Over the past couple of months, Microsoft has been busy working on a redesigned version of its Outlook.com webmail, now available in beta. After revamping the Mail and Calendar sections and bringing back the Skype integration, it’s now time for the People section to receive some love.

The redesigned address book now uses the same design language as the other sections of the web app. The contact cards are also more useful, and you can quickly check all recent interactions you had with a specific contact, included shared files. Moreover, it’s still possible to create contact lists or add select contacts to your favorites.

There is a lot to like about Outlook.com beta, and we would love to see it become a full-fledged Progressive Web App with Windows 10 version 1803. For Outlook.com users, it already works pretty much like a lightweight version of the Outlook desktop app, with the Skype integration as a bonus. We’ll see what happens in the coming months, but in the mean time you can still give your feedback and help Microsoft prioritize new features by visiting the Outlook Feedback website.

Microsoft has previously given away special Xbox Consoles to celebrities but now is your chance to win one for yourself. To celebrate the reveal of the iconic Air Jordan III sneakers, the company will be giving away an Xbox One X console inspired by the upcoming Air Jordan III releases.

One of the consoles is inspired by the Air Jordan III Free Throw Line, released on February 14, the second by Air Jordan III Black Cement, and the final by the Air Jordan III Tinker. As noted by Microsoft’s Aaron Greenberg, each console pays tribute to a special moment in Air Jordan history.

The Free Throw Line Xbox One X pays homage to the unforgettable dunk by Michael Jordan in 1988. The Black Cement Xbox One X is inspired by the sneakers with all the same detailing which made these, considered by many, the greatest sneakers of all-time, and the Tinker Xbox One X showcases Tinker Hatfield’s original design for what the shoe was going to be.

Xbox One X is paying homage to the iconic #AirJordan III with 3 custom consoles. And the best part? You can win one for yourself: https://t.co/dDNZyJI50u pic.twitter.com/WKDkUvDscO

— Xbox (@Xbox) February 16, 2018

You can enter to win one of the consoles by heading to Xbox’s Twitter Page and retweeting the special tweet above. The contest is open from Friday, February 16 at 6 a.m. PT to Wednesday, February 21 at 10 p.m. PT. You never know if you can win, so be sure to try your luck at winning this one of a kind console!

If you still prefer using the “classic” Skype desktop app for Windows over its more modern alternatives, then it looks like Microsoft may sunset this app earlier than expected. Indeed, the company has just pulled the installer for this old version of Skype, citing a security issue with the installer. Ellen Kilbourne, Program Manger at Skype shared the following message on Skype’s community website:

At Skype, we take security very seriously.

There was an issue with an older version of the Skype for Windows desktop installer – version 7.40 and lower. The issue was in the program that installs the Skype software – the issue was not in the Skype software itself. Customers who have already installed this version of Skype for Windows desktop are not affected. We have removed this older version of Skype for Windows desktop from our website skype.com.

The installer for the current version of Skype for Windows desktop (v8) does NOT have this issue, and it has been available since October, 2017.

Consumers who have already installed this “classic” Skype app on their Windows PC can continue to use it just like before, for now at least. When checking for updates, the app will invite you to try “the new version of Skype,” which depending on the version of Windows you’re running will either be the new cross-platform Electron-based app (version 8.x) or the UWP app for Windows 10. Unfortunately, both of them still lack power user features such as the ability to open multiple chat windows, be notified when your contacts go online and more.

Even if the installer for “classic” Skype is no longer available to download from Skype’s website, Microsoft watcher Rafael Rivera noted that you can still find it on the Internet, though you may want to act fast before it disappears. Proceed with caution, however, as Microsoft pulled the installer due to a security flaw.

https://twitter.com/WithinRafael/status/964386715606515712

Do you still use the old Skype desktop app for Windows, and are you worried that Microsoft may force you to switch to its new desktop apps at some point? Sound off in the comments below.

The first season of the popular anime series, Tokyo Ghoul, is now available to claim for free via the Microsoft Store on Windows 10 devices and Xbox One video game consoles. Here’s its official description.

Tokyo lives in fear of creatures called Ghouls. By day, they live as ordinary humans, but by night, they become flesh-eating monsters. When a young man becomes the first Ghoul-human half breed, he must learn to harness his deadly, newfound powers.

This anime series is definitely one for older viewers as it features a significant amount of gore and sexual references. If this sort of anime is your bag, make sure to grab it here. The offer expires in six days.

The Microsoft Store has a large number of anime movies, series, and video games on sale right now so it’s worth having a look if you’re an anime fan. Have you bought anything in the anime sale this month? Share your recommendations with the community in the comments below.

During the holiday season, Microsoft bundled Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) with the Xbox One X. The promotion was a great way to enjoy the power of Xbox One X and the multiplayer fun of PUBG together as one. If you missed that initial deal, please be aware that Microsoft is once again offering a free PUBG copy with any new Xbox One X purchase.

The new offer is valid in most Xbox One markets starting February 18 through March 4. Here in the United States, the promotion will run from February 18- February 24, and it’s best to check with your local retailer or the Microsoft Store for more. You can also see below for the days when the promotion is valid in other countries:

• Available in Canada, Ireland, the United Kingdom, the United States and select Latin American countries starting February 18
• Available in Australia, India, Korea, New Zealand, Singapore and select European, Middle Eastern and African countries starting February 20

In addition to the above deal, Microsoft is also offering savings on Xbox One S bundles. Here in the United States, you can save $50 on Xbox One S from February 18 through March 3. In Canada, you can save $60 CAD on Xbox One S Bundles from today until February 23.

It remains interesting to see that Microsoft is marketing PUBG so heavily, even though it’s still in a preview and not a first-party title. Regardless, these latest deals are sure to save you a few bucks, so be sure to check it out and let us know your thoughts in the comments.

As leaked by WalkingCat a couple of days ago, Free Play Days starts today and lasts all weekend long on Xbox Live. Xbox is unlocking Xbox Live Multiplayer for everyone with an Xbox One or Xbox 360 console, so you don’t even need an Xbox Live Gold subscription to play online.

In addition, all Xbox One gamers can play Rainbow Six Siege and NBA 2K18 for free through Sunday, February 18 at 11:59 p.m. PST. Any progress you get in any of the unlocked multiplayer games will be saved and you can continue your progress should you decide to sign up for Xbox Live Gold. Something tells me this is just the first of many Free Play Days for All on Xbox Live and we should see more Xbox One games available free to play later this year.

Download Rainbow Six Siege and NBA 2K18 and start playing today!

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Free to Play: Rainbow Six Siege

Developer:
UBISOFT

Price:
Free

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Free to Play: NBA 2K18

Developer:
2K

Price:
Free

Xbox Live Gold subscribers can download the two remaining Games with Gold titles for February a day early: These are the 2.5D side-scrolling platformer Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: India and the Xbox 360 score attack game Crazy Taxi (also backward compatible on the Xbox One). Both games represent $19.98 in value, and we’ve added download links, official descriptions and video trailers below.

Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: India ($9.99 ERP): Available today through March 15

Embody Arbaaz in his quest for retribution through a colourful depiction of 19th century Colonial India in 2.5D stealth gameplay. Zip-line across the streets of Amritsar, hide in the shadows of the palace, and hunt legendary artifacts, following in the footsteps of Alexander the Great.

Crazy Taxi ($9.99 ERP): Available today through February 28

Hey hey, come on over and have some fun with Crrrrrazy Taxi! Barrel through traffic packed streets, hurdle off parking garages, and Crazy Combo your way to Crazy Money in a wild frantic race to scare up the most fares. In Crazy Taxi, time is money, and only the Craziest Cabbies come out victorious.

If you haven’t done it it yet, we remind you that you have until the end of the month to grab the FPS Shadow Warrior for free with your subscription.

To pair up with Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 17101 for Fast & Build 17604 for Skip Ahead, Microsoft today officially announced the Windows App Preview Program. The announcement comes several days after reports indicated the company may be considering such a program.

With the Windows App Preview Program, Microsoft will make it easier for Windows fans to try out the latest app updates with Insider Preview builds. “We heard feedback from Windows Insiders that having to opt-in to Skip Ahead to receive the latest app updates wasn’t ideal,” noted Dona Sarkar in today’s announcement post.

Indeed, this means any Windows Insider (regardless of which Ring they are enrolled in) can now opt-in to preview new versions of individual Windows 10 apps. According to Microsoft, the following apps will be in the first-wave of the program, with previews rolling out in the next few days.

• Feedback Hub
• Microsoft Photos
• Microsoft Sticky Notes
• Microsoft Tips
• Paint 3D
• Windows Alarms & Clock
• Windows Calculator
• Windows Camera
• Windows Mixed Reality Viewer
• Windows Voice Recorder

Windows Insiders who already opted into Skip Ahead won’t need to opt-in to the program to preview these apps. Microsoft will be pushing app updates to Skip Ahead Insiders just like before. Other Insiders in the other rings can opt-in to preview an app by going to the settings or about page for the app and clicking “Join Preview” (Seen above.)

Microsoft, though, appears to be limiting the number of Insiders who can preview apps but is also allowing Insiders to leave the preview at any time. ” If the limit has been met for that app preview for the app you will get a notification on clicking the button and as more slots open up you can join the preview,” writes Dona Sarkar.

This program is currently only for Windows Insiders, and Microsoft will be gathering feedback from how the program is going. It is likely to grow over time, so be sure to check it out!

It’s shaping up to be a lovely day to be a Windows Insider. Microsoft today released Windows 10 Build 17101 to the Fast Ring and Redstone 5 Build 17604 for those who opted to Skip Ahead. As always, neither of these builds is perfect and will have a set of issues. We’re dividing up the releases today, so have a look below for the known issues and fixes in Build 17101.

Known issues (Build 17101)

• We have observed seeing longer-than-normal delays during install at the 88% mark. Some delays are as long as 90 minutes before moving forward. Please be patient as the install will complete successfully.
• Plugging in an external optical drive (DVD) will cause an Explorer.exe crash.
• Settings will crash if you open the Themes Settings page.
• Buttons on Game bar are not centered correctly.
• Selecting a notification after taking a screenshot or game clip opens the Xbox app’s home screen instead of opening the screenshot or game clip

General changes, improvements, and fixes for PC (Build 17101)

• We fixed an issue from the last flight were some PCs failed to resume from hibernate (requiring a hard reboot to recover).
• We fixed an issue resulting in 3 and 4 finger gestures on the touchpad being unresponsive in the last two flights.
• We fixed an issue after upgrading to the last flight where Start didn’t work for Insiders who’d had HomeGroup added as a folder to appear on Start.
• We’ve updated the touch keyboard so that if you try to shapewrite in an unsupported text field or when the typing resources aren’t installed, you won’t see the shapewriting trail as you swipe your finger over the keys.
• We fixed an issue where the touch keyboard showed an English layout with no IME on/off key when an East Asian keyboard is the only input method on your system.
• We fixed an issue where if you install a font product from the Microsoft Store, then later install a new build (feature update), the Store package will remain installed, but the fonts within the package are not installed. Until this is fixed, the temporary workaround is to uninstall the product from the Apps page in Settings, then re-acquire the product from the Store.
• We fixed an issue where the touch keyboard might stop invoking automatically after locking the PC and then unlocking the PC by using the touch keyboard to enter your PIN or password.
• We fixed an issue where the Japanese IME sometimes wouldn’t turn on correctly.
• We fixed an issue where the floating dictation UI could be unexpectedly tiny.
• We fixed an issue that could result in the mouse cursor suddenly jump to screen corner while mouse was moving in a List Control.
• We fixed an issue that could result in tabs hanging and not loading content recently in Microsoft Edge after using the browser for a few days with an adblocker enabled.
• We fixed an issue resulting in newly installed Microsoft Edge extensions not appearing in the Extensions pane in the last two flights.
• We fixed an issue in Microsoft Edge where favicons in light theme were unexpectedly getting black backgrounds.
• We fixed an issue that could result in UWP apps sometimes launching as small white rectangular boxes.
• We fixed an issue resulting in certain fingerprint readers not working in recent flights.
• We fixed an issue where Windows Hello failed to work on Surface Laptops with the last build.
• We fixed an issue that could result in the labels for files on the desktop overlapping their icons.
• We’re updating the “Advanced graphics settings” link on the Display Settings page to now just say “Graphics Settings”.
• When your volume is muted, the volume icons in the Sound Settings page will also now appear muted.
  If you click the Reset button on the App volume and device preferences page, it will now also reset any app specific volumes you’ve set back to default (100%).
• We fixed an issue resulting in app updates failing in the Microsoft Store with error 0x80070057 in recent builds.
• We fixed an issue resulting in app updates failing in the Microsoft Store with error 0x803FB005 in recent builds.
• We fixed an issue where bringing up Game bar using the Xbox button on an Xbox One controller didn’t work in some games.
• We fixed an issue where in the text box for the Mixer stream title using non-character keys (e.g. Tab, Delete, Backspace, etc.) might cause the game to hang for a few seconds.
• We fixed an issue where keyboard and mouse input might not work correctly in the Game bar when playing a first person game (e.g. Minecraft).
• We fixed an issue where in some games—such as Destiny 2 and Fortnite—mouse and keyboard input would still go to the game while Game bar was open.
• We fixed an issue during first shutdown/boot, or reboot, where for some users the device goes into a boot loop and the OS never loads.

As you can tell, lots of fixes in this build. With the release of Redstone 4 coming in a few months, you can expect many more fixes to come soon. Keep your feedback coming to Microsoft via the FeedbackHub and let us know your thoughts on this build by dropping us a comment in the section below.

In quite a surprise announcement, Microsoft released today the Windows 10 Insider build 17101 for Fast Ring Insiders as well as the Insider build 17604 for Insiders who opted into Skip Ahead. The first one is the latest Redstone 4 build from the current development branch, while the second one is the first Redstone 5 from the new RS_PRERELEASE branch.

“Please be aware that builds from RS_PRERELEASE will get less stable as teams start checking in new code”. So, things will likely be a little rough as they normally are at the beginning of the development cycle for a new Windows 10 release,” the Windows Insider team explained. “If this concerns you or makes you uncomfortable, you may want to consider opting out of Skip Ahead and simply wait for the Fast ring to transition back to RS_PRERELEASE down the road.”

For now, the RS4 build 17101 and the RS5 build 17604 come with the same list of new features and improvements: there are some important updates for Windows 10 Emojis, Windows App Permissions as well as new features for users running the Workstation or Enterprise edition of Windows 10. You can learn everything about what’s new below:

Input Improvements

Emoji design updates: Based on your feedback and to improve consistency, we’ve made adjustments to the design of some of our emoji. Examples of updated emoji include:

Before:

After:

Emoji search comes to more languages: Earlier in RS4, we updated the Emoji Panel to support browsing and picking emoji in many new locales. With today’s build, we’re bringing search support to more locales too! Now you can find an emoji by keyword in over 150 locales, including English (Great Britain), French (France), German (Germany), Spanish (Spain), and more. This will help you get the emoji you want easily and quickly. As a reminder, to bring up the Emoji Panel set focus to a text field and press WIN + (period) or WIN + (semicolon).

Windows App Permissions

UWP File System Access: With this build we’re giving you more control so you can now decide which UWP apps can access your full file system. Particular UWP apps will be granted permission to have broad file system access. This capability will be granted on a per app basis by Microsoft. If a UWP app has the broad file system access restricted capability, you will receive a consent dialog prompting you to accept or deny the request. If at any time you change your mind about the decision, you can go to Settings > Privacy where you’ll find a new Settings page for File System Access. On this page, you can turn access on or off globally, and if it’s on you can also turn it on or off for each app that has requested the capability. UWPs with broad file system access will not appear in the Photos, Videos, or Documents privacy settings pages. If you grant broad file system access, this includes Photos, Videos and Documents.

New features for Windows 10 Pro for Workstations

Last year, as part of the Windows 10 Fall Creator’s update, we announced a new edition of Windows designed for demanding mission critical scenarios targeting advanced users. As part of RS4, we are adding two more features for our most advanced users running these mission critical scenarios:

A new power scheme – Ultimate Performance: Demanding workloads on workstations always desire more performance. As part of our effort to provide the absolute maximum performance we’re introducing a new power policy called Ultimate Performance. Windows has developed key areas where performance and efficiency tradeoffs are made in the OS. Over time, we’ve amassed a collection of settings which allow the OS to quickly tune the behavior based on user preference, policy, underlying hardware or workload.

This new policy builds on the current High-Performance policy, and it goes a step further to eliminate micro-latencies associated with fine grained power management techniques. The Ultimate Performance Power plan is selectable either by an OEM on new systems or selectable by a user. To do so, you can go to Control Panel and navigate to Power Options under Hardware and Sound (you can also “run” Powercfg.cpl). Just like other power policies in Windows, the contents of the Ultimate Performance policy can be customized.

As the power scheme is geared towards reducing micro-latencies it may directly impact hardware; and consume more power than the default balanced plan. The Ultimate Performance power policy is currently not available on battery powered systems.

We’ll continue to tune and evaluate the power plan settings. To submit feedback please use the Feedback Hub and file your feedback under Power & Battery > Setting category.

Productivity focused out of box applications: In the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, the out of box experience for Windows 10 Pro for Workstations draws from the Pro edition of Windows 10. One area where this is noticeable is the suite of applications installed out of the box visible as tiles in the start menu. In the next release for Windows, you will see for Windows 10 Pro for Workstations productivity and enterprise focused applications in place of consumer applications and games. This was one of the top feedback shared with us by our partners and users and we’re delivering this in our next update.

If you’re a Windows Insider running the Workstation or Enterprise edition, you can see these features in Builds 17079 or greater.

If you’re a Fast Ring Insider, be aware that the Windows Insider team will allow a “small subset” of you to opt in to Skip Ahead in the Settings app. “If we open Skip Ahead up for more Insiders, we’ll let you know,” the blog post reads, without giving more details. In the meantime, Insiders who already opted into Skip Ahead can enjoy the first Redstone 5 build today. “Once we’ve finished RS4, we will move everyone in the Fast ring back to the RS_PRERELEASE branch and then the Fast ring and Skip Ahead will be back to receiving the same builds again,” the team explained.

Party Chat, the Xbox Live feature that allows for voice chat between Xbox gamers is now available on the Xbox app for iOS and Android. The feature first appeared two months ago in the Xbox beta app on both mobile platforms, and we’re glad to see it rolling out to everyone.

To use Party Chat, you’ll have to visit the Xbox profile of one of your friend and then tap “Invite to Party.” In case your friend is already in a joinable party, you’ll be able to see it and join the voice chat right from his or her profile. When you’re a party, you’ll be able to access party controls (including a mute option) and text chat.

Overall, this is a nice option for gamers needing to keep up with their Xbox Live friends on the go. Party Chat is also available on the Xbox app for Windows 10, but it has yet to make its way to Windows 10 Mobile. You can get the Xbox app for iOS and Android from the download links below.

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Xbox

Developer:
Microsoft Corporation

Price:
Free

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‎Xbox

Developer:
Microsoft Corporation

Price:
Free

Microsoft today announced Microsoft for Startups, a program which aims to help startups grow their customer base and also gain better access to technology. The company will commit $500 million over the next two years to the program and will offer joint sales engagements with startups, and more.

Under the program, Microsoft will provide the “dedicated resources” necessary to help startup marketing and sales teams sell their solutions to enterprises. Microsoft will also create new community spaces that “promotes collaboration across local and global ecosystems.”

Some other areas and benefits of the program are listed below.

• The program provides startups with up to $120,000 in free Azure credits, enterprise grade technical support and development tools.
• Qualified startups also get access to productivity and business applications, including Office 365 and Microsoft Dynamics 365.

The Microsoft for Startups program is an addition to many other programs which already are helping companies, startups, and businesses. Microsoft Reactors, Microsoft ScaleUp, and Microsoft Ventures are all examples of how Microsoft is empowering its partners and businesses around the world. You can learn more about Microsoft Startups by checking here.

Microsoft previously shared how the average Windows user can protect themselves from the Spectre and Meltdown security flaws, but today the company explained how IT Pros can do the same with all Windows PCs across their enterprise. Indeed, the Redmond giant is now adding more capabilities to the free Windows Analytics service to give professionals detailed insights on the Windows 7, 8.1 and 10 PCs they manage.

There are now new Anti-Virus Status, Windows Operating System Security Update Status, and Firmware Status sections in Windows Analytics: Anti-virus Status will help indicate if a device’s anti-virus software is compatible with the latest Windows Updates. Windows Operating System Security Update Status will help display which Windows updates are running on any device and if any of these updates have been disabled.

Finally, Firmware Status shows more information about the specific firmware running on any given device. Moreover, it lists if the firmware includes specific protections required by CPU manufacturers. This feature is currently limited to security updates from Intel, but Microsoft says more CPU partner data will be added soon. IT Professionals can get started with these new capabilities today by visiting this website.

Microsoft today is highlighting a new partnership with Virgin Galactic which is helping the spaceflight company showcase the newest age of space exploration. The two companies developed a mobile-friendly and touch-optimized Virgin Galactic website which is accessible to all, highlighting the journey ahead for aspiring astronauts.

According to Microsoft, the website is meant to help the public connect with space travel by showing off how “space exploration, research, and transportation has the potential to improve life for everyone.” Anyone on a mobile device or a PC can visit the website (obviously best viewed in Edge) by clicking here, and experiencing modern spaceflight discoveries firsthand for themselves.

The Virgin Galactic website uses the latest web technology and supports WebVR for those with Windows Mixed Reality devices. There is even a 3D tour for those who aren’t lucky enough to experience Mixed Reality. Other features of the website are listed below.

• With immersive browser WebVR, and anyone can tour the space fleet using Windows Mixed Reality devices. Hotspots provide key details about the WhiteKnightTwo mothership, spaceship VSS Unity and the Virgin Galactic team
• Enjoy a fluid site experience by interacting with a variety of VSS Unity features, the sensation of views in parallax, and animations that enhance your discovery.
• Mobile-friendly and touch-optimized – In keeping with the goal of a captivating venture, the site is mobile-friendly and touch-optimized for intuitive use.

This is definitely a cool experience, and we’re hoping it may inspire many more to sign up with Virgin Galactic, become an astronaut, or explore the wonders of our universe. Feel free to check out the website for yourself and let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

After gathering feedback from beta testers over the past couple of months, Rare’s pirate game Sea of Thieves will be released on March 20 on both Xbox One and Windows 10 PC. This will be Rare’s first PC release, and because the game will be a Microsoft Store exclusive, the game studio has a lot of pressure on its hands to meet the expectations of hardcore PC gamers. Today, Rare expounded a bit on just what that PC experience will be like.

“We know that as PC gamers, having the ability to change the field of view, unlock or lock the frame-rate, rebind keys, change video settings, resolution, and graphics options, as well as offering extra functionality like full ultra-wide support and a dedicated FPS Counter, is all part of the expectation,” explained Rare’s PC Design Lead Ted Timmins. “It’s with great pleasure then for us to announce that after all of the above, and more than a year of working with our partners at AMD, Intel and NVIDIA, it’s time to smash a bottle of rum against our PC specifications so that you can see how your rig will fare.”

First of all, you should know that Sea of Thieves on Windows 10 will ship with an auto-detect experience that will give PC gamers “the Rare-certified spec based on your hardware.” The game studio detailed six different sets of specs, going from the “Cursed” 540p at 30FPS to the “Mythical” 4K at 60FPS.

“The game is perfectly playable at 540p,” explained Timmins, which means that PCs with Intel Integrated GPUs (Intel Iris Pro Graphics 6200 or Intel Iris 540) and 4G of RAM should have a pretty good experience. Sea of Thieves isn’t the most photorealistic game to be released this year (except for the gorgeous water effects), but playing the game in 4K at 60 FPS will require a high-end Intel Core i7 or AMD Ryzen processor, 16GB of RAM and an Nvidia Geforce GTX 1080 or AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 GPU.

Sea of Thieves will also require the Windows 10 Anniversary Update or higher, and it will be a 60GB download. The game is already available to pre-order from the Microsoft Store, though we remind you that it will also be available for free with Xbox Games Pass on launch day. It remains to be seen if Sea of Thieves will be the smash it that Microsoft’s Xbox division desperately needs, but at least the company will be making the Xbox Play Anywhere game more accessible than ever.

Download
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Sea of Thieves

Developer:
Microsoft Studios

Price:
Free

Microsoft today announced Chalkup co-founder Justin Chando has joined Microsoft Education. The move is part of the company’s plans continued investment to “help save teachers time, build collaborative classrooms and drive better learning outcomes for students.”

After spending time with Chando, the Redmond giant is planning on working with Chalkup, educators, and students to bring elements of Chalkup into Microsoft Teams, including a rubric system. According to Microsoft, Chalkup customers will have continued support through the end of June and can then transition into Microsoft Teams.

Justin Chando originally founded Chalkup back in 2013, and it has since grown in popularity. In a note on the company’s website, Chando mentions educators & students from 1 in 3 universities and 1 in 5 high schools in the United States have used the Chalkup Class Collaboration Platform. He also issued the following statement to Microsoft.

“In spending time with the amazing people at Microsoft, it was clear that we were completely aligned in our mission for connecting classrooms, sparking student collaboration, and finding new and innovative ways to work together. We knew Microsoft would be a great fit and we’re thrilled for what the future holds for our customers,”

Existing users should keep in mind that Chalkup will shut down on June 30, 2018, so the company can shift focus to building Microsoft Education products. New signups are also closed, and Chalkup users are being urged to sign up for Microsoft Teams, free and included with Office 365 for Education.

Update: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Microsoft acquired Chalkup. We’ve since updated to clarify Chalkup CEO Justin Chando has joined Microsoft.

A new video tweeted out by notorious Microsoft Leaker WalkingCat suggests Xbox Live Free Play Days is coming this weekend.

https://twitter.com/h0x0d/status/963414577961553922

The video shows that Free Play Days will run from February 15-18th. It also highlights the several benefits of Free Play Days, including playing Rainbow Six Seige, NBA 2K18, and enjoying multiplayer for free on any game you already own (that is if you’re not already a paid Xbox Live member.)

Microsoft has yet to announce Xbox Live Free Play Days for this month, but we’re assuming an announcement may be coming soon. As always, be sure to stay tuned for more information, as we will update this post with more information once things become more official.

We’d also like to remind you that this week’s Deals with Gold is now live, including big savings on Call of Duty WWII and Destiny 2. These titles are Xbox One X enhanced, so sure to check it out if you’re looking to enjoy new games this week.

Microsoft has been working on a better Windows clipboard for quite a long time now. Back in 2015, we first heard about an internal Microsoft Garage experiment called OneClip, which reappeared a year later as “Cache.” If this previous attempt at creating a universal clipboard never materialized, Microsoft did unveil a new Cloud Clipboard feature back at Build 2017, which will leverage the Microsoft Graph, the Project Rome APIs as well as Microsoft’s Swiftkey keyboard on mobile devices.

In case you don’t remember it very well, you can watch Microsoft’s Joe Belfiore discuss this new Cloud Clipboard feature in the video below (starting around 45’45):

A Cloud Clipboard prototype was recently discovered in the Windows 10 Insider build 17004, but it wasn’t connected to the Microsoft Graph. It’s been quite some time now since Microsoft publicly discussed the feature, but a recently published patent titled “Interacting with a Clipboard Store” seems to reveal more details about this Cloud Clipboard.

The patent was originally filed in August 2016, and it explains how “a multi-item clipboard store” would work. The various drawings show a UI that looks similar to what Microsoft showed during Build 2017, with a pop-up window displaying the latest content items recently added to the clipboard.

Interestingly, this patent also mentions a “cross-device transfer operation” to transfer content from one device to other devices specifically targeted by the user. This specific feature is also described in the drawing below:

The patent actually describes nine different copy modes, including ones where the cloud clipboard would tag the selected content item as being private, favorites, or temporary items that disappear after a certain amount of time. There are really a lot of good ideas in this patent, but as with all patents, it’s not clear if those smart features will eventually make their way to Windows 10. Anyway, Cloud Clipboard likely won’t make it to the Redstone 4 release, so we may have to wait until Build 2018 to learn more about the feature.

For the eighth year in a row, Microsoft has been chosen as one of the world’s most ethical companies by the Ethisphere Institute. To create its annual ranking, the organization uses its Ethics Quotient framework, which takes different variables into account such as corporate citizenship and responsibility, culture of ethics and more.

This year, 135 companies spanning 23 countries have been honoured by the Ethisphere Institute. In the technology sector, other honorees include Dell, Intel, Adobe, Nokia and LinkedIn, now a Microsoft subsidiary. The full list of honorees can be seen on this page.

“Over the last 12 years, we have repeatedly seen that those companies who focus on transparency and authenticity are rewarded with the trust of their employees, their customers and their investors,” explained Ethisphere CEO, Timothy Erblich. “While negative headlines might grab attention, the companies who support the rule of law and operate with decency and fair play around the globe will always succeed in the long term.”

Microsoft President Brad Smith echoed this sentiment in a statement published by the Ethisphere Institute. “At Microsoft, trust and integrity are core to our values and critical to our success. We’re passionate about applying the power of technology to improve our world, and that starts with doing business in a way that builds and maintains trust with our customers,” Smith said.