Microsoft might have earned some civil justice cred last week when news outlets reported on its newly adopted stance on facial recognition that needs to be “grounded in human rights” graced the headline of several news outlets, but it seems the company’s altruism may have been forced rather than earned according to newly surfaced emails.

BuzzFeed News is reporting that until recently, Microsoft has tried on several occasions to sell its facial recognition technology to the government over the years and while the company specifically called out local enforcement through their recent advocacy, as recently as 2018 it tried to pitch its facial recognition to the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Documents gathered by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) details conversations between Microsoft and various federal agencies regarding the sale and purchase of the software providers’ facial recognition technology.

In particular,

“Great chatting with you yesterday. Here is a recap of what I have in mind.

I am getting the Microsoft Cognitive Services Group to come in from Redmond to discuss use-cases for their Media Services. As you may be aware, Microsoft Azure has many of these services (Translation, Transcription, Video Processing, Facial Recognition, etc.) running the Public Azure. Microsoft has only some of these services running in the Microsoft Azure Government (MAG) Cloud and they are looking at what else needs to be transitioned over to MAG.

They are also looking at what needs to be developed. The great news is that MAG is FISMA-FEDRAMP High, the same as Firebird, so we can do Law Enforcement Sensitive things in it. I am kicking off a pilot project and would like to start thinking about a variety of sample recordings (video and audio) that we could play with to exercise these services. Perhaps you have some that are not sensitive that we could use?”

While the name of the officer has been redacted for security purposes, the person with whom Microsoft was supposed to meet with, holds the title of Chief Technology Officer for the DEA.

In November 2017, DEA reps made a trip to Microsoft’s Reston, Virginia office to get a first-hand demo of its Azure-based cognitive services that included facial recognition technology with an emphasis on “Face API and develop a face database.”

Communications between Microsoft and the DEA imply there was no documented evidence that anything became of the meetings and, Microsoft president Brad Smith spoke on behalf of the company in July 2017  eventually stress these need for thoughtful government regulations” regarding the use of facial recognition in law enforcement.

At the moment, it’s unclear whether Microsoft’s new stance on the use of facial recognition is tied to its seemingly failed pitches to government agencies or if it was developed in parallel and the timing of events is coincidental.

As an aside, a senior Microsoft SME attempted to meet once again with the DEA shortly after Smith’s open call for stricter regulations but before the company’s public declaration to not sell facial recognition to law enforcement until the company was satisfied with new laws set in place. In November 2018, the unnamed Microsoft SME sent another email to a DEA rep asking for a meeting, once again, regarding the use of Microsoft’s facial recognition technology.

While the ACLU’s lawsuit which has brought the email communications to light it doesn’t seem to cover recent communications between Microsoft and government agencies in regard to facial recognition. It remains unclear if the company is now using legalese to skirt around its own definition of law enforcement involvement to eventually service the government with facial recognition technology.

Despite Microsoft’s recent stance on facial recognition, the company does maintain several contracts with other law enforcement agencies in the US that include the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Department of Defense (DoD) which has caused a bit of consternation among the company’s employees.

In the end, Microsoft can only be judge by its actions and thus far, its facial recognition technology hasn’t made its way to law enforcement, how long that holds is up to the software company.

Microsoft has just announced the release of the Windows 10 preview build 20150 for Windows Insiders in the Fast Ring, which will soon become the “Dev channel.” Despite the big bump in the build number, there are no major changes in this build, though the Windows Subsystem for Linux is getting some love.

Three new WSL features are available in this build with GPU compute, WSL install, and WSL Update. Fast Ring Insiders will also find an updated Maps app that now uses TomTom data, as well as minor improvements for the Settings apps.

You can find the full list of new features, bug fixes, and known issues below:

What’s new in Build 20150

Three new Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) features: GPU compute, WSL install, and WSL update

This build contains three new exciting WSL features. The first is GPU compute: a feature that allows your Linux binaries to leverage your GPU, which makes it possible to do more machine learning development and data science workflows directly in WSL. Secondly, we’ve added a new command: `wsl –install` which allows you to install WSL with just one command. Lastly, we’ve added `wsl –update` which gives you the ability to easily manage the Linux kernel version used by WSL 2 distros. To view a summary of these announcements please read this post on the Windows Command line blog, and for in-depth details on GPU compute in WSL please read this post on the Windows Developer blog.

Other updates for Insiders

Updating the map data in the Maps app

Earlier this month, the Bing Maps Team announced they’ve started gradually rolling out the new TomTom base map data to Bing Maps and Microsoft first party products. As part of this process, we’re slowly updating the Maps app for Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel (Fast ring) to use the new map data from TomTom. We’re asking Insiders to submit feedback on any issues they see as a result of this change directly from the Maps app by selecting Suggest a change at the lower right corner of the app.

General changes & improvements

• With this week’s build, we’ll be starting to roll out the new search box on the default app settings pages As part of this, we’ve done some work to improve the performance of the search box.
• The new Korean IME is now available again for Insiders to use.
• Based on feedback, we’re updating the text of the Settings > Privacy > Location page to clarify that the icon displayed when your location is being used will be displayed in the taskbar.

Fixes

• We fixed an issue resulting in Visual Studio windows not consistently accepting clicks.
• We’ve fixed an issue where the Documents and Downloads sections in Settings > Privacy was showing a broken icon next to their name (just a rectangle).
• We fixed an issue where, if you paused Windows Update while a new build was downloading and then closed Settings, when you reopened Settings the Windows Update page may appear blank.
• We fixed an issue where updates made when editing VPN networks in Settings might not persist.
• We fixed an issue where the copy button under Settings > Network & Internet-Status > Properties wasn’t actually copying the content to the clipboard.
• We fixed an issue resulting in the data usage number in Network & Internet Settings not displaying correctly in Japanese if the data usage was less than 1 MB.
• We fixed a crash some Insiders were experiencing when opening Sound Settings.
• We fixed an issue where the Optimize Drives window position wasn’t preserved on elevation.
• We fixed a typo in the group policies under User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Component > File Explorer > Do not move deleted files to the Recycle Bin.
• We fixed an issue resulting in the On-Screen Keyboard no longer displaying text predictions.
• We fixed an issue where double-clicking a OneDrive file in File Explorer might unexpectedly show a notification saying, “Windows Defender SmartScreen is downloading from OneDrive.”
• We fixed an issue where Resource Monitor could end up showing CPU usage at more than 100 percent.
• We fixed an issue that could result in qaa-Latn unexpectedly appearing in your list of keyboards after upgrading.
• We fixed an issue where, with multiple input methods, typing in your password incorrectly on the login screen would result in your keyboard changing back to your default input method (if that’s not what you were typing with).
• We fixed an issue where the touch keyboard space bar label would disappear when pressing it while using Japanese curve-flick input in abc mode.
• We fixed an issue that could result in your browser not launching in the foreground after selecting a web link from another app.
• We fixed an issue that could result in Search not accepting typed input.
• We fixed an issue where, if pinned to Start, the Windows Security app tile would be missing an icon when the tile was medium sized.
• We’ve made some updates to improve performance of the Windows Security app if there are a large number of detections.
• We fixed a few issues that could result in your PC bugchecking.

Known issues

• We’re working on a fix for an issue causing some systems to crash with a HYPERVISOR_ERROR bugcheck.
• We’re looking into reports of the update process hanging for extended periods of time when attempting to install a new build.
• We’re aware of an issue where Notepad might fail to reopen files which were automatically saved during a PC upgrade (or restart, if enabled in Settings). Documents can be recovered from %localappdata%Notepad.

In case you missed it, Microsoft announced some big changes for the Windows Insider program earlier this week. The Fast Ring will become the new Dev channel later this month, but it will keep receiving builds with experimental features that are not tied to a specific Windows release. The Slow ring is also becoming the Beta channel and should receive new builds more frequently, and Microsoft actually released the first 20H2 build for those Insiders yesterday.

Update 1PM PT: ISOs for the build 20150 are also available to download from the Windows Insider Preview Downloads page.

Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection, Microsoft’s preventive technology designed to help enterprise users detect and respond to security threats, is getting a new UEFI scanner to protect against hardware attacks. In a blog post today, Microsoft announced that it’s expanding the protection capabilities of Microsoft Defender ATP to the firmware level by introducing a new Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) scanner.

The new UEFI scanner basically interacts with the motherboard chipset by reading the firmware file system at runtime. “The UEFI scanner is a new component of the built-in antivirus solution on Windows 10 and gives Microsoft Defender ATP the unique ability to scan inside of the firmware filesystem and perform security assessment. It integrates insights from our partner chipset manufacturers and further expands the comprehensive endpoint protection provided by Microsoft Defender ATP,” explained the Microsoft Defender ATP Team.

According to Microsoft, the UEFI scanner uses various new solution components including the UEFI anti-rootkit, full filesystem scanner, and detection engine in order to perform dynamic analysis for threat detection. Microsoft Defender ATP customers will get the threat detection alerts in the Microsoft Defender Security Center, and they can then analyze them to respond to suspicious activities at the firmware level in their organizational environments. Moreover, your security operations teams can hunt for these threats with the help of the advanced hunting capabilities in Microsoft Defender ATP.

Overall, this is a welcoming change for companies using Windows Defender ATP, and it should beef up Microsoft’s efforts to protect its enterprise customers. “With its UEFI scanner, Microsoft Defender ATP gets even richer visibility into threats at the firmware level, where attackers have been increasingly focusing their efforts on,” said the Microsoft Defender ATP Team today. “Security operations teams can use this new level of visibility, along with the rich set of detection and response capabilities in Microsoft Defender ATP, to investigate and contain such advanced attacks.”

Microsoft’s new Chromium-based Edge browser is running more efficiently on the freshly-released Windows 10 May 2020 Update, the company said today. Microsoft claims that the new browser can use close to 30% less memory on the new version of the OS due to segment heap memory improvements for Win32 apps.

“With the Windows 10 May 2020 Update, Microsoft Edge has leveraged the Windows segment heap memory improvements now available for Win32 applications to manage memory more efficiently. Early internal testing results of devices on the May 2020 Update are showing a memory usage reduction of up to 27% when browsing with Microsoft Edge,” the company explained.

It’s important to note that Microsoft Edge’s memory usage should vary across PCs, but Microsoft still expects users to have a “better experience” when using its new browser on the May 2020 Update. That may well convince more Chrome users to give Edge a try, as Google’s web browser is notorious for being a memory and battery hog.

Microsoft has started rolling out its new Edge browser to all Windows 10 PCs via Windows Update, which will replace the legacy Edge that is no longer in development. The upcoming Windows 10 20H2 update, to be available later this fall, will also be the first version of Windows 10 to ship with the new Microsoft Edge, the software giant announced yesterday.

PowerPoint Live is now generally available. Earlier this year, Microsoft announced new AI-enabled experiences for Powerpoint, Word, and Excel. This latest announcement comes directly from Microsoft in a post on the Microsoft 365 blog. Here’s a video look at how Live Presentations work in PowerPoint works.

Now, when giving a PowerPoint Live presentation, presenters can keep their audience engaged by allowing them to access your presentation on whatever device they are using. PowerPoint Live also allows the audience to look through your PowerPoint slides at their own pace without the need to interrupt your presentation.

In addition to all these capabilities, Microsoft uses the power of artificial intelligence (AI), so that your audience can access your presentation using their own preferred settings on their device, including live subtitles in their preferred language and assist any audience members with hearing disabilities.

After the PowerPoint Live session, audience members can provide feedback to the presenter, with an optional survey provided by Microsoft Forms to help the presenter improve their presentation skills. In addition, PowerPoint Presenter Coach for Android is now generally available, allowing you to get feedback and coaching on how to best deliver your own upcoming presentation using your mobile Android device.

Xbox One owners can get a cool deal on EA Access subscriptions this week. For a limited time, EA is offering one month of EA Access for just 99 cents instead of $4.99, and for that price, you’ll be able to play more than 80 EA games for free including Star Wars Battlefront 2, FIFA 20, or Battlefield 5.

EA Access was the first game subscription service to launch on Xbox One consoles back in 2014, three years before Microsoft launched its own Xbox Game Pass alternative. EA Access went to launch on PlayStation 4 last year, and it’s also coming to Steam very soon.

EA Access is much cheaper than Xbox Game Pass at just $4.99 a month, or $29.99 a year, though subscribers usually need to wait six months or more before new EA games join the catalog. Microsoft does it differently with Xbox Game Studio titles, which are now available on Xbox Game Pass on day one.

Still, EA Access remains a really good deal if you’re a fan of EA’s game franchise. The service also offers 10% off on EA digital purchases from the Xbox Store, as well as 10-hours “Play First” trials for upcoming games.

While there’s no E3 2020 this year, EA will hold an “EA Play Live” digital event tomorrow at 4PM PT. The company is expected to reveal more details about Star Wars: Squadrons, its new space combat simulation game that will ship on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Windows on October 2, 2020.

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Lenovo just announced updates to its ThinkPad P Series Mobile workstations that bring more control and more configurations to the SMB crowd.

Some of the latest improvements include new screen sizes, Ultra Performance Modes, the latest 10th Gen Intel Core processors, rebuilt chassis with up to 30 percent larger CPU heat sinks, and larger battery sizes just to list a few.

For those unaware, Lenovo’s new ThinkPad P series includes the ThinkPad P15, and P17 (successors of the P53 and 73) and the beast ThinkPad P1 Gen 3.

As previously mentioned, Lenovo is priding itself on its redesigned airflow makeup that adds up to 13 percent more airflow for the P15 and P17,  this time around. Leveraging the new airflow design are two other components that should help boost overall productivity from the device that includes a larger CPU heat sink for the devices as wells as Lenovo’s Ultra Performance Mode that allows users to tax the processors more before hitting that fan noise barrier.

As part of a customization initiative, Lenovo also opted for a new daughtercard design for CPU and GPU placement which forgoes the tried and true soldered solutions of the past and allows the company to offer more customized GPU and CPU configurations out of the box. For instance, the ThinkPad P15 and P17 come equipped with NVIDIA Quadro RTX GPU’s but offer support for higher GPU wattage if necessary.

“Professionals across industries require the highest level of power and performance from their mobile workstations to meet the demands of their workflow,” said Sandeep Gupte, senior director of professional visualization, NVIDIA “Powered by NVIDIA Quadro RTX, Lenovo is offering a truly customizable and full-powered workstation experience – whether people care on the go or at home.”

Other niceties coming to the P lineup also include new 84WHr batteries, configuration support of up to 4TB of storage, UHD Dolby Vision HDR displays, and a possible 128GB DDR4 memory options for the P15 and P17 devices.

Moving over to the flagship P device in the ThinkPad P1 (the P version of the X1 Extreme) customers will now get a slightly redesigned chassis housing that improves speaker quality, an anti-smudge coating on the cover, and brand new UHD LCD display option that kicks out 600-nits of brightness. There will also be available in select markets, an LTE WAN configuration for remote workers.

Last but not least, Lenovo is tossing in an update to its ThinkPad X1 Extreme Gen 3 and ThinkPad P15v device that will offer a 10th Gen Intel processors with support up to i9 options, NVIDIA GeForce 1650Ti or Quadro P629 GPU graphics support, 15 and 15.6-inch displays that also push out their own 600-nits of brightness and optional CAT16 LTE-A Wireless WAN support.

What’s new:

• All equipped with high-performance 10th Gen Intel H series mobile processors
• Feature the new Ultra Performance Mode, exclusive to these systems, allowing users to take full control of their performance setting
• The ThinkPad P15 and P17 (Follow-ons of the P53 and P73) will boast additional shared features – including a new 94WHr battery and up to 4TB of storage, along with up to 128GB DDR4 of memory and UHD Dolby Vision HDR displays
• The P15v offers increased flexibility within the 15” space. With a UHD 600-nit LCD display and the NVIDIA Quadro P620 GPU
• X1 Extreme Gen 3 offers new WiFi 6 and optional CAT16 LTE-A Wireless WAN

Most of Lenovo’s latest updates will begin shipping in July at the earliest.

• The ThinkPad P15 and P17 will be available from July, starting at $1,979 and $2119, respectively.
• The ThinkPad P1 Gen 3 will be available from July, starting at $2,019
• The ThinkPad P15v will be available from July, starting at $1,349.

Microsoft has acknowledged a new bug that appears to be plaguing users running the Windows 10 May 2020 Update. In a support document today (via Techdows), Microsoft confirmed that it is currently investigating reports from users currently unable to create a storage pool using the Storage spaces feature on the Windows 10 May 2020 Update.

“Devices using Storage Spaces might have issues using or accessing their Storage Spaces after updating to Windows 10, version 2004 (the May 2020 Update) and Windows Server, version 2004. When using some configurations, partition for Storage Spaces might show as RAW in Disk Manager. We do not recommend running the chkdsk command on any device affected by this issue,” the support document reads.

If you rely on Storage Spaces, Microsoft recommends that you should follow these steps to mark them as read-only:

1. Open Start menu, type PowerShell, Right-click on Windows PowerShell, and then select Run as administrator.
2. Once the PowerShell dialog opens on your screen, type the following command and hit the enter button: get-virtualdisk | ? WriteCacheSize -gt 0 | get-disk | set-disk -IsReadOnly $true

This command will automatically set your Storage Spaces to read-only, and you will no longer be able to write on them. It is worth noting that your device will still be usable, and previously corrupted volumes should remain readable. Alternatively, you can also roll back to a previous version of Windows 10 until Microsoft releases a permanent fix for this problem.

In a separate announcement, Microsoft said that the company is now using machine learning to pick devices that are compatible with the Windows 10 May 2020 Update. “Today we are slowly beginning the training of our machine learning (ML) based process used to intelligently select and automatically update devices approaching end of service,” Microsoft said yesterday. If you haven’t been able to install the Windows 10 May 2020 Update so far, you may want to give Windows Update another look.

Microsoft’s Surface Go line seemed to be an answer in search of a question when the company first unveiled it, actually, many questions. Among some of the questions, people might have had when weighing the options between a relatively pocketable mini Surface or its bigger well known Pro brother is, why?

Over the next few weeks, I’ll see if this little device can answer that question.

On paper, the Surface Go is only a shadow of the Pro with a less powerful processor, smaller screen, smaller keyboard attachment, and handcuffed with Windows 10 S out of the box, but hell if it isn’t a well-crafted piece of hardware that warrants a double-take when looking at future PC purchases.

The Surface Go 2 comes with the same meticulously and almost child-proof packaging as any other Surface device, but when you finally claw the device out of its outer sarcophagus, you’re met with the relatively lightweight PC, long-held proprietary charging cable and seemingly unnecessary paperwork. For those fortunate enough to afford the attaching keyboard, there is some extra packaging to go through, but you won’t cut yourself or lose part of a fingernail in the process.

Together, the attached Microsoft Signature keyboard and Surface Go 2 feel about a heavy as Moleskin notebook (give or take a few ounces), and because of the size, I found myself toting it back and forth between rooms similar to my paper and pen notebook. Unfortunately, the review unit I received didn’t include the majestic Surface Pen, so a requisite review will be done san 4,096 points of pressure sensitivity.

The Surface Go 2 looks and feels like a mini Surface by all accounts, the bezels are similar, the aspect ratios (albeit shrunken) are similar, camera and speaker placements are the same and even the miniature keyboard attachment connects the same pogo pins with the same satisfying click noise.

So far, my experience with the Surface Go 2 has been relatively positive. I’m limiting myself to working in Windows 10 S like anyone else who purchases the device. Right off the bat though, the limitations of Windows 10 S became apparent, downloading the new Xbox app on Windows 10 couldn’t be performed. While I was able to download games such as State of Decay and Minecraft Dungeons, actually playing them were no-gos.

Disappointing.

My game testing on this device might be limited to just the remastered Streets of Rage game.

As for productivity, everything else has worked surprisingly well. Opening Excel and PowerPoint projects were a breeze and web browsing was pretty smooth.

Perhaps, due to the processor, there is a noticeable lag in opening apps for someone coming from a 16GB Intel i5 workstation.

I’ll be putting it through its paces over the next couple of weeks. At $600 plus, Microsoft has a steep asking price for the whole package, but from what I’ve used it for in my limited experience, it’s served well for writing and researching a few articles and catching up Avatar the Last Airbender on Netflix quite nicely.

Earlier today, German-based publication Dr.Windows.de revealed that Microsoft’s Android launcher would be getting an update in the Google Play Store that is unlike any others before it. As Microsoft preps for a possible July release of its hotly anticipated dual-screen Surface Duo device, today’s Microsoft Launcher 6.0 release highlights a splintered path of development that has been slowly converging since January of 2020.

At the end of 2019, the Microsoft Launcher team began redesigning its Android launcher experience with more Google-Pixel like design and feature sets and using the beta channel as its testing bed for other sorts of functional development. However, today’s launcher update comes to the Play Store as a beta release but marks a rebuild rather than a simple redesign of the consumer-facing version of the Microsoft Launcher and many believe it’s going to become the predominant launcher experience for both foldable and single screen Android devices going forward.

Over the past six months, the rebuilt, beta version of the Microsoft Launcher has gone through several feature set updates that have brought it back on par with the current public version, and in some instances, surpassed it. Items like landscape rotation and support for hidden app functionality were all brought to the consumer-facing version of the Microsoft Launcher, however, as part of the rebuild, there have been several features that the Microsoft Launcher development team has scrapped in favor of performance or utility, such as blurred backgrounds and the way it handles timeline content fetching as well as no longer supporting landscape switching.

Presumably, many of these will return in a future update to the launcher before it’s released as the main interaction point on its flagship foldable device possibly in July.

For now, anyone signed up for the beta launcher program can head over the Google Play Store and grab the update to test out. Anecdotally, the experience is relatively bug-free, but noticeably lacks the same sort of polish the public launcher enjoys.

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At Build 2020 last month, Microsoft announced that its Edge Add-ons site would receive a major update, with better search and curated collections. In a blog post today, Microsoft has announced that the new Microsoft Edge Add-ons website is now live for everyone across the globe, addressing users’ “key concerns” related to the usability of the platform.

A first look at the new Edge Add-ons site indicates that it’s now divided into various categories such as entertainment, accessibility, and productivity. To help users easily find their relevant extensions, the site now features a carefully curated home page with a series of new collections. The company has also redesigned the search page which now offers detailed insights into the search result while improving navigation at the same time.

Moreover, a dedicated section lists the most popular add-ons, while another one provides recommendations from the editors. In order to improve hand-holding for its users, Microsoft has introduced some new enhancements to the add-ons site as well as the extensions manager page. The company said that the new website has been re-designed to be more accessible with high contrast or narrator options.

While the Edge add-ons site is the easiest way for Edge users to install extensions, it’s still possible to get extensions from other established sources including the Chrome web store. That’s one of the main advantages of Microsoft Edge now leveraging the Chromium open source project.

Grounded, one of the upcoming Xbox Game Studios titles developed by Obsidian Entertainment is getting a first limited-time demo today. Only select Xbox One users will get access to the demo via the Xbox Insider Hub, but the single-player demo will be available for everyone on Steam.

The demo will allow players to get a look at the single-player experience of Grounded, explained Mikey Dowling, Obsidian Entertainment Director of Communications. “Upon choosing their character, players will be thrust right into the heart of the backyard at sunrise, and will quickly discover that life is different when you’re only one centimeter tall. “Over the course of one in-game day, this experience will allow players to craft tools and weapons, build structures, and survive against the various perils of being small.

If this first Grounded demo is actually timed, you’ll be able to replay it anytime you want through Monday, June 22. Obsidian Entertainment is mostly known for its critically-acclaimed RPGs such as Fallout: New Vegas and The Outer Worlds, and it will be interesting to see the developer trying something different with this new survival game. Grounded is expected to hit Xbox Game Preview and Steam Early Access on July 28, 2020, and it will also be available on that date for Xbox Game Pass members.

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In a pair of new blog posts, one on Azure and one on Teams, Microsoft detailed its technical response to the COVID-19 Coronavirus pandemic, and how they’ve advanced their systems in the time of crisis. Penned by Mark Russinovich, the Chief Technology Officer of Microsoft Azure, the posts cover all the kinds of strategies the company embarked on, from resiliency, capacity forecasting, scaling resources, optimizations, and more.

Some interesting highlights from the Teams post point out that Microsoft employed some resiliency strategies to protect Teams during high demand. This includes active-active fault-tolerant systems, resiliency-optimized caches, a circuit breaker, bulkhead isolation, timeouts, and more. “When COVID-19 stay-at-home orders started to kick in around the world, we needed to leverage the architectural flexibility built into our system, and turn all the knobs we could, to effectively respond to the rapidly increasing demand,” said Mark Russinovich.

In addition, Microsoft also planned for the future. The company built and iterated models that could anticipate where growth would occur in both raw users and usage patterns. When Teams usage peaked, the company had to build new models to take the growth in global demand for Teams into account. That was due to new usage patterns from existing users, new usage from existing but dormant users, and new users, too. “Throughout the process, we erred on the side of caution and favored over-provisioning—but as the usage patterns stabilized, we also scaled back as necessary,” explained Russinovich.

Interestingly, since Teams is power by Azure, Microsoft made moves to scale their compute resources. Microsoft provisioned resources to take on certain demands in regions across the globe.  The company says it increased the total number of regions per geography, decreased the total amount of spare capacity each region needed to hold to absorb emergency load, and reduced the total capacity needs. “Dealing with load at this new scale gave us several insights into ways we could improve our efficiency,” said Russinovich.

Other high points in the blog post highlight that Microsoft optimized its networks and routine strategies to leverage the idle capacity when most people aren’t using Teams at night. To improve storage, the company also stored cache states in a binary format rather than raw JSON, as well as compressed data before sending it to the cache.

Of course, there is a human side to it too, for the folks that work on Teams. Microsoft says Every on-call engineer had at least 12 hours off between shifts. They also brought in more incident managers from across the company and deferred all non-critical changes across services.

Microsoft has announced this morning a slew of new features coming to the built-in PDF Reader in Microsoft Edge, with most of them rolling out in the coming months. In a recent blog post, Microsoft noted that the company is currently working on a bunch of new features including Table of Contents, Highlight mode, Text notes, Digital signatures, as well as a smoother scroll experience and accessibility improvements.

In addition to the aforementioned features, Microsoft Edge’s PDF Reader is also getting the ability to view the sensitivity labels of protected pdf files. Here is a quick look at what’s to come for the new Microsoft Edge browser:

• Smoother scroll experience: We are bringing the smooth scroll of Legacy Edge to the modern browser.
• Table of Contents: You will soon be able to view the contents of PDF files and navigate through the file with the same.
• Highlight mode: In this mode, you will be able to create highlights directly by selecting text, without the need of clicking on a highlight button.
• Text notes: With this, you will be able to add their own notes to text in PDF files. These notes will travel with the PDF.
• Protected PDF files: Microsoft Information Protection adds a layer of security to your documents. It ensures that only the users who have certain permissions as view, copy, annotate can take those actions on the file. Hence, no matter where the document goes, the data of your organization remains secure.
  • Viewing labels of protected files: You will soon be able to view the sensitivity labels
  • Viewing MIP files protected in other tenants: This will enable you to view the files protected in other organizations, or in other tenants in the organization.
• Digital signatures: View and validate certificate based Digital signatures on signed files.
• Accessibility improvements: With this, you will be able to fill PDF forms using screen readers, and navigate through PDF documents using caret mode.

Since Microsoft released the first Edge Insider builds last year, it’s good to see that the browser is getting new features on both Mac and Windows. Again, it will take sometime before it happens, but it’s likely that you will see all these features in one of the preview builds (Canary and Dev Channels) that are available for Microsoft Edge soon.

Microsoft is launching a new Bing app for Xbox One consoles in the US. If it’s currently in preview, the Bing app provides quick access to web search, as well as entertainment and gaming news. The app also comes with the beautiful daily wallpapers that most Bing users seem to enjoy.

If you’re in the US, you can try this new Bing app on your Xbox One by signing up for the preview in the Xbox Insider Hub app. Once installed, the app can be added to groups or pinned to the Home Dashboard for easier access.

As you may know, Bing used to be front and Center in the Xbox 360 dashboard, but the Xbox One later came with a better and more versatile web browser, which is now the legacy Edge. This new Bing app is no replacement for Microsoft Edge on the Xbox One, but it does come with a new UI that’s optimized for the console.

It’s not clear yet when Bing for Xbox One will be available in other markets, but we’ll sure let you know when it happens. In the meantime, let us know in the comments if you think this new Bing app should be a useful addition on the console.

Yesterday, we reported that some users have discovered that the Fresh Start feature has been removed beginning with the Windows 10 May 2020 Update. Well, Microsoft has quietly updated its official support document (via Windows Latest) this morning to explain what is actually happening with Fresh Start in the latest Windows release.

According to the updated support page, the recovery tool has not been removed in the latest version, and it has just been moved to another place. “Fresh start is available for Windows 10 versions prior to 2004. For version 2004 and after, Fresh start functionality has been moved to Reset this PC,” the company explained.

Microsoft explains that to access the Fresh Start feature, you simply need to follow the steps mentioned below:

1. Head over to Start > Settings > Update & Security > Recovery > Reset this PC > Get Started to use Fresh Start on PCs running the May 2020 Update or later.
2. Click “Keep my files” option when prompted, choose between the local or cloud recovery option.
3. Finally, select “No” when prompted “Restore preinstalled apps?”

However, Microsoft said that the preinstalled apps recovery option is only available if your machine has some preinstalled apps that are configured by the PC manufacturer. Microsoft has also confirmed that users running the Windows 10 November 2019 Update or older can still go to Settings > Update and Security > Windows Security > Device performance & health > Additional info > Get Started to access the feature.

It is worth noting that the Fresh Start references are still present in other parts of the OS (Update & Security section of the Settings menu), but in reality, the Fresh Start option has been removed from there, and it has been merged with the “Reset this PC” option under Recovery settings. Now that Microsoft is aware of the broken link in the Windows Security app, it’s likely that the software giant will remove them in future updates.

Lenovo will finally bring a 5G-enabled PC stateside with its Lenovo Flex 5G, also known as the Lenovo Yoga 5G in other select markets. Announced today, Lenovo will not only be selling a new 5G-enabled PC, but it will be doing so with backing from leading 5G service providers that include Verizon, EE, Sunrise, and CMCC.

The Lenovo Flex 5G will be powered by the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx 5G chipset, allowing users to connect to speeds up to 10 times faster than current 4G/LTE PCs on the market.

“Lenovo introduced the world’s first 5G laptop in market to equip the mobile generation with smarter technology for always-on connectivity and computing. The hardware is just the first step,” says Johnson Jia, Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Consumer Business Segment in Lenovo’s Intelligent Devices Group. “With our strategic partnerships with global 5G network carriers, consumers will now be able to access easier, faster, and more secure connectivity seamlessly from virtually anywhere. As 5G computing holds the power to transform user experiences, we believe it can ultimately disrupt the PC industry for the better.”

And, because it’s housing the Snapdragon 8cx, Lenovo is promising seemingly pie-in-the-sky battery life claims of up to 24-hours. Other notable specs include an integrated Qualcomm Adreno 680 GPU, 8GBs of LPDDR4X memory, and 256GB of UFS 3.0 storage. There’s also a fingerprint reader housed in a 2.97lb frame with a 14″ FHD glossy multi-touch display that can pump out 400nits of brightness.

Starting June 18, customers in the US will be able to purchase the Lenovo Flex 5G online at Verizon or through the My Verizon app. Verizon will provide installment payments through its Verizon Device Payment Plan with 0% APR for $58.33 for 24 months for those who qualify, otherwise, the device can be had for the full MRSP of $1,399.99.

As for international markets, Lenovo will have the Yoga 5G available via its own website later this year. International customers will need to wait until telecom carriers in their region release more info about pricing, availability, and compatible frequency bands.