Microsoft snippets: A billion documents on SkyDrive, Spotify on Windows Phone 8

 A billion Office documents have been saved to SkyDrive, Microsoft announced today. This number will surely grow with Office 2013 using SkyDrive as the default save location.

Previously, editing those documents with the Office Web Apps required a Microsoft account. Microsoft has changed that policy. While a Microsoft account is still required to have your own SkyDrive and documents, you can now edit other people's documents to which you've been invited even without an account; you just need the invitation link. This should make co-authoring simpler and more accessible.
Surface Pro goes on sale in the US and Canada tomorrow. While we thought the system had flaws, OneNote die-hards will probably fall in love with it and graphic artists might find it an intriguing proposition too—a device that's comparable to a Wacom Cintiq drawing tablet, only it packs an entire computer into the screen. Microsoft was originally planning a launch event in New York City to celebrate the release, but that's been cancelled as apparently the city is expecting a wee dusting of snow.

We learned last month that Microsoft was increasing availability of the Surface RT in "coming weeks." That timeframe is now concrete: from February 14th, the Surface RT will be available in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland.

Also announced last month was a new Surface RT SKU—64 GB without a bundled keyboard. That will be going on sale from tomorrow, so you'll no longer need to get a boring old black Touch Cover if you want the higher capacity unit. You will, however, be able to get one of the new patterned Touch Covers and Surface-styled Wedge Mouse, which also go on sale tomorrow.
Way back at the Windows Phone 8 launch last year, Microsoft promised that Spotify was coming to the platform. Windows Phone 7 had a Spotify client, but it's one of the small selection of apps that weren't compatible with Windows Phone 8 due to its use of native code. The new free app is still a "beta," and it comes with a 30-day Spotify trial.          (by Peter Bright from arstechnica.com)



 (Peter Bright / Peter is a Microsoft Contributor at Ars. He also covers programming and software development, Web technology and browsers, and security. He is based in London, UK.)