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Windows is the heartbeat of modern work: consistent, reliable, familiar, intuitive – quietly supporting the apps and experiences in Microsoft 365 that empower people to do more, achieve more. Enabling IT to manage and secure devices regardless of how, when and how frequently they connect. We believe that the work of the future will be powered by the cloud. As the world’s workforce begins a hybrid working style where files, apps and data need to be accessible from both home and the office – and everywhere in between – it’s up us to make sure that they can work from any device, access whatever they need, print from anywhere, and keep everything secure at all times. The need…

https://blogs.microsoft.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/2021/03/JPG-MSC19_singaporeDigiGirlz_004-1-scaled.jpg I started to realize my journey to empowerment at age 17, standing inside Mumbai airport for the first time in my life and getting ready to fly 8,000 miles away from home. I had received a Rotary Youth Exchange Scholarship to study in the United States for my senior year of high school. After going through exit immigration, I turn around and could see my parents waving with tear-filled eyes. As I left, I reflected on how much of a leap of faith they had made. Although it was almost inconceivable that a young Indian woman would leave her parents’ home so early to…

The latest Minecraft Dungeons DLC, Flames of the Nether, is now available alongside a substantial free update, on Windows PC or Xbox One. Over at Minecraft.net, you can find out more, including resources that may help before you jump into the game. Continue reading...

Over the past year, we have experienced dramatic disruption around the world. Companies in every industry have turned to digital technologies for the resilience and agility necessary to survive. The urgency for entire industries to transform at scale has never been greater. In response, we have accelerated our efforts to support and co-innovate with customers and partners — both now and long term — with industry-specific cloud offerings that can provide a launchpad for further innovations. Today, we’re announcing another milestone in those efforts with three new industry-specific cloud offerings: Microsoft Cloud for Financial Services, Microsoft Cloud for Manufactur…

Last week the Microsoft Flight Simulator team released World Update 3, giving “simmers” a dazzling flight experience throughout the United Kingdom and Ireland. “Take flight into a region rich with tradition, culture and heritage — not to mention a fair share of myth and legend,” writes Head of Microsoft Flight Simulator Jorg Neumann in a post on Xbox Wire. “From seats of royalty to centers of finance, bustling metropolitan hubs to sprawling farmsteads and cliffside villages, the splendor of the United Kingdom and Ireland is on full display with dramatic upgrades and visual enhancements.” Microsoft Flight Simulator is available on Xbox Game Pass for PC, Windows 10 and Stea…

The “accept cookies” pop-up is a familiar sight as we browse the internet. How do you know which are safe? And are they even necessary? The Windows Resource Center has broken cookies down into their main ingredients so you can make the best call. A new blog posts summarizes why cookies can be a good thing, helping your favorite websites get to know you so they can offer what you want and make browsing and shopping experiences smooth. It also shows how cookies can be bad, and points you to tools to help keep your private information private as you navigate sites that use cookies. Head on over to the blog post, and safe surfing to you! Continue reading...

Lenovo’s latest additions to its ThinkPad portfolio include a completely redesigned X13 and X13 Yoga with 16:10 aspect ratio displays and updated T and L series. The company also introduced a new premium display and refreshed ThinkPad mobile workstations with flexible processor options, discrete graphics and improved displays. You can tailor the new ThinkPad laptops to your needs, with options that include 11th Gen Intel Core vPro processors and the latest AMD Ryzen 5000 Series Mobile Processors. [caption id=attachment_175397" align="aligncenter" width="955]https://blogs.windows.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/2/2021/02/01_Thinkvision_P40w_Hardware_Partition_In_Pbp-1024…

Minecraft: Education Edition's Lessons in Good Trouble includes many famous activists throughout history and the world – such as Malala Yousafzai, Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and suffragist Emmeline Pankhurst – and learning zones that take learners of any age to many places, including Selma, Alabama, India, Pakistan, the U.K. and South Africa. The latest two lessons are on the Black Lives Matter and the U.S. civil rights movements (focused on the march across Edmund Pettus Bridge, the Greensboro Lunch Counter Sit-Ins and Rosa Parks’ protest against public segregation). There will be 10 lessons in all, releasing over the course of spring. They all reinforce how “good tr…

At Microsoft we’ve been focused on learning about effective allyship in the workplace. Part of the mindset necessary for allyship is about accepting what we don’t know, being willing to be wrong, and even taking some risks to drive meaningful change. On March 17, we’re going to try something we’ve never done before: Microsoft will host Include 2021, a free, global, digital event open to all and focused on diversity and inclusion. Include 2021 will feature global experts in academia, social change, and diversity and inclusion leading in-depth conversations about how we spark and support lasting culture change. Anyone can register for this public event and learn more abo…

Today, we are introducing the next feature update to Windows 10, version 21H1. As people continue to rely on Windows more than ever to work, learn and have fun, we understand the importance of providing the best possible update experience to help people and organizations stay protected and productive. It is a responsibility we do not take lightly and why for the first time an H1 (first half of the calendar year) feature update release will be delivered in an optimized way using servicing technology, while continuing our semi-annual feature update cadence. In today’s blog I will cover details on how we plan to service the release, its scope, and next steps. Fast and focus…

Forza Street players who want to know about the latest Showdown and what’s coming next can turn to the Forza Developer Blog to find out about the introduction of the 2017 Mercedes-AMG GT R. The blog also teases a bit about the next Showdown, which will have an ‘80s theme. The Forza team has also introduced a new speedometer and are working to improve the user experience as Forza Street’s one year anniversary rapidly approaches. Find out more over on their blog. Continue reading...

https://blogs.microsoft.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/2021/02/Cropped_Rik-van-der-Kooi-at-march.jpg Rik van der Kooi at the Seattle Children’s March, June 13, 2020. Numerous devastating, disturbing and very public situations of racial injustice over the past year have compelled me – a straight, white man – to examine the role I play in perpetuating social inequities and the opportunity I have to help eradicate them. How do I use my privilege, my access to opportunities without barriers, to eliminate acts of hate and violence on communities of color? The disproportionate impact of the pandemic on the Black community? The starkly different response from law enforcement to…

Today we’re excited to announce that Microsoft’s presence in Georgia is growing. We will complete our new office space in Atlantic Yards this year, and we’ll be adding even more space for our future. This includes plans for a new datacenter region with a presence in Douglas and Fulton counties, and the purchase of a 90-acre parcel of land to house a future campus at Quarry Yards and Quarry Hills. These are all significant investments and put Atlanta on the path toward becoming one of Microsoft’s largest hubs in the United States in the coming decade, after Puget Sound and Silicon Valley. When we open the doors to our offices in Atlantic Yards this summer, we will be ab…

The Microsoft partner ecosystem is extensive, diverse and powerful. For decades it has been and continues to be at the center of how Microsoft delivers technology, services and cloud-to-edge solutions that enable business transformation for customers around the world. In fact, partners influence more than 95% of Microsoft’s commercial revenue, either directly, or in partnership with Microsoft. Given the COVID-19, economic and geo-political challenges everyone has experienced in the last year, and the many ways that partners across our ecosystem have helped customers build resiliency, adapt to change and overcome challenges, today’s updates and perspective as to how par…

This week marks the beginning of Lunar New Year, celebrated around the world by more than 2 billion people, who this year will ring in the Year of the Ox. The last time the Ox made an appearance was in 2009 – the year of the very first version of Minecraft. Get festive with free skins in the Marketplace and Character Creator. Find out more at Minecraft.net. Continue reading...

The Minecraft Dungeons community has crossed a major milestone: reaching 10 million players across all supported platforms, since its launch in May. To celebrate reaching this monumental point, players will see a new cape and a pet. Find out more at Minecraft.net. Continue reading...

For the first time, the Forza franchise is headed to Steam, on March 9, with the award-winning Forza Horizon 4. Put the game on your Steam wishlist and you’ll be notified when the game is available to buy. Steam players will soon join millions of monthly Forza Horizon 4 players as they race across historic Britain in the open-world automotive adventure and join a creative community that celebrates automotive culture. With cross-play, Steam players drive alongside their friends and rivals who are racing on Xbox devices, Windows 10 PCs and cloud gaming with Game Pass Ultimate on Android mobile devices. Find out more on Xbox Wire. Continue reading...

If you play Minecraft Dungeons, Feb. 24 is a day you’re going to look forward to, as it’s when you can embark on six new missions thanks to the Flames of the Nether downloadable content. Players can collect new artifacts, weapons and gear. There’s also a free update releasing that day that includes a major new feature called Ancient Hunts, which are procedurally generated end-game missions that weave in and out of the Nether. Find out more over at Minecraft.net. Continue reading...

In honor of Black History Month, Undead Labs has commissioned Black artist Ty Ferrell to create a limited edition T-shirt, which is available from the official Xbox Gear shop. In-game, a free cosmetic version of the T-shirt, will be available to State of Decay 2 players. “At Undead Labs, we make games about surviving together. The heart and strength of the community lie at the foundation of the State of Decay games, and this is by design. We believe this is also true in the real world, and that we do our best work when we come together,” writes Wonder Russell, comms director at Undead Labs. Profits from the T-shirt sales will go to the National Association for the Advance…

Paul Martin, Dhayana Sena, Marissa Urban and Eden Hamblin are four of more than 325,000 Xbox Ambassadors around the world. The program, which celebrates its 10th anniversary this year, began as a way for Xbox gamers to help other gamers through troubleshooting, technical support and helping them reach new levels in a title. From there, it grew into a community that showed up for each other in many other ways, including initiating charity streams, teaching STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) to girls and creating relationships with all kinds of gamers around the world, says Lea Natalello, who joined the Xbox staff in 2017 and works closely with the Amb…

At Microsoft, we are committed to building products that add to your peace of mind by letting you securely access what you care about, wherever you are. Millions trust us daily to access documents, mails, chats and so much more both on phones and PCs. An area where customers reported they still experience hassles is remembering and managing their passwords. Safely storing and remembering passwords for many sites is hard and leads to customers using unsafe practices like using the same or similar passwords on multiple sites or storing passwords where they can be read or compromised. Today, we are excited to introduce autofill capabilities across devices and platforms, whic…

I’m looking forward to participating in Episode 2 of Envision, which will air in the Americas on Tuesday, Feb. 16, and then be broadcast the following day in Asia Pacific and Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Presented by Accenture, Avanade, and Microsoft, Envision is our digital series for business leaders and has become a truly global event. It’s where decision makers from around the world can come together to exchange insights and perspectives on today’s key business challenges. During Episode 2, I’ll describe how our world is being shaped by five macro forces across health, climate change, employment, technology and GDP, and how they are creating exciting opp…

Editor’s note: Today, Kurt DelBene, executive vice president at Microsoft, shared the below update with Puget Sound employees on our previously-announced initiative to stand up a vaccination site on our Redmond campus. To: Microsoft employees in Puget Sound Date: Wednesday, 2/3/2021 Subject: Update on the community vaccination site in Redmond Hi Everyone, Even as we recognize numerous challenges the COVID-19 pandemic has brought to our global structures and economies, we also know that hardships can lead to innovation. Positive outcomes can come from applying the strength of an individual or an organization to solve new problems. At Microsoft, we are in a posit…

I was in elementary school when I realized how much my life would be defined by the color of my skin. The math teacher was introducing us to the concept of probability. At the start of class, she wrote four numbers on the board. She asked us to guess what they represented – none of us had any idea. They were, she explained, life expectancies – those of a white woman, a white man, a Black woman, and a Black man, in descending order. A hush went over the room. I was uncomfortably aware that I was the only Black student. I still recall the furtive looks my classmates gave me as they whispered to each other … “Why is Sarah going to die earlier?” I felt a wave of confusion.…

Hi, I have called myself Grinder but you don’t need to know why? I have n old Xperia bench top Xperia machine, a win10 notebook & an iPad.