Microsoft’s cloud services and technologies are being deployed across a myriad of vertices and one of them happens to include the automotive industry.

Recently Microsoft and German automaker Volkswagen have collaborated on Volkswagen Automotive Cloud, a cloud initiative to help the car manufacturer tie in new and emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning and the Internet of Things.

With VAC up and running, Volkswagen’s AG CEO Dr. Herbert Diess and head of Digital Car & Services Christian Senger are planning to expand the use of the company’s Automotive Cloud in China and United States markets. As a German-based operation, VAC was originally developed for a European market, but with the help of Microsoft’s Azure the plans to implement the same sort of European vehicle and service data operations at scale in new locations.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella spoke about the collaboration during his recent visit to Volkswagen’s Digital Lab in Berlin on Wednesday,

“Digital technology is rapidly changing every aspect of the auto industry – from the manufacturing process to the car itself. Our partnership will enable Volkswagen to deliver new Azure-based connected vehicle services that accelerate the company’s transformation into a software-driven mobility provider and define the future of mobility for people everywhere.”

Beyond the flowery aspirational corporate speak Nadella offered about the expanded partnership, Volkswagen and Microsoft are working together to deliver more concrete results with the first vehicle generation to be fully connected to the company’s Automotive Cloud.

ID. is one of Volkswagen’s most ambitious projects that will “be the first vehicle to use the Automotive Cloud and is to be launched in Europe in 2020,” and the company plans to also launch a China production arm at that same time.

In extended partnership news, the Development Center in Seattle where the intent is for Volkswagen engineers to work side by side with Microsoft developers in relatively close proximity to major US-based innovations; is making progress according to a joint press release from Microsoft and Volkswagen.

As cloud services become ubiquitous, it’ll be interesting to see how companies apply technologies such as AI, ML and sensory collection to improve engagement, retail, purchasing, research and more.

Microsoft has released their blog post outlining many of the improvements that business users saw in Microsoft 365 this month. As explained by Kirk Koenigsbauer, Corporate VP of Microsoft 365, the focus on these updates are to enhance security and increase productivity and workflow.

Microsoft is now rolling out a feature to allows users to scan data from a printed document onto Excel in the form of a fully editable spreadsheet. Initially available on Android and will come soon to iOS devices, the feature was first announced at Build 2018 in September.

Microsoft has already made improvements to the Microsoft Teams app, particularly for Healthcare workers. These features include priority notifications to help clinicians focus urgent care patients, and support for integrating FHIR-enabled electronic health records data, both of which are currently in private preview.

If you’re enjoying the ease of passwordless login of your Microsoft account thanks to the company’s Authenticator app, it has also received improvements this month. The Microsoft Authenticator app now offers security notifications, allowing users to quickly react to account activity of something suspicions occurs.

Speaking of security, the company has also introduced Microsoft Threat Experts, a tool that works with the Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection program to further increase security with the help of quick access to tech experts. For Azure users, there’s also Azure Sentinel, a preview tool to help admins “keep their organizations safe by harnessing the power, simplicity and extensibility of Azure to analyze data from Microsoft 365 and security solutions from other vendors,” in the words of Ann Johnson, CVP for the Cybersecurity Solutions at Microsoft.

Microsoft has also recently released the Office PWA app for Windows 10 users running the latest version. The new app brings the familiar apps with new icons to the top of the app screen, and recently opened documents towards the bottom. Organizations will also be able to integrate third party apps to the app and customize their own branding, if they prefer.

It’s certainly nice to see the changes Microsoft is making to these services. Many jobs can feel rather frustrating or tedious, however that’s what tech companies such as Microsoft are for—to enable us to work more efficiently with the evolving technology that empowers our productivity.

As we’re about to say goodbye to February, Microsoft is adding two new games to the Xbox Game Pass catalog today. The most important addition is Alien: Isolation, a survival horror game set in the universe of the popular science fiction horror movie franchise.

Alien: Isolation lets you play as Amanda Ripley, the daughter of the main protagonist of the Alien film series, Ellen Ripley. The action is set fifteen years after the first Alien movie, and the huge focus on stealth and survival is pretty much an homage to this cult-classic film.

The second game joining Xbox Game Pass today is the episodic game The Wlaking Dead: Season 2 from Telltale Games. The first season was added to Game Pass earlier this month, and the choices you did in the first season can be imported in the second one.

Microsoft added no less than 10 games to Xbox Game Pass in February, including blockbuster games like Shadow of the Tomb Raider. Let’s hope that March will continue on this trend.

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Alien: Isolation

Developer:
SEGA Europe Ltd

Price:
$39.99

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The Walking Dead: Season Two

Developer:
Skybound Games

Price:
Free

The official Universal Windows Platform (UWP) Twitter app for Windows 10 Mobile smartphones and Windows 10 PCs and tablets has added quite a few new features and improvements this past week and an official list has finally been released showing what has been changed.

In addition to the new chronological timeline button which we noticed a few days ago, the Windows 10 Twitter app has also received support for the Irish, Galician, Basque and Urdu languages, screen reader improvements, and has replaced the native Windows 10 emoji with the official Twitter emoji.

Here’s the official release notes with all the details:

New

• Timeline: The chronological timeline switch is now on for web! Click the ✨ at the top of your timeline to get your tweets in chronological order (or switch to the algorithmic timeline). We will eventually switch you back to the algorithmic tweets after a while, but if you keep switching we’ll wait longer before changing it back.
• Navigation (widescreen): We changed the icon for Explore from a ???? into a #⃣. When in widescreen mode, there’s a search field on the screen, and having one ???? for Explore and another ???? for search was confusing. ????

Updated

• Internationalization: Enabled our beta language support for Irish, Galician, Basque and Urdu.
• Emoji: DM Groups and List titles now use Twemoji rather than native OS emoji for more reliable rendering

Fixed

• App: There was a somewhat rare, almost impossible to reproduce, situation with UTF-8 character encoding that was causing the app to crash when loading. All files are now serving with proper encoding. Sorry Peru ????
• Events: Events that are not found show a not found error instead of the generic ‘Try Again’
• DMs: The thing where the text input wouldn’t have focus when entering a DM conversation is better
• Internationalization: Corrected the display of numbers and Tweet action icons (e.g. “55 Retweets”) in languages that read right to left.
• Accessibility: The screen reader reads the Tweet when navigating the timeline with J/K keyboard shortcuts. Including the number of Replies, Likes, and Retweets. Ratios for everyone!
• Accessibility: Social proof (e.g. “@Twitter Retweeted”) now reads properly with screen readers
• Accessibility: Improved handling of screen magnification
• Accessibility: Added an aria label to the ‘promoted’ marker so the screen reader can tell when the Tweet is an ad

Do you use the official Twitter app on your Windows 10 Mobile smartphone or Windows 10 PC? Let us know why or not in the comments below and then follow us on Twitter for more Windows app news.

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy is now available for digital pre-order and pre-download on Microsoft’s Xbox One consoles.

This new release contains all of the content from the first three Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney video games and is selling for a relatively cheap price point at $29.99.

Here’s the official game description:

The classic courtroom adventure series that has sold over 6.7 million copies worldwide is finally here. Become Phoenix Wright and experience the thrill of battle as you fight to save your innocent clients in a court of law. Play all 14 episodes, spanning the first three games, in one gorgeous collection. Solve the intriguing mysteries behind each case and witness the final truth for yourself!

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney will launch on Xbox One on April 9th.

Are you a fan of the Phoenix Wright franchise and will you be getting Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney? Let us know in the comments below and then follow us on Pinterest for more Xbox gaming content.

The app was not found in the store. ?

Go to store
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The rollout of a new mobile telecommunications standard that will eventually replace 4G appears to have broader implications than just speeding up downloads on smartphones.

During Mobile World Congress this week, Microsoft and its PC manufactuers used the convention to shine some light on how 5G will power more mobile devices beyond smartphones.

In a recent blog post, the Vice President of Platforms Engineering at Microsoft Erin Chapple sums up the company’s efforts to hone 5G as such:

With all of this going on, we’re very excited about some of the big announcements from our partners and device makers here at MWC. Partners are critical to making this a reality—device makers, silicon manufacturers, mobile operators, eSIM enablers, mobile device management providers (MDMs) and ISVs, all need to establish a new “connected computing” approach to business. And we’re hearing that’s just what they’re up to.

Microsoft and its partners are looking at producing devices that come with 5G modems capable of faster connectivity for items such as LTE enabled PCs, laptops, tablets, IoT, ambient computing and smart speakers among others.

More specifically, Microsoft sees 5G helping boost its cloud services strategiesby enabling PC users to tap into speeds of connectivity that renders the cloud latency a moot point.

PCs connected to a cloud service via 5G, with all of that computing power served up as if you were right there at the server farm. They also announced Wi-Fi 6, which will play an important role for both consumers and in the enterprise.

Microsoft and its PC partners have been laying the foundation of 5G adoption with eSim inclusions in select devices since 2016, with one of the highest profile implementations came with the Surface Pro LTE and Surface Go.

At MWC 2019, eSims are playing a big roll as serveral manufacturers unvieled plans to implement in devices and connect them through Microsoft’s “Mobile Plans” app.

This week, several of these players are announcing new releases and partnerships within this category at MWC. As an example, IDEMIA and Mobile Iron will be sharing the offering for their common customers and mobile operators in support of the Windows commercial solution for eSIM.

Wandera showcased its Windows connected PC solution, which helps enterprise customers define policies that govern how mobile data can be utilized by both users and mobile apps across a variety of network scenarios (physical SIMs, eSIMs, Wi-Fi, etc.). We are also excited to continue to work with mobile operators, such as C Spire and KDDI, as we get closer to deploying eSIM within the organizations of their customers.

Aside from foldable phones, Mobile World Congress has been cornucopia of future looking technologies and Microsoft hardware and services seem to be at the center of many.

This year’s Build, Microsoft’s annual developer conference, slated for May 6-8 in Seattle, is just about to open its doors for registration:

#MSBuild registration will start at 9:00 AM PT.

— Microsoft Developer (@msdev) February 26, 2019

You can learn more about Build and register on the official Build 2019 website. We’ll learn more soon about pricing, etc., but this year’s event should be a doozy, with lots of info about “Windows Lite,” the new Chromium based Edge browser, and lots more. Stay tuned to OnMSFT.com for all the latest on Build and beyond!

The Academy Award-winning animated film, Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse, is now available to watch digitally within the Microsoft Movies & TV apps on Windows 10 devices, Windows 10 Mobile smartphones, and Xbox One consoles.

To help promote this release, Microsoft is giving everyone who buys the film digitally between February 26th through to March 11th two free weeks membership of the Xbox Game Pass subscription service. The code for the free two weeks will be sent as a message to the associated Xbox user after the purchase has been made.

Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse is available to buy digitally in the Microsoft Store in SD, HD, and UHD and each version costs $19.99. This pricing is notable as usually the UHD version of a film costs around $5 more than the HD version.

The film is set within its own universe, separate from the live action Marvel Cinematic Universe films, and follows Miles Morales as he becomes a new Spider-Man and meets a variety of superhero counterparts from alternate universes.

Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse was pretty much universally acclaimed by both cinema-goers and critics and took home the Academy Award for best Animated Feature earlier this week.

Are you going to buy Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse digitally in the Microsoft Store? Which version will you buy? Let us know in the comments below and then follow us on Pinterest for more Microsoft news.

Trials Rising is now live and ready to be played on Microsoft’s family of Xbox One consoles. The game is the latest in the Trials racing/stunt franchise and features a variety of new courses set in real-world locations in numerous countries.

Here’s the official game description and launch trailer:

Explore over-the-top action and physics-bending motorcycle racing in Trials Rising, the latest edition of the Trials franchise. All new features, more competitions, and more tracks mean new challenges! Ride challenging tracks around the world – from the Great Wall of China and New York City to the Eiffel Tower and everywhere in between. With the new hilarious Tandem Bike mode, partner with a friend and try to control one bike with two riders. From your local backyard to worldwide stadiums, defeat all your opponents online and rise to glory. Create unique levels in Track Central using hundreds of different components. The possibilities are endless – and so is the fun!

Trials Rising is available in two version; a regular edition and a Digital Gold Edition that comes with the main game and the Expansion Pass which includes over 55 new tracks.

Are you a fan of the Trials games and have you had the chance to play Trials Rising yet? Let us know if you’re enjoying it (or not!) in the comments below and then follow us on Pinterest for more Xbox gaming content.

The app was not found in the store. ?

Go to store
bp6v6qzbmfp0+windowsstore”>Google websearch

The app was not found in the store. ?

Go to store
bplw9kmfdnmr+windowsstore”>Google websearch

Microsoft may already be pretty busy with its bi-annual updates for Windows 10, but the company reportedly has other exciting software projects on its plate. One of these is “Lite OS,” a new lightweight operating system designed for a world where thin clients like Chromebooks are increasingly popular.

Lite OS, apparently code-named “Santorini,” is reportedly based on Windows Core OS, the modular version of Windows that will drop legacy components to better adapt to new form factors. Petri’s Brad Sams, who claims to have seen this new Lite OS in person, published the above mockup today.

Compared to the traditional Windows 10 desktop, Lite OS should have a simpler UI while keeping some familiar elements. The bottom task bar will apparently lack the system tray, and the Start menu will also look different, with no more Live Tiles. However, classic Windows features like File Explorer and windowed apps will still be there.

On the apps front, Lite OS is said to be only supporting UWP apps and Progressive Web Apps as of today, though both Sams and ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley have been hearing that legacy 32 apps could become accessible via containerization and/or streaming. No support for Win32 apps would likely make Lite OS a tough sell for PC-like devices. Because yes, Lite OS will reportedly be able to run on various form factors, and Microsoft has already built support for both Intel and ARM chips.

There are still a lot of unknowns about Lite OS, but Sams said today that Microsoft could unveil the OS in the coming months:

I expect Microsoft to begin talking about the operating system this year in the spring, likely at its Build conference in May but more importantly, the company will begin wider testing this summer. While I don’t know if that will include a public preview, Windows Lite is moving forward at a feverish pace as the company understands the importance of this new platform. (…) I’m also hearing that the company plans to seed out hardware with the new OS. That being said, I’m not quite sure to what scale or when they will distribute the hardware but it is being considered at this time.

In a world where there are already more than 1 billion iOS and Android devices in the wild, and still less than 1 billion Windows 10 active devices nearly four years after the OS launched, it will surely be very difficult for Microsoft to introduce a new platform. We still don’t have much details about this new Lite OS, but the Redmond giant may also have a hard time explaining to consumers the purpose of Lite OS. Windows 10 draws its strength from its openess and vast ecosystem of apps, and this is probably what consumers expect from a new Microsoft platform. We’ll see what happens, but Build 2019 could definitely be one of the most interesting developer conferences this Spring.

If the Lost Planet video games or Resident Evil: Code Veronica didn’t catch your attention last week, perhaps these new titles will. Microsoft is adding two more to the backwards compatibility library, further expanding the number of legacy Xbox 360 games on the newer Xbox One system.

Hydrophobia and Marathon: Durandal are coming to Xbox One Backward Compatibility today https://t.co/qPMRNs2ZLo pic.twitter.com/TMdFch13OT

— Larry Hryb ????????☁ (@majornelson) February 26, 2019

The first title, Hydrophobia, is a survival adventure series by Dark Energy Digital but published on the Xbox 360 by Microsoft Studios in 2010. It features realistic water animations especially when compared to other games released around that time. Thanks to Microsoft making this title work with the Xbox 360 hardware emulation within the Xbox One console, you can now play this on your newer generation system.

If you’re into more classic first person shooters, Marathon 2: Durandal could be a nice game to play on your Xbox One now that it’s backward compatible. The game was released during the days of Windows 95 but started on the original Apple Macintosh computer, and later became available on a host of other platforms including the Xbox 360, Windows, Mac, and now your Xbox One console.

Those games are available to buy for less than $10 each on the Xbox marketplace for those interested. And as Microsoft has released as many as five titles within the span of a week for the backward compatibility list, the company could likely easily reach over 600 games before the year’s end.

In a post on Twitter, Xbox’s Larry Hryb, also known as Major Nelson, announced the latest Deals with Gold for Xbox Live Gold subscribers. This latest round of Deals with Gold features three games that are available for deep discounts, including Halo Wars 2 ($20), Darksiders III ($44.99) and a specially priced Far Cry 5 and Far Cry New Dawn bundle (both games for $59.99). For $20 Halo Wars 2 is a steal. Halo Wars 2 is an Xbox Play Anywhere game title so you can buy it once and play it either on Xbox One or Windows 10.

Here are this week’s Deals With Gold and Spotlight Sale offers including a publisher sale for a number of @Ubisoft titles https://t.co/kkjYmVzwZY pic.twitter.com/WSe0hDEVdp

— Larry Hryb ???????? (@majornelson) February 26, 2019

In addition, there are many discounts available for on other Ubisoft game titles, including Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, Hitman 2, and more. There are discounts available on more than 150 games. The Far Cry 5 and Far Cry New Dawn bundle is too good to pass up! Take a look at these three games and get them before this Deals with Gold sale ends at 12:00 AM EST on March 4, 2019.

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Halo Wars 2: Standard Edition

Developer:
Microsoft Studios

Price:
Free

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Darksiders III

Developer:
THQ Nordic

Price:
$39.99

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Far Cry® 5 + Far Cry® New Dawn Deluxe Edition Bundle

Developer:
Ubisoft

Price:
$99.99

Microsoft and VMware, the cloud and virtualization service company, have long been rivals, competing to help manage companies’ private data centers as they begin to move to the cloud. Up until now, it’s been difficult to run VMware software on Azure, but that could be about to change, according to a (paywalled) report from The Information.  Amazon’s AWS has had an agreement with VMware since 2016, but these new agreements could give companies some choice in where they end up in the public cloud.

One of VMware’s principle products allows companies to create virtual servers, and Microsoft’s Hyper-V server virtualization was in part a response to VMware’s dominance in that segment of the market. While it’s possible to get the VMware virtualized servers running in Azure, which is preferable for some companies to AWS on the whole, currently it takes a lot of work and requires “extensive technical work.” The new partnership announcements would make it much easier for companies to run VMware virtual servers in an Azure cloud.

VMware is already being pressured to allow the use of Azure by customers, reports The Information:.

“VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger told CNBC last June that his customers were asking for compatibility between VMware’s software and Azure, as well as Google Cloud.”

Microsoft has built Azure into one of the main pillars of its business, but still trails Amazon’s AWS by a wide margin when it comes to corporate cloud services. A VMware agreement could help to level the playing field.

Microsoft Corporation has announced the rollout of the Microsoft-Ashoka Accelerator, a new social entrepreneur accelerator program in partnership with Ashoka, the world’s largest network of leading social entrepreneurs with more than 3000 fellows.

The program, a part of the company’s worldwide Tech for Good initiative, aims to nurture and grow an ecosystem of tech-enabled startups focused on social and environmental issues.

The Microsoft-Ashoka Accelerator will provide high-potential startups technology access, AI and cloud expertise, and customized mentoring to accelerate the development of intelligent and effective solutions for social issues. Moreover, Microsoft for Startups will extend the benefits of its flagship program, ScaleUp, to help the shortlisted startups scale their projects.

Launched under the aegis of the Microsoft Technology for Social Impact (TSI) team, India and France will be the first countries to pilot the program in March 2019. Launched in September 2017, the Microsoft TSI group serves nonprofit organizations worldwide by making its cloud technology accessible and affordable to nonprofits and helping them move to the cloud so that they can drive greater impact.

Simplon.co, renowned for enabling digital transformation in the nonprofits sector, will lead the on-ground management of the program in India. Simplon is also Microsoft’s partner in deploying AI Inclusive schools for underprivileged youth in France.

The tripartite partnership brings complementary skills to the table – Ashoka Foundation brings the entrepreneurs, Simplon brings the understanding of IT and social entrepreneurship, and Microsoft brings the much needed AI and intelligent cloud technology expertise.

Microsoft’s partnership with Ashoka and Simplon will enable young social entrepreneurs to tackle global issues and help them build data-rich organizations that are fueled by cloud and AI technology.

The digital pre-orders for the Xbox One releases of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster, and Final Fantasy XII The Zodiac Age are now all live within the Microsoft Store and the Store section on the Xbox One dashboard.

Final Fantasy VII will be the first of the three to release on the Xbox One and will launch on March 26th for $15.99. Unlike the other two games, this release is a direct port of the original Final Fantasy game and only comes with three improvements; 3x speed mode, the ability to turn battle encounters off, and a battle enhancement mode.

Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster, as its title suggests, is a two-in-one package containing HD remasters of Final Fantasy X and its sequel Final Fantasy X-2. It’s due for release on the Xbox One on April 16th and will retail for $49.99. Both games feature HD remastered game assets and cutscenes in addition to a newly-created modern audio option.

Final Fantasy XII The Zodiac Age will come out on Xbox One on April 30th and is also priced at $49.99. In addition to the HD remastering, this version of Final Fantasy XII contains a variety of added content that was unavailable in the original release.

Are you a Final Fantasy fan? Let us know which one’s your favorite and if you’ll be buying any of these re-releases in the comments below and then follow us on Pinterest for more Xbox gaming content.

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FINAL FANTASY VII

Developer:
SQUARE ENIX

Price:
$15.99

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FINAL FANTASY X/X-2 HD Remaster

Developer:
Square Enix

Price:
$49.99

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FINAL FANTASY XII THE ZODIAC AGE

Developer:
SQUARE ENIX

Price:
$49.99

A handful of Windows observers and journalist such as Brad Sams, Rafael Rivera and NazmusLabs on Twitter seems to have unearthed some rather incredible news for the gaming community.

In a recent post, Sams walks through what Microsoft’s latest DirectX update means for the company’s gaming future, and it appears the company is prepping a full migration of the Xbox One installation into Windows via Windows 10’s new PowerShell enhancements.

What that boils down to is a more native Xbox One gaming experience from a PC.

Through Microsoft’s recent limited State of Decay 2 testing for Windows 10 Insiders on builds 18334 and later, we get a glimpse at how the company plans to bring native Xbox gaming to PCs.

When you download State of Decay, the oddities begin immediately. Instead of downloading from the Microsoft Store server, serverdl.microsoft.com, where all content comes from including PlayAnywhere titles, the game downloads from assets1.xboxlive.com.

What it looks like Microsoft is doing, instead of porting each Xbox feature back to the PC one by one, they are simply dumping the entire Xbox one installation/servicing plumbing and making it the primary installation for Windows.

When you install State of Decay, you get a legacy DX installation setup prompt that does a classic, non-sandboxed, and non-store based installation of DirectX dependencies to your system directory. 

In conjunction with the recent appearance of the Gaming Service App, there is mounting evidence that Microsoft is fairly deep in the weeds in its merging of Xbox and Windows platforms into a single binary for game developers to target.

Streamlining the delivery mechanisms for games on PCs and consoles appears to be a large part of the company’s end game to bolster its gaming audience. Arguably, Microsoft has lost this generations console war, but if the company maneuvers its recent consumer-focused pivot successfully, it could render Sony’s current hardware win a pyrrhic victory.

With this much groundwork already laid, it’ll be interesting to see what Microsoft shows off during this year’s E3 convention as the company has the stage alone to further cultivate its combined PC and console gaming narrative.

Thin and budgeted seem to be an ongoing mantra in Lenovo’s laptop designs as of late.

The Lenovo IdeaPad S340 is coming in at $369.99 for the cheapest offering and at $449.99 for a slightly beefed up version and in under 3.7lbs for the average computing user.

Here are the details Lenovo has offered on the S340 thus far:

• Upgraded Intel & AMD processors & graphics
• Up to FHD IPS Touch Display
• New 3 side narrow bezel >20% thinner than predecessor
• New TrueBlock privacy shutter for webcam
• Up to NVIDIA GeForce MX250 or Integrated graphics
• Chassis Materials: Carbon fiber (CFRP) with an aluminum finish on the cover and soft touch deck
• Dolby Audio Premium (2 x 2W Speakers)
• 2 x USB 3.0 (one supports charging), 1 x USB-C, HDMI™, DC Jack (round), 4-in-1 SD Card Reader, Combo Audio Jack
• Optional Backlit keyboard
• All day battery life (10 Hour)  with New RapidCharge technology that gives you 80 percent capacity in 1 hour
• Windows 10 Home Operating System
• Up to 12GB DDR RAM
• Up to 2TB HDD SATA storage

Customers will be able to choose between Onyx Black, Abyss Blue, Sand Pink, and Platinum Grey, starting in March for participating EMEA markets and in April for the US.

The benefit and the pain of the Windows-partner ecosystem is the level of variety and price points offered to customers. Overchoice or the Paradox of Choice can be a real anxiety trigger for Windows users looking for their next device, but fortunately, the homogony of quality specs used by device makers might help ease the pressure of finding that perfect laptop.

Enter the Lenovo IdeaPad S540 14″ & 15″

For a starting price of $729.99 customers get the following:

• Up to 8th Gen Intel Core i7 and AMD Ryzen 7 3700U processors
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050/ GeForce MX250/ Intel Integrated graphics/ AMD Radeon RX Vega graphics
• Privacy Shutter for webcam
• 25% slimmer screen bezels
• Dolby Audio speakers
• Dual-action cooling fans
• All-day battery life (12 hours) with Rapid Charge technology. 80% battery charge in as little as 60 mins.
• Windows 10 Home operating system
• 14″ FHD or 15″ FHD Anti-Glare 30o-nits display
• Up to 12GB DDR RAM
• Up to 1TB SSD Storage
• 1 x USB-C (USB 3.1 Gen 1), 2 x USB 3.0 (One Always-On), HDMI™ 2.0b, Audio Combo Jack, SD Card Reader, Fingerprint Reader
• Starting at 3.3lbs (1.5 kg)

The Lenovo IdeaPad S540 will be available in Abyss Blue, Copper, and Mineral Grey, sometime in April for US customers and March for some participating EMEA regions.

The Microsoft To-Do Android app gained support for multiple accounts a couple of weeks ago, and the same feature is now available on the Windows 10 app. After installing the new version 1.51, you’ll be able to add multiple personal Microsoft accounts in Settings, as well as your Office 365 work or school account.

Multiple account support is now available on Windows! With version 1.51 you can keep your work and personal life separate while easily switching between accounts within the app. pic.twitter.com/mWU2VWWRCZ

— Microsoft To Do (@MicrosoftToDo) February 25, 2019

The Windows 10 app lets you easily switch between accounts by clicking on your profile picture on the top left corner of the app. Unfortunately, it’s not possible yet to have one combined view that brings together all of your lists across different accounts, but the Microsoft To-Do team is open to feedback and this may eventually come in the future.

Microsoft has been iterating fast on its new task manager app, and many new features are in the pipeline, such as flagged email integration. Briging flagged emails as tasks is currently one of the top requested features on the Microsoft To-Do uservoice website, and the team confirmed yesterday that it’s “on the way.”

Updated February 26: We initially wrote that Microsoft had just opened up testing for flagged email support, but this was inacurrate. “Like our other new features, we will ship it to Insiders first,” the Microsoft Team said to us. We apologize for the error.

While a laptop may not be the first thing to surface to the top of your mind when thinking about Mobile World Congress, the form factor is still mobile, of sorts.

Seeing an opportunity to squeeze in some awareness of its more mobile computing platform, Lenovo shuttled in the unveiling of its next line of Ideapads that include 14″ and 15″ inch versions, as well as Intel and AMD, powered devices.

Here is what we know so far:

Lenovo IdeaPad C340 14″ & 15″

While the IdeaPad C-models are quickly becoming synonymous with Lenovo’s Chromebook ambitions, the C340’s are Windows 10 Home offerings.

• 8th Gen Intel Core & AMD Ryzen 7 Processor options
• NVIDIA GeForce and AMD Radeon RX graphics options
• 8-hour battery life with Rapid Charge technology for an 80% charge in 60 mins
• Privacy Shutter over the webcam
• 2x USB 3.1/ 1 Type-A/ 1 x USB Type C/ HDMI port/ 3.5mm headphone & Mic combo jack/ Card Reader
• Glass Fiber lid
• Reduced screen bezel
• Screen options ranging from 14″ FHD & 220 nits to 15″ FHD & 250 nits
• Backlit Keyboard and Fingerprint reader options
• Storage options ranging from 128 PCIe SSD to 1TB SATA/PCIe SSD
• Memory options ranging from 4GB DDR to 16GB
• Starting at 3.64lbs

The IdeaPad C340 will be offered in Abyss Blue, Platinum Grey, and Onyx Black with a starting price if $499.00 and availability sometime in April in the US, but as early as March for participating EMEA regions.

Today, Microsoft and Telefónica, one of the largest telecommunications company in the world, announced a strategic partnership at MWC 2019 in Barcelona, Spain. The partnership with Microsoft will help Telefónica improve customer experiences and integrate the use of intelligent technologies. Microsoft’s CEO, Satya Nadella noted that the partnership will improve Telefónica’s networks reach to more locations throughout the world.

“Telefónica has been a leader in using AI to transform customer engagement, and the strategic partnership we announced today builds on this history of innovation. Together, we will apply the power of Azure and Azure AI to create new, innovative experiences for millions of Telefónica customers around the world and shape the future of Telefónica’s network.”

José María Álvarez-Pallete, chairman and CEO of Telefónica, added that the new partnership will help its company improve its technology with the help of Microsoft AI.

“Telefónica is applying cutting-edge technology to its ongoing transformation, pioneering virtualization and software to develop smart, liquid networks ready to be powered by AI. Specifically, we are already using AI to enhance our customer relationships and are really excited to work with Microsoft to further harness the power of Azure AI. This agreement strengthens our relationship and our common belief that AI technology and the use of data should be based on solid ethical principles and empower people to control their digital lives.”

Telefonica and Microsoft will employ an intellectual property model based on Microsoft’s Shared Innovation Initiative. By using Microsoft’s initiative, Telefónica will be able to protect the co-creation of technology and intellectual property with Microsoft. Microsoft will be able to help Telefónica improve its customer engagement and business processes by expanding the use of Azure Cognitive Services for customer engagement and business processes, create new AI-powered, in-home experiences for customer engagement, and help transform Telefónica’s network by using AI, blockchain, 5G, and edge computing to expand and protect Telefónica’s telecommunications network.

As part of Microsoft’s extensible push into more open development, the company introduced its new cloud AR platform dubbed Spatial Anchor.

Spatial Anchor is being billed as a cloud-powered spatial awareness apparatus for its latest HoloLens AR headset release. During the unveiling of HoloLens 2 at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Microsoft covered a ton of new initiatives designed to support HoloLens development and buried among the pile of news was Microsoft’s effort to create cloud-based spatial recognition system that would not be persistent marker of augmented elements at all times, but in bigger news, the company is looking to support competition AR efforts from ARCore and ARKit.

According to Microsoft’s Mixed Reality documentation, “a spatial anchor represents an important point in the world that the system should keep track of over time.”

Each anchor has a coordinate system that adjusts as needed, relative to other anchors or frames of reference, in order to ensure that anchored holograms stay precisely in place. Rendering a hologram in an anchor’s coordinate system gives you the most accurate positioning for that hologram at any given time. This comes at the cost of small adjustments over time to the hologram’s position, as the system continually moves it back into place relative to the real world.

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As part of Microsoft’s Mixed Reality documentation, we get some insights into how Microsoft Azure Spatial Anchors will work and implemented.

You can also persist and share spatial anchors across app sessions and across devices:

• By saving local spatial anchors to disk and loading them back later, your app can reason about the same location in the real world across multiple app sessions on a single HoloLens device.
• By using Azure Spatial Anchors to create a cloud anchor, your app can share a spatial anchor across multiple HoloLens, iOS, and Android devices. By having each device render a hologram using the same spatial anchor, all users will see the hologram appear at the same place in the real world. This allows for real-time shared experiences.
• You can also use Azure Spatial Anchors for asynchronous hologram persistence across HoloLens, iOS, and Android devices. By sharing a durable cloud spatial anchor, multiple devices can observe the same persisted hologram over time, even if those devices are not present together at the same time.

Despite its relatively new public awareness, Microsoft has amassed several details and best practices for implementing spatial in its Mixed Reality documentation here.

With Microsoft’s focus and market share in enterprise development, it may behoove companies such as Apple and Google to adopt Microsoft Spatial Anchors as a quick way to access that crowd for its own augmented reality efforts.