Microsoft has gone a long way since former CEO Steve Ballmer infamously called Linux “a cancer”. Actually, Microsoft has embraced Linux in a pretty big way in recent years, helping the company attract more of the developers that Ballmer chased back in the day.

During a recent chat hosted by MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (via The Register), Microsoft President Brad Smith acknowledged that the company “was on the wrong side of history when open source exploded at the beginning of the century and I can say that about me personally.” The Microsoft veteran, who joined the company before it was hit by antitrust litigations in the nineties added that “The good news is that, if life is long enough, you can learn… that you need to change.”

Indeed, Microsoft did change: Azure, the company’s cloud computing platform has been supporting various Linux distributions for many years. Microsoft also used a Linux-based OS for its Azure Sphere platform for IoT app development. In recent years, Build 2016 was another big “Microsoft loves Linux” moment with the introduction of the Windows Subsystem for Linux.

If 2020 is still not the “Year of Linux on the desktop,” Microsoft did the right thing by embracing Linux, which really helped to make Azure and even Windows more relevant than ever. The Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 (WSL2), which Microsoft announced last year, is actually one of the big new features coming in the Windows 10 May 2020 Update later this month.

Microsoft has started rolling the new “Raise your hand” feature for Microsoft Teams meetings, which allows participants to notify the meeting organizer and other attendees that you would like to speak or add to the ongoing conversation. Microsoft confirmed that the feature is now live for Mac, Windows as well as the Web clients:

We are happy to announce that this feature has started rolling out to the general public. We plan to complete the rollout by end of this week. This feature is available for Windows, Mac and Web clients. Mobile (iOS/Android) will be coming soon.

As soon as you raise your hand, an icon will appear next to your name beside the mute icon. The meeting organizer can then address your question at their convenience. It is worth noting that Microsoft Teams allows both the presenter or the attendee to lower individual hands in the meeting.

The functionality is pretty much useful for educational institutions and large companies that deal with hundreds of participants in a single meeting. Due to the nature of remote classes or webinars, teachers and hosts have to mute the meeting participants to concentrate without being distracted by the background noises. Previously, there was no way for the meeting attendees to notify their hosts about a question without interrupting the whole session for everyone else. The ‘Raise hand’ feature now offers a seamless way to raise your doubts or questions during Microsoft Teams meetings.

Do you think that the new Raise hand feature will make it easier for everyone to keep up with the discussion without getting disturbed? Sound off in the comments section below.

Xbox co-founder J Allard is joining Intellivision as a Global Managing Director. As noted in a post on GeekWire, Allard will join the team to help launch the Intellivision Amico, a $249 family-friendly console set to be released in October 2020. For those unfamiliar, Intellivision was a console released by toy company Mattel in 1979. At Microsoft, Allard co-founded the original Xbox, Xbox Live, Xbox Live Arcade, and the Xbox 360.

In a press release, Intellivision CEO Tommy Tallarico announced the addition of Allard and his role with the Intellivision Amico team.

“In his new role at Intellivision Entertainment, Allard will provide invaluable insights to support the final development of Amico – the new console designed to make video gaming accessible to all. His expertise and deep knowledge in user experience, operating systems, game certification, and building ecosystems will help Amico stay true to its mission to bring family and friends together again with fun games that everyone can play.”

Here is a look at a gameplay trailer for the upcoming Intellivision Amico console.

Since leaving Microsoft in 2010, Allard has been hard at work at Project 529, a Vancouver community-powered bike anti-theft company. The Intellivision Amico is planned to be released in October 2020 with pricing for the system starting at $249 with games for the console being priced at under $10 each.

When Microsoft first revealed the Surface Earbuds in October 2019, I was a bit skeptical. After all, there were tons of alternatives from Apple, Samsung, and Sony. But, deep inside, I had hope. Microsoft was taking a different route with Surface Earbuds.

Instead of copying and pasting Apple’s Airpods, Microsoft came up with a unique design for its wireless earbuds and added some unique integrations with Microsoft 365, too. Now finally available (and priced cheaper at $200) I am glad I held off and waited for Surface Earbuds. In my brief day with the buds, they seem to have everything I longed for. Here are my quick impressions as to why.

Attention to detail

The minute I unboxed my Surface Earbuds, I was excited. Microsoft paid a lot of attention to detail with the packaging. Everything is bundled together in the box in a careful and thoughtful way. It’s something I normally won’t mention this at all in a quick impressions review, but I think deserves a section just for the way things are bundled in the box.

Lifting the lid of the Surface Earbuds reveals the Surface Earbuds charging case wrapped in plastic and a message in the tray that reads, “everyone’s ear is as unique as their fingerprint.” I found that cute, as I remember that Microsoft mentioned to me at the October Surface event that the Surface Earbuds can fit 95% of all human ears.

Anyway, putting that charging case to the side and lifting the housing up then reveals a leaflet that is folded in a way that will show you step-by-step quick-start directions. There’s then the USB-C charging cable, and the replacement ear tips underneath, with an additional manual bundled together with legal terms. There’s no charging brick, as Microsoft probably assumes you already have one with your PC or phone.

For the price that they are, the unboxing experience is quite satisfying. I’ve never been this happy opening up a Microsoft Product before, be it the Surface Pro X, the Surface Laptop 3, or even the Surface Go.

Charging case

But going back to the actual product, the highlight has got to be the Surface Earbuds charging case. Unlike Google’s Pixelbuds or Apple’s AirPods, this charging case has a unique look. It isn’t really that compact and takes on what I like to call an oval-like “traffic light” shape. There’s a good reason why.

While this shape makes it larger and a bit heavier than most charging cases for wireless earbuds on the market, I think it’s all about battery life. Microsoft says this case can hold up to 24 hours of battery, which is enough to charge the Surface Earbuds (that hold 8 hours of battery) three times.

That’s really appreciated, as since these are intended for productivity and Office use, you don’t want to be constantly attached to a charger. You can use the Surface Earbuds in confidence knowing it will always have a charge when you need it. It’s something I experienced myself, as in two days of use, I haven’t yet charged the case since I initially received the product.

Elsewhere, the case is thoughtfully designed. While the top lid is a bit thin, it still makes a satisfying click noise when you push it closed. The Earbuds also pull right into the case when you rest them above their enclosure, thanks to magnets, making another small satisfying clicking noise.

There’s a LED light inside the case which lets you know when you’re pairing, or when you need to charge the case. You also have USB-C connectivity for charging, and a pairing button on the bottom. It’s a nice clean design that fits just right with the rest of the Surface lineup.

Fit, look, and feel

The most important thing of all, though, is how the Surface Earbuds fit, feel, and look. This has been one of the most controversial areas of the Surface Earbuds, being mocked for a “bad 90’s like earrings design,” but in my time so far, I do think this is where they are best.

Included in the box installed on the Earbuds are the “medium” tips, but I swapped it out for the small to create a better fit in my ear. Swapping it out is as easy as pulling the tip out, and pulling them back on top of the buds, sort of like a pair of rubber gloves. You’ll know when the fit right as you’ll hear a “click” noise when it snaps right.  Fitting the buds in your ears, meanwhile, is as easy as placing it in your ear canal, and then “screwing” it upwards to secure it. This makes it so that they won’t fall out.

With the right silicone ear tips in place, the Surface Earbuds feel will feel really natural in the ears. I’ve tried Apple’s Airpods before and they always create a “pain” sensation on the insides of my ear canal after an hour of use. With the Surface earbuds silicone tips, I never experienced this feeling. It slots right into my ears and just feels so natural. I’ve worn them for a full 5-hour writing shift without feeling any pain, and it felt like a natural part of my ears.

The looks, though, while being called ridiculous by some, has a good purpose. When in your ears, the large “earring” like touch surface gives you quick access to controlling music. While busy typing away on my keyboard, I was easily able to move my hands upwards to the earbuds and stop, pause, or play music. The gestures are quite intuitive, with each side of the buds having unique controls.

On Android, triple tapping even summons Spotify by default. And, long-tapping with summon your digital assistant of choice (So far in my testing, that’s Cortana on Windows, Google Assitant on Android.) It’s quite the experience as the Earbuds play nice with any product you own, regardless if it’s from Microsoft or not.

Pairing and audio is great

Finally, there’s is the audio quality and pairing process. This is just as you expect it from a Surface product. On compatible Windows 10 PCs, pairing on Windows is seamless. Out of the box, just open the lid of the Earbuds charging case, and when Bluetooth turned on, Windows 10 will Swiftpair to it, asking you to accept and connect. You can also download the Surface Audio app, too, to update the Earbuds, and enjoy the equalizer and other settings.

Without going into too many details, I’ll also say the audio quality is great. Most of my EDM, pop, and electropop music sounded great, even at low volumes. The bass isn’t as strong as I had hoped, but the Earbuds do have good quality when it comes to songs with lyrics.

Just keep in mind, the Surface Earbuds is NOT noise canceling like Apple’s Airpods Pro, and there’s a reason why. As I’ve said before, these are not meant to be noise canceling. They just rest in your ears and don’t go directly into your ear canals to cancel out sounds around you. If you want that experience, you should buy the Surface Headphones 2.  Essentially, Microsoft envisions you wearing the Surface Earbuds all day, out and about in the office or at home so you can still hear the world around you.

But, I did find that some of the ear tips do create somewhat of a “tight” seal around your ears to lock out just a tiny bit of the sounds around you. Overall, though, when wearing the Earbuds, you’ll still hear some of the outside world. Be it your own voice when talking on a call, or the chatter in the room you’re in, and even typing on your keyboard.

Full review soon

I’ve only spent two days with Surface Earbuds so far, so there’s a lot that I did not get to play with yet. I’ll be looking into the Microsoft 365 integrations, listening to more music, and testing the Earbuds out on Skype and Teams calls later this week, so be sure to keep tuned to OnMSFT for an in-depth review soon!

Microsoft highlighted this week 20 Microsoft Garage projects that have been honoured in the company’s “Garage Wall of Fame“. Over the years, several Microsoft Garage projects have turned into real success stories, with one recent example being the Microsoft Launcher on Android. But several Microsoft Garage projects have also focused on improving accessibility, such as the Seeing AI mobile app that helps the visually-impaired navigate the real world.

For those unfamiliar with Microsoft Garage, this is basically an initiative to encourage problem-solving and experimentation among Microsoft employees and interns. The company is inviting its workforce to find creative solutions to small or big problems, and the results are often interesting.

Because it’s a bit hard to keep up with all the creative projects born in the Microsoft Garage in recent years, here’s a list of 10 interesting Microsoft Garage projects that we think you should definitely know about.

3D Models in Office

If you like to play 3D content in the Office apps, you may be familiar with the feature called 3D Models in Office. Starting with the Windows 10 Creators Update, this project introduced the ability to add 3D models into PowerPoint, Word, and Excel, and makes it easier for you to rotate, animate, resize, and morph the 3D objects.

Azure Quickstart Center

Azure has become one of Microsoft’s most important products in recent years, but getting started with it may not be that easy. Fortunately, this step-by-step guide has been built into the Azure Portal to help customers create, configure, and manage cloud workloads. The Azure Quickstart Center improves customers’ onboarding experience with various guides, and it also offers online courses to help customers with the cloud deployment process.

Eye Control for Windows 10

People with disabilities can use an eye-tracking technology called Eye Control for Windows 10, which has been created in collaboration with the ALS Association and the nonprofit Team Gleason to improve accessibility on Windows 10. Eye Control allows everyone to use their eyes for operating an on-screen mouse, keyboard, and text-to-speech experience with a compatible eye-tracker, and you can see how it works in the video below.

FindTime

FindTime is basically an add-in for Outlook that eliminates the need to check calendar availabilities to schedule meetings across companies. Microsoft says that it helped thousands of professionals to streamline and automate the scheduling process since launch.

Mobile Sharing and Companion Experiences for Microsoft Teams Meetings

Mobile Sharing and Companion Experiences for Microsoft Teams Meetings enables meeting participants to seamlessly use their PCs and phones together. The companion mode allows you to join Microsoft Teams meetings from two devices (desktop and mobile). It allows attendees to control PowerPoint presentations, share photos, a live video stream, or their screens from their mobile phones.

Presentation Translator for PowerPoint

The Presentation Translator PowerPoint add-in offers multi-language support for displaying live subtitles in PowerPoint presentations. It serves as a vital tool for deaf or hard of hearing people within a classroom or meeting, and encourages the participation of audiences in discussions.

Mouse Without Borders

For people who like to control multiple PCs with a single mouse and keyboard, the Mouse Without Borders app is the solution for your needs. The free app allows users to control up to four computers at once with a single mouse and keyboard, making it possible to copy text or drag and drop files across PCs. It has been downloaded by millions of users since launch and continues to be one of the popular projects in the developer community.

Watch For

This AI-powered computer vision system makes it possible to discover and analyze live video content with the ability to surface interesting parts of a livestream in real-time. It’s worth mentioning that the livestream esports search results on Bing, as well as Mixer’s HypeZone channels are powered by this tool.

Microsoft Launcher

The Microsoft Launcher is an Android launcher that enables cross-device experiences between your Windows 10 PC and Android phone. What started as the Arrow Launcher went to become an essential app for Android users living in the Microsoft ecosystem, and even though the UI looks nothing like Windows Phone, the design and UX are very good overall. The card-based view provides quick access to your mails, calendar, recently opened web pages and documents. And with built-in support for Microsoft tools like Office and Sticky Notes, it’s a good alternative to other Android launchers.

Seeing AI

Seeing AI is a free iOS application that helps low vision and blind people by narrating the world around them. The application leverages the power of AI to provide an audio description of people, objects, scenes, and text to people with visual impairments. The project was unveiled back at Build 2016 by Saqib Shaikh, a Microsoft employee who appears in the above video to explaining how Seeing AI helps blind people to understand who is around them.

Almost all tech companies today claim to value innovative ideas, but Microsoft encourages its employees to take it to another level by providing them technological resources and physical space to experiment. A lot of great products came from the Microsoft Garage over the years, if you’re interested to learn more, we invite you to check out the company’s recent celebration of the Garage Hall of Fame.

This year’s Evo esports fighting game event may have been cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic but it’s now been replaced by a purely digital version called Evo Online.

The announcement was made via the official Evo Twitter account earlier today where it was also revealed that Xbox Game Studios’ Killer Instinct would be returning to the tournament for the first time in four years.

The Killer Instinct fandom has always been extremely passionate and active, even though the title hasn’t received any content updates in several years, so this isn’t exactly a resurrection of a dead game as some would assume.

Introducing Evo Online! pic.twitter.com/ecf8gxNGUW

— EVO (@EVO) May 14, 2020

Its sudden inclusion is interesting though with a likely explanation probably being Killer Instinct’s strong support for online matches, something that’s definitely needed now that Evo is moving online, at least for this year.

Lending credence to this theory is the fact that Super Smash Bros Ultimate was planned to be a part of the original Evo 2020 event but is not part of Evo Online at all. Nintendo’s fighter is very popular with real-world esports events but is notorious for its lag and connectivity issues when played online due to Nintendo’s online service which are significantly behind those offered by Microsoft and other companies. Killer Instinct’s online matches are powered by Microsoft’s cloud services which are much more reliable.

Killer Instinct was a Day One launch title for Microsoft’s Xbox One console back in 2016. It’s a free-to-play fighting game loosely based on the two original Killer Instinct games with a mix of returning and original characters, 4K visuals when played on an Xbox One X console, Xbox Achievements, a powerful music score, a large number of unlockables, and guest fighters from franchises such as Halo and Battletoads.

Unfortunately, Windows’ Clippy never made it to the game.

The game is available on both Xbox One consoles and PCs via either Windows 10 or Steam and can be played with all content unlocked for free as part of an active Xbox Game Pass subscription. Killer Instinct is also one of the first video games to be playable via Project xCloud, Microsoft’s cloud streaming platform.

Are you a Killer Instinct fan? Let us know if you’re hyped for its return to Evo in the comments below and then follow us on Pinterest and Facebook for more Xbox gaming news.

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Alan Wake, the cult-classic survival horror game released ten years ago, is coming to Xbox Game Pass for Console and PC on May 21. Developer Remedy Entertainment announced the news today during a 10th-anniversary livestream, and you can watch the snippet captured by Twitter user Nibellion below

Remedy announced that Alan Wake is coming to Xbox Game Pass Console + PC starting May 21st pic.twitter.com/inJcuuW9M7

— Nibel (@Nibellion) May 14, 2020

As a reminder, Alan Wake launched as an Xbox 360 exclusive back in May 2010, with the Windows version coming two years later. It’s a game that truly showed Remedy’s storytelling expertise, and Alan Wake pretty much pioneered the episodic format later perfected by Telltale Games in games like The Walking Dead. Despite Remedy releasing the stand-alone Alan Wake’s American Nightmare in 2012, many fans have been hoping to see Remedy release a true sequel. Unfortunately, Remedy went to create a new IP called Quantum Break for Microsoft, followed by the cross-platform game Control last year.

Alan Wake game was actually published by Microsoft Studios, so adding it to Xbox Game Pass along with newer Xbox Game Studios titles makes complete sense. If you have yet to play this old gem, we remind you that you can get your first month of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate for just $1.

Microsoft has published today the full session catalog for its Build 2020 developer conference on May 19-21. The event is going all-digital this year, and the company is allowing everyone to register for free.

If a quick search for “Windows 10” reveals no less than 60 sessions focusing on the Windows Insider Program, Windows Terminal and WSL2, or PowerToys, we couldn’t find any sessions dedicated to Windows 10X, the new lightweight version of Windows 10 that Microsoft will now be adapting for single-screen devices.

One session titled “Unifying and evolving the Windows app platform” sounds quite promising. The description says “Learn how the Windows app platform is evolving and unifying Win32 and UWP so your present and future apps can easily target 1 billion+ Windows devices.” As Windows enthusiasts have been debating about the “death of UWP apps,” this particular session should be quite enlightening.

You can already register for sessions you want to attend, and overall Microsoft promises 48 hours of content. Let us know in the comments if you spot other interesting sessions in the catalog.

A couple of days ago, researchers at the Eindhoven University of Technology disclosed a critical vulnerability in Intel’s Thunderbolt technology labelled “Thunderspy.” According to the researchers, pretty much all PCs with a Thunderbolt port built before 2019 are vulnerable, though exploiting Thunderspy requires having physical access to PCs.

Thunderspy is considered by the researchers as a design flaw that can’t be fixed by software updates, making silicon redesign mandatory. Consequently, the only way to fully protect your PC against Thunderspy attacks is to disable the Thunderbolt controller entirely in UEFI (BIOS), though that’s probably a bit extreme considering all the benefits brought by Thunderbolt 3.

It’s not all bad, though: According to the researchers, PCs that support Kernel DMA Protection (available in systems purchased in or after 2019) are better protected from this Thunderspy vulnerability. Microsoft confirmed this yesterday in a blog post about its custom Secured-core PC architecture, which the company introduced last fall:

Secured-core PCs ship with hardware and firmware that support Kernel DMA protection, which is enabled by default in the Windows OS. Kernel DMA protection relies on the Input/Output Memory Management Unit (IOMMU) to block external peripherals from starting and performing DMA unless an authorized user is signed in and the screen is unlocked.

This means that even if an attacker was able to copy a malicious Thunderbolt firmware to a device, the Kernel DMA protection on a Secured-core PC would prevent any accesses over the Thunderbolt port unless the attacker gains the user’s password in addition to being in physical possession of the device, significantly raising the degree of difficulty for the attacker.

The list of Secured-core PCs already includes various devices from Dell, HP, Lenovo and even Microsoft’s Surface Pro X. It’s also worth noting that Microsoft never implemented Thunderbolt in its Surface devices so far, and the company specifically highlighted Thunderbolt’s security risks in an internal video that leaked last month.