REDMOND, Wash. — Sept. 16, 2013 — Bing.com and FOX News Channel (FNC) are teaming up on the Bing Pulse online voting tool, enabling viewers to share their opinions and reactions to news commentary in real time online at http://Bing.com/politics. With the new feature, viewers will have the opportunity to interact with the panel segment on FNC’s “Special Report with Bret Baier” (weeknights at 6 p.m. ET) to offer their feedback instantaneously.

“This is a first for evening news,” said Josh Gottheimer, general manager of Strategic and Special Projects at Microsoft Corp. “With the Bing Pulse, viewers get a seat at the table to weigh in on the discussion. It’s the perfect marriage of the Internet, Bing’s big data technology and television news programming.”

Earlier this year, Bing and FNC debuted the Bing Pulse as part of the network’s coverage of the 2013 State of the Union address. The breakthrough Bing Pulse recorded the largest live online poll in history, garnering 12.9 million votes during President Obama’s live address. Real-time results from the tool were shown on the network and available at http://Bing.com/politics.

How it works

The Bing Pulse allows people to join the conversation by “voting” every five seconds on their reactions to the content they are watching during the panel’s discussions. Viewers simply go to http://Bing.com/politics from a computer, tablet or mobile device to connect with the conversation. Unlike typical polls, the Bing Pulse allows people to self-identify as male or female and register their party affiliation. The Bing Pulse enables Americans to track and share opinions on the top issues of the day. As the panel discussion progresses on the program, viewers have five choices to characterize how they are feeling about the discussion: strongly agree, somewhat agree, neutral, somewhat disagree and strongly disagree.

The live count of the number of “pulses,” or votes, is shown as a line graph of how users react to language and issues throughout the discussion that is visible on-screen. In addition to measuring the sentiment of the audience about the conversation, the Bing Pulse also provides an intensity score, which highlights the moments on the panel segment when the greatest number of viewers voted at the same time.

Data is split by gender and political affiliation. During the course of the program’s panel, the Bing Pulse features updated results every few seconds on the TV screen with data also available at http://Bing.com/politics. Final results are reported at the end of the program.

During a monthlong pilot of the tool on the Friday editions of “Special Report” in August, millions of votes were cast and as many as 60,000 votes per minute were recorded during the panel discussions on the program.

About Bing

Bing is the search engine from Microsoft, designed for people who do. For people like you who are always doing more and don’t have time to sit still. Now, only Bing brings together the best search and the best people from your social networks, like Facebook and Twitter, to help you spend less time searching and more time doing. So whether you’re on your PC or on your phone, Bing is designed not just to connect you to the information you are looking for, but also to help you get things done right on Bing.com.

About Microsoft

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

Note to editors: For more information, news and perspectives from Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft News Center at http://www.microsoft.com/news. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://www.microsoft.com/news/contactpr.mspx.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Sept. 16, 2013 — As Sibos 2013 gets underway, SunGard, Thomson Reuters, Temenos and FreedomPay are announcing new apps for Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 that will help financial services companies across the world grow their businesses with mobile experiences for employees and customers.

According to Gartner, “CIOs see these technologies as disrupting business fundamentally over the next 10 years. When asked which digital technologies would be most disruptive, 70 percent of CIOs cited mobile technologies, followed by big data/analytics at 55 percent, social media at 54 percent and public cloud at 51 percent.”* By year end of 2015, 40 percent of all in-person interactions between banks and their customers will be initiated or completed using a tablet computer.**

“Customers have more information and ways to connect than ever before. Providing an easy, do-it-your-way experience that is personally and professionally relevant is essential to customer retention and acquisition. Competition is coming from non-banks and changing the financial services industry landscape, and the bottom line is more important than ever,” said Karen Cone, general manager, Microsoft Financial Services. “Microsoft and our industry partners are focused on building great mobile experiences to help financial services institutions harness this new technology and evolve their businesses.”

Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 devices continue Microsoft’s long history of providing the security, manageability and compliance that financial services companies rely on. As financial services go mobile, the importance of access control, data security and computing power become even more important. App builders for the financial services industry recognize the power of the Windows 8 platform on mobile devices as essential to providing the solutions that their customers demand. Windows 8 enables new critical business mobility and productivity scenarios that meet the rigorous IT standards for security, manageability and support required in today’s financial services industry.

SunGard removes barriers between branch employees and customers

In today’s bank branch environment, employees need to be able to move around and engage customers on their terms, and Windows 8 devices help them do this. SunGard is announcing the availability of its tablet banking solution, Ambit Concierge, on Windows 8. SunGard’s Ambit Concierge helps empower relationship managers with real-time, secured mobile access to customer, product and service information, helping to deliver a more personalized, convenient service to enhance the customer experience. Combining the rich functionality of Ambit Concierge with the affordability, enhanced security and mass usability of Windows 8 will help retail banks address the growing need for increased connectivity to multiple information sources and channels. This will help empower relationship managers and drive growth through more competitive client service.

Thomson Reuters helps make board meetings more secure

Thomson Reuters is announcing its BoardLink app for Windows 8 this week. BoardLink offers company board members an easy, direct and more secure way to access and share information. Today, many board meetings require a physical book of documents for board members to review, which can present security concerns. The boards of public companies also face heightened scrutiny from investors, regulators and the media, and therefore increasingly rely on technology for support and assistance. BoardLink encrypts the important information on meeting attendees’ tablets, provides links to Thomson Reuters’ market information, and ensures attendees are informed and prepared with continuously updated information. The BoardLink app for Windows 8 allows users to seamlessly integrate their board experience across desktop and mobile devices. Board members can access data from remote locations around the clock without compromising security. Developing on Windows 8 also allows BoardLink to reach new audiences around the world.

Temenos creates central location for data

Temenos, the market-leading provider of banking software systems, announced a prototype Temenos Treasury Management Dashboard app for Windows 8. The app provides a central location for all essential data for treasury managers and senior bank members. Using the intuitive Windows 8 touch navigation and live tiles, the Treasury Management Dashboard app provides a constantly updated and centralized view of risk and positioning, giving users the ability to better manage potential opportunities and challenges.

FreedomPay and Windows Phone 8 make mobile money easy

FreedomPay, a mobile payment and incentive company, has developed the FreedomPay Commerce Platform, available first on Windows Phone 8, which allows consumers to use the platform as a mobile wallet to pay at local stores and get exclusive mobile incentives. Payment cards, offers and loyalty cards are secured in the SEEK digital wallet, which simplifies the consumer’s payment experience. It also benefits banks, as they can white label the powerful commerce platform to target consumers based on buying habits and use the app to deliver highly relevant offers to them. By taking advantage of the intuitive user experience on Windows Phone 8, FreedomPay gets a more immersive app experience, including benefits such as Live Tiles, enhanced search and an easy-to-navigate, user-centric interface.

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

* Gartner press release, “Gartner Executive Program Survey of More Than 2,000 CIOs Shows Digital Technologies Are Top Priorities in 2013,” Jan. 16, 2013, http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2304615

** Gartner, “Predicts 2013: External Forces Will Increasingly Challenge Banks and Investment Services Firms,” published Nov. 20, 2012.

Note to editors: For more information, news and perspectives from Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft News Center at http://www.microsoft.com/news. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://www.microsoft.com/news/contactpr.mspx.

AMSTERDAM — Sept. 13, 2013 — At the International Broadcasters Conference (IBC) today, Microsoft Corp. announced a host of new features to be included in the next version of its digital rights management system, PlayReady, when it is released later this year. This new version of PlayReady will support industry standards including HTML5, Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) and the MPEG-DASH streaming format as well as provide software development kits (SDKs) for iOS and Android.

“Microsoft is committed to enabling premium content without plug-ins in the browser using HTML5 EME and MPEG-DASH. Beginning with Windows 8.1, we have taken the lead in driving its adoption” said Hayete Gallot, Senior director for Microsoft’s PlayReady business. “We are working with companies across the content delivery spectrum to ensure that consumers can access premium content inside or outside the home on whichever device or service they choose.”

In addition, Microsoft will accelerate the adoption of PlayReady and HTML5 EME on devices such as mobile phones, set-top boxes and smart TVs by providing a reference implementation for integrating PlayReady into next-generation browsers on those devices. The reference implementation will shorten development times and reduce complexity for ecosystem partners while enabling service providers to offer premium video directly through a viewer’s browser without plug-ins on connected devices.

With the commercial availability of PlayReady SDKs from Microsoft for iOS and Android, companies across the ecosystem will get an easy, trusted way to extend the reach of their video services to iOS and Android devices.

At IBC this week, other major providers have announced their own support and integration with PlayReady for MPEG-DASH and first-party SDKs, including industry-leading streaming media providers Envivio Inc. and Wowza Media Systems LLC. Berlin-based systems integrator Fraunhofer FOKUS has also announced availability of a reference implementation of a Content Decryption Module interface for PlayReady to deliver on the promise of HTML5.

More information on Envivio’s announcement can be found at http://www.envivio.com/en/newsandevents/archives/envivio-press-releases/menu-id-113.html.

More information on Wowza’s announcement can be found at http://www.wowza.com/news/category/events.

Microsoft will be demonstrating the new features of PlayReady in the Microsoft booth MS 1 Hall 13 this week at IBC. More details and specifications on PlayReady and its support for MPEG-DASH and HTML5 can be found in Microsoft’s new white paper at http://www.microsoft.com/playready.

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

Note to editors: For more information, news and perspectives from Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft News Center at http://www.microsoft.com/news. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://www.microsoft.com/news/contactpr.mspx.