Microsoft appears to be racing into the future guns a blazed with the prospect of becoming the first big software provider of industry applicable AI solutions. To aid in Microsoft’s journey to AI solution supremacy, the company recently partnered with Publicis Group to form the Marcel AI platform.

The two will leverage their strengths, Microsoft being AI compute and Publicis 80,000 employees, will rely on one another to power this new “industry-first” platform.

The Marcel platform will use cognitive services and AI to empower Publicis Groupe’s people, clients, and business to seamlessly collaborate in three ways:

• First of all, by identifying relevant connections amongst the organization’s 80,000 employees. If there is someone out there in one of Publicis Groupe’s agencies who can help an employee, Marcel will find her or him.
• Second, by collecting, organizing and curating Publicis Groupe’s collective knowledge Marcel will enable employees to take full advantage of the combined experiences and insights that exist around its group.
• Finally, and perhaps most importantly, by giving every employee the power to participate and create more, beyond their immediate boundaries. Through the M-Labs, the incubator for the Marcel platform, Publicis Groupe has been testing new collaborative models that are already driving results for some of its major global clients.

Despite being an internal project thus far, the implications of applying Microsoft’s AI solutions to more broader consumer-facing interest should be upon the horizon. Microsoft itself, may not be leading the charge but its partners should definitely be looking forward to seeing a return on their big data investments in Azure soon

The Super Bowl may not be for another few days, but Microsoft and Xbox are planning to put on a big show of their own. Indeed, the company has announced the next Xbox Live Sessions will feature and Madden NFL 18 and Patriots star Rob Gronkowski.

Rob Gronkowski will join his former teammate LeGarrette Blount in a Madden NFL 18 showdown on Xbox One X. The event will be live streamed on the Mixer Xbox channel, starting on Tuesday, January 30 at 5:30 p.m. PT. Xbox and NFL fans can also visit the visit the Microsoft Store at Mall of America to watch in person.

As a reminder, if you’re tuning in on Mixer you will able to submit questions for both players and earn the chance to win some amazing prizes. The last Xbox Live Sessions was about a month ago, featuring Modern Family’s Nolan Gould and Fortnite Battle Royale. Celebrity guests on previous Xbox Live Sessions included Star Wars’ John Boyega, actress Megan Fox, and Rona Rousey.

Just two weeks after version 4.4 of Microsoft Launcher released to the general public, a new version of the Android launcher app has already hit the Google Play Store. With the version 4.5 update, Microsoft Launcher gets even more customization options and the usual performance enhancements (via Neowin.)

The most significant change in this release is the ability to adjust icon size in the app drawer, dock, and the home screen. There are also new options for creating shortcuts on Android Oreo devices and setting wallpapers for home and lock screen in Android 7.0+. See the changelog below for the full details.

• Let meeting attendees know you’re running late from the calendar card.
• Employees whose enterprises leverage Microsoft Intune’s data protection policies can now use the Microsoft Launcher for viewing corporate data.
• Adjust icon size in the app drawer, dock and home screen.
• Set wallpapers for home and lock screen ( 7.0+)
• Add blank pages in vertical mode
• Recurring reminders
• Oreo shortcuts creation

Though not mentioned in the changelog, users should also notice a “Trending on Bing” carousel when using the search function. As is routine, this same 4.5 update was being tested with Beta users for the last two weeks and is now finally available for everyone. You can update now by heading to the Google Play Store, or you can check it out via the link below.

Download
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Microsoft Launcher

Developer:
Microsoft Corporation

Price:
Free

Intel asking everyone to skip its flawed firmware updates was apparently not enough for Microsoft. Over the weekend, the Redmond giant released another emergency update for Windows 7, Windows 8.1, and Windows 10 that disable Intel’s mitigation against Spectre variant 2, which has been causing system instability (via The Verge).

Intel previously acknowledged that recent security patches for all processors released over the last five years could cause reboot issues. “Our own experience is that system instability can in some circumstances cause data loss or corruption,” Microsoft added in a support page this weekend.

The chip maker also said that it has already identified the root cause of reboot issues on Broadwell and Haswell processors, and that it’s currently working on new firmware updates for these CPU architectures. Obviously, Microsoft didn’t want to wait as these system instability are more serious than expected:

While Intel tests, updates and deploys new microcode, we are making available an out of band update today, KB4078130, that specifically disables only the mitigation against CVE-2017-5715 – “Branch target injection vulnerability.” In our testing this update has been found to prevent the behavior described.

For now, the KB4078130 security update is only available to download from the Microsoft Update Catalog website. IT admins can also manually disable Intel’s mitigation against Spectre Variant 2 by applying new registry key settings, and more details are available on this support page.

“As of January 25, there are no known reports to indicate that this Spectre variant 2 (CVE 2017-5715 ) has been used to attack customers,” Microsoft added. Installing this new Windows update will leave your PC unprotected against this Spectre variant, though you may not really have a choice if you did encounter reboot issues (or worse) after installing recent firmware updates from Intel.

Welcome back to our Windows 10 news recap, where we go over the top stories of the past week in the world of Microsoft’s flagship operating system.

Apple’s latest update for iTunes on Windows brings it closer to being in the Microsoft Store

A new update to iTunes on desktop adds a new file that makes reference to UWP, giving signs that Apple is closer to releasing its iTunes software on to the Microsoft Store, as promised during BUILD last year, despite delays.

Microsoft offering “Commercial” Surface Laptop with Windows 10 Pro pre-installed

For those in the enterprise space, Microsoft is offering an edition of the Surface Laptop that comes with Windows 10 Pro pre-installed, so that no upgrades are needed after purchase, providing a more seamless purchase and setup experience.

Microsoft reportedly working on new lightweight version of Windows 10 code-named Polaris

If Windows 10 for desktop, Windows 10 Mobile, and Windows 10 S weren’t enough, Microsoft is now working on another version of Windows 10 that is aimed to be lightweight, the codename being Polaris.

Office 365 now officially available in the Windows 10 Microsoft Store

Something that Windows 10 S users have been waiting for, Microsoft has now brought Office 365 to the Microsoft Store, allowing dedicated Office apps to be run on its lightweight edition of Windows 10.

That’s it for this week. We’ll be back next week with more Windows 10 news!

Microsoft news recap is a weekly feature highlighting the top Microsoft news stories of the past week. Sit back, grab some coffee, and enjoy the read!

Microsoft Rewards Dashboard redesigned with cleaner look, new streak system, more

Microsoft Rewards is Microsoft’s own take of a reward program for its customers. It offers up the chance to receive free gift cards, sweepstake entries and more by just using Microsoft products and services, such as Bing, and/or making purchases from places such as the Xbox Store. Now, the company is redesigning the Microsoft Rewards dashboard and the change is rolling out to users.

Turn your drawings into software with Microsoft Garage’s Ink to Code

If you ever get bored of typing code, Microsoft has come up with a solution. Called Ink to Code, this new Microsoft Garage app aims to allow drawings to be turned into working user interfaces, a quicker way of prototyping.

Microsoft spent about $8.5 million lobbying the US Government last year

In 2017, Microsoft spent $8.5 million in lobbying the US Government in its interests, such as opposing the travel ban, and to protect DACA recipients.

Microsoft Planner gets push notifications support on iOS and Android

The Microsoft Planner app on Android and iOS has been updated. This latest update adds support for push notifications, helping users be aware of when a new task has been assigned to them.

That’s it for this week. We’ll be back next week with more Microsoft news.

Welcome to our weekly Xbox news recap series, where we go over the top stories of the past week in the world of Xbox. Let’s get started.

All Microsoft Studios games will launch on Xbox Game Pass

This is huge news, and marks Xbox Game Pass as the highest-value subscription service a gamer could possibly get their hands on. Xbox boss Phil Spencer has announced that all future Microsoft Studios games will be available at launch for anyone who’s subscribed to the Xbox Game Pass. That means that games like Sea of Thieves and Crackdown 3 will be available for Game Pass subscribers for no additional fee, just like they shelled out full price in advance. If the current games on the subscription – stuff like Gears of War 4 and Halo 5 – weren’t enough to convince you to buy in, you’ll now have the additional value of blockbuster titles for no additional cost.

Sea of Thieves dominates Twitch and Mixer

If you were banking on Sea of Thieves being a success, its closed beta should be very promising. The game managed to get some serious viewership numbers on Twitch and Mixer during the first day of the beta, managing to skyrocket to more than 50,000 viewers above the usual front-runner, League of Legends. While this could easily be dismissed as Sea of Thieves having its 15 minutes of fame, there’s a good chance that this marks an interest in the game that could sustain it post-launch.

PUBG celebrates over 4 million Xbox players

To the surprise of absolutely no one, PUBG has managed to hit it out of the park and become a hit on Xbox One. The battle royale has managed to pick up over 4 million players over the course of just two months, becoming a major success story for Microsoft’s Xbox Early Access program. The milestone was celebrated by the developers by offering everyone who’s purchased the game a huge stimulus of Battle Points to pick up cosmetics.

Anthem delayed until next year

Anthem, the upcoming blockbuster for EA and BioWare, has been delayed until 2019. Originally planned to release by the end of this year, Anthem has been the topic of quite a bit of discussion in the gaming community, as a “make or break” title for BioWare. After the failure of Mass Effect Andromeda, it seems like Anthem has been delayed in order to give BioWare the time it needs to get this one right. EA is often criticized for being a cynical company, whose decisions consistently get in the way of making good video games. This delay seems like it’s a step in the right direction.

Thanks for joining us. To keep up to date with all the latest Xbox news, keep a close eye on our Xbox One tag.

Monster Hunter: World is probably the most hyped game so far in 2018. Unfortunately, the launch of the game hasn’t gone as smoothly as it could have, with players on Xbox reporting issues with matchmaking.

Players are blaming the matchmaking issues on the lack of a beta for the Xbox version of the game, as only the PS4 edition received a beta test, due to a marketing deal with Sony’s PS4.

Now, Capcom have said on Twitter that they’re aware of the issues that players are experiencing and are currently investigating.

Hello Hunters, we’re aware of the Xbox matchmaking issues and dev team is actively investigating it, we’ll update you as soon as we can.

— Monster Hunter (@monsterhunter) January 27, 2018

There’s no ETA on a resolution of the issues at this time, however, as Capcom are now aware, it shouldn’t be much longer.

The Xbox team are releasing a new build to Xbox Insiders on the Preview Program. Those in the Alpha ring will receive this build 2AM GMT (2PM PST) that delivers fixes for a number of issues.

Here is the changelog:

• My Games and Apps

• Fixed an error that resulted in content that was installing/downloading not resuming after a reboot.
• Certain games when installing had been failing to run on first launch until a reboot – this is now fixed.

• Party Chat

Reliability fixes to improve the time it takes for users to join a Party Chat session who had been experiencing long join times.

• Pseudo Localization/Language Translation String Fixes

Users will no longer see incorrect language translations in the build. If you do encounter any incorrect strings please report a problem.

• Profile

Fixed an issue which caused the incorrect profile color to display after powering on the console.

There are also some known issues (and workarounds) to be weary of too:

• Games Installation

Games that are installed fail to launch. Workaround: If the games are installed to an external drive please copy the game to the internal drive or attempt to delete the title and redownload to fix the launch error.

• Display

We are investigating the inaccurate RGB colors that have been reported when displaying in 4K HDR mode when playing a UHD disc.

• Tournaments

• The left and right navigation for selecting date and time during Tournament creation is currently reversed when the console language is set to Arabic or Hebrew.

• Left and right navigation in Tournament twists is reversed when the console language is set to Arabic or Hebrew.

• Left and right navigation in the bracket view of Tournaments is reversed when the console language is set to Arabic or Hebrew

• Avatars on Home

Users wishing to represent themselves as an avatar can do so by changing their settings under My profile > Customize profile > Show my avatar.

Hopefully this build will deliver a smoother experience to those in the Alpha ring. Let us know in the comments below once you’ve had chance to give the build a run!

Despite the bumpy road, Player’s Unknown Battlegrounds has hit the historic milestone of hosting over 4 million players on a single console.

As of today, 4 million Xbox One players are the lucky bunch of gamers who are the beneficiaries of rounds of optimizations, bug fixes, and other content updates.

With that being said, the Xbox team wants to further promote the game by offering currently invested gamers new in-game bonuses.

To show the community our appreciation for your support and feedback, we are rewarding players with 30,000 Battle Points to purchase cosmetic crates in the game. Anyone who has purchased or purchases PUBG on Xbox One and has created a character before January 31 at 12AM PST will receive this bonus, so if you’ve been waiting to jump onto the island, now is the perfect time to become a part of our growing community on conso le. Bonus Battle Points will be delivered and appear directly in players BP accounts (right below their gamertag) after February 1, 2018 at 12AM PT.

As an Xbox One exclusive (timed presumably), gamers should expect to see additional promotions similar to these throughout the year and the marketing teams seem pretty excited about the title.

We will continue to build on the foundation we’ve laid with PUBG on Xbox One with the feedback received from the community and we encourage you to continue in your pursuit of chicken dinners! Be sure to stay tuned to Xbox Wire and Major Nelson for all the latest PUBG news. See you on the battleground!

Even though the gifting season has come and gone, PUBG still ranks as one of the Xbox’s most gifted titles to date. Perhaps, you can convince a generous friend or family member to get you started soon and join this round of game giveaways.

Dragon Ball FighterZ, the much-anticipated fighting game based on the popular manga series, is now available on the Xbox One. Fighting games may have a pretty niche audience these days, but Dragon Ball FighterZ gained a lot of hype since Microsoft showed the first game trailer during its E3 2017 conference.

“With amazing looking character models and an easy to learn but hard to master fighting gameplay, Dragon Ball FighterZ looks to be the definitive fighting game experience for fans of the “Dragon Ball” anime franchise,” a blog post on Xbox Wire reads. The game is powered by the Unreal Engine 4 and it runs at 60 FPS on all Xbox One consoles with higher resolution graphics (not true 4K) on the Xbox One X.

Dragon Ball FighterZ has a 87 score on Metacritic at the time of our writing, making it the best Xbox One release of 2018 so far. The standard edition of the critically-acclaimed game is a $59.99 purchase, and you can get it from the link below.

Download
QR-Code

DRAGON BALL FIGHTERZ(Xbox One)

Developer:
BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment America Inc.

Price:
Free

Last year, Microsoft introduced a new “Story Remix” feature in the Windows 10 Photos app, which helps users create short videos with cool transitions, background music and more. This feature was unveiled during Build 2017, and shipped to all Windows 10 users with the Fall Creators Update.

Yesterday, the latest update for the Photos app introduced a new “Choose a Star” feature in Story Remix. This is something that Microsoft first demoed back at Build 2017, and it lets you put the spotlight on the person of your choice in your automatically generated videos.

“With today’s update, you can take your filmmaking to the next level by selecting yourself or nominating someone to be the star in your automatically generated creation,” Microsoft explained in a blog post. “Photos will then build a video around the person you choose, pulling in relevant photos and videos, zooming in on your star, and choosing an appropriate theme.” You can see how it works in the GIF below:

To try this new Story Remix feature, you’ll have to create an “Automatic video with music” in the Photos app and then select the photos and videos you want to see in your story. You can then automatically customize your video by clicking the “Remix it for me” button, and the option to choose the star of the film should appear just below.

We’re glad to see Microsoft delivering on its vision for Story Remix it showed us last year. The Photos app is already one of the best UWP apps the company created for Windows 10, and it keeps adding new features at a regular pace.

Some new games have entered the fray as Backward Compatible titles on the Xbox One. This time around, Lego Indiana Jones 2 and Split/Second are joining the Xbox One library, presenting a relatively diverse set of genres for gamers that want a taste of something different.

Split/Second and LEGO Indiana Jones 2 are coming to Xbox One Backward Compatibility today https://t.co/qPMRNrLoTQ pic.twitter.com/fZlzmxxCYI

— Larry Hryb ????????☁ (@majornelson) January 25, 2018

As always, the process for Backward Compatible titles is very easy. Just pop in your existing copy of the game, and your Xbox One is going to do the rest of the work for you. If you want a full account of the hundreds of Backward Compatible games, you can check Major Nelson’s handy list right here.

When Microsoft officially unveiled Windows 10 back in September 2014, the company said that it would be “the last version of Windows.” At the time, it wasn’t exactly clear if this meant that there would be no “Windows 11,” or if Microsoft was just referring to Windows as a service.

As it turned out, we saw Microsoft introduce several new Windows 10 SKUs last year: there was Windows 10 S, which can only run Windows Store apps, as well as Windows 10 Pro for workstations. These are just different flavors of Windows 10 for PC, and even the slightly locked down Windows 10 S isn’t really much simpler to use compared to a standard Windows 10 PC, or a Chromebook.

But that doesn’t mean that Microsoft isn’t interested in radically simplifying how Windows 10 works, and get rid of all the legacy stuff that make the OS too complex, too slow, and too battery hungry. Android beat Windows as the dominant OS for Internet usage last year, and Microsoft certainly won’t let Windows 10 sit on the sidelines in the near future.

Last year, we learned that Microsoft was reportedly working hard on making Windows 10 more modular, an effort that has been codenamed “Windows Core OS.” This is a necessary work for creating new form-factors powered by Windows, such as the foldable mobile device that we’ve already seen in many patents.

According to a new report from Windows Central, Windows Core OS could be the base of two new operating systems from Microsoft: Andromeda OS, which will apparently power the company’s rumored foldable mobile device, and Polaris, a streamlined version of Windows 10 for PCs.

According to my sources, Microsoft is building a brand new version of Windows 10 for PC devices like desktops, laptops and 2-in-1’s. This new version is entirely built on UWP, making it Microsoft’s first truly modern Windows OS for the traditional PC form factor. It strips out old legacy components and features in favor of a lighter OS with excellent battery life and performance.

Compared to Windows 10 S, Polaris will reportedly be more lightweight and modern, dropping the current Windows Shell, the legacy Control Panel and more. Polaris will be built entirely on Microsoft’s UWP technology (which also means a UWP-based File Explorer), but Microsoft said to be working on bringing support for legacy Win32 apps “when required.”

Polaris will reportedly coexist with standard Windows 10. “Existing Windows users won’t be able to upgrade or switch to Polaris, nor will eventual Polaris users be able to upgrade to traditional Windows 10 Pro,” the report says. Presumably, Polaris will be able to deliver much better battery life thanks to removal of all legacy features, and it should also be as easy to use as an iPad or a Chromebook.

Microsoft has already tried several times to simplify Windows, starting with Windows 8/RT and now Windows 10 S. But as you know, the company never managed to get rid of all the legacy stuff, including the massive library of Win32 apps. Polaris will apparently be a fresh start that really pushes Microsoft’s UWP platform forward, but could it appeal to consumers?

Most people now associate Windows with a desktop OS that gives you complete freedom: That’s why many people still don’t consider iPads or Chromebooks as “real PCs.” Yes, Windows is complex, but it’s one of the most versatile operating systems in the market, which is one of the reasons why it remains relevant today.

With the rise of Chromebooks and mobile devices though, Microsoft may well not have the choice to not drastically change how Windows works. According to Windows Central, Polaris may not surface until 2019, assuming Microsoft doesn’t cancel it at some point.

There are reports that BioWare’s upcoming Xbox One game, Anthem, will be delayed until a 2019 release. Not great news for Xbox One gamers expecting Anthem’s original Fall 2018 release date, but not entirely unexpected. Anthem was originally announced at E3 2017 and As noted by Gamesindustry.biz report, BioWare insiders mentioned to Kotaku that the original Fall 2018 release date was “never realistic.”

Take a look at Anthem on Xbox One in the video below.

Anthem is set to be released on Xbox One first, no later than March 2019, with versions for Windows 10 PCs and other platforms later in the year. In addition to Anthem, BioWare is working on another installment of Dragon Age, and Star Wars: The Old Republic MMO. Electronic Arts (EA), which owns BioWare, is still dealing with the fallout from the Star Wars Battlefront II loot crate fiasco, so the company needs to make sure that it doesn’t further alienate players with a poor game release. BioWare will have to deliver a solid game experience with Anthem or face a possible restructuring by EA.

The AdDuplex report for January 2018 is out, and it shows that the Windows 10 Fall Creators continues its propagation at a steady pace. According to AdDuplex’s latest data collected over the day of January 22, 74.3% of Windows 10 PCs are now running the Fall Creators Update (up 20.7% points). Remember that AdDuplex collects data from apps connected to their ad network, so only PCs with at least one of those apps running is counted.

“Fall Creators Update is growing rapidly and you can see the difference in ascend speed compared to the Creators Update,” highlighted AdDuplex. Indeed, it took six months for the Creators Update to be installed on 3 out of 4 Windows 10 PCs, and the Fall Creators Update achieved this in nearly half the time.

Looking closer at the Fall Creators Update propagation by PC manufacturer, AdDuplex’s data shows that Dell, Asus, Acer, Toshiba and more all surpassed Microsoft this month. 74.2% of Microsoft’s Surface devices are already running the latest Windows 10 version, though it’s worth noting that the Surface Laptop and the older Surface Pro 3 are lagging behind. Speaking about the Laptop, AdDuplex said that “It is unclear if there’s some model-specific issue or if this is somehow related to Windows 10 S.”

Two weeks ago, Microsoft announced that the Fall Creators Update was now “fully available,” meaning that it’s now being pushed to all compatible devices. “The Fall Creators Update was the fastest Windows 10 release to reach 100M devices, all while achieving higher customer satisfaction ratings compared to prior updates,” the company also said at the time.

Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) is currently one of the most popular multiplayer games on Xbox One, but Microsoft may have bigger plans for the title. Indeed, the folks on Reddit recently noticed that a new Xbox One S 1TB PUBG bundle briefly appeared on Amazon.

Xbox One S 1TB Playerunknown's Battlegrounds bundle is coming, listed on Amazon for Feb 20th https://t.co/SQai31ytog pic.twitter.com/EXrtwmOlXG

— Wario64 (@Wario64) January 24, 2018

The bundle was listed for release on February 20th, which at the time of writing is a little over a month away. There’s no telling what the price on the bundle may be as it’s not listed in the screenshot provided above. We’re assuming it may be over the $300 range, which is the pricing on most 1TB Xbox One S bundles.

Definitely interesting to see that Microsoft will be selling a bundle with an unfished game that is still depending on the feedback of those who are playing it. Time will tell what this bundle is all about, so it’s best to keep tuned for more in the days ahead.

Star Wars Battlefront II’s community manager, Sledgehammer70, today shared some data on the video game’s first season and revealed what’s to come over the next few months on Xbox One and other platforms.

A new game mode, Jetpack Cargo, is slated to launch in February. This mode will pit two teams of eight players against each other, all of which must use characters with the jetpack ability. Curiously, this mode will apparently only be playable for a limited time and won’t be a permanent game mode.

Details on the progression system revamp will be revealed in March. Star Wars Battlefront II has been heavily criticised for shifting to the Star Card and loot box system for character progression over actual play experience like was used in the previous game. (I personally don’t mind the current system at all but such a big deal has been made about it that the game developers have been pretty much forced to react to the controversy.)

The war is just beginning. News on what the next few months have in store for #StarWarsBattlefrontII players awaits: https://t.co/1jrpvATcw8 pic.twitter.com/ieHSEpNWRl

— EA Star Wars (@EAStarWars) January 24, 2018

The second season for the game is coming “soon” and it will apparently feature some improvements over the first season. “We’ve learned a lot from the first season of content for Star Wars Battlefront II, and we’re integrating those insights into our plans moving forward,” Sledgehammer70 says. “We know you’re waiting for details on what’s coming in the next season, and we’ll have more to tell you soon.”

No timeframe was given for the second season though it stands to reason that it will likely begin when the progression system update rolls out, possibly in March. Seasons of Star Wars Battlefront typically involve the addition of new locations and characters and it makes sense that they would want to push out all of the big content changes at once.

The post doesn’t reveal how many players actually participated in the first season of Star Wars Battlefront II but it does mentions that players spawned over 156 million times on the new Crait level and over 35 million times on D’Qar.

Are you looking forward to the future changes in Star Wars Battlefront II? What would you like to see in the second season? Let us know in the comments below.

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STAR WARS™ Battlefront™ II: Elite Trooper Deluxe Edition

Developer:
Electronic Arts

Price:
Free

Microsoft has always been good to its partners. It’s an organization that does a ton of business with other businesses in order to build a foundation for its services – not the least of which is a massive cloud ecosystem. In a new blog post from One Commercial Partner’s Corporate Vice President, Gavriella Schuster, it was explained what kind of opportunities partners are going to have access to in the near future.

Schuster points out that the estimated economic value of digital transformation over the next five years is about $20 trillion, proving that Microsoft partners will have no shortage of lucrative opportunities as the world continues to push the boundaries of what technology can do. The blog post tossed out a few impressive figures – seen below – that showed off just what Microsoft’s partners have meant for the Redmond giant over the past few years.

To help Microsoft’s pitch, the blog post offered a few testimonials from partners. For instance,  DataStax reports that it “has seen a 140 percent increase in pipeline growth,” and Barracuda mentions that its business “has grown by more than 300 percent in large part due to co-selling with Microsoft. ”

The blog was capped off by the Sixth entry in a series of free “playbooks,” designed to help partners take advantage of a certain area of technology in order to improve their business. This one has to do with Artificial Intelligence – something that’s been increasingly on the tip of everyone’s tongue lately, in the tech world.

Over the past couple of weeks, the Windows team has put, what feels like, an inordinate amount of public facing effort behind highlighting their efforts to improve the Windows Shell.

The first highlighted bits first surfaced in the previous Insider build, 17074, with improvements to Quiet Hours that run automated in the background for most users. Here is the quick list as a refresher:

• Quiet Hours will automatically turn on when you are duplicating your display. Never get interrupted during presentations again!
• Quiet Hours will turn on automatically when you are playing a full-screen exclusive DirectX game.
• You can set the schedule that works for you so that Quiet Hours are always on when you want them. Go to Settings > Quiet Hours to configure your schedule.
• Customize your own priority list so that your important people and apps always breakthrough when Quiet Hours are on. People pinned to your taskbar with always break through!
• See a summary of what you missed while you were in Quiet Hours.
• If you’re using Cortana, you can also have Quiet Hours turn on while you’re at home.

In today’s preview build 17083, Windows Shell improvements continue as well as gaining a slick new name, Focus Assist.

Quiet Hours gets a new name and more! With the expanding feature set in this area, we will now be calling it Focus Assist. Speaking of which, you can now also switch between the three Focus Assist modes by right-clicking the Action Center icon in the taskbar.

Build 17083 boast a bevy of new features and updates, but with a emphasis on Shell improvements, it’s becoming clear that the Windows team is finally getting around to more fine tuning of Windows 10 rather than the several years of plumbing work some Insiders have gotten used to.

After a six month period of testing with Windows Insiders and Windows 10 S users, Microsoft has officially released Office 365 to the Windows 10 Microsoft Store (via Neowin.) This is a big moment, and great news for those who own Windows 10 S devices, which only allows users to download programs and apps from the Microsoft Store.

To be clear, there are two current specific store listings, Office 365 Personal and Office 365 Home. Both of these listings for Office 365 in the Microsoft Store no longer have “Preview” tag, and several of our writers who were not previously testing Office 365 in the Store can now download the Office 365 programs.

Though there does not appear to be any direct download links, you can also access Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, Outlook, and Publisher 2016 by searching via the Microsoft Store in Windows 10. OneNote 2016 is not included, and users can instead opt for the OneNote UWP app. Keep in mind, though, that you will need to uninstall pre-existing versions of the Office desktop apps in order to download and use Office 365 from the Microsoft store.

As we previously noted, the experience of these Microsoft Store Office 365 apps is the same as the classic .exe/Win32 desktop applications. The only difference is the added benefits of a smooth update process, and a cleaner uninstall. More Office 365 SKUs are apparently coming soon, including Office 365 business, so you can expect this to be the next big thing for Microsoft.

Microsoft today released Windows 10 Build 17083 to those in Skip Ahead and Fast Ring. This build comes with a laundry list of changes, fixes, and known issues, but it also brings some new options in Windows Settings, and in Windows App Permissions. Here is what you need to know.

Windows App Permissions:

Control access to your pictures, videos, or documents folders: With this build we’re giving you more control so you can now decide which UWP apps can access your pictures, videos, or documents folders. If a UWP app needs access to any of these, a consent dialog will pop up 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 3 new Settings pages (one for each of the folders). If you deny access to a particular folder, to protect your privacy that UWP app will revert to only being able to access its local app folder.

Windows Settings Improvements:

• See your UWP app version numbers: We’ve heard your feedback, and in addition to the other work we’ve been doing on the UWP app settings pages in Settings we’ve also updated them to include the app version number for easy reference. As a reminder, the easiest way to get to the app settings page for a particular UWP app is to right-click the app in Start and select More > App settings
• New options for sorting your startup apps: Based on your feedback we’ve added a dropdown to the Settings > Apps > Startup settings page so you can choose to sort the apps listed by name, state, or startup impact.
• We’ve heard your feedback and have added a new setting for those who would prefer their scrollbars stay always visible. It’s available under Settings > Ease of Access > Display. Turning this setting off will result in the scroll bars in UWP (XAML) apps persisting as scrollbars in their full expanded size, even when not interacting with them.
• In order to help reduce accidental invocation of this hotkey, we’ve added a new checkbox for this under Settings > Ease of Access > Color filters settings page. The default state is disabled.
• We’ve added Narrator landmarks throughout Settings to quickly move between search, navigation list, and main landmarks. And for Narrator users, the page heading (shown visually at the top of each page) will no longer read out as being at the bottom of each page.

Microsoft is also making a number of changes to Ease of Access in Settings, including adding Narrator landmarks throughout Settings to help users with disabilities quickly move between options. They’ve also shortened the name of the “Cursor, pointer and touch feedback” page to “Cursor & pointer size.” See below for the new Ease of Access improvements in Settings.

• We’ve swapped the positions of Color Filters & High Contrast in the Settings > Ease of Access navigation list.
• In Settings > Ease of Access > High Contrast, we’ve switched the default theme to be “High Contrast Black”.
• We’ve added links to Settings > Ease of Access > Narrator Settings for learning how to use Narrator and for adding more voices. Also the cursor movement mode combo box in the “Use Narrator cursor” sub-section has been removed.
• We’ve updated the Settings > Ease of Access > Speech page to present information & settings about Dictation, Cortana, as well as Windows Speech Recognition.
• We fixed an issue where Settings > Ease of Access > Eye control was a blank page.
• We’ve updated the Ease of Access search terms & results to better align with the available settings.
• Duplicate search results have been removed.
• Throughout Settings > Ease of Access you’ll find new “Related settings” links.

This is shaping up to be a bit of the Privacy Update, so it’s great to see that you can further control the access apps have to photos, on your computer. Definitely a lot to look at in Settings with this latest build. Feel free to look at things yourself, and drop us a comment with your thoughts in the section below.

I suppose it’s hard to miss what you never had and for some Windows 10 Insiders, this latest news will probably be received with a meh and a shrug.

According to a memo that has gone out to the limited number of testers with access, the sought after features of Sets has gone through its testing paces and the Windows group has enough telemetry to shut down the project for now and not bring it back until some later date in the future.

Sets is now offline -> Thank you for your support of the early testing we’ve done with Sets. Your feedback helps us as we continue to develop this feature. Starting with this build, we’re taking Sets offline as we ready RS4 for release. If you have been testing Sets, you will no longer see it – however, Sets will return soon in a post-RS4 flight! Thanks again for feedback, and we look forward to sharing new Sets features with you soon.

For most Insiders, the news lands with a muted response as Sets was released to only a handful of testers and only spanned the length of one preview release (not counting the 2.0 fix release). However, for those Windows 10 Insiders who had access to the feature in the previous 17074 build, this latest news puts them in a bit of a quandary as to whether or not to upgrade to the Sets-less new build. Not having tried it myself, I can’t speak to the additional functionality Sets may have provided but judging from the engineering notes on the latest Windows 10 Insider preview, testers will be missing out on a lot of new features in preview 17083 as they cling to their build with Sets.

Microsoft just released Windows 10 Insider build 17083, and as has been the norm lately, it’s chock full of new goodness, including news of some Timeline improvements, set in motion by Windows Insider user feedback.

One of the most requested changes was for an ability to make it easier to delete multiple activities from the Timeline. In this new build, you’ll now be able to “delete everything from a given hour or day from the context menu”:

When you are in the default view, you will see a new “clear all from day” option when right-clicking on an activity. If you clicked “see all” to see activities for just one day, this option changes to allow you to “clear all from hour” instead. Because this option can clear a lot of activities at once, we will ask you to confirm this choice before deleting the activities.

In addition, and in keeping with this build’s focus on privacy, you’ll now be able to have access to more granular control of the privacy of activities:

A new setting allows you to sync your activities to the cloud for a seamless cross-device experience. You can enable “Let Windows sync my activities from this PC to the cloud” in the settings app, or you can enable it via an option provided at the bottom of Timeline. Until new users enable this setting, Timeline will only show four days of activities. (If you are upgrading from an earlier WIP flight, you may not see this option as the setting is already enabled.)

It’s Wednesday 10 am in Redmond, time to push a big red button and release another Windows Insider build. While Redstone 4 is winding down as we head toward a Spring 2018 release, the company is including one set of new features in this latest build, giving Windows users more control over what data Microsoft collects and what it stores.

The new Diagnostic Data Viewer was spotted earlier this week by Ed Bott over at ZDNet, and this morning Microsoft published a blog post detailing the new privacy controls.

You can download the latest build now if you’re a Windows Insider in the Fast Ring, and we’ll have more on what’s included in this latest build up soon, so stay tuned to OnMSFT.com.

During yesterday’s Windows Insider Webcast, the Windows Insider team mentioned the initial Redstone 4 Windows 10 bug bash will be coming up on February 2nd (via Neowin.) This is the first of what may be many Bug Bashes for this development cycle, perhaps also being one of the first signals that development of new features in Redstone 4 may be winding down soon.

It’s not certain at what time the Bug Bash will kick off, or at what time it will end, but these Bug Bash events usually last a little over a week. You can expect for Microsoft to share the timeline, and the specifics of what bugs they are looking for soon, but for now it’s best to keep those bug reports coming via the Feedback Hub.

Update: Microsoft officially announced the Bug Bash in today’s blog post for Windows 10 Insider Preview build 17083. It will run from February 2nd until February 11th. There will also be a Bug Bash webcast on February 6th on Mixer.

Feb 6th we'll be doing a special bug bash webcast ???????? – pencil it in your calendars now! ???? #WindowsInsiders https://t.co/OUmRvrY1sk

— Jen Gentleman ???? (@JenMsft) January 23, 2018

Bug Bashes also usually come with quests in the Feedback Hub, putting Windows Insiders in charge of trying out specific Windows features and reporting back to the Insider team on how everything works. We last saw a  Bug Bash for Redstone 3, and the Fall Creators Update back July of last year.

Microsoft will also be holding a special bug bash webcast on Mixer, giving Windows Insiders a chance to interact with members of the Windows 10 team. You can expect more details soon, maybe in an upcoming build blog post, so be sure to keep tuned for more in the days ahead.

Noted by ZDNet, Microsoft has hired Annie Parker as a new global head of startups. Parker was previously the interim CEO at Fishburner and is more well known as the co-founder of the startup accelerator, Muru-D.

Super excited to announce that in March I’ll be joining @Microsoft as Global Head of Startups.
It's a wonderful opportunity to work at scale & to make a global impact, I can't wait to get started! So many fab plans to share, more to come soon #startups #microsoft @MSAccel

— ???? Annie Parker ???? #SmashThePatriarchy #teamAZ???? (@annie_parker) January 23, 2018

Annie Parker will be joining Microsoft in March and promises there are many “fabulous plans” to share. She first mentioned the news of joining Microsoft on Twitter, saying that “It’s a wonderful opportunity to work at scale & to make a global impact, I can’t wait to get started!

A Microsoft spokesperson mentioned the pleasure of having Parker join the Microsoft family, saying “We are pleased to confirm that Annie Parker has joined Microsoft to work on our startup programs.”

Parker will be handing over her CEO role at Fishburner to COO Pandora Shelley. We congratulate Annie Parker on her new position at Microsoft and look forward to hearing more from her in the months ahead.

One of Microsoft’s most notable efforts in the past few years has been white space technology – an initiative that involves taking old, unused parts of the broadcast spectrum in order to help rural communities access the internet, where they might otherwise have trouble. With internet access considered a basic human right by the United Nations, Microsoft’s efforts have been a push towards creating a more connected world. They’ve been testing the technology in places like the Philippines for a while, and just registered for a couple of trademarks with the “Airband” name.

Two trademarks were spotted by MSPU: One trademark that covers the “development of computer hardware and software” regarding white spaces, and another trademark that deals with “Providing business information and consulting in the field of white space telecommunications and internet connectivity.” These trademarks were both certified on January 16th, and mark the next push in Microsoft’s attempts to make Airband a big brand.

The Microsoft Airband Initiative Grant Fund supports innovative businesses that help billions of people get access to energy and the internet. pic.twitter.com/zcDrdPb5VF

— Microsoft (@Microsoft) January 5, 2018

Microsoft tweeted about their Airband Initiative Grant Fund just a couple of weeks before the trademarks went through, indicating that the company is making a significant branding push for the Airband name. Keep an eye out in the near future for Microsoft to keep pushing forward with white space technology – likely expanding it out into more regions.

Outlook, a core app in Microsoft’s Office productivity suite is much more than an popular email client. In addition to its calendar, contacts and tasks management capabilities, the app can integrate with various third-party services via Outlook add-ins, which developers can release in the Outlook Store.

Outlook add-ins are currently available with Outlook 2016 or Outlook 2013 for Windows, Outlook 2016 for Mac, Outlook on the web for Office 365 customers or Outlook.com mailboxes. Over the next couple of days, you’ll notice that the add-in store has been updated with a redesigned layout, with the addition of quick start guides explaining how to use the different add-ins.

The search experience has also been improved to give you better search results. “Now, you can quickly search all available add-ins by add-in name or keyword,” the Outlook team explained. “For example, if you type in a keyword like “contact” and the top related add-ins will be available for you at a glance.”

This is a nice update that will likely please Outlook power-users. The Outlook team is also open to hear your feedback on the new store experience on the Outlook Feedback website.

Microsoft is holding a special Back to School sale for Xbox One gamers in Australia. The sale runs until January 29th and features 25-60% discounts on some major titles. Here’s some of the more popular games worth checking out in the sale.

• 25% off: Call of Duty: WWII
• 30% off: Assassin’s Creed Origins
• 60% off: FIFA 18
• 35% off: NBA 2K18
• 35% off: Grand Theft Auto V & Great White Shark Cash Card
• 35% off: Destiny 2
• 45% off: Injustice 2

The full list of discounts is available to view here. Make sure to click on the green button at the bottom of the page to display the entire list.

Are you going to grab any of these video games for your Xbox One? Let us know in the comments below.

Preview Alpha build 1802.180119-1917 has begun to roll out to select Xbox One console owners enrolled in the Xbox Insiders program. This latest build tests a new Xbox Game Pass section in the My games & apps area of the Xbox One dashboard and also gives users the ability to hide Xbox Achievements from the Next Achievement section in addition to a variety of bug fixes and improvements.

Xbox One Insiders – Preview Alpha members with the build today we've added the ability to hide/unhide a specific achievement or entire game from the Next Achievements section!

— Brad Rossetti (@WorkWombatman) January 23, 2018

The ability to hide Achievements is actually not mentioned in the release notes however Microsoft’s Brad Rossetti made a point to mention it in a tweet earlier today so that Xbox Insiders would be aware of the feature. Here’s the full release notes.

NEW FEATURES:

• My Games and Apps Collection – Game Pass
• We have enabled a new feature to show an “Xbox Game Pass” tab within “My games & apps” for users on Preview Alpha with an active Game Pass subscription.
• If someone has an active Game Pass subscription, they will see this tab appear in “My games & apps” and be able to quickly install available games from Game Pass. It works just like ‘Ready to install’ but for Game Pass.
• For users in Preview Alpha who do not have Game Pass, they will see the updated left navigation—section dividers added and Memberships tab has moved.

FIXES:

Profile

• Fixed an issue which caused the incorrect profile color to display after powering on the console.

System Update

• Resolved an issue which sometimes caused the console to get stuck at a loading screen (with a loading spinner only) when downloading a system update.

Party Chat

• Resolved an issue which sometimes caused party chat to crash in the Guide.

KNOWN ISSUES:

• Home
• You may be unable to add/remove/edit content blocks by pressing Y.
• System Setup – Kinect
• When setting up a Kinect during the initial console set-up experience, the setup fails when tuning audio.

Network Transfer

• The network transfer fails when initiated from a console on 1802 (this update).
• Workaround: You can perform a network transfer using an 1802 console as the  source and initiating the network transfer from a 1711 console on the same network.

Pseudo-Localization

• You may notice strange characters which replace normal translated text on the dashboard, Guide, and other areas. Please use Report a problem when you encounter these issues.

Games Installation

• Games that are installed fail to launch.
• Workaround: If the games are installed to an external drive please copy the game to the internal drive or attempt to delete the title and redownload to fix the launch error.

Display

• We are investigating the inaccurate RGB colors that have been reported when displaying in 4K HDR mode when playing a UHD disc.

Tournaments

• The left and right navigation for selecting date and time during Tournament creation is currently reversed when the console language is set to Arabic or Hebrew.
• Left and right navigation in Tournament twists is reversed when the console language is set to Arabic or Hebrew.
• Left and right navigation in the bracket view of Tournaments is reversed when the console language is set to Arabic or Hebrew

Avatars on Home

• Users wishing to represent themselves as an avatar can do so by changing their settings under My profile > Customize profile > Show my avatar.

Have you downloaded the new build yet? Share your thoughts on it with the community in the comments below.

Dragon FigherZ is the next big fighting game to come out of the illustrious Dragon Ball Z franchise, and it has quite a few fans up in a tizzy. The game brings with it an exceptionally colorful art style that’s true to the anime that inspired it, as well as a tight fighting game experience. The game has entered an open beta period, for those who want to try it.

Hi FighterZ! We've made the necessary improvements in order to enable X1 users to experience DRAGON BALL FighterZ in all of its online multiplayer glory; join us for an Xbox One exclusive open beta at the following dates/times – Start: Jan. 23 at 9pm PST / End: Jan. 24 at 9pm PST pic.twitter.com/4SJnc9EV1Q

— Bandai Namco US (@BandaiNamcoUS) January 23, 2018

The beta is only going on Xbox One for one day – starting at 9PM on Tuesday, January 23rd, and running for 24 hours, until 9PM the next day. Both times are in PST, so if you’re on the East coast, you’ll be able to begin and end when the clock strikes 12. Enjoy!