Microsoft kills Messenger to push Skype Video

Microsoft kills Messenger to push Skype Video Transcript

-Windows Live Messenger is putting up its away message forever. I'm Bridget Carey and this is your CNET Update. Windows Live Messenger is a goner. Microsoft announced that it will kill Live Messenger early next year in order to get everyone using Skype for instant messaging. Users will be able to transfer their contacts in the latest version of Skype and the Skype app does work with more devices like the iPad and Android tablets. There's a Windows phone 8 version of Skype on the way, but there's no word on when it'll arrive in the Windows app store. The goal for Microsoft is to have you run Skype on your machine all day long and use it as your main shot service not just for video and voice calls. The new Xbox SmartGlass app is now available for Apple devices. The app turns an iOS device into a second screen for navigating the Xbox Dashboard. You can use the screen keyboard for faster typing, so you don't have to buy one of those keyboard accessories and some games have extra features for the second screen, like Halo 4 and Dance Central 3. And if you're wondering about when we'll see an app for Microsoft Office, well, it could be early next year. That's according to a report from The Verge. It said the app would launch for Apple and Android devices, but you might need a subscription to Office 365. iOS users can also get a Sony Reader app for the first time. There's no word from Sony on why it took so long to have its own reader app for Apple. Amazon has the Kindle app and there's the Nook and Kobo app. So, yeah, anyone with a Sony Reader account, you can finally access your books on an Apple device. And speaking of digital books, DC Comics' fans can now read weekly digital issues in more ways. Besides the comiXology or DC Comics app, for the first time, you can get weekly single issue comics in the eBook stores. Readers can find new issues for 70 titles in the Kindle Store, Apple iBookstore, and the Nook Bookstore. One comic you can see now is Action Comics #14 where astrophysicist, Neil deGrasse Tyson, makes a cameo to help Superman find his home planet, Krypton, but he did actually find and track down a Krypton-like system in our universe. If you have a telescope, you can check it out. It's a red dwarf in the constellation Corvus just, you know, 27.1 light years from Earth. That's your tech news update for today. You can find links to all of today's stories on the blog cnet.com/update. From our studios in New York, I'm Bridget Carey.