Microsoft likely to launch Surface Laptop 2 in Black color variant on October 2Sep 17 (AZINS) Microsoft is set to host its annual Surface event on October 10, 2018 where it is expected to showcase its line of new Surface products including the refreshed Surface Laptop, Surface Pro, and Surface Studio personal computers.

Ahead of the annual event, MySmartPrice has obtained images of the upcoming Microsoft Surface Laptop 2. Interestingly, the device features an all black colour, supposedly replacing the Graphite Gold variant. The laptop will feature the same design and ports as the predecessor, albeit with an upgraded 8th Gen Intel Core series CPUs and faster memory. Reports indicate that the black colour will also be made available for the Surface Pro.

Microsoft has announced that existing Windows 7 corporate and institutional users can continue using the older OS and pay for extended security update through January 2023. The announcement is like a step backward for the company which has been aggressively pushing its Windows 10 OS to everyone for a 'modern desktop'.

In its blog, the company noted that for those trying to secure the old Windows 7 OS will be a costly affair. The Extended Security Updates (ESU) will increase year-on-year between 2020 and 2023. The longer you hold on to the older software, the costlier it gets.

To make the transition easier for enterprises upgrading to Windows 10 and Office 365 ProPlus, Microsoft also announced cloud-based analytics tools, app compatibility for upgrades, and additional deployment flexibility with servicing and support changes.

Microsoft India also recently announced the availability of Microsoft Indian language Speech Corpus, offering speech training and test data for Telugu, Tamil and Gujarati. Offering the largest publicly available Indian language speech dataset, Microsoft aims to help researchers and academia build Indian language speech recognition for all applications where speech is used.