Microsoft testing Outlook app for Windows RT devices: Report

Teams within Microsoft are reportedly debating whether the company should release a native version of Outlook for Windows RT devices or not. The company has reportedly completed and testing a final version of Outlook for Windows RT devices.

Microsoft is reportedly testing a native version of MS Outlook for Windows RT-based devices. Dubbed as Outlook RT, the e-mail client would run on Microsoft’s ARM-based Surface RT devices as well as any ARM-based Windows RT slates and PCs.

According to CNET, Microsoft hasn’t yet decided the date for commercial availability of Outlook RT, as odds are the company may never release it. The teams within Microsoft are still debating whether the company should release the app or not.

The report further quotes sources at Microsoft claims some people at the Windows unit want to retain the Mail/Calendar/People app as it bundles currently. There are some other people who want to simply rename the existing Mail app in Windows RT as Outlook. There are also suggestions to launch Outlook as a separate native app.

“Microsoft currently has its own Mail client for Windows 8 and Windows RT — a product that is not seen as very robust or solid by many of us Surface RT/Windows RT users. The Windows RT Mail client is not even as good as the Mail client that’s part of Windows Phone, many of us feel,” writes Mary Jo Foley in the report.

“Quite a few of us would rather have the option to run Outlook on our Surface RTs and other Windows RT devices. But for now, Microsoft doesn’t include Outlook as part of the Office Home & Student 2013 RT suite that it bundles with the Windows RT operating system. Only Word RT, Excel RT, PowerPoint RT and OneNote RT are included. (It’s worth noting that these four apps are Desktop apps, not “Metro-Style”/Windows Store apps. There are only two members of the Office suite that currently exist in Metro-Style form: OneNote and Lync.),” she adds.

Microsoft is yet to comment on the rumours of a native Outlook app for Windows RT.

 

Source: http://www.thinkdigit.com/Apps/Microsoft-testing-Outlook-app-for-Windows-RT_13224.html

Facebook’s Biggest By-Product – Envy

Bangalore: With the abundance of information on the social media, we can find out where the hottest girl in the college spends her weekends and who the coolest hunk in the campus is dating. But a recent study conducted in Germany shows that such information comes at a price. When we see pictures of people who are beyond our friend circle, partying in a beach or dancing at a happening club in the city we often feel that their lives are much more entertaining or better than ours.

The study “Envy on Facebook: A Hidden Threat to Users’ Life Satisfaction?” by Humboldt-University Berlin, Germany, shows that such an open forum with access to a whole plethora of information leads to “social comparison and envy on an unprecedented scale.” Most of us would notice our friends who are very active on the social media forum saying, ‘I got 100 likes on my status today and people posted such nice comments.’ While you smile and say to yourself, ‘I’ve got a big hammer at home I’d like to smash your head with, I got only two likes and my sister is the only one who commented on my profile picture!’

We are getting lost in this field filled with likes, shares, and comments. The most popular guy in college is no longer in the college basketball team, he is the one with the best pictures on Facebook, no matter how bad he is in sports or academics. Most of us put so much of our time in updating and maintaining our social profile for a handful of people that we neglect the other portion of our life – reality. Ever heard your friend saying, ‘I’m feeling damn good today, the cute girl from my class liked my picture,’ or ‘such a horrible day man, got only five comments today and that ugly ramu got 50 likes!’ our lives are governed by the satisfaction we receive from the positive reaction of our peers on social media platform and the comparisons we make in order to feel worthy.