Microsoft may want you to pay $99 per year or more to use Office 365. But Office isn’t the only game in town these days, and over the past few years Microsoft has been working to make its free, cloud-based version of Office a bit more competitive with Google Docs and other free alternatives.
Now Microsoft is taking another step toward making Office Online easier to use. It’s coming to the Google Chrome Web Store (although all you really get is a shortcut to the website added to your browser), and the company is adding so many features to its web apps that some users might find they can get everything they need from the free version of Office.
Here’s a roundup of tech news from around the web.
- Microsoft Office Online hits Chrome web store, gets improvements and new features
Other updates include the ability to insert and edit comments in Excel, improved support for Excel files with VBA, Word comment editing, easier insertion of footnotes and endnotes, a better PowerPoint text editor, and printing from OneNote. [Office Blogs] - Mozilla tries again… names Chris Beard as interim CEO
After a rather disastrous attempt to choose a new CEO, the makers of the Firefox web browser are giving things another try… this time a bit more tentatively. [Mozilla] - Lenovo Warrior S8 is a $130, octa-core smartphone with a 5.3 inch, 720p display (for China)
Xiaomi doesn’t have a monopoly on high-quality, low-cost Chinese smartphones. [GSM Arena] - LG G3 smartphone will have a 2560 x 1440 pixel display
LG hasn’t revealed official specs for its upcoming flagship phone yet, but there’s mounting evidence that it’ll have a crazy high-res 5.5 inch display. [Engadget] - Samsung Gear Fit works with HTC One and other non-Samsung phones
Samsung’s wearable fitness tracker officially only supports Samsung smartphones and tablets. But it turns out if you sideload the app on some other devices, it’ll work. [SamMobile] - Cinnamon 2.2 desktop adds improved HIDPI support for high-res displays
One of the popular desktop environments from the makers of Linux Mint is adding better support for higher-than-1080p displays like those we’re seeing in a growing number of tablets and notebooks. [Linux Mint] - Report: Intel charges tablet makers just $5 for Bay Trail-T quad-core chips
I normally ignore reports and rumors from the hit-or-miss folks at DigiTimes, but this crazy-sounding report is actually pretty plausible given Intel’s promise of $99 tablets with Bay Trail chips. It’s likely Intel is losing money on chips it sells for prices this low… but it could help the company make headway in a space currently dominated by ARM chip makers. [DigiTimes] - Android 4.4.3 for the Nexus 5 could begin rolling out today
It’s probably mostly a bug-fix release which won’t bring a lot of new features, and which will require folks with rooted devices to re-root. But bug fixes and security updates are important. [xda-developers]
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