Microsoft and Google working together to combat browser compatibility issues

Posted on by Prakhar Khanna

Microsoft and Google are coming together to help web developers by establishing compatibility of a website across all browsers. The main pain point of Web developers is the compatibility of their website across browsers. And, with this partnership – named #Compat2021 – Microsoft and Google are aiming to resolve five main issues for browser compatibility issues: CSS Flexbox, CSS Grid, position: sticky, aspect-ratio, and CSS transforms. They are also inviting Web developers to contribute to the cause.

The latest development comes from a tweet from Chrome Developers, which revealed that Microsoft and Google are joining forces in Project #Compat2021. They’ll be working on resolving major issues faced by Web developers regarding compatibility across browsers. Google says it gathered information through a Google project called Web Developer Satisfaction, or DevSAT, which revealed five main issues. Additional research has been done in various channels, such as the State of CSS and State of JS surveys. The company says that the goal in 2021 is to eliminate browser compatibility problems in five key focus areas to help developers build their websites on reliable foundations.

CSS Flexbox is a tool that helps developers align images on their webpage. The issue is auto-align function that malfunctions. As a result, images are incorrectly proportioned across different browsers. As for CSS Grid, an improvement would help create animated grid layouts on Chromium and WebKit as Gecko already supports this feature. Further, CSS position: sticky helps place and fix content on the webpage. Improving this would bring consistency across browsers.

Google also says that the partnership aims to fix the aspect-ratio to maintain a consistent height-to-width ratio for various elements. Moreover, an improvement in CSS transforms will help with consistency in 3D effects and animation on different browsers. There will be regular updates about the progress here on web.dev and you can also follow the progress for each focus area in the Compat 2021 Dashboard.

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Microsoft’s free Face Swap Android app sounds fun, practical and fairly ‘sophisticated’

Posted on by Adrian Diaconescu

You should reserve judgment until downloading it (for free) and taking it for a spin, but Microsoft's Face Swap Android app looks interesting on paper.

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Windows 10 Cloud is the codename of Microsoft’s Chromebook counteroffensive effort

Posted on by Adrian Diaconescu

Despite what the strongly rumored codename suggests, Windows 10 Cloud will apparently have very little to do with the cloud, instead contending Chromebooks.

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Microsoft joins AMP project with Bing results showing them off

Posted on by Jules Wang

Facebook has them. So does Google.  And now Bing can join in on the fast lane.Microsoft announced that Bing would start officially linking to Accelerated Mobile Pages within its applicable search results. Content partners in the open source project will have their AMP articles — optimized HTML pages for easy, no-nonsense reading — load from close-by servers. Non-AMP pages will be called upon when ...

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Microsoft Word Flow 2.0 has Bing-powered GIF search, contact and business lookup

Posted on by Jules Wang

It’s been four months since Microsoft struck on a keyboard for iOS that made typing with a single thumb’s arc a whole bunch easier. Now, if only there were a way to add a GIF to it.Well, Word Flow 2.0 is now out and it comes with a bunch of new, internet-powered features like a search function for emoji, images, GIFs, businesses, news, facts, videos, contacts, blah blah blah… all of it powered by Microsoft’s own

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Bing Concierge Bot joins the voice assistant fray

Posted on by Jules Wang

Every company that can afford to build a neural network that can learn deeper than deep is seemingly doing so right now.Microsoft is hiring a software engineer that will work on something called the “Bing Concierge Bot,” an AI-based assistant more similar to Facebook M or

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Microsoft locks down Cortana to kill Bing-, Edge-dodging hacks

Posted on by Stephen Schenck

Voice-powered assistants are becoming more and more popular ways for users to get access to data, using them to conduct searches and connect with the websites holding  answers. But for as powerful as they are, use of such services can mean making certain compromises. Take Google’s voice search on Android devices, for instance: you can ask it to search for anything you choose, but it’s only going to give you results from Google’s own servers – there’s no easy way to ...

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Microsoft radically updates Bing Android app both visually and functionally

Posted on by Adrian Diaconescu

It may seem like Microsoft is fighting a losing battle in web search, but sometimes, even ranking second can be good enough for a tech giant of Redmond’s caliber, as long as that means servicing more than 20 percent of US e-queries.On Android devices, you have to figure it’s much harder for Bing to steal a couple of percentage points away from Google, though the app’s latest major update should definitely help. The key is to keep an open mind, and at least give the perennial underdog a chance, as the potential is clearly there for Bing to surprise you.Previously rolled out to iOS ...

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You can switch up Microsoft Edge’s search engines on Windows 10 Mobile soon

Posted on by Jules Wang

Microsoft is clingy. It’s implanted Internet Explorer as your default web browser for the longest time. And if you happen to use Microsoft Edge on a frequent basis, you’ll have found out how to switch your search engine: you have to go to the search engine site, then go into “Advanced Settings” and then choose from a list of possible (if implausible) search providers.Very intuitive, indeed.The Microsoft Edge app for Windows 10 Mobile does not have this feature right now, ...

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Google may lose its supremacy as Safari’s default search engine

Posted on by Jaime Rivera

Apple seems to be drifting farther apart from the original partnership it started with Google on the original iPhone. Surely Google has brought significant competition to Apple on the Android space, but some of these changes have actually been positive for Apple in the long run. We all remember the disastrous move to Apple Maps, but that doesn’t change the fact that Google Maps wasn’t allowed to launch ...

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I hope Microsoft brings Cortana to Android

Posted on by Joe Levi

Back in the day we used to refer to our electronic devices as PDAs — Personal Digital Assistants. They weren’t. In fact, they weren’t much more than battery-operated day planners, the paper versions of which were in style around the turn of the century. Today these devices have given way to Internet-connected smartphones that are finally starting to include the ability to complete core tasks via voice-assisted input. Apple has Siri. Google has Google Now. Finally, Microsoft has Cortana.

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Bing rewards launched for iOS and Android; Windows Phone soon

Posted on by Jaime Rivera

Microsoft’s Bing Rewards has reached a decent level of popularity on desktop browsers. By using its services, Bing awards you with credits that can later be used to redeem rewards in Amazon, Xbox, Skype, and other gift cards, and which even allow you to donate these credits to schools or charities as well. The only problem the service had is that it was only available on the desktop, or at least it was a problem until today. Microsoft has just launched the service on iOS and Android, which will give you similar functionality to what you get on the desktop for now, but not quite ...

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LG G2 announced, Android Device Manager public, Samsung 384GB chip & more – Pocketnow Daily

Posted on by Jaime Rivera

We apologize for the late upload due to some technical difficulties that just got solved. Watch today’s Pocketnow Daily as we talk about Google’s Android Device Manager, which just went public for all markets. Microsoft follows with an announcement of their Bing app suite for Windows Phone 8, though with some boring services. Whatsapp is next as the company has reached 300 Million users and is now offering voice messaging. Samsung’s 384GB storage chip takes the spotlight next, even though it’s hard to tell when we’ll get it. We end today’s show talking ...

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Microsoft launches new Bing app suite for Windows Phone 8

Posted on by Stephen Schenck

There may be ongoing efforts to draw more developers over to Windows Phone, helping increase both the selection and quality of available apps, but Microsoft isn’t just looking to third parties to deliver compelling apps. The company is very much keeping itself in the mix, and today announced its own latest series of WP8 apps, a collection of Bing-branded software to keep you on top of all things from the worlds of news, sports, finance, and weather. Bing News pulls the latest stories from a collection ...

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