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The first major update of Age of Empires IV for 2022 is now available. Festival of Ages brings Ranked Seasons, the Content Editor beta (and Mods), Seasonal Events, Major Balance changes, as well as lots of quality-of-life changes. Head over to AgeOfEmpires.com to watch the trailer and dig into the details of the update, which you can download and start enjoying the next time you launch the game. Continue reading...

Every year in the month of April, we celebrate Earth Day. Living in the Pacific Northwest, as the snow begins to melt and the landscape brightens, I reflect on what a privilege it is to live in such a beautiful place. The theme for this year’s global Earth Day is “Invest in Our Planet,” and I believe it represents such an important reminder for us all – to invest. So, when the time comes to celebrate the Earth and recognize the amazing progress Microsoft and our partners are making to reduce our carbon footprints, change business practices to be more environmentally responsible and create more sustainable products, I jump at the opportunity. I’m so proud of the commitment…

Sonic the Hedgehog races into Minecraft in updated downloadable content that's now available. “From the creative masterminds at Gamemode One and SEGA, this update brings back the Labyrinth Zone, a level from the 1991 game that taught me a) exploring ruins is awesome and b) don’t trust gargoyles,” writes Sophie Austin on Minecraft.net. “Armed with a new mission, you’ll have to dodge obstacles and navigate traps as you try and stop the Master Emerald from falling into nefarious hands! And if that’s not motivation enough for you, then should I mention the new character skins? That’s right, on top of the 24 existing skins, there’ll be five brand new ones!” Open up the Marketp…

Over the past two years, work has changed dramatically. Most employees want flexible and remote options to stay. Cyberthreats are at an all-time high. And with the move to hybrid work, IT managers are challenged to empower their workforces with new tech experiences. At Microsoft, it’s our responsibility to deliver tools and technologies that make hybrid work, work for you, our customers. Windows is central to this mission. Windows 11 is the operating system for hybrid work. It’s built on a compatible and familiar foundation that’s easy for IT to manage. It’s designed to meet the challenges of an ever-evolving cyber landscape and equipped with experiences that help employe…

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) aren’t space tourists. They’re workers, scientists and engineers. They are doing critical science missions in an intense operating environment where safety is paramount. On spacewalks they repair equipment, install new instruments and upgrade the largest spacecraft ever flown. Just like workers here on Earth, their gloves can show wear and tear – even rips and cuts – presenting potential safety concerns. To prevent problems from arising, astronauts working for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) must take photos of their spacesuit gloves during and after every spacewalk and transmit them down …

Tilting Point’s hit puzzle adventure anthology game Adventure Escape Mysteries is now available for Windows desktops. You can download and enjoy AEM's many stories and point-and-click brain busters for free on PCs, joining 5 million players who have experienced AEM and its continually growing story content. The average ratings for the game are better than 4.5 stars. Game critics such as AppPicker, TechWiser, AndroidAuthority and AppUnwrapper have picked Adventure Escape games as the best escape room game. Find out more by downloading Adventure Escape Mysteries from Microsoft Store and diving into the fun. Continue reading...

Basketball has been a part of Natalie White’s life since she was 5. She’s pretty sure her first word was "ball." She grew up idolizing Pat Summit, a legendary coach at the University of Tennessee. White played as a point guard on school teams and in amateur leagues in New York City through high school. All these experiences made her a passionate advocate for the sport. “So often, women's basketball has been regarded as almost a JV version of men's basketball. We have female basketball players used to wearing men's uniforms, used to shopping in the men's section, used to playing before or after the men. Everything is in relation to the men,” says White, who graduated from …

Each April we celebrate Families month at Microsoft, and our theme this year is “Empowering everyone through every stage, phase and season of our personal and professional lives.” The Families Employee Resource Group (ERG) has a vision to support employees in whatever family role they play. Collectively, we discard the idea that one can leave one’s personal life at the door when coming to work, because the modern reality is that our work lives are no longer fully separate from our personal lives. Being our whole selves means balancing a wide variety of personal and work responsibilities that all come with a host of expected and unexpected challenges. With the right suppor…

InnoGames, Germany’s developer and publisher of online and mobile games, celebrates the tenth anniversary of its strategy city-builder Forge of Empires. The title has experienced steady growth since its launch in 2012 and continues to gather momentum. To celebrate the anniversary, players can look forward to a new event with special prizes that runs from now through April 18. To date, players have spent more than 311,482  years’ worth of playtime in the game, during which time approximately 60 million cities have been built. When the game was first released it included a total of six eras and several months’ worth of content. There are now 20 eras with the release of Spac…

The first week in Candy Crush Saga’s Great Adventure Season has begun with the arrival of a guest starring character in the game – none other than Sonic the Hedgehog. All blue candies this week will be reskinned into a “sonictastic” design in the game, and two different adventures will invite you to join and to collect the blue Sonic Candies: Sonic Dash Collection and The Great Chase. If you manage to get to the top 10 on the leaderboard in the Great Chase or collect at least 5,000 blue Sonic Candies in Sonic Dash Collection, you can take a screenshot of your achievement and claim your Candy Community Sonic badge. Let the fun begin. After the first week Sonic will leave t…

The Forza Horizon 5 Series 6 update, officially named "Horizon Customs," is now available to download, celebrating both the creative and racing talents of the game's players with important upgrades to Horizon Open and EventLab. As always, the Festival Playlist is serving up new clothing items, cars and horns to unlock on Windows, Xbox and Steam, with seasonal content rolling out in the weeks that follow. Head over to ForzaMotorsports.net to find out more. Continue reading...

Spring is here, and with this season comes a feeling of growth and change. Especially with all that has been happening in the world, this season has me thinking about everything I am grateful for and the things that keep me grounded: connecting with loved ones near and far, making the most of the “little things” in life, and finding joy and inspiration from everyday tasks. That’s why, this month, we are highlighting all the ways we want to help you save time and prioritize the things that matter most to you: whether it’s making it easier to get work or school projects done with new features like Microsoft Editor and web select, helping you stay organized with Collections,…

Dell has launched a new portfolio of intelligent Windows 11 PCs, accessories and software for hybrid work. Specialty professionals and creators can maximize performance and portability with the new 14-inch Precision 5470 and is equipped with the latest 12th Gen Intel Core i9 processors, 64GB of DDR5 memory, 4TB of storage and high-performance professional graphics. [caption id=attachment_177000" align="aligncenter" width="1024]https://blogs.windows.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/2/2022/03/Dell_pr5470_crop-1024x638.jpg Dell Precision 5470[/caption] In addition, new products are aimed at business leaders and users who need portability and performance, come with 12th Gen …

https://blogs.microsoft.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/2022/03/Microsoft-Blog.jpg Photo courtesy of Minit. Today, Microsoft is announcing the acquisition of Minit, a leader in process mining technology that enables businesses to uncover opportunities for continuous process improvement and better operational efficiency. Organizations across the globe are seeking to be more operationally resilient and accelerate their digital transformation plans. Seamless operations and ensuring that every component of each business process runs smoothly is critical, but most leaders are not able to understand the actual performance of their processes and end up making decisions b…

Phone Link, formerly known as Your Phone, brings your Android phone and your Windows PC closer together. Today we are thrilled to announce the evolution of Your Phone app as Phone Link. We introduced the Your Phone experience more than three years ago, allowing you to keep your smartphone in your pocket and still be able to access your photos and texts on your computer. Since then, we have enabled more capabilities, such as the ability to filter notifications on your Windows PC, make and receive phone calls even when your phone is out of reach, and use your Android mobile apps on your Windows PC. As part of this evolution, we’re now introducing a brand-new interface t…

The creative minds at The Misfit Society have added five new Minecraft-themed ballparks to the MLB Home Run Derby downloadable content. “If you missed this fast-paced DLC the first time around, then grab your inventory and step up to the plate, friend, because your team needs you,” writes Sophie Austin on Minecraft.net. “Alongside the 30 MLB team jerseys to play in, you can now play in uniforms inspired by the bustling biomes of Minecraft. Hit a home run from a lush cave-inspired ballpark, or against the red, red backdrop of a Nether fortress grandstand.” You can download the MLB Home Run Derby DLC now from Minecraft Marketplace. For those who already own the DLC, you’ll …

The future of Internet Explorer (IE) on Windows is in Microsoft Edge and in less than three months that future will have arrived! On June 15, 2022, the Internet Explorer desktop application will retire and go out of support for certain versions of Windows 10. IE retirement is a major milestone in digital transformation for everyone. Like our customers, we've been working hard on this journey to IE retirement, and we couldn't have gotten here without you. Since we announced IE retirement last May, you’ve provided invaluable feedback that has led to improvements in Internet Explorer mode (IE mode), the legacy compatibility capability in Microsoft Edge. Two of the key enhanc…

On International Women’s Day, we celebrate the potential of women and girls everywhere, and their ideas and innovations that are shaping our future. March is also Women’s History Month in the United States. Introduced in the late 1980s, this month is a celebration of the numerous, but often overlooked, accomplishments by women across history, culture and society. This is a time to reflect — and keep working to close equity gaps. We know that companies with more diversity generate more innovation[1] and better financial results.[2] Yet less than 2% of enterprise software startups in the U.S. feature a women founder.[3] The COVID-19 pandemic has — and will continue to — …

A native of Scotland, she loves “wild” (in other words non-pool) swimming in nearby lakes (including Loch Ness) with friends and family. In the winter, she uses a wetsuit, but she doesn’t need to wear braces or tape in the cold water, which soothes her joints. Mountain hikes are also part of her routine – though her backpack comes with a feeding tube. She’s also six months out of medical school, doing a vascular surgery rotation as a junior doctor (the equivalent of a medical residency program in the U.S.). She intends to pursue a career as a pediatric physician. “In pediatrics it’s very much about helping children live with what they have,” she says. “It’s about getting …

Beneath the buzz, the metaverse is arriving in both predictable and unexpected ways. Some new experiences using headsets and mixed reality will be in your face – quite literally – but other implications will be harder to spot. As with all new categories, we’ll see intended and unintended innovations and experiences, and the security stakes will be higher than we imagine at first. There is an inherent social engineering advantage with the novelty of any new technology. In the metaverse, fraud and phishing attacks targeting your identity could come from a familiar face – literally – like an avatar who impersonates your coworker, instead of a misleading domain name or …

Sea of Thieves’ second story-driven Adventure, Forts of the Forgotten, is now live and will be available until April 7. “Rally your crew, rendezvous with Belle and set sail for the Sea Forts pulled through from the Sea of the Damned by Captain Flameheart,” writes Mike Chapman, creative director at Rare, in a post on Xbox Wire. “Expect heavy resistance from a Phantom phalanx as you battle through these ghostly fortifications to rescue the missing inhabitants of Golden Sands Outpost!” Forts of the Forgotten is available for free to all Sea of Thieves players who have bought the game on Windows PCs, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One or via Steam, or players who have access to it wit…

Starting Wednesday, Xbox Game Pass Ultimate members will be able to stream A Mountain of Entertainment, including the Paramount+ Original Series, “Halo,” premiering on March 24, along with other exclusive originals, big movies and more with a 30-day free trial to Paramount+ via Perks. Ultimate members who are new to Paramount+ will be eligible to claim the 30-day subscription trial through the Perks gallery on the Xbox app on Windows PCs, on their Xbox console or through the Xbox Game Pass mobile app on iOS and Android. Once the Perk is claimed, members will be directed to the Paramount+ site to activate their trial. The Paramount+ app is also available to download and us…

Cybersecurity continues to be a significant threat for governments, businesses and individuals around the world. From supply chain disruptions to ransomware attacks, cybercriminals have become increasingly sophisticated and the threat landscape more diverse. These cybersecurity challenges are compounded by a workforce shortage; there simply aren’t enough people with the cybersecurity skills needed to fill open jobs. This is a global problem. By 2025, there will be 3.5 million cybersecurity jobs open globally, representing a 350% increase over an eight-year period. We recently announced a national skilling campaign in the United States, where for every two jobs in cyber…

The Microsoft Partner Network is comprised of more than 400,000 global organizations and these partners are essential to how Microsoft delivers innovative products and services to customers around the world. This deep relationship between Microsoft and our partners spans more than 30 years, and in that time frame our partners have provided unique solutions across numerous industries, helping countless customers succeed in an ever-changing world. They especially have played a pivotal role in helping businesses adapt amidst the pandemic. As things continue to change and evolve, we are committed to investing in and delivering what partners need to innovate, grow their busine…

As organizations around the world make the definitive shift from remote to hybrid work, one thing is clear: the people who went home to work in 2020 are not the same people returning to the office in 2022. There’s no erasing the experience of the last two years and employee expectations are higher than ever. They want flexibility and face time, and are making career changes that prioritize personal goals and well-being. And based on findings from our 2022 Work Trend Index, there’s no going back to the way it once was. Understanding and keeping pace with new expectations is a challenge facing every leader today — and one that will be key to making hybrid work work. Our …