announced in June 2006, while retaining other positions related to the company in addition to being an advisor for the company on key projects. Azure Services Platform , the company's entry into the cloud computing market for Windows, launched on October 27, 2008. On February 12, 2009, Microsoft announced its intent to open

8954-403: The entirety of its 70-person workforce. As part of the deal, Microsoft paid Inflection $ 650 million to license its technology. In January 2024, Microsoft became the most valued publicly traded company. Meanwhile, that month, the company announced a subscription offering of artificial intelligence for small businesses via Copilot Pro. Touchscreen A user can give input or control

9075-543: The first human-input multi-touch system, using a frosted-glass panel with a camera placed behind the glass. 1983 OPTICAL - An optical touchscreen was used on the HP-150 starting in 1983. The HP 150 was one of the world's earliest commercial touchscreen computers. HP mounted their infrared transmitters and receivers around the bezel of a 9-inch Sony cathode ray tube (CRT). 1983 MULTI-TOUCH FORCE SENSING TOUCHSCREEN - Bob Boie of AT&T Bell Labs, used capacitance to track

9196-559: The front of the screen. Stumpe and Beck developed a self-capacitance touchscreen in 1972, and a mutual capacitance touchscreen in 1977. Both these devices could only sense the finger by direct touch or through a thin insulating film. This was 11 microns thick according to Stumpe's 1977 report. 1984 TOUCHPAD - Fujitsu released a touch pad for the Micro 16 to accommodate the complexity of kanji characters, which were stored as tiled graphics. 1986 GRAPHIC TABLET - A graphic touch tablet

9317-430: The information processing system through simple or multi-touch gestures by touching the screen with a special stylus or one or more fingers. Some touchscreens use ordinary or specially coated gloves to work, while others may only work using a special stylus or pen. The user can use the touchscreen to react to what is displayed and, if the software allows, to control how it is displayed; for example, zooming to increase

9438-429: The invention of a wire based touchscreen in 1994, where one 25 micron diameter, insulation coated wire replaced about 30 of these 80 micron wide tracks, and could also accurately sense fingers through thick glass. Screen masking, caused by the copper, was reduced from 50% to less than 0.5%. The use of fine wire meant that very large touchscreens, several meters wide, could be plotted onto a thin polyester support film with

9559-440: The last version of the operating system; set to be released in the third quarter of 2021. It was released to the general public on October 5, 2021. In September 2021, it was announced that the company had acquired Takelessons, an online platform that connects students and tutors in numerous subjects. The acquisition positioned Microsoft to grow its presence in the market of providing online education to large numbers of people. In

9680-496: The latest product innovations , and learn new skills and techniques. There are also keynote addresses from Microsoft executives, featured speakers, business-track specific offerings, and hundreds of sessions. In its current form, it has been held since 2003. Before 2003, it was two different events, Microsoft Fusion and the Microsoft Business Solutions Stampede. In recent years, not including

9801-475: The length of the horizontal sensing elements increases as the width of the touchscreen increases. Eventually, a limit is hit where the resistance gets so great that the touchscreen can no longer function properly. The patent describes how the use of diagonal elements ensures that the length of any element never exceeds 1.414 times the height ⌈ H 2 ⌋ {\textstyle \left\lceil H{\sqrt {2}}\right\rfloor } of

9922-446: The mechanical changes in thickness of a soft, deformable overlay membrane when one or more physical objects interact with it; the flexible surface being easily replaced, if damaged by these objects. The patent states "the tactile sensor arrangements may be utilized as a touch screen". Many derivative sources retrospectively describe Boie as making a major advancement with his touchscreen technology; but no evidence has been found that

10043-560: The medical field, heavy industry , automated teller machines (ATMs), and kiosks such as museum displays or room automation , where keyboard and mouse systems do not allow a suitably intuitive, rapid, or accurate interaction by the user with the display's content. Historically, the touchscreen sensor and its accompanying controller-based firmware have been made available by a wide array of after-market system integrators , and not by display, chip, or motherboard manufacturers. Display manufacturers and chip manufacturers have acknowledged

10164-525: The merger of its PC and Xbox divisions, with Phil Spencer announcing that Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps would be the focus for Microsoft's gaming in the future. On January 24, 2017, Microsoft showcased Intune for Education at the BETT 2017 education technology conference in London . Intune for Education is a new cloud-based application and device management service for the education sector. In May 2016,

10285-487: The metaverse". Microsoft also named Phil Spencer , head of the Xbox brand since 2014, the inaugural CEO of the newly established Microsoft Gaming division, which now houses the Xbox operations team and the three publishers in the company's portfolio (Xbox Game Studios, ZeniMax Media, Activision Blizzard). Microsoft has not released statements regarding Activision's recent legal controversies regarding employee abuse, but reports have alleged that Activision CEO Bobby Kotick ,

10406-602: The mid-1980s, followed by Windows. The company's 1986 initial public offering (IPO) and subsequent rise in its share price created three billionaires and an estimated 12,000 millionaires among Microsoft employees. Since the 1990s, it has increasingly diversified from the operating system market. Steve Ballmer replaced Gates as CEO in 2000 which would see the then-largest of Microsoft's corporate acquisitions in Skype Technologies in 2011, and an increased focus on hardware that led to its first in-house PC line,

10527-403: The monitor line scans. About 600 of these were sold for this purpose, retailing at £50 apiece, which was very cheap for the time. Working through very thick glass made it ideal for operation in a "hostile" environment, such as a pub. Although reflected light from the copper wires was noticeable under certain lighting conditions, this problem was eliminated by using tinted glass. The reflection issue

10648-452: The name "Micro-Soft", short for micro-computer software. In August 1977, the company formed an agreement with ASCII Magazine in Japan, resulting in its first international office of ASCII Microsoft . Microsoft moved its headquarters to Bellevue, Washington , in January 1979. Microsoft entered the operating system (OS) business in 1980 with its own version of Unix called Xenix , but it

10769-592: The original signal. Effectively, this was used for temporarily drawing arrows or circles onto a live television broadcast, as described in US 2487641A , Denk, William E, "Electronic pointer for television images", issued 1949-11-08   . 1962 OPTICAL - The first version of a touchscreen which operated independently of the light produced from the screen was patented by AT&T Corporation US 3016421A , Harmon, Leon D, "Electrographic transmitter", issued 1962-01-09   . This touchscreen utilized

10890-699: The process fall under the Azure Machine Learning and the Azure IoT Hub platforms. In September 2018, Microsoft discontinued Skype Classic . On October 10, 2018, Microsoft joined the Open Invention Network community despite holding more than 60,000 patents. In November 2018, Microsoft agreed to supply 100,000 Microsoft HoloLens headsets to the United States military in order to "increase lethality by enhancing

11011-521: The release of Windows Phone , Microsoft undertook a gradual rebranding of its product range throughout 2011 and 2012, with the corporation's logos, products, services, and websites adopting the principles and concepts of the Metro design language . Microsoft unveiled Windows 8 , an operating system designed to power both personal computers and tablet computers , in Taipei in June 2011. A developer preview

11132-918: The release of the Nintendo DS in 2004. 2007 MOBILE PHONE WITH CAPACITANCE - The first mobile phone with a capacitive touchscreen was LG Prada , released in May 2007 (which was before the first iPhone released). By 2009, touchscreen-enabled mobile phones were becoming trendy and quickly gaining popularity in both basic and advanced devices. In Quarter-4 2009 for the first time, a majority of smartphones (i.e. not all mobile phones) shipped with touchscreens over non-touch. 2013 RESISTIVE VERSUS PROJECTED CAPACITANCE SALES - In 2007, 93% of touchscreens shipped were resistive and only 4% were projected capacitance. In 2013, 3% of touchscreens shipped were resistive and 96% were projected capacitance (see page 5). 2015 FORCE SENSING TOUCHSCREENS - Until recently, most consumer touchscreens could only sense one point of contact at

11253-644: The release of the IBM PC in August 1981. IBM had copyrighted the IBM PC BIOS , so other companies had to reverse engineer it for non-IBM hardware to run as IBM PC compatibles , but no such restriction applied to the operating systems. Microsoft eventually became the leading PC operating systems vendor. The company expanded into new markets with the release of the Microsoft Mouse in 1983, as well as with

11374-507: The role of CFO. On February 4, 2014, Steve Ballmer stepped down as CEO of Microsoft and was succeeded by Satya Nadella , who previously led Microsoft's Cloud and Enterprise division. On the same day, John W. Thompson took on the role of chairman, in place of Bill Gates, who continued to participate as a technology advisor. Thompson became the second chairman in Microsoft's history. On April 25, 2014, Microsoft acquired Nokia Devices and Services for $ 7.2 billion. This new subsidiary

11495-407: The same month, Microsoft acquired Australia-based video editing software company Clipchamp . In October 2021, Microsoft announced that it began rolling out end-to-end encryption (E2EE) support for Microsoft Teams calls in order to secure business communication while using video conferencing software. Users can ensure that their calls are encrypted and can utilize a security code that both parties on

11616-927: The same month, Microsoft announced the open source implementation of Windows Forms and the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) which will allow for further movement of the company toward the transparent release of key frameworks used in developing Windows desktop applications and software. December also saw the company discontinue the Microsoft Edge project in favor of Chromium backends for their browsers. On February 20, 2019, Microsoft Corp said it will offer its cyber security service AccountGuard to 12 new markets in Europe including Germany, France and Spain, to close security gaps and protect customers in political space from hacking. In February 2019, hundreds of Microsoft employees protested

11737-411: The screen and a matched phototransistor on the other edge, all mounted in front of a monochrome plasma display panel. This arrangement could sense any fingertip-sized opaque object in close proximity to the screen. 1973 MULTI-TOUCH CAPACITANCE - In 1973, Beck and Stumpe published another article describing their capacitive touchscreen. This indicated that it was capable of multi-touch but this feature

11858-538: The screen to activate a switch (or a U-shaped gesture for a toggle switch). The HCIL team developed and studied small touchscreen keyboards (including a study that showed users could type at 25 wpm on a touchscreen keyboard), aiding their introduction on mobile devices. They also designed and implemented multi-touch gestures such as selecting a range of a line, connecting objects, and a "tap-click" gesture to select while maintaining location with another finger. 1990 TOUCHSCREEN SLIDER AND TOGGLE SWITCHES - HCIL demonstrated

11979-467: The team finished the Web browser, and instead were included in the Windows 95 Plus! pack. Backed by a high-profile marketing campaign and what The New York Times called "the splashiest, most frenzied, most expensive introduction of a computer product in the industry's history," Windows 95 quickly became a success. Branching out into new markets in 1996, Microsoft and General Electric 's NBC unit created

12100-586: The text size. A touchscreen enables the user to interact directly with what is displayed, instead of using a mouse , touchpad , or other such devices (other than a stylus, which is optional for most modern touchscreens). Touchscreens are common in devices such as smartphones , handheld game consoles , and personal computers . They are common in point-of-sale (POS) systems, automated teller machines (ATMs), electronic voting machines , and automobile infotainment systems and controls. They can also be attached to computers or, as terminals, to networks. They play

12221-521: The time and an input at other times. I/Os are inputs most of the time, but, once every scan, one of the I/Os has to take its turn at being an output, the remaining input I/Os sensing any signals it generates. The I/O lines, therefore, may have to change from input to output, and vice versa, many times a second. This new design won an Electronics Weekly Elektra Award in 2017. 2021 FIRST "INFINITELY WIDE" TOUCHSCREEN PATENT - With standard x/y array touchscreens,

12342-538: The touchscreen, no matter how wide it is. This could be reduced to 1.15 times the height, if opposing diagonal elements intersect at 60 degrees instead of 90 degrees. The elongated touchscreen could be controlled by a single processor, or the distant ends could be controlled totally independently by different processors, linked by a synchronizing processor in the overlapping middle section. The number of unique intersections could be increased by allowing individual sensing elements to run in two opposing directions - as shown in

12463-449: The trend toward acceptance of touchscreens as a user interface component and have begun to integrate touchscreens into the fundamental design of their products. One predecessor of the modern touchscreen includes stylus based systems. 1946 DIRECT LIGHT PEN - A patent was filed by Philco Company for a stylus designed for sports telecasting which, when placed against an intermediate cathode-ray tube (CRT) display would amplify and add to

12584-407: The user. On September 21, 2020, Microsoft announced its intent to acquire video game company ZeniMax Media , the parent company of Bethesda Softworks , for about $ 7.5 billion, with the deal expected to occur in the second half of 2021 fiscal year. On March 9, 2021, the acquisition was finalized and ZeniMax Media became part of Microsoft's Xbox Game Studios division. The total price of the deal

12705-658: The year 2000, after its fourth-quarter report raised concerns among investors on the poor showings of both Windows 8 and the Surface tablet. Microsoft suffered a loss of more than US$ 32 billion. In line with the maturing PC business, in July 2013, Microsoft announced that it would reorganize the business into four new business divisions, namely Operating systems, Apps, Cloud, and Devices. All previous divisions will be dissolved into new divisions without any workforce cuts. On September 3, 2013, Microsoft agreed to buy Nokia 's mobile unit for $ 7 billion, following Amy Hood taking

12826-542: Was MS-DOS that solidified the company's dominance. IBM awarded a contract to Microsoft in November 1980 to provide a version of the CP/M OS to be used in the IBM Personal Computer (IBM PC). For this deal, Microsoft purchased a CP/M clone called 86-DOS from Seattle Computer Products which it branded as MS-DOS, although IBM rebranded it to IBM PC DOS . Microsoft retained ownership of MS-DOS following

12947-641: Was Sega 's intended successor to the Game Gear , though the device was ultimately shelved and never released due to the expensive cost of touchscreen technology in the early 1990s. 1994 FIRST WIRE BASED PROJECTED CAPACITANCE - Stumpe and Beck's touchscreens (1972/1977 - already cited), used opaque conductive copper tracks that obscured about 50% of the screen (80 micron track / 80 micron space). The advent of projected capacitance in 1984, however, with its improved sensing capability, indicated that most of these tracks could be eliminated. This proved to be so, and led to

13068-438: Was $ 8.1 billion. On September 22, 2020, Microsoft announced that it had an exclusive license to use OpenAI 's GPT-3 artificial intelligence language generator. The previous version of GPT-3 , called GPT-2 , made headlines for being "too dangerous to release" and had numerous capabilities, including designing websites, prescribing medication, answering questions, and penning articles. On November 10, 2020, Microsoft released

13189-468: Was completed in March 2022. In 2021, in part due to the strong quarterly earnings spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic , Microsoft's valuation came to nearly $ 2 trillion. The increased necessity for remote work and distance education drove demand for cloud computing and grew the company's gaming sales. On June 24, 2021, Microsoft announced Windows 11 during a Livestream. The announcement came with confusion after Microsoft announced Windows 10 would be

13310-694: Was demonstrated on the 16-bit Atari 520ST color computer. It featured a color touchscreen widget-driven interface. The ViewTouch POS software was first shown by its developer, Gene Mosher, at the Atari Computer demonstration area of the Fall COMDEX expo in 1986. 1987 CAPACITANCE TOUCH KEYS - Casio launched the Casio PB-1000 pocket computer with a touchscreen consisting of a 4×4 matrix, resulting in 16 touch areas in its small LCD graphic screen. 1988 SELECT ON "LIFT-OFF" - Touchscreens had

13431-566: Was developed by Eric Johnson, of the Royal Radar Establishment located in Malvern , England, who described his work on capacitive touchscreens in a short article published in 1965 and then more fully—with photographs and diagrams—in an article published in 1967. MID-60s ULTRASONIC CURTAIN - Another precursor of touchscreens, an ultrasonic-curtain-based pointing device in front of a terminal display, had been developed by

13552-488: Was introduced by researchers at the University of Maryland Human–Computer Interaction Lab (HCIL). As users touch the screen, feedback is provided as to what will be selected: users can adjust the position of the finger, and the action takes place only when the finger is lifted off the screen. This allowed the selection of small targets, down to a single pixel on a 640×480 Video Graphics Array (VGA) screen (a standard of that time). 1988 WORLD EXPO - From April to October 1988,

13673-639: Was later resolved by using finer (10 micron diameter), dark coated wires. Throughout the following decade JPM continued to use touchscreens for many other games such as "Cluedo" and "Who wants to be a Millionaire". 1998 PROJECTED CAPACITANCE LICENSES - This technology was licensed four years later to Romag Glass Products - later to become Zytronic Displays, and Visual Planet in 2003 (see page 4). 2004 MOBILE MULTI-TOUCH PROJECTED CAPACITANCE PATENT - Apple patents its multi-touch capacitive touchscreen for mobile devices. 2004 VIDEO GAMES WITH TOUCHSCREENS - Touchscreens were not be popularly used for video games until

13794-590: Was purposely inhibited, presumably as this was not considered useful at the time ("A...variable...called BUT changes value from zero to five when a button is touched. The touching of other buttons would give other non-zero values of BUT but this is protected against by software" (Page 6, section 2.6). "Actual contact between a finger and the capacitor is prevented by a thin sheet of plastic" (Page 3, section 2.3). At that time Projected capacitance had not yet been invented. 1977 RESISTIVE - An American company, Elographics – in partnership with Siemens – began work on developing

13915-483: Was released for the Sega AI Computer . EARLY 80s EVALUATION FOR AIRCRAFT - Touch-sensitive control-display units (CDUs) were evaluated for commercial aircraft flight decks in the early 1980s. Initial research showed that a touch interface would reduce pilot workload as the crew could then select waypoints, functions and actions, rather than be "head down" typing latitudes, longitudes, and waypoint codes on

14036-693: Was released on September 13, which was subsequently replaced by a consumer preview on February 29, 2012, and released to the public in May. The Surface was unveiled on June 18, becoming the first computer in the company's history to have its hardware made by Microsoft. On June 25, Microsoft paid US$ 1.2 billion to buy the social network Yammer . On July 31, they launched the Outlook.com webmail service to compete with Gmail . On September 4, 2012, Microsoft released Windows Server 2012 . In July 2012, Microsoft sold its 50% stake in MSNBC, which it had run as

14157-592: Was released, with its server sibling, Windows Server 2016 , released in September 2016. In Q1 2015, Microsoft was the third-largest maker of mobile phones , selling 33 million units (7.2% of all). While a large majority (at least 75%) of them do not run any version of Windows Phone — those other phones are not categorized as smartphones by Gartner – in the same timeframe 8 million Windows smartphones (2.5% of all smartphones) were made by all manufacturers (mostly Microsoft). Microsoft's share of

14278-425: Was renamed Microsoft Mobile Oy. On September 15, 2014, Microsoft acquired the video game development company Mojang , best known for Minecraft , for $ 2.5 billion. On June 8, 2017, Microsoft acquired Hexadite , an Israeli security firm, for $ 100 million. On January 21, 2015, Microsoft announced the release of their first Interactive whiteboard , Microsoft Surface Hub . On July 29, 2015, Windows 10

14399-590: Was reported that Microsoft was in talks to acquire TikTok after the Trump administration ordered ByteDance to divest ownership of the application to the U.S. On August 3, 2020, after speculation on the deal, Donald Trump stated that Microsoft could buy the application, however, it should be completed by September 15, 2020, and that the United States Department of the Treasury should receive

14520-533: Was that the Boie technology would become available to us in the near future. Around 1990 I took a group from Xerox to see this technology it [sic] since I felt that it would be appropriate for the user interface of our large document processors. This did not work out". UP TO 1984 CAPACITANCE - Although, as cited earlier, Johnson is credited with developing the first finger operated capacitive and resistive touchscreens in 1965, these worked by directly touching wires across

14641-412: Was the first machine to use touch screen technology instead of buttons (see Quiz machine / History). It used a 14 inch version of this newly invented wire based projected capacitance touchscreen and had 64 sensing areas - the wiring pattern being similar to that shown in the lower diagram. The zig-zag pattern was introduced to minimize visual reflections and prevent Moire interference between the wires and

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