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Hello Windows Insiders! Today we are excited to be releasing Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 14942 for PC to Windows Insiders in the Fast ring. What’s new in Build 14942 Hide app list on Start: We are releasing a new feature that enables you to collapse the app list in the Start menu. This has been a top feedback request from Windows Insiders. You can try it out by going to Settings > Personalization > Start and turning on “Hide app list in Start menu”. https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/b1af0f9e81c9468390da125daea67e62.png Photos app update: With the latest Photos app update on your PC, the Photos app on your PC is now more beautiful and easier to navigate! https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/dc7eb7895c22742933dbe79786b4e9e8.png Photos now has a horizontal navigation bar that makes it easier to view memories by Albums and Folders. Let your photo collection shine! We’ve got a new, light viewing mode for your pics. You can always go back to the dark theme in settings. When viewing photos in full screen, we’ve added new animations in and out of the Collection view, making it easier to keep track of where you are browsing. See individual photos more quickly with your mouse—and now we support full screen. Plus, the Photos app is now available on your Xbox One! Show off a slideshow of all your OneDrive photos in your living room. Simply make sure you are signed in with your Microsoft account to see all your OneDrive photos on the big screen. Refining your precision touchpad experience: Based on the feedback we have received, we have made some adjustments to our gesture and click detection on precision touchpads. This includes enhancing detection and disambiguation of left and right clicks, making two finger taps and clicks a bit easier, reducing false positives in our two-finger tap detection and improving our pinch to zoom detection. We have also made algorithm changes in an effort to reduce inadvertent zooming when panning. If you have a precision touchpad on your device, please take the opportunity try out with this build and let us know how it feels with these changes. Improving the PC upgrade experience: Starting with build 14926, we announced that if you uninstall one of the preinstalled apps on Windows, that state will now be preserved after upgrade. With today’s build, we’re happy to let you know that we’ve taken that work a step further: after upgrading from 14942, if an IT-Pro has de-provisioned an app from your OS image (and you haven’t reinstalled it yourself), that provisioning status will now be preserved after upgrade, and the app will not reinstall. We appreciate everyone who shared feedback with us about this – if you have any other feedback about your upgrade experience, please don’t hesitate to log it – we’re listening! New Windows Update icon: We have introduced a new Windows Update icon to match the rest of the new iconography in Windows 10. After installing this build, you will see the new icon when Windows Update notifications appear and via Action Center. You can also manage notifications from Windows Update via Settings > System > Notifications. https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/1cbad7db5241aaabe968261615fb5731.png Service hosts are split into separate processes on PCs with 3.5 GB+ of RAM: If your PC has 3.5+ GB of memory, you may notice an increased number of processes in Task Manager. While this change may look concerning at first glance, many will be excited to find out the motivation behind this change. As the number of preinstalled services grew, they began to get grouped into processes known as service hosts (svchost.exe’s) with Windows 2000. Note that the recommended RAM for PC’s for this release was 256 MB, while the minimum RAM was 64MB. Because of the dramatic increase in available memory over the years, the memory-saving advantage of service hosts has diminished. Accordingly, ungrouping services on memory-rich (3.5+ GB of RAM) PCs running Windows now offers us the opportunity to do the following: Increase reliability: When one service in a service host fails, all services in the service host fail. In other words, the service host process is terminated resulting in termination of all running services within that process. Individual service failure actions are then run. As you may have noticed in Task Manager before, service hosts can contain a lot of services:https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/47dfffed694126e62763e168af6348f7.png Increase transparency: Task Manager will now give you a better view into what is going on behind the scenes. You can now see how much CPU, Memory, Disk & Network individual services are consuming. https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/c75b1181cefc1b784b14d05745c183bd.png To see the name of the service, click on the left-most arrow such that the Display name drops down. Alternatively, right-click on the header and select ‘Command Line’ to add the Command Line column. Service names will be listed in the format ‘svchost.exe -k <svchost name> -s <service name>.’ Reduce servicing costs: Following reports of instability, service engineers, IT admins, and Microsoft engineers can rapidly pinpoint issues to the exact service and fix it. Increase security: Process isolation and individual permission sets for services will increase security. Note that critical system services (services whose recovery require system restarts), as well as a couple of select service hosts, will remain grouped. Expanding the Active Hours default range: We’ve heard the feedback that you like the control Active Hours provides over when your PC restarts for updates, however feel that that the default 12 hour range on PC is too limited. We want to accommodate various enterprise environments and schedules including those where employees have double shifts, so starting with Build 14942, we’ve changed this range for PCs on Pro, Enterprise, or Education editions to 18 hours. This means Insiders using these editions can now set active hours up to 18 hours from the selected start time (same as Mobile). We’ve added text to the active hours dialog so users always know what the default range is when choosing their times. We’ve also added the ability for the default range to be configured via new group and MDM policies (configurable up to 18 hours). New text will be displayed on the active hours dialog to indicate when the default range is configured via the policy. PCs using Home edition will continue to have a default range of 12 hours. https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/345b1261f03d53e47d904a29b4734481.png Form field navigation in Narrator: We are excited to announce that this build introduces form field navigation to Narrator. In Scan Mode, you can now use the following commands to jump to form fields: F and Shift + F: Jump to next/previous form field C and Shift + C: Jump to next/previous combo box E and Shift + E: Jump to next/previous edit box X and Shift + X: Jump to next/previous check box R and Shift + R: Jump to next/previous radio button B and Shift + B: Jump to next/previous button Basically, the letter moves forward and Shift + letter moves in reverse. Form Fields have been added to Narrator’s Search and Select feature which is available at any time by pressing Ctrl + Shift + Enter. Search and Select allows you to list items such as buttons, links, headings and other elements available in an app, webpage or document. A new view is now available for form fields. The active view can be changed by pressing Caps Lock and using the up and down arrows to navigate the list of views on the keyboard, or single finger up/down flicks with touch. Other improvements and fixes for PC We’ve updated Narrator’s reading order for Windows 10 apps which display an app bar on the bottom of the app, for example OneDrive, so now the contents of the page will be read before the contents of the app bar. We fixed an issue where running sfc /scannow in an elevated command prompt would fail at 20% with the error “could not perform the requested operation.” We fixed an issue resulting in certain areas of Windows 10 app notifications not doing anything when clicked, rather than opening the corresponding app. We fixed an issue resulting in Personalization > Background Settings page crashing or showing a blank context menu when right clicking one of the recent images . Fixed an issue resulting in Windows Defender’s Antimalware Service Executable sometimes using an unexpectedly large amount of CPU. We fixed an issue resulting in the Devices and Printers page in Control Panel loading slowly for users with certain audio devices. We fixed an issue resulting in a small set of users seeing the NTFS partition of their external hard drive incorrectly showing up as RAW format. Going forward from Build 14942, custom printer names will be preserved across upgrades. We’ve also addressed an issue where the printer queue name wasn’t preserved across upgrade for some printers. Improved framerates when Game Bar is enabled for full screen games. Known issues for PC Insiders doing web development may find themselves their local intranet server unreachable, as service host separation will leave the IIS World Wide Web Publishing Service (W3Svc) unable to start successfully. To fix this issue: Run the following from an admin cmd line (or edit the registry accordingly): REG ADD HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\W3SVC /v SvcHostSplitDisable /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f REG ADD HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\WAS /v SvcHostSplitDisable /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f [*]Reboot the system, so that the W3Svc and WAS services share a service host process. Other items of note Another very important reminder about build expiration (last reminder) We want to continue to remind Windows Insiders about the upcoming expiration of old Insider Preview builds. Since October 1st, PCs running really old Insider Preview builds have started to reboot every 3 hours. Starting on October 15th – these PCs will stop booting all together. If your PC is running one of these old Insider Preview builds, please make sure you update to the latest build available via Settings > Update & security > Windows Update. Build 14926 and newer has an updated expiration date of May 1st, 2017. If your PC is running the Windows 10 Anniversary Update (Build 14393) in the Slow and Release Preview rings today – this does not apply to you and you will not be notified of your build expiring. Team Updates Once upon a time, you used to draw. Remember? You were 2 or 3 years old and you created the original selfie: a stick figure of you with your family. Maybe some clouds. But one day, someone said, “that’s not very good.” And some of you stopped drawing. Why is that? Imagine if the same thing happened if someone had criticized your reading or math. Would you have stopped? Of course not. Reading and math are important, right? Everyone needs to know these things. But why is creation different? At an early age, many of us seem to be taught that creating is not that important. We have a different belief. We believe that creating IS one of those important things. We’re here to ask for your help in reigniting the creative side in yourself and others. We need you to doodle again. The world needs it. Look around: the same social problems that have been around for generations are growing ever more complex. It’s time to use both sides of ourselves, BOTH the creative and the technical skills we all have to solve some of these. Today, in partnership with the Microsoft retail stores, the Windows Insider Team is honored to announce #WINsiders4Good Give Month. October has always been a very important month for Microsoft. Every employee is encouraged to use their technical and creative selves to solve social problems they are passionate about and this year we want to extend that to our Windows Insiders as well. https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/a89d258b8d62f4fa9cb80e03722ce3e2.jpg During the month of October, if you are not registered, we invite you to join the Windows Insiders program at insider.windows.com and work alongside us for Give month. Each retail store will host a Create-A-Thon, and pull together technical and creative people from the local community along with a non-profit organization to tackle a long-standing problem. The goal of each store’s group is to drive creative solutions for this problem during the course of the month using modern technology. Each group will present the solution on November 8th in a global live stream across all retail stores. This relationship will deepen and grow over the next many months as our partners start to use your solutions. For you NYC based Insiders, I really hope to see you at the Microsoft Store (677 5th Ave, New York, NY 10022) on Saturday October 8th at 10 am for the global kickoff of #WINsiders4Good GIVE month where we will use Windows to tackle the lack of affordable after-school care for the NY communities. I’ll be there and I hope you will too! For those of you who do NOT live near retail stores, we have something for you too! You told us you were inspired by the #WINsiders4Good Create-A-Thons and wanted to host them in your own cities. We heard back from THOUSANDS of you in our last survey. We are VERY excited to announce the first flight of our #WINsiders4Good Create-A-Thon DIY Kit. Please download the kit and organize CAT events in your own cities. Do get in touch with us and let us know what you’re doing and we will amplify with your fellow Windows Insiders in your city so you can meet, work together and truly be a community of people who use your tech and creativity to solve problems—together. We are actively looking for feedback on our DIY Kit, so please share your experiences. Have an amazing weekend everyone, I will be looking forward to meeting many of you at the flagship Microsoft Store in NYC on Saturday 10/8. Thank you everyone and keep hustling, Dona <3 Continue reading...

We hope you enjoyed this week’s episode of This Week on Windows! Head over here to read this week’s Windows 10 tip on how to write on the web with Microsoft Edge. Over in the Windows Store you can watch Star Trek: Beyond and The Flash in the Movies & TV section, and pick up everything you need for Halloween in the Haunted Hub collection. Here’s what’s new in the Windows Store this week: Early access begins today with Gears of War 4: Ultimate Edition https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/13e3da2c9a07376800f660fce4b8428d.jpg Today, fans who purchased Gears of War 4: Ultimate Edition can experience the beginning of the new Gears saga four days before the Oct. 11 global launch with early access on Xbox One and Windows 10. In addition to early access, Gears of War 4: Ultimate Edition owners get the Gears of War 4 Season Pass! Read more over at Xbox Wire or head over here to get Gears of War 4: Ultimate Edition. ReCore – Free Trial https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/270885976db14437b8e87fe334589ced.jpg Anyone who hasn’t yet had the opportunity to play ReCore can now experience their first 30 minutes in a special, free trial version on both Xbox One and Windows 10 PCs. Your progress in the trial will be reflected in the full game, so you can pick up right where you left off if you decide to buy it afterward. Head over here to try it for free! Forza Horizon 3 Smoking Tire Car Pack https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/ca1ac2528f89e1cdca8561dfa97d523b.jpg The first monthly DLC pack for Forza Horizon 3 – The Smoking Tire Car Pack – is available now and features seven new-to-Forza vehicles that are bound to inspire new adventures Down Under. The Smoking Tire Car Pack is the first monthly car pack to arrive in the Forza Horizon 3 Car Pass, which is available as a separate purchase or as part of the Ultimate Edition of Forza Horizon 3. Head over to Xbox Wire to read more! Age of Empires: Castle Siege Update – Free https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/4669f52ee0965c7851888d1995d7dde6.png The introduction of a brand-new Age in the latest update to Age of Empires: Castle Siege takes the thrill of medieval battles and the excitement of dynamic strategy up a notch or two. Now, enjoy a new tier of castle upgrades, stronger troops, deadlier traps and more. Get the game from the Windows Store and read more over at Xbox Wire. New Dell XPS and Inspiron laptops with Windows 10 now available https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/cf3fa9869287ca0b4e06c8ad8dfe14bd.jpg Dell announced some awesome new XPS and Inspiron laptops powered by Windows 10 last month that are now available to purchase! The Rose Gold XPS 13 laptop, Inspiron laptop 15 and Inspiron laptop 17 offer great performance in stylish designs, along with the best Windows 10 has to offer. Ultimate Fall TV Guide https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/ff406566e4f6bc40eaeb74932cf7515c.png Summer may be ending, but don’t despair – fall TV has arrived! Check out hot new shows like Lethal Weapon, catch up on your returning favorites like Gotham, Blindspot and American Horror Story, and enjoy free episodes, sneak peeks and more with our Ultimate Fall TV Guide. Have a great weekend! Continue reading...

https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/daa452f3d726903a6ad73bd8fbb629f3.gif Join us to see what’s next for Windows 10, save the date to watch the livestream of our #MicrosoftEvent in New York City on Wednesday October 26, 2016 at 10AM EDT/7AM PDT. Continue reading...

Last week’s big AI announcements eclipsed a lot of other news at Microsoft. This week, we march forward with all sorts of exciting announcements from cloud to startups to nano technology and gaming. Hold on tight as Weekend Reading gives you the light-speed tour of recent happenings at Microsoft. https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/d51a0ed07f97af404fa6dbd129f7c43c.jpg Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and president Brad Smith revealed that the company has invested over $3 billion across Europe to date – in effect, doubling its cloud capacity in Europe in the past year. The Microsoft Cloud is now supporting European customers such as the UK Ministry of Defence, the Renault-Nissan Alliance and ZF from Germany to innovate in their industries and move their businesses to the cloud while meeting European data sovereignty, security and compliance needs. Furthering its commitment to make the cloud more trusted, responsible and inclusive, Microsoft also released a new book titled “A Cloud for Global Good.” And the company intends to deliver the Microsoft Cloud from datacenters in France, starting in 2017. https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/ba94ea84854a4c210af3ff0ab6a789ed.jpg Day 1 of the GeekWire Summit 2016 at the Seattle Sheraton, October 4, 2016. Photo by Dan DeLong for GeekWire Microsoft Ventures made its official debut in late May and the fund is already building momentum with cutting-edge tech startups that enable digital transformation. At the GeekWire Summit in Seattle, Peggy Johnson, Microsoft’s executive vice president of business development, publicly announced the list of the startups the company has backed including security technology company Team8 of Israel; machine learning company CognitiveScale of Austin, Texas; and the San Francisco-based Layer messaging technology company. https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/b151f50c952f32215e082fedbdb04b6c.jpg Satellites are no longer out of the reach of school kids. Space and environmental exploration became a reality for hundreds of youth who attended AzureCraft, a two-day community tech event held at Microsoft’s U.K. headquarters. The event brought developers and students together for a hands-on experience with a variety of technologies, including tiny, low-cost satellites called nano satellites, powered by the Internet of Things (IoT). The latest update for “Minecraft Console Edition” was rolled out this week for Xbox. Millions of fans will get to experience fun new features including polar bears, beet soup, igloos, customizable banners and underground treasures made of Bone Blocks. Other new blocks include End Bricks, Grass Path, Frosted Ice and more. Also, if you haven’t had a chance to play “ReCore” yet, you can now experience the first 30 minutes of the game in a free trial version on both Xbox One and Windows 10 PCs. If you decide to buy the full game afterwards, you can pick up right where you left off, with all of your progress and achievements preserved for further play. https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/902d4fcd0e64d1ae6f78d3e2686114dd.png This week on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, we highlighted Jessie Combs, the fastest woman on four wheels. After clocking her top speed at 477.59 miles per hour in her North American Eagle race car, her next goal is to eventually break the sound barrier – all with the help of Microsoft technologies. The Eagle’s custom telemetry system uploads to the Microsoft Cloud for analysis with Cortana Intelligence and helps Jessie achieve a faster speed with every drive. That does it for this week. We hope you enjoyed all of the news and will join us again next Friday for another addition of Weekend Reading. Thomas Kohnstamm Microsoft News Center Staff The post Doubling European cloud capacity, investing in startups, more Minecraft fun — Weekend Reading: Oct. 7 edition appeared first on The Official Microsoft Blog. Continue reading...

Today, fans who purchased Gears of War 4: Ultimate Edition can experience the beginning of the new Gears saga four days before the Oct. 11 global launch with early access on Xbox One and Windows 10. Play Video Restricted Content Confirm your age to continue month JanuaryFebruaryMarchAprilMayJuneJulyAugustSeptemberOctoberNovemberDecember day 12345678910111213141516171819202122232425262728293031 year 201620152014201320122011201020092008200720062005200420032002200120001999199819971996199519941993199219911990198919881987198619851984198319821981198019791978197719761975197419731972197119701969196819671966196519641963196219611960195919581957195619551954195319521951195019491948194719461945194419431942194119401939193819371936193519341933193219311930192919281927192619251924192319221921192019191918191719161915191419131912191119101909190819071906190519041903190219011900 In addition to early access, Gears of War 4: Ultimate Edition owners get the Gears of War 4 Season Pass. Gears of War 4 encourages players to “Never Fight Alone” with cross-play on Xbox One and Windows 10 PC across all modes (campaign, Horde and Co-op versus) and versus multiplayer cross-play in private matches. As an Xbox Play Anywhere title, you’ll get both versions with one digital purchase and be able to switch seamlessly between them, as all game progress, Gamerscore and Achievements are saved on and accessible through Xbox Live. If you haven’t already purchased Gears of War 4: Ultimate Edition, grab it now from your local retailer, including Microsoft Stores and microsoftstore.com and never fight alone with the full suite of Gears of War 4 hardware available this holiday – the Xbox One S Gears of War 4 Limited Edition Bundle, Xbox Elite Wireless Controller – Gears of War 4 Limited Edition, Xbox Wireless Controller – Gears of War 4 Crimson Omen Limited Edition and Xbox Wireless Controller – Gears of War 4 JD Fenix Limited Edition. Head over to Xbox Wire to read more, and we’ll see you online! Continue reading...

Today, the Windows Team is releasing a new collection called Haunted Hub to get you ready for Halloween, available in the Windows Store on your Windows 10 PC.* This collection includes all the spooky themed content you need across movies, music, apps and games. Here’s some of what’s in store for you… Hotel Transylvania – Rent the movie for 31 cents https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/c6ee39348f48208612f5608040c044ae.jpg Featuring the voices of Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Andy Samberg, Selena Gomez and more, Hotel Transylvania is on sale to rent for an unreal deal of just $0.31! All Simon, a monster hunter, really wants to do is fall in love with Dracula’s daughter, Mavis. But when they realize they are natural enemies, the real adventure begins. Find out what happens next – but hurry, as this steal of a deal ends Monday, Oct. 10, at 11:59 PM Pacific Time.** New Campfire Tales skin pack for Minecraft: Windows 10 Edition Beta https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/40254ca4a9037b62bdfbdb161c4280ef.png Minecraft: Windows 10 Edition Beta is all about building worlds block-by-block with your imagination, from makeshift shelters to the grandest of castles. And now it’s ready for some spooky Halloween creativity with new Campfire Tales skin packs ($1.99), full of mythical monsters, horrible hauntings and other strange sightings this October. Get 16 skins total, 2 for free! Audiobooks from Audible https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/4e84b677d05eaea2ffb0323c3c25b78b.jpg Dare to be scared with some October-friendly fiction on Audible (free with a trial), the premier online provider of digital audiobooks and more. Listen to spinetinglers from authors including Stephen King, classics such as Dracula, or discover new authors and titles fit for a frightfully fun fall. Download Audible today, then get ready to get very, very scared. Binge-watch Stranger Things with the Netflix app https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/e7e8d62ac3fdcba562b343934b8cf562.jpg A young boy disappears, and his mother and a local police chief embark on an investigation that turns terrifying in Stranger Things, our choice for binge-watching this month. Available only on Netflix***, this eerie, entertaining series is set in 1983 and stars Winona Ryder. Can she handle the unnerving supernatural forces at work in her town? Can you? Unleash Thriller: The 25th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/75f2d1226af389edfbd8d47916d09cc6.jpg Is there a more iconic Halloween album than Thriller? This new edition of the 1983 blockbuster from Michael Jackson has all the bells and whistles, with a range of “extras” tracks including remixes, alternate versions, and behind-the-scenes voiceover sessions. Don’t listen with the lights off. These movies, apps, games and albums are just the beginning of what’s waiting for you in the Haunted Hub Collection in the Windows Store now. Head on over to see just how many ways there are to be scared! *Collection available through Oct. 31 **Available in US and Canada ***Netflix streaming membership required Continue reading...

Hello Far Eden Explorers! It’s been great to see so many people jumping into ReCore and having fun. We’re excited to let you know that, starting today, anyone who hasn’t yet had the opportunity to play ReCore can now experience their first 30 minutes in a special, free trial version on both Xbox One and Windows 10 PCs. Your progress in the trial will be reflected in the full game, so you can pick up right where you left off if you decide to buy it afterward. Also, thanks to our great ReCore community, we have continued to get feedback on the game and will be releasing several key updates today. You can read about them here. We’re committed to supporting ReCore and making it an even more enjoyable experience. Head over to Xbox Wire to read more, and happy adventuring! – The ReCore Team Continue reading...

With the official debut of Microsoft Ventures in late May, the momentum is already underway in our first few months. Our aim is to use this fund to place bets on innovators who align to our investment focus – cutting-edge technologies that better enable digital transformation. The reception we’ve received, from both the entrepreneurs who are aligned with our ambitions and the VCs who see us as a valuable partner, has blown past our expectations. We are now providing financing and strategic relationships with Microsoft to entrepreneurs in New York, San Francisco, Seattle and Tel Aviv. We’ve seen great deal flow and have already completed 13 investments from Series A to Series C, across several B2B categories. Our new website highlights our portfolio, where you can learn more about the promising technologies we’re betting on to disrupt how business is done today. In the world of business SaaS, we’ve invested in Helpshift and Outreach. In cloud infrastructure, we’ve invested in Rescale. In productivity and communications, we’ve invested in three companies – Comfy, Layer and Kahoot in the world of education. In machine learning, we’ve invested in CrowdFlower and more recently, CognitiveScale. And in security, we’ve invested in Aqua Security and Team8. To make all this work possible, we’ve established a strong team with experience in traditional VCs, corporate funds and startups, all with impeccable track records of working with founders to grow startups into large companies. In building this team, we’ve done the challenging work of clarifying our mission – to be the most sought-after financial partner for startups driving digital transformation. I strongly believe entrepreneurs should, and will, want to partner with us because of the unmatched opportunities we can help create. An investment from Microsoft Ventures doesn’t stop with a check – instead, that’s just the beginning. We promise to give our portfolio companies access to the extended and enviable network of Microsoft products, engineers, sellers, partners and customers. With 1.2 billion people using Microsoft Office in 140 countries worldwide and more than 85 percent of the Fortune 500 on the Microsoft Cloud, we are uniquely poised to help our portfolio companies accelerate customer engagement and revenue growth. It’s a promise no other firm can offer. Culture is another area we have more clearly defined, and one of special importance for a corporate venture firm that wants to bridge the gap between the entrepreneurial ecosystem and a large company like Microsoft. We operate with a tremendous amount of autonomy, while representing Microsoft and helping the company identify new technology and partnership opportunities. We have set-up operations close to the center of startup activity in all our locations and we work as a small, focused team, surrounded by entrepreneurial and technical talent. We are building something brand new – not unlike the founders with whom we seek to partner. Agility and speed are paramount to reassuring founders that we understand how this industry works. We promise to work as fast, or faster, than any institutional VC – our goal is to match the urgency a founder feels for getting their business funded so they can get back to work. This month we began a series of meetings with other VC firms, sharing the Microsoft Ventures story and showing them the value we bring as a co-investor and how we provide startups with benefits far in excess of our investment dollars. Perhaps the most exciting part is that this is just the beginning. We’re being invited into amazing conversations, and hope to prove our value to these partners and this community over the coming months and years. We have the opportunity to be the biggest value-add investor on a company’s board. We invite founders to reach out and learn how we can help them in their journey and we promise to do so with no strings attached. The post Microsoft Ventures: A portfolio with impact appeared first on The Official Microsoft Blog. Continue reading...

Did you know you can write directly on web pages in Microsoft Edge and easily save or share what you’ve marked up with friends and colleagues? Microsoft Edge is the only browser with the built-in functionality that lets you take notes, write, doodle and highlight directly on webpages. You can do this with your finger if you’re using a touch-enabled device, with a pen or with your mouse or trackpad. Here’s how to write on webpages in Microsoft Edge: https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/9400096b9bbb14cc2a160c462bd2d335.gif To start marking up a webpage, launch Microsoft Edge and click the pen icon. When you hover over it, you’ll see it says, “Make a Web Note.” Choose either Pen, Highlight or Type, and start writing. When you’ve finished marking up a page, click or touch Save or Share in the right-hand corner when you’re done to save what you’ve marked up on your PC or share out with friends. Have a great week! Continue reading...

Reflecting the significant investment Microsoft Corp. is making in cloud computing in Europe, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and president Brad Smith on Monday shared new details about how this momentum is taking shape. Nadella stated that Microsoft has more than doubled its cloud capacity in Europe in the past year, noted that the company has invested over $3 billion (USD) across Europe to date, and shared that Microsoft intends to deliver the Microsoft Cloud from datacenters in France, starting in 2017. These new investments in cloud are helping customers — including the UK Ministry of Defence, the Renault-Nissan Alliance, Ireland’s Health Service Executive and ZF from Germany — to innovate in their industries and move their businesses to the cloud while meeting European data sovereignty, security and compliance needs. Furthering its commitment to make the cloud more trusted, responsible and inclusive, Microsoft also released a new book titled “A Cloud for Global Good.” The announcements were made in Dublin this morning as the two leaders began a four-day visit to Europe to meet with business and government leaders. To learn more, visit Microsoft News Center. The post Microsoft increases European cloud investment to $3 billion, unveils cloud policy recommendations appeared first on The Official Microsoft Blog. Continue reading...

We hope you enjoyed this week’s episode of This Week on Windows! Read this week’s Windows 10 tip on how to enable the dark theme in Microsoft Edge, check out BIO-key’s new Windows Hello fingerprint accessories and catch up on all of this week’s news from Ignite. Here’s what’s new in the Windows Store this week: Candy Crush Saga – Level 2000 – Free https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/9fd7ee74a90d838304c9c733d4bd6b2e.jpg In the latest update to Candy Crush Saga, the carefree Candy Universe is in a panic over the pending arrival of level 2000. How will their world change? Get ready for a color-bomb kickoff, then work to collect 2 green, 20 blue and 200 purple candies in 50 moves or less. Ghostbusters – Buy from $14.99 https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/06fd4476decf3f225c08b2b5158d5b0b.jpg Thirty years after the original franchise debut, this beloved supernatural comedy is back with hilarious new characters. Starring Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, Leslie Jones, and Chris Hemsworth, Ghostbusters is one of the most talked-about movies of the year. Watch the extended edition of Ghostbusters, available in the Movies & TV section of the Windows Store two weeks before Blu-ray. The Powerful PC Software Collection in the Windows Store brings together rich, fully featured software titles for Windows 10 https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/07e0a2e8dcaef57b0cd24a9cb5fbd2c0.png Every day, great new apps, games, music, movies and TV titles come to the Windows Store. Now, traditional PC software titles are making their way to the Windows Store, too, many of which enhanced with Windows 10 features such as Live Tiles and notifications to improve the user experience. To see the latest full PC software titles available in the Windows Store, check out the new Powerful PC Software Collection. Here you’ll find apps like Evernote, which makes it easier to organize your professional projects – Photoscape, a fun and easy photo editor, and Kodi, a media center that’s open-source, cross-platform and ready to be your entertainment hub for digital media and Home Theater PCs. And, for advanced simulator design, use the Virtual Robotics Toolkit, designed to enhance the LEGO Mindstorms experience – a great learning tool for classroom and competitive robotics. Pinball FX2 – Marvel’s Women of Power Pack – Free https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/602a04e3c190cdc112434861ea7ce14e.jpg Two new tables pack powerful Super Hero punches in Pinball FX2 Windows 10 Edition. The new Marvel’s Women of Power Pack (2-table pack, $6.99) brings together the mightiest female Super Heroes and Super Villains in the Marvel Universe in two amazing new tables. Have a great weekend! Continue reading...

https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/07bb3ed04fb0bd7476a6ce2aa47d36d2.jpg Harry Shum, executive vice president, Microsoft AI and Research Group This week delivered plenty of powerful news from Microsoft, from game-changing announcements about artificial intelligence to new avenues for business transformation demonstrated at Microsoft Ignite 2016 in Atlanta. Here’s the highlights. Microsoft announced on Thursday that it’s forming a new group to expand its artificial intelligence efforts by bringing together the company’s world-class research organization with more than 5,000 computer scientists and engineers. Harry Shum, a computer vision luminary and 20-year Microsoft veteran, will lead the new AI and Research Group. The group will accelerate delivery of new AI capabilities and further Microsoft’s goal of democratizing AI for every person and organization. The week also saw a parade of exciting new products, services and partnerships on stage at the Microsoft Ignite 2016 conference. Adobe and Microsoft announced a strategic partnership to strengthen customer engagement with the help of Microsoft Azure, Adobe Marketing Cloud and Microsoft Dynamics 365. Also at Ignite, Uber shared a new security feature that uses driver selfies and Microsoft Cognitive Services. The intelligence technology powers Uber’s feature, Real-Time ID Check, which periodically prompts drivers for a selfie before they can accept online ride requests. The tool helps protects drivers’ accounts from fraud and adds another security layer to Uber’s app for passengers. And Lowe’s unveiled a newly enhanced version of its kitchen design tool created with Microsoft HoloLens. The mixed-reality solution helps customers remodel their kitchen, with full-sized, customizable, holographic images. No more bringing home handfuls of tiny swatch cards and samples. The tool will be available at select Lowe’s stores later this year. In other news, Microsoft Azure will become more broadly available to eligible nonprofits, as part of the company’s $1 billion commitment to ensure that its cloud serves the public good. “As the reach and capabilities of cloud computing continue to expand, so too does its potential to better serve the people and organizations working to address vital issues facing our planet and its populations,” wrote Mary Snapp, head of Microsoft Philanthropies. Forza fans got new thrills with the worldwide release of “Forza Horizon 3” on Xbox One and Windows 10 PCs. The game takes players to beautiful, diverse Australia for a new race car adventure in the Horizon Festival. And finally this week on Facebook and Twitter, Microsoft highlighted the partnership between Microsoft and the Tate Britain museum in London. The organizations came together to support Recognition, a technology that uses Microsoft-developed APIs to allow users to view and compare the likeness of two images. Created by Italian research center Fabrica and developed by French artificial intelligence specialists Jolibrain, Recognition recently won the Tate’s IK Prize 2016 for digital innovation. That’s it for the week. To see webcasts, photos and more news from Microsoft Ignite 2016, go to the conference’s news site. Thanks for reading and see you next Friday! Vanessa Ho Microsoft News Center Staff The post Expanding and democratizing artificial intelligence, transforming businesses at Ignite — Weekend Reading: Sept. 30 edition appeared first on The Official Microsoft Blog. Continue reading...

This week at Microsoft Ignite, we showed how we are infusing artificial intelligence (AI) broadly across Microsoft to help our customers. Our approach to this fundamental shift is to democratize AI and to make it accessible and valuable to everyone. We’re focused on building an AI stack spanning infrastructure, services, apps and agents and reaching key customer audiences — consumers, enterprises, developers. We are creating tools to make it easier for busy professionals to remember their commitments, family members from other countries to talk to each other in spite of language barriers, and multitasking smartphone users to send texts more quickly. And at the same time, we also are providing businesses with the tools they need to incorporate intelligence into every product they build and business decision they make. Today, Microsoft announced a new group that will help accelerate this evolution. It will include Microsoft Research along with the company’s Information Platform Group, Bing and Cortana product groups, and our Ambient Computing and Robotics teams. The combined group will include more than 5,000 computer scientists and engineers. I’ve worked on both research and product teams, and I see incredible potential for this new group. Today, AI is shifting the computer science research supply chain and blurring lines between research and product. End-to-end innovation in AI will not come from isolated research labs alone, but from the combination of at-scale production workloads together with deep technology advancements in algorithms, systems and experiences. The new group will provide greater opportunity to accelerate our innovation in AI, and to enable Microsoft to create truly intelligent systems and products for our customers. I believe we have some of the best AI talent on the planet, and we’ll continue to attract even more. When Bill Gates created Microsoft Research (MSR) 25 years ago, some of the very first work focused on AI, including speech, natural language and computer vision. Since that time, we’ve continued to invest in AI research, pushing the boundaries of AI and related fields, such as machine learning. Most recently, MSR set new benchmarks for both speech and image recognition using deep learning — work that feeds into so many of our products. Our company is filled with myriad examples of how that fundamental AI work is helping influence our products and services, and helping our customers The Bing search engine has long benefited from strong partnerships between researchers and engineers. And more recent breakthroughs such as Microsoft Graph are the product of that same type of collaboration. Tools like Skype Translator, XiaoIce chatbot and the Cortana virtual assistant would not have been possible without years of investment in machine learning, speech recognition and natural language processing. Today Cortana is serving 113 million customers and has answered over 12 billion questions. In business, Cortana Intelligence Suite allows our customers to take advantage of research and Bing innovations to create products that can enhance security, gauge people’s emotional state and recognize the world around us. This week, we announced our most recent advances in infrastructure, delivering an AI supercomputer in the cloud. In addition, our deep learning toolkit for developers, CNTK, is enabling our customers to quickly build AI models on this infrastructure. Today marks the next step in our journey to democratize AI for the world. As Satya Nadella said, we are pursuing AI so that we can empower every person and every organization with tools they can use to go solve the most pressing challenges of our society and our economy. The post The next milestone in Microsoft’s AI journey appeared first on The Official Microsoft Blog. Continue reading...

Hello Windows Insiders! Today we are excited to be releasing Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 14936 for PC to Windows Insiders in the Fast ring. New Extensions in Microsoft Edge We’re working with partners on adding new extensions and want our Insiders to try them out first! We have another new release which we need your help testing and giving feedback on before we publish to the general public: Turn Off the Lights is a lightweight and useful add-in designed for a more comfortable video experience. We also need some more help testing our other preview extensions: Tampermonkey is a popular userscript manager that lets users customize the content of pages across the web. Microsoft Personal Shopping Assistant is your smart shopping cart across the web, which collects your browsed products and lets you get price alerts for saved products and compare products between sellers. You can install this at the links above and try them out on any Anniversary Update build – send feedback to the Feedback Hub or @MSEdgeDev on Twitter. Authentication changes affecting connectivity to NAS devices and home file servers After updating to the latest Insider Preview builds, you may have noticed that shared devices on your home network have disappeared from your home network folder. You may have also noticed your mapped network drives are not available. If you change your network to “private” or “enterprise”, it should start working again. For more information on this behavior change, see this Microsoft Security Bulletin. Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) Updates WSL will install Ubuntu version 16.04 (Xenial) instead of Ubuntu 14.04 (Trusty) in an upcoming release. This change will apply to Insiders installing new instances (lxrun.exe /install or first run of bash.exe). Existing instances with Trusty will not be upgraded automatically. Users can upgrade their Trusty image to Xenial using the do-release-upgrade command. Full WSL release notes can be found here. Other improvements and fixes for PC We fixed the issue causing Narrator to continually speak the progress of a song e.g. update with the current time of the progress bar every second if you navigate to the progress bar while a song is playing in Groove Music. We fixed the issue where using the tab key to navigate the Settings app wouldn’t work. We fixed an issue resulting in Explorer.exe frequently crashing for some Insiders, particularly for those with multiple network switches. Known issues for PC Optional components may not work after upgrading to this build. To get it working again, go to “Turn Windows features on or off”, scroll down and check the right optional component and click ok. After a reboot, the optional component will be enabled again. Tencent apps and games will cause your PC to bugcheck (bluescreen). Running sfc /scannow in an elevated command prompt will fail at 20% with the error “could not perform the requested operation.” Other improvements and fixes for Mobile We fixed the issue causing the pin pad to not be visible to unlock the phone even after rebooting the phone. We fixed the issue where some phones lose the ability to use their SIM cards. We fixed the mobile hotspot issue where it works the first time but subsequent attempts to use the feature won’t work until the phone is rebooted. We fixed an issue causing some devices such as the Lumia 650 from failing to install a new build with Error 0x80188308. We fixed the issue causing some build updates to fail with an 800703ed error code. We fixed the issue where Action Center no longer closes if you swipe up on the empty space (area of Action Center that doesn’t show any notifications). We fixed an issue where notifications were unexpectedly showing the app logo within the notification when viewed in Action Center. We fixed an issue for devices that shipped with Windows Phone 8.1, such as the Lumia 930 and 1520, where if you plugged in a headset during an ongoing call, the audio would not be routed to the headset. Known issues for Mobile If you have your default storage set to a SD card for apps, installation of apps like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and WeChat will fail with an error. As a workaround, set your default location to your device’s onboard storage. Another very important reminder about build expiration We want to continue to remind Windows Insiders about the upcoming expiration of old Insider Preview builds. Since September 15th, PCs running really old Insider Preview builds started to see build expiration notifications once a day. Starting on October 1st, these PCs will start rebooting every 3 hours and then on October 15th – these PCs will stop booting all together. If your PC is running one of these old Insider Preview builds, please make sure you update to the latest build available via Settings > Update & security > Windows Update. Build 14926 and newer has an updated expiration date of May 1st, 2017. If your PC is running the Windows 10 Anniversary Update (Build 14393) in the Slow and Release Preview rings today – this does not apply to you and you will not be notified of your build expiring. https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/bb727ef1bffaf5df9d7c08e8a93694ce.png Team Updates Our team has been all over the world lately, enjoying meeting Windows Insiders globally and learning about their specific tech needs. This week, Director of Program Management, Windows Insider Program & OS Fundamentals (and our boss!), Bill Karagounis enjoyed meeting lots of our Windows Insiders at Microsoft Ignite in Atlanta. He addressed several audiences as he spoke about the year ahead for the program and our philosophy around Co-Creating with our Community. His talk was fittingly called CoCreate(Community) https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/bd4cd7b0435542efcf0ccd5dad031ffe.png #nerds4life https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/52e9a321942c454d049e76a77551cd98.jpg We worked with the wonderful Surface Smiths to record many of the interviews with the Windows Insiders and we will be sharing out these stories on our channels soon. In another part of the world, Director of Quality, OS Fundamentals Bambo Sofola, Jeremiah Marble, Thomas Trombley and I spent the week in Lagos, Nigeria last week launching the #WINsiders4Good Fellowship – Lagos. While there, we also met with several key business and IT decision makers to understand the current landscape for tech usage in their companies as well as their goals for the coming year. From us they learned…the ways of the #NinjaCat. https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/bfdd5ffa5d597e2747470eed31368709.jpg We’ll have a lot more to share in the upcoming weeks about what we all learned on our global treks and what we’ll do with these learnings to build a better product for ALL of us. Thank you everyone and keep hustling, Dona <3 Continue reading...

We’re excited to announce that BIO-key International, Inc. has launched three new compact USB fingerprint reader accessories, available at Microsoft Stores and microsoftstore.com. These devices enable you to login conveniently and securely to your Windows 10 PC with a simple swipe or touch. With Windows Hello* you can sign into your Windows devices in less than 2 seconds – that’s 3 times faster** than a password that you have to remember and type in; also, with Windows Hello and the Anniversary Update, you can now sign into compatible apps and Microsoft Edge websites***. BIO-key SideSwipe Mini Fingerprint Reader – $39.99 https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/ae0d0fec0f8e86d8515590b044180fe6.jpg EcoID Fingerprint Reader – $39.99 https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/4d21701b55c4363e8e53cec048a57493.jpg SideTouch Fingerprint Reader – $39.99 https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/f7293de1acadff5c68fc3b7a370e7d3f.jpg Visit your local Microsoft Store or microsoftstore.com to learn more about these new accessories. * Windows Hello requires specialized hardware, including fingerprint reader, illuminated IR sensor or other biometric sensors and capable devices. ** Based on average time comparison between typing a password respectively detecting a face or fingerprint to authentication success *** Limited to compatible websites and apps. Continue reading...

A new Australian automotive adventure has begun with the worldwide release of Forza Horizon 3, now available to play on Xbox One and Windows 10 PCs in all Xbox regions (except Japan, where it will be available on Sept. 29). Since the launch of the Ultimate Edition of the game last week, it’s been amazing to see the excitement and acclaim the game has created with early adopters. Forza Horizon 3 brings the Horizon Festival to Australia – the most beautiful and diverse setting yet in the series. With gorgeous graphics and brand new ways to play, like four-player Campaign co-op and Xbox Play Anywhere, Forza Horizon 3 is the ultimate open-world racing game. The game is now available in three different versions to fit every racer. The Standard Edition features the full version of the game with more than 350 different vehicles to choose from, and with the Deluxe Edition, you’ll get VIP membership and the Forza Horizon 3 Motorsport All-Stars Car Pack. The Ultimate Edition has everything from the Deluxe Edition, plus the Forza Horizon 3 Car Pass. To celebrate the launch, we’ve got a number of livestream shows planned this week. First on Tuesday, Sept. 27, we’ll be joining Dave Mustaine and Dirk Verbeuren from Megadeth as they play Forza Horizon 3 beginning at 12 p.m. Pacific over on the official Xbox Twitch channel. Then, on our regular Tuesday Twitch stream, myself and John Schommer from the Forza Community Team will be playing Forza Horizon 3 starting at 1 p.m. Pacific. You can watch on our Twitch channel or over at the official Forza Beam channel! The long wait is finally over and now Forza Horizon 3 is available to everyone. Read more over at Xbox Wire! Continue reading...

Today’s Windows 10 tip is all about enabling the dark theme in Microsoft Edge. Earlier we shared how you can personalize your PC by enabling the dark theme, but did you know you can enable that theme in Microsoft Edge, too? You can switch Microsoft Edge from its default light theme to the dark theme – perfect for low-light conditions such as working at night. Here’s how to enable the dark theme in Microsoft Edge: https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/fde2ec60cda2b80124f569c4c9bdc438.gif To enable the dark theme in Microsoft Edge only, simply open Microsoft Edge, then go to the top right corner and click on the three dots. Scroll down to settings and, under “Choose a theme,” click “dark.” Have a great week! Continue reading...

Today I am pleased to join Scott Guthrie and Satya Nadella at Ignite, the largest IT conference in the industry with more than 20,000 attendees. It’s an exciting time to be in IT, with the modern workplace creating a major shift in the way people work. Information is abundant, experiences and data must easily move across multiple devices, and collaboration is critical as the workforce becomes more mobile and more global. At the same time, security has never been more challenging as attacks have become more advanced and targeted, with the average data breach costing $12 million and costing an estimated $3 trillion in lost productivity by 2020. To help businesses take advantage of the modern workplace while protecting their greatest assets, Microsoft has invested in enabling the digital transformation of business – helping connect employees and optimize operations with enhanced productivity in secure environments. To aid their digital transformation, starting on October 1 businesses can get the Secure Productive Enterprise (SPE), with Windows 10 Enterprise, Office 365, and Enterprise Mobility + Security (EMS), with the flexibility to deploy either on-premise or in the cloud. With more than 400 million monthly active devices now running Windows 10, enterprises are moving faster than ever to the most secure Windows. “Windows 10 is the first operating system to deliver a completely integrated mobile and cloud experience to our entire workforce. It’s the only operating system that can unlock the full potential of our employees, while still providing the security and control we require to operate our company.” — Mike Macrie, Land O’Lakes CIO Combined with the 70 million commercial monthly active users of Office 365 and Azure Active Directory in EMS protecting 1 billion logins each day, customers like Expedia, Goodyear, and Facebook are already taking advantage of these technologies. Today our security offering gets even stronger, delivering even more value for SPE customers, with the introduction of Windows Defender Application Guard – which makes Microsoft Edge the most secure browser in the enterprise – and the expansion of our Advanced Threat Protection technology across Windows 10 Enterprise and Office 365 for complete protection across endpoints and in the cloud. “We chose Windows 10 because of the myriad of enhancements; from faster boot & login times, security offerings, and mobile friendly enrichments. Modern technologies such as BitLocker, Credential Guard, and Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection offer end-to-end security features that promote mobility while reducing worry.” — Armand Campo, Director, IT Systems, Expedia Announcing Windows Defender Application Guard for Microsoft Edge Since we released Microsoft Edge, we have been making continuous improvements with hundreds of new features and security enhancements to deliver the fastest and safest browser. While Microsoft Edge has the lowest number of vulnerabilities of any major browser on Windows, any vulnerability in the browser is a risk for businesses that must protect their networks and data from increasingly sophisticated and targeted threats. Today we announced a new addition to the extensive Windows 10 security stack with a revolutionary security improvement to Microsoft Edge. Windows Defender Application Guard uses virtualization-based security technology to protect against advanced attacks coming from the Internet, helping to protect the enterprise’s devices, employees, data and even their corporate networks. This level of protection has never been more important, as the majority of attacks start in the browser. Unlike other browsers that use software-based sandboxes, which still provide a pathway for malware and vulnerability exploits, Microsoft Edge’s use of Application Guard isolates the browser and employee activity using a hardware-based container to prevent malicious code from impacting the device and moving across the enterprise network. This robust security service helps protect enterprises from malware, viruses, vulnerabilities, and even zero-day attacks. Once enabled, enterprise administrators can configure a trusted network site list policy and distribute the group policy to any devices it wishes to protect with Application Guard. Even if an untrusted site successfully loads malware, the malware is unable to reach beyond the isolated container to steal data or permanently compromise devices or the network. Once the employee exits their Microsoft Edge browsing session, any malware is erased, preventing further attacks. With Application Guard, Microsoft Edge becomes the browser standard for the enterprise and Windows 10 becomes the first operating system to ship this type of technology alongside a browser. It will become available to Windows Insiders in the coming months and roll out more broadly next year. Combining Windows 10 Enterprise and Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection Intelligence Graphs We recently released Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection (WDATP), a cloud-based service to help enterprises detect, investigate, and respond to advanced attacks on their networks. WDATP is powered by a combination of Windows behavioral sensors, cloud based security analytics, threat intelligence, and by tapping into the Microsoft Security Graph. WDATP is already protecting hundreds of customers such as Emirates Airlines, Humanitas, Cellcom, Avanade, and Pella across more than 800,000 endpoints. “The information our team is able to obtain through Windows Defender ATP is nothing short of impressive. When we need easy to read forensic data, it does a perfect job of giving us timelines at impressive speeds. It’s an invaluable tool for greater visibility into our environment.” — Daniel Betz, IT Security Engineer, Union Bank & Trust Today, we’re introducing threat intelligence sharing between WDATP and Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection, enabling IT to investigate and respond to security threats across Windows 10 and Office 365 more efficiently. By combining the intelligence of WDATP and Office ATP, the Microsoft Security Graph, which analyzes over 300 billion authentications processed per month, 200 billion emails for malware and phishing, and one billion Windows device updates – gets even more robust. Now, IT can identify and follow the complete chain of an attack from an email – to across the network -with detailed timelines and analysis. This real-time access and product integration converts the time to investigate an incident from days or weeks to mere hours. And the comprehensive security intelligence from Microsoft and our industry partners, including FireEye iSight threat intelligence, puts all the information needed to investigate and respond in an easy, simplified interface with clear steps for remediation. It’s the most comprehensive and robust security solution available today. https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/dc342a2a9d8942eda65e2480468e4e00.jpg New Deployment Tools for Windows 10 Releasing Today We want all of our customers to experience the most secure Windows and deploy today. Not only are Windows 10 customers seeing a 33% reduction in security issues, customer satisfaction is at an all-time high with organizations seeing many benefits – including installation reduced from 1 hour to 5 minutes. “Windows as a service has reduced our operating system deployment time by 75%.” — Dorothy Stephenson, Director, ITS Kimberly Clark To help companies move even more quickly to Windows 10, today we’re releasing Windows Upgrade Analytics, a free service that helps IT easily analyze their environment and upgrade to Windows 10. Upgrade Analytics works by gathering data about installed hardware and software across devices, analyzing the data and providing a snapshot that identifies app compatibility, device and driver readiness and suggested remediation so customers can quickly take action for faster deployments. More than 500 customers have been piloting the service, including The Daimler Group and Ryder Systems Inc. https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/c7c8e5cb266831e5c9d2b39850914d8b.jpg Additional features include Site Discovery, which lists an inventory of web sites used on an organization’s network that are running Internet Explorer 11 on Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 to help prioritize web application testing prior to upgrading. The Ready for Windows web site lists software solutions that are supported on Windows 10 and by using Upgrade Analytics, IT can see adoption and vendor support status for applications in use across their enterprise. With advanced security, all new deployment tools, and purchasing options with the Secure Productive Enterprise, it’s a great time for enterprises to deploy Windows 10. Some of the customers joining us at Ignite include Crystal Group of Companies, a leading garment manufacturer who uses Windows 10 and the Microsoft cloud to improve clothing design concepts for customers like Victoria’s Secret to rapidly increase delivery time to days, compared to months; and Hendrick Motorsports, who uses WDATP to protect their employees while mobile, some as much as 40 weeks per year. We are excited by the momentum we’re seeing for Windows 10 and look forward to helping more businesses digitally transform. Yusuf Continue reading...

We have all heard the mind-blowing statistics around growth in the number of mobile and digital devices, and the amount of data generated every day. These trends represent the digital shift our society is undergoing, and they are also having an acute impact on the business world. Every company in every industry around the world is now being challenged to transform from being an organization that uses digital technology, to being a digital organization. With mobile devices outnumbering the people who use them, it seems like everyone is a technologist to a certain extent. But inside companies, it is still IT professionals who are best positioned to turn technology into an engine for growth, transformation and opportunity — who, out of an amalgam of software, hardware and services, deliver solutions that help people and organizations accomplish what they have set out to do. This week, 23,000 IT professionals gather at Microsoft Ignite in Atlanta to learn about some of the latest breakthroughs in security, intelligence and the cloud — the digital infrastructure that will lead to limitless scale and unimaginable potential to innovate. Read more about today’s news in our press release. IT at the heart of digital transformation Through the power of data analytics and the cloud, the IT industry has a tremendous opportunity to help digitally transform every aspect of business, spanning how companies engage their customers, empower their employees, optimize their operations and transform their products. In fact, the customers I see leading the way in how to successfully navigate digital transformation, are embracing technology specifically to address these four strategic areas. And it is the IT organizations within these companies that are at the heart of it, working hand in hand with their business partners to leverage technology that enhances business outcomes. This morning, Scott Guthrie took the stage to showcase Microsoft solutions and initiatives that will be instrumental in helping IT professionals drive digital transformation, both now and into the future. He was joined on stage by CVP of Windows & Devices Group marketing Yusuf Mehdi and others, who demonstrated new innovations that empower IT pros today to lead the way in their companies’ digital transformation journeys. The solutions we announced today span security, intelligence and the cloud platform, which serve as the connective tissue that binds our three bold ambitions – to deliver more personal computing, reinvent productivity and business processes, and build the intelligent cloud. Security With an ever-evolving and increasingly complex cyber threat landscape, security has to be top of mind for us all. We must outpace evolving threats and provide countermeasures that protect the corporate network on every front and every device. Windows 10 Enterprise features great security capabilities like Windows Hello, Credential Guard and Device Guard, which help IT professionals to secure the enterprise. And today we announced that we are making Microsoft Edge the most secure browser for the enterprise with a new protection technology called Windows Defender Application Guard. This new feature will insulate Windows 10 from untrusted browser sessions, protecting attacks on employee devices and across enterprise networks. Beyond devices, the increasing number of SaaS applications people interact with each day has made post-breach security and advanced threat protection more important than ever. To help address this we’re announcing threat intelligence sharing between Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection and Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection, which enables IT Pros to investigate and respond to security threats across Windows 10 and Office 365 in less time and more efficiently. Operating consumer and enterprise cloud services at the massive global scale that we do across Office 365, Outlook.com and Bing, gives us some distinct advantages from a security standpoint. Our detection footprint spans beyond what any customer could monitor themselves in their own organization. With millions of activities going on in Office 365 at any given point in time, we have sea of signals from which we can surface anomalies to quickly identify, anticipate and mitigate real and potential threats. Based on this, we are introducing Office 365 Threat Intelligence, among other Office 365 security enhancements, that help customers protect their networks, intercept threats, and respond to security incidents. We are also making Microsoft Azure Information Protection available to help customers better classify, label and protect their sensitive data. Ultimately, customers need protection across the entire breadth of their network – from the devices their employees use, to the apps and services they work with, to the infrastructure it all runs on. We have built an entirely new platform that spans Windows 10, Office 365 and Microsoft Enterprise Mobility + Security. This package of our most advanced, cloud-powered enterprise software is called the Secure Productive Enterprise (SPE). It will be available on October 1, and offers uncompromising productivity, collaboration, mobility, business insights and a secure experience. If you want the latest, most advanced security updates and feature innovation across Windows 10 Enterprise, Office 365 and Enterprise Mobility + Security, Secure Productive Enterprise is for you. Intelligence Perhaps nowhere is the need for transformation felt more acutely than in our interaction with data. We have reached a point in our industry where the collective power of technology exceeds that of the individual; where, in a matter of hours, a person can generate insights that previously would have taken days. And yet, with the unabated expansion of data, employees are confounded by it all — where to focus their attention, the best means of analysis, and what actions to take in response? What we need are systems of intelligence that can provide more of a big picture view when we are too focused on the details. That is why we are infusing intelligence across Office with new capabilities such as Tap for Word and Outlook – a new features that helps you easily re-use existing content from inside your organization by mining the Microsoft Graph and surfacing what is most relevant to you in the moment when you are authoring a document or email. We are also leaning into AI to help you transform business processes and customer relationships. Our soon to be introduced Relationships Assistant in Dynamics 365 for Sales leverages the AI capabilities of the Cortana Intelligence Suite to bring together multiple pieces of customer data from across the network, providing an at-a-glance portfolio of relevant information that helps inform future engagements. It has been great to see how companies are already deriving value from the Cortana Intelligence Suite, specifically through Microsoft Cognitive Services, which for example, Lowe’s uses in its mixed-reality kitchen design experience to track customer preferences and monitor trends in the marketplace to deliver a more intuitive home improvement solution to customers. Uber is also using Microsoft Cognitive Services to check a driver’s identification in real time, strengthening its security platform and improving rider and driver security in the process. Additionally, today in Paris we announced a global, multiyear agreement with Renault-Nissan to advance connected driving experiences worldwide. We will work with Renault-Nissan to develop next-generation mobility services for cars powered by Microsoft Azure, that will improve customer experiences such as personalization, advanced navigation, predictive services, remote monitoring of car features, external mobile experiences and over-the-air updates. This partnership is significant because it will bring a new digital experience to people at scale through Renault and Nissan’s brands around the world. The Cloud Platform The foundation for all of this is the Microsoft Cloud, which offers businesses a virtually limitless ability to scale and a platform for digital transformation that can deploy secure, cross-platform application experiences and harness the power of real-time, predictive analytics. Today we announced a strategic cloud partnership with Adobe, through which Adobe is bringing its Marketing, Creative and Document Cloud services to Azure, and we are making Adobe Marketing Cloud our preferred digital marketing solution for Dynamics 365 Enterprise. Together we are helping businesses use the cloud and data to deliver compelling and personalized experiences through every phase of their customer relationships. The transformation that I have described is one that Microsoft has already completed, and which more than 85 percent of the Fortune 500 companies have started with the help of our technologies. Microsoft is the only company that delivers the technology to help through every stage of the transformation, meeting customers where they are no matter where they are in their cloud journey. With the availability of Windows Server 2016 and System Center 2016, IT will have a platform at their disposal that accelerates innovation and helps to guide companies in their transformation. And they will have a way to manage it all easily with new Azure monitoring abilities and updates to our Operations Management Suite. Additionally, Microsoft and Docker are extending their partnership to bring the benefits of containers – more rapid innovation, faster time to value for building and deploying applications – to more customers by making the Commercially Supported Docker Engine available to Windows Server 2016 customers at no additional cost. I cannot wait to hear more this afternoon as Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella outlines the company’s vision for the future of business and technology, how AI will be used to advance Microsoft’s mission to help every person and organization on the planet to achieve more and view into how the world’s largest deployment of custom developed field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), in Microsoft Azure, can be used to solve some of the world’s hardest problems. IT professionals have a huge opportunity to lead their businesses through this exciting time and to turn these disruptive technologies into a supercharged engine — not just for growth, efficiency and opportunity, but for transformation and innovation as well. The world’s leading companies are betting their future on the Microsoft cloud, and IT plays a critical role in what they will become. Deploying Windows 10 and Office 365 will provide IT professionals with the most robust and secure technologies to drive this change. At Microsoft, we are committed to empowering IT professionals, who will help lead their organizations on their journey to digital transformation. The post Empowering IT to drive digital transformation appeared first on The Official Microsoft Blog. Continue reading...

MINECON is here and we’re excited to bring you more details about the next big update for Minecraft: Windows 10 Edition Beta, Minecraft: Pocket Edition, and Minecraft: Gear VR Edition, releasing on Oct. 18. https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/872ba161bb3f3af776938f4be0c1965b.png As we mentioned a few weeks ago, the Boss Update is bringing boss battles to these versions of Minecraft for the first time. Also arriving in the Boss Update will be the first iteration of Add-Ons. With Add-Ons, you’ll be able to experiment with remixing components of entities or characters in the game. Worlds you create with Add-Ons can be shared with others directly or uploaded to your Realms and accessed anytime, anywhere. For even more details about Add-Ons and a handy FAQ, check here! In addition to new gameplay features and the ability for players to customize the game itself, we’ll also be adding new input options. The Boss Update will allow you to use your Xbox Wireless Controller with Bluetooth while you’re playing the Gear VR and Windows 10 Editions. And, VR players of the Windows 10 Edition will be getting an update to support Oculus Touch input. MINECON is just getting started for the weekend, and if you haven’t tuned in yet, you can follow along with all the festivities by checking out our livestreams all weekend. Head over to Xbox Wire to read more about today’s news! Thanks for playing and we’ll see you online. Continue reading...

We hope you enjoyed this week’s episode of This Week on Windows! Check out our Windows 10 Tip blog post to learn more about how you can enable Windows Spotlight images on your lock screen. Head over here to read about the HoloLens experience “Destination: Mars,” here to find out how you can get Forza Horizon 3 early and here to learn about the new desktop apps in the Windows Store. Or, keep reading to see what’s new in the Windows Store this week! Check out all the ways you can watch your favorite shows on Windows this fall! Sling TV https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/0e24e950443e634f77a82d8873b7b81b.png Download the Sling TV app and watch your favorite fall premieres live on TBS, AMC, Comedy Central, and more. Get 7 days free and start watching today! Restrictions apply. Hulu https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/01f0b6f2e5f0dadcb189b3de5457bb4a.jpg Start a free one-week trial of Hulu today and get the best of Fall TV on NBC, FOX, ABC, Comedy Central, and more. From NBC’s Blindspot, ABC’s Modern Family and Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Hulu has your Fall TV needs covered. Don’t forget about all the hit original programming from Hulu: The Mindy Project returns 10/4 and the all-new drama Chance, starring Hugh Laurie, premieres 10/19. Netflix https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/b11bae7f3ba1e0b385921183ab0a84a1.jpg Watch hit TV and movies anytime with Netflix. Start your one-month free trial today and get instant access to hit Netflix originals like Narcos, The Get Down, and the newest season of Black Mirror, as well as the upcoming brand new Netflix originals Marvel’s Luke Cage (9/30) and The Crown (11/4). CBS https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/097626a3e132e3b0404d607137e4ba6b.jpg Stream your favorite fall shows and new series premieres with the free CBS app. CBS keeps you up-to-date with the latest episodes of your all-time favorites like The Big Bang Theory and NCIS, as well as new shows like Bull and MacGyver. Plus, stream live when you subscribe to CBS All Access. The CW https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/1f8c5f358ad7c5e09953f98e3d2afadb.jpg Home to hits like Jane the Virgin and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and superhero series The Flash, Supergirl, Arrow, and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, The CW has all of your genre needs covered. Download the free app today to start streaming these and other great titles available on The CW. Check out the rest of your favorite TV shows with the full collection of apps in the Windows Store, and start watching today! Minecraft MINECON Skin Pack https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/a58c443cf2ef8c686a0f3243f7e58893.png With Minecraft: Windows 10 Edition Beta ($9.99), change up your look with the new MINECON skin pack, featuring 14 skins. The pack includes four biome-themed adventurers: prowl through the treeline as the furtive Forest Fighter, brave blizzards as the intrepid Ice Pioneer, craft the incredible as the meticulous Mesa Artisan, or plumb the depths as the outlandish Ocean Engineer. Not only do you get all this in honor of MINECON 2016 – you get all of last years’ time-limited skins too, in one big jolly bundle. Available for free through October 6. Shawn Mendes, Illuminate – Buy for $13.99 https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/1678638751084e0dd4b445320758d531.jpg Shawn Mendes’ new album, Illuminate, is out today and available in the Windows Store. You can buy the album for $13.99 or listen free with a free 30-day trial of Groove Music Pass.* Have a great week! *30-day trial continues to a paid monthly subscription unless cancelled. Credit card required. Groove Music Pass sold separately and in select markets. Catalog size and availability varies by market and over time. Continue reading...

We’re just days from the global launch of Forza Horizon 3 on Xbox One and Windows 10 PC on September 27 (September 29 in Japan). However, if you absolutely cannot wait to be the boss of the Horizon Festival, the Ultimate Edition is available today, giving you early access to the Australian adventure. In addition to early access to Forza Horizon 3, Ultimate Edition owners receive the Forza Horizon 3 Car Pass, VIP membership and cars, and the Motorsport All-Stars Car Pack, which gives you the chance to take 10 of the hottest modern race cars off the track and out onto the open road. As Microsoft’s first Xbox One S game to feature High Dynamic Range (HDR), Forza Horizon 3 takes full advantage of HDR’s expanded contrast ratio and color accuracy. With HDR, our physics-based rendering system ForzaTech becomes even more accurate, bringing lifelike, natural and fine details to life like never before. If you thought Forza games were already gorgeous, check out Forza Horizon 3 in HDR on Xbox One S. Read more over at Xbox Wire and, if you haven’t experienced Forza Horizon 3 yet, download the free Xbox One demo here. See you out on the roads of Australia at the biggest automotive party of the year! Continue reading...

As summer officially turned into fall, this week brought plenty of extraordinary news at Microsoft and beyond. Plans to build an “innovation corridor,” researchers’ technology-based battle against cancer and six students’ invention to help blind people are just a few of the remarkable and ongoing efforts that were announced in recent days. In an in-depth feature story on Monday, we learned about the scientists, engineers and programmers in Microsoft research labs around the world who are trying to solve the complex and deadly challenge of cancer. One team is using machine learning to help oncologists figure out the most effective, individualized cancer treatment for their patients; another is using computer vision to give radiologists a more detailed understanding of how tumors progress. A third group of researchers has created powerful algorithms that help scientists understand how cancers develop and what treatments will work best, and another team is working on efforts that could actually help scientists program cells to fight diseases someday. As Jasmin Fisher of Microsoft’s Cambridge, U.K., lab, explains it, they’re “trying to change the way research is done on a daily basis in biology.” https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/8aa4af37c5aca248560ea351bed6e422.jpg On Tuesday, Microsoft executives joined leaders from across British Columbia and Washington state in Vancouver, Canada, to discuss a big opportunity: creating an “innovation corridor” linking Seattle and Vancouver to enhance both regions and benefit the nearly 12 million people who live there. Washington Gov. Jay Inslee and British Columbia Premier Christy Clark signed a formal agreement that their governments would deepen their collaboration in key areas like trade, research, transportation and education. Microsoft is already deeply committed to both places, with its headquarters in Redmond, Washington, and the newly opened Microsoft Vancouver offices that house hundreds of employees and will inject $90 million in direct investment into the city annually. Microsoft President and Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith writes: “We have the opportunity to contribute to a Cascadia Innovation Corridor that builds on the strengths and shared values of these two great cities and that creates a brighter future for everyone, on both sides of the border.” https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/08e223db89a9690e688f3fdce175b1c8.jpg A group of MIT engineering students is creating a device they hope will help increase Braille literacy among blind people around the globe — and Microsoft is helping them get a patent for their technology. The six young inventors created the first prototype of their idea, a handheld device that can turn printed words into Braille, in a school hackathon earlier this year. They are now working to refine their text-to-Braille converter, called Tactile, and hope to make it cost less than $100. Microsoft’s new #MakeWhatsNext Patent Program is aimed at giving female inventors the legal help and expertise needed to navigate the complicated and often expensive process of obtaining a patent. Team Tactile was one of four teams invited into the program this year. “There are a lot of potential barriers for women entering tech and staying in tech, from not enough exposure as children to lack of encouragement as they grow up,” said student Tania Yu. “This program makes it a lot easier for women to pursue what they’ve been working on, instead of just dropping a project because they feel like they couldn’t get intellectual property rights.” https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/0649e805bea157961b0746b5a05de3bb.jpg There are currently about 800,000 Syrian children in Lebanon. Many of these young refugees want the same things as other kids around the world — to play with their friends, help their families and receive an education that will lead them to a worthwhile career — and yet 75 percent of them are not enrolled in school. Microsoft is answering the White House’s call to make “new, measurable and significant commitments that will have a durable impact on refugees residing in countries on the frontlines of the global refugee crisis and in countries of resettlement, like the United States.” The company is committed to continue working with governments, international organizations and NGOs to deliver greater opportunity and empower displaced people around the world. For example, Microsoft is bringing opportunities for refugees to gain globally recognized certifications and is supporting training and counseling programs, as well as investing in an “Innovation Hub” where refugees can learn technology and entrepreneurial skills. Toni Townes-Whitley, Microsoft corporate vice president of Worldwide Public Sector, writes: “We believe in the power of partnerships and of people from all backgrounds working together to solve these critical challenges.” https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/40966699fa484e978044e4f4b3847ff4.jpg On Wednesday, Microsoft announced a first-of-its-kind cloud offering for Europe. The availability of Microsoft Azure from datacenters in Germany brings a new model developed in response to customer needs. Customer data in the two new German datacenters is managed under the control of a data trustee, and access is only provided with the permission of customers or the trustee. Microsoft’s commercial cloud services in these new datacenters adhere to German data-handling regulations and give customers additional choices of how and where data is processed. Microsoft Cloud Germany’s approach creates increased opportunities for innovation and economic growth for highly regulated partners and customers operating in Germany, the European Union and the European Free Trade Association, writes Takeshi Numoto, corporate vice president of Microsoft Cloud + Enterprise. In gaming news, as fans worldwide get ready for the Oct. 11 release of “Gears of War 4,” a group of IT pros have been hard at work on the latest installment of the blockbuster series. For nearly two years, IT services manager Joe Vogt and his colleagues at Microsoft’s British Columbia-based gaming studio The Coalition have been increasingly focused on making sure the studio’s IT infrastructure would support the staggering demand. “Necessity is the mother of invention around here. We always answer ‘yes,’ and then find a way to make it happen and deal with the problems as they come up,” Vogt says. A feature story tells the fascinating tale of the game studio’s epic overhaul with help from Microsoft IT. In other much-anticipated gaming news, the full version of “Minecraft: Education Edition” will be available to purchase in the Windows Store on Nov. 1. https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/0176016b365accc4d904862085d76891.jpg This week on its Facebook, Instagram and Twitter pages, Microsoft highlighted G-Paws, a fitness tracker for pets. G-Paws is a small, wearable device for pet collars that runs on the Microsoft Cloud. https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/092e145fbc58b10f0292f1096df4b5de.jpgIt tracks pets’ movements throughout the day and also encourages pet owners to engage in friendly competitions within a social “petwork.” With the help of Microsoft, more than 20,000 pets have logged more than 1 million miles of adventure. Learn more about G-Paws and its genesis involving a chubby cat named Yollo on the Microsoft Transform blog. And you’re now caught up on this week’s highlights! Join us here next week for the latest edition of Weekend Reading. Posted by Tracy Ith Microsoft News Center Staff The post Creating an innovation corridor, ‘solving’ cancer and 6 students’ empowering effort — Weekend Reading: Sept. 23 edition appeared first on The Official Microsoft Blog. Continue reading...

https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/09088af8846b21a4edfd21bdb65e4e03.jpg Since June 9, more than 35,000 students and educators around the world have utilized the early access program and provided feedback to help us fine-tune the experience across a diverse set of learning environments. Minecraft: Education Edition is built based on feedback from the educator community and the features and capabilities they have told us are important to enhancing the learning experience. While we debuted several of these features with early access in June, we’re excited to roll out even more key capabilities on November 1, including: Classroom Mode: A companion app for Minecraft: Education Edition that enables educators to manage world settings, communicate with students, give items and teleport students in the Minecraft world. It displays a map view of the Minecraft world, a list of all the students in the world, a set of world management settings and a chat window. There is even a Minecraft clock to show time of day in the world. Classroom Mode offers educators the ability to interact with students and manage settings from a central user interface. New Minecraft game features: We will continue to update Minecraft: Education Edition to include new game features from other editions of Minecraft. All the latest updates to Minecraft: Windows 10 Edition beta will be included, such as leads and horses, additional player skins, pistons and the remainder of Redstone functionality and an updated user interface. The complete version of Minecraft: Education Edition will be available for purchase on November 1 for $5 per user, per year, or through a district-wide licensing model. We’re committed to releasing the highest quality product that is reliable and secure to use in classrooms around the world. To learn more about Minecraft: Education Edition, please visit education.minecraft.net, and read more about the full version over at the Minecraft Education Blog! Continue reading...

Hello Windows Insiders! Today we are excited to be releasing Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 14931 for PC to Windows Insiders in the Fast ring. An important reminder about build expiration We wanted to include a reminder about build expiration. Since September 15th, PCs running really old Insider Preview builds started to see build expiration notifications once a day. Then on October 1st, these PCs will start rebooting every 3 hours and then on October 15th – these PCs will stop booting all together. If your PC is running one of these old Insider Preview builds, please make sure you update to Build 14926 or newer via Settings > Update & security > Windows Update. Build 14926 and newer has an updated expiration date of May 1st, 2017. If your PC is running the Windows 10 Anniversary Update (Build 14393) in the Slow and Release Preview rings today – this does not apply to you and you will not be notified of your build expiring. https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/bb727ef1bffaf5df9d7c08e8a93694ce.png Some items of note This build doesn’t have any notable new features but we do have some app updates we think Windows Insiders should be aware of! Feedback Hub Update: Feedback Hub has been updated to version 1.1608.2441.0. This update contains some highly requested features from Windows Insiders including dark mode, showing the original feedback author in the feedback details, and a settings page for Feedback Hub. To enable dark mode, just go into settings in Feedback Hub. Maps App Update: The Maps app was updated to version 5.1609.2580.0+ last week. You can now you can check the traffic to your Home or Work locations at any time by tapping the Traffic icon in the app bar. You will see traffic conditions to Home and Work and your most recently viewed traffic cameras so that you can stay on top of the road conditions along your route. Additionally, the Maps app now follows your system setting for theme preference for light or dark mode. And you can choose to change the map theme too! https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/a7f312cfafb2739cb39ede3284868631.png Send SMS with Skype Preview: You can now try out sending and receiving SMS and MMS messages directly from a Windows 10 PC when Skype on their Windows 10 Mobile phone is set as the default messaging app. Give it a try and let us know what you think. For more details, see this blog post from the Skype Team. https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/8d81dd7136ecfeef2a55e759a0ed9895.png Native support for USB Audio 2.0: We now have native support for USB Audio 2.0 devices with an inbox class driver! This is an early version of the driver that does not have all features enabled, for e.g.: only playback (render) is supported with this version. Recording (capture) support is scheduled to arrive in later iterations. We encourage you to play with the driver and let us know what you think (using the Feedback app). If you already have third party drivers for your USB Audio 2.0 device installed, follow instructions in this blog post to switch to using the inbox class driver. Other improvements and fixes for PC We fixed the issue causing people to experience a black screen when signing out and switching to another user account and unable to log in to that account. We fixed the issue causing the built-in Windows 10 apps such as Calculator, Alarms & Clock, and Voice Recorder to not work after updating to a new build. Known issues for PC While using Narrator and Groove Music, if you navigate to the progress bar while a song is playing then Narrator will continually speak the progress of the song e.g. update with the current time of the progress bar every second. The result is you will be unable to listen to the song or hear any other control you navigate to. Oracle VM VirtualBox will crash on launch after upgrading to this build. Optional components may not work after upgrading to this build. To get it working again, go to “Turn Windows features on or off”, scroll down and check the right optional component and click ok. After a reboot, the optional component will be enabled again. For keyboard users, using tab to navigate the Settings app will not work in this build. The arrow keys should work as a temporary workaround. Tencent apps and games will cause your PC to bugcheck (bluescreen). A note about Mobile We are continuing to investigate two issues that came up with last week’s flight of Build 14926 for Mobile. After upgrading to Build 14926, some Insiders reported that the pin pad is no longer visible to unlock their phone even after rebooting the phone and some phones lost the ability to use their SIM card. In both cases, a hard reset of resolves the issue. Based on the feedback we received from Insiders, we have decided not to release a new Mobile build this week until we get fixes for these two issues. Team Updates The Windows Insider Program is looking to deepen our relationship with Africa and we are starting with Nigeria. About four in five Nigerians see entrepreneurship as a goal. As we’ve spoken with tech and business leaders here, we’ve been deeply impressed with their genuine passion for making Nigeria a better place for future generations. Today, in partnership with Co-Creation Hub (CcHub) of Lagos, we are honored to announce the #WINsiders4Good Fellowship. We are in search of twenty Nigerian entrepreneurs who can’t stop thinking about the idea that will improve the lives of their fellow Nigerians. Over the course of the next six months, from November to April, we want to support and empower these twenty new businesses as they prepare to go to market. https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/3b5a923e704ad28facbb5b1c1cc4b24c.jpg We have opened up the application process and we want to hear ideas for businesses that will help make Nigeria a better place. If someone is chosen as a #WINsiders4Good Fellow, we will: Connect them with the global community of Windows Insiders. Prioritize and collaborate to unblock their technical issues that are preventing them from achieving their goal. Mentor them with technical, strategic and business guidance for six months. Provide hardware and software to bring their ideas to life. We at Microsoft want to empower every person on the planet to achieve their dreams. CcHUB is dedicated to facilitating creative thinking, collaborative problem solving, and encouraging technological innovation for improved social accountability in Nigeria. We have loved being hosted by them this week. https://extremetechsupport.com/data/MetaMirrorCache/85d8dcb50f72320aaf6faf96b5564b9e.jpg We see this partnership and the fellowship program as just the beginning. We are committed to making a deep, lasting investment in Nigeria and greater Africa starting right now. You can follow along with the announcement news here. You can find out details about the fellowship here: http://winsiderfellows.com Thank you everyone and keep hustling, Dona <3 Continue reading...