It has been one week since the WannaCry ransomware made its way into computers around the globe, but now that the dust has settled, researchers have had time to examine the true impacts. According to new reports, new evidence is suggesting that most WannaCry victims were running Windows 7, meaning that Windows XP is ‘insignificant’ when it comes to the distribution of the ransomware across Windows machines (via The Verge).

#WannaCry infection distribution by the Windows version. Worst hit – Windows 7 x64. The Windows XP count is insignificant. pic.twitter.com/5GhORWPQij

— Costin Raiu (@craiu) May 19, 2017

The data fueling the latest reports comes from Kapersky Lab, a Russian multinational cyber security and anti-virus provider. Their data shows that when put all together, about 98% of computers affected by WannaCry were running Windows 7. Windows XP, meanwhile, only accounted for about one in a thousand infections.

This latest data raises concerns: while most media emphasis was on Windows XP, Windows 7 was impacted too, and this one is still the most popular version of Windows nearly eight years after its release. It is worth noting that several months ago, Microsoft had issued a patch for recent versions of Windows which was aimed at protecting from the attack, but most administrators could have likely not installed it. Microsoft also recently issued an emergency patch for Windows XP, Windows 8, and Windows Sever 2003, aimed at stopping the exploit, but not before it had already spread worldwide.

The hacking group linked to WannaCry has suggested that more exploits could come, perhaps even having an impact on Windows 10. Microsoft, nonetheless, has criticized the government’s stockpiling of software vulnerabilities following the WannaCrypt ransomware attack.  As recently as yesterday, a French-based researcher has also suggested a method for WannaCry victims to decrypt their data without paying the ransom.

Microsoft’s Xbox Play Anywhere catalog is welcoming a new action platformer today: A Walk in the Dark, a game set in a dark fantasy world will let you run and jump on both your Xbox One and Windows 10 PC at no additional cost.

Bruno Vidal, Lead Developer of A Walk in the Dark shared the following description of the game on Xbox Wire:

In our game you’ll be playing as Bast, a cat on a mission to rescue his best friend Arielle, from an ancient evil creature that turned their hike into a fight for survival. This journey will take you through 100 levels that will put your skills as a gamer to the test. For the bravest of players, we have added 10 additional Challenge levels that require exceptional precision and mastery to complete.

If Vidal is really excited about making the game an Xbox Play Anywhere title, the developer also praised the Xbox Live Creators Program and the ability to turn retail consoles into dev kits. “We had the full game running on a retail Xbox One months before we even reached out to ID@Xbox,” he explained. “Seeing the barriers for console game development being brought down, makes me truly excited for the future.”

A Walk in the Dark can be yours for just $6.99 on the Windows Store and you can get it from the download link below.

Download
QR-Code

A Walk in the Dark

Developer:
Flying Turtle

Price:
$6.99

If you often use OneDrive links to share content with your contacts, you’ll be pleased to learn that Microsoft has quietly added a new expiring link feature (via Neowin.) This is a useful addition as you’ll no longer have to remember to delete old OneDrive links that you created months or years ago.

For now, expiring links are only available on the web for Office 365 Personal and Home subscribers. If you don’t have a premium subscription, you’ll see a pop-up advertising the feature when you try to share a file on OneDrive:

This is an interesting addition that will certainly make your Office 365 subscription more valuable. As a reminder, Office 365 Personal gives you 1TB of OneDrive Storage, Office 2016 for PC or Mac and other exclusive productivity features for just $69.99 a year. If you’re not already a subscriber, let us know if the addition of OneDrive expiring links could help you change your mind.

The Skype team has announced today that the Skype online community will be moved to the Microsoft Community on Tuesday, May 23. This consolidation was decided to address “major changes” at Skype which have brought some “new challenges to our customers,” the team explained.

Following the launch of the Skype Insider Program last year, Microsoft had already created several boards for Skype Preview on Android, Skype Lite and feature suggestions on Microsoft’s main community website (answers.microsoft.com). According to the team, this change should benefit both consumers and developers:

The move to Microsoft Community will bring Skype customer support staff into the community for the first time – helping you get answers to your questions quickly.

We also want to strengthen the relationship between our customers and our developers. Joining the Microsoft Community will allow us to deliver your insights and feedback directly to our engineering teams.

The old Skype community website was quite active and a great resource if you had questions about the messaging app. We hope that Skype users will embrace the change and accept to move to the new website. If you’re interested, you can already sign up here.

Game developer, Bungie, release a lot of information this week regarding Destiny 2 which was announced earlier this year. Among the numerous bits of information was confirmation that while the PC version of Destiny 2 will support 4K resolution and run with an uncapped framerate, the console version on Xbox One and Sony’s PlayStation 4 would be limited to 30 frames per second and 1080p resolution.

When asked about Microsoft’s upcoming powered-up Xbox console currently codenamed, Project Scorpio, Project Lead David Shaw stated that they would announce Scorpio information only after Microsoft has released details on the new console at E3.

Destiny 2 will launch on Xbox One on September 8th and can be pre-ordered now right here. Is framerates and resolution important to you? Let us know in the comments.

Earlier this month, Microsoft quietly renewed the trademark to Scalebound, the promising Xbox exclusive title that was officially cancelled in January. It shouldn’t be too surprising to see Microsoft still protecting the trademark of the much talked about video game, though this morning you may have heard some positive rumors about Scalebound being back in development.

More precisely, Twitter user Xrays_Insider claimed that the action-RPG title initially developed by Platinum Games was now in the hands of another team close to Microsoft. Howerver, these optimistic claims have since been contradicted by Windows Central, which own sources confirmed that “Scalebound is not in development by Microsoft or a “trusted team.” Microsoft did not comment these rumors at the time of our writing.

Scalebound was initially unveiled during E3 2014, and the ambitious game was set to join the growing list of Xbox Play Anywhere titles. The news about its cancellation was obviously a huge disappointment for Xbox fans, though Xbox head Phil Spencer promised that 2017 would be a “fun year” despite the lack of blockbuster releases. E3 is just a few weeks away, so we won’t have to wait much longer to see what the Xbox team has in the pipeline.

Hot on the heels of Microsoft’s recent announcement of the Surface Laptop and Windows 10 S, Lenovo is getting geared up for the back to school season too. Today, Lenovo announced their new lineup of IdeaPad laptops, FlexPads, and Legion gaming laptops. While there will be some laptops available in the new Lenovo lineup later this month, most will be available starting in June 2017.

The new Lenovo lineup of IdeaPads includes the re-designed IdeaPad 320, as well as two new slim options; the IdeaPad 320S and IdeaPad 720S. Lenovo introduces a new FlexPad, the all-new Flex 5. For all the gamers out there, Lenovo introduces its most powerful gaming laptop yet, the new Lenovo Legion Y920.

Here’s a more in-depth look at the new Lenovo lineup.

IdeaPad 320

The Lenovo IdeaPad 320 comes in two sizes, 15.6-inch and 17.3-inch, with customization options ranging up to an Intel i7 7th-gen “Kaby Lake” processor, 2 TB SATA HDD, 16GB RAM, and an optional fingerprint reader for Windows Hello. The smaller 15.6-inch Ideapad 320 has a touchscreen option available. Both IdeaPad 320 sizes come with a USB Type-C port (non-charging). The Lenovo IdeaPad 320 is available in Onyx Black and Platinum Grey.

IdeaPad 320S

Lenovo introduces the IdeaPad 320S as a cheaper alternative to Microsoft’s Surface Laptop. The IdeaPad 320S (S stands for slim) is available in three colors; Coral Red, Mineral Grey, and Snow White. The IdeaPad 320S offers two 14-inch and 15.6-inch options, with up to an i7 Intel processor, 8 GB RAM, 256 SSD in 14-inch version, up to 512 GB SSD in 15.6-inch version. Base pricing starts at $739.99 (14-inch) and $749.99 (15.6 inch).

IdeaPad 720S

For those looking for beefier RAM, Lenovo has the IdeaPad 720S, sporting a 14-inch display, up to a 7th-gen Intel i7 processor, 16 GB RAM, and 512 GB PCIe hard drive. Base price starts at $969.99.

Flex 5

The creator of the 360-degree hinge, the Lenovo FLex 5 has two available size options, 14-inch and 15-inch displays, with up to an Intel i7 processor, 16 GB RAM, 1TB HDD. The Flex 5 also has integrated pen support, a 360-degree hinge to use your Flex 5 in a variety of different positions, and a precision trackpad. 4K UHD IPS Display is available, as is an optional fingerprint reader for Windows Hello support. Pricing starts at $719.99 (14″) and $829.99 (15″).

Legion Y920

The most powerful gaming laptop Lenovo has produced yet, the Legion Y920 offers multiple GPU options, a NVIDIA G-Sync Panel, and Mechanicla Keyboard with full RGB. The Legion Y920 also has a 7th Gen Intel Core i7-7820HK / i7-7700HQ, NVIDIA GTX 1070 (8GB) GDDR5 with PCI Express, 16 GB RAM, 512GB SSD / 1TB HDD, Dolby Home Theatre Audio, 2x 2W JBL Speakers, 3W Bass Subwoofer, and a 17.3″ FHD (1920×1080) Gsync IPS display. Pricing starts at $2,699.99.

Which Lenovo laptop is right for you?

A recently uploaded YouTube video has revealed that Microsoft will be hosting a Multiplayer All-Access weekend from May 18th-21st, and included is free play in Minecraft Xbox One Edition.

This means that those without an active Xbox Live Gold Subscription can test out Microsoft’s gaming service and play online with fellow friends and gamers in any game worldwide for free on both Xbox One and Xbox 360. And, for even more fun, during the same time, everyone can enjoy free access to Minecraft Xbox One Edition (usually priced a $19.99,) which features endless opportunities to create and explore your very own world where the only limit is what you can imagine.

Will you be taking advantage of this offer? Or are you an already Xbox Live Gold subscriber enjoying the benefits of Games With Gold and Deals with Gold? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

Microsoft wrapped up its Build 2017 developer conference in Seattle last week, but the company is already getting ready to hit the road and meet more developers all around the word. That’s right, the company is bringing back the Microsoft Build Tour this year, which will kick off next month with a first stop in Shanghai, China.

In total, Microsoft will visit the following seven countries in June:

• June 5-6: Shanghai, China
• June 8-9: Beigjing, China
• June 12: Munich, Germany,
• June 13-14: Seoul, Republic of Korea
• June 14-15: Helsinki, Finland
• June 19-20: Warsaw, Poland
• June 21-22: Hyderabad, India
• June 29-30: Syndey, Australia

This year, Microsoft wanted the tour to be a two-day event, except for Munich (June 12) which will be a single day, session-focused event. On the first day, you can expect a keynote and many demo-driven sessions focusing on all the developer tools that Microsoft announced at Build 2017. On the second day, you’ll have the opportunity to join Microsoft developers for full day hackathon.

Last but not least, attendess will be able to have a hands-on demo with the first Windows Mixed Reality headsets that will ship to consumers later this year. Seating will be limited, so hurry up to register for the location of your choice on the dedicated website.

Microsoft today announced that they are planning to add data centers in Africa, bringing the total number of Microsoft data centers worldwide to 40, which is more than any other cloud provider. Initial availability will come in 2018, and the new centers will offer enterprise-grade reliability and performance combined with data residency.

According to Microsoft, these new Microsoft Cloud data centers (located in Johannesburg and Capetown, in South Africa) will deliver Azure, Office 365, and Dyanamics 365, along with enterprise-grade reliability and performance combined with data residency. Scott Guthrie, Microsoft’s Executive Vice President of Cloud and Enterprise Group explains what this means for the people of Africa.

We see enormous opportunity for the cloud to accelerate innovation, support people across the continent who are working to transform their businesses, explore new entrepreneurship opportunities and help solve some of the world’s hardest problems… Customers across Africa, including local startups and NGOs, will be able to use the cloud services delivered from these new regions to power innovation and opportunity for Africa and the world. For example:

• M-KOPA Solar has used mobile and cloud technology to develop an affordable pay-as-you-go solar energy solution to provide electricity to more than 500,000 homes.
• AGIN has leveraged the cloud to enable an app to connect 140,000 smallholder farmers to key services, enabling them to share data and facilitate $1.3 million per month in finance, insurance and other services.

This announcement brings us to 40 cloud regions around the world — more than any other cloud provider — and will help organizations and people from Cairo to Cape Town accelerate their journey to cloud computing.

Microsoft believes that the new investment marks a major milestone in the company’s mission to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. In fact, Microsoft has beaten rivals Amazon and Google to launching a data center in Africa, marking a significant step forward in the company’s cloud division. The data centers, nonetheless, are also an addition to other Microsoft efforts on the African continent, including using the Microsoft Cloud to bring access to training and education, building job skills for more than 775,000 people in Africa.

A month after Marvel Heroes Omega was announced for Xbox One, the game has been given the release date of June 20th 2017, just one month from today.

The game is an MMO with roleplaying game elements and features a huge cast of characters from Marvel Comics series such as X-Men, Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy, The Defenders, and more. When the game launches on Xbox One on June 20th there will be 38 characters to choose from but this roster will expand going forward, much like the original PC version which is still adding characters on a regular basis.

Are you excited for Marvel Heroes Omega on Xbox One? Let us know in the comments below.

You may have heard of the WannaCrypt (Known by many as WannaCry) ransomware that’s been hitting everyone recently. In fact, you may have heard about it directly from Microsoft, when they passed the buck onto the NSA for being the cause of the whole problem. Regardless of the politics around the origination and context of the cyber attack, Microsoft still wants its customers to be safe. In that spirit, they’ve published a post on the Azure blog to help keep people safe.

No preamble here – Microsoft just put together a checklist of things for you to do in order to keep it clean. Here it is.

This recent WannaCrypt malware exploits a Service Message Block (SMB) vulnerability (CVE-2017-0145). Customers should immediately install MS17-010 to resolve this vulnerability.

Review all Azure subscriptions that have SMB endpoints exposed to the internet, commonly associated with ports TCP 139, TCP 445, UDP 137, UDP 138. Microsoft recommends against opening any ports to the internet that are not essential to your operations.

Disable SMBv1 – instructions located here: https://aka.ms/disablesmb1

Utilize Windows Update to keep your machines up-to-date with the latest security updates. If you are running Azure Cloud Services (Platform as a Service Web Roles and Worker Roles or Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)) automatic updates are enabled by default, so there is no further action required.  All Guest OS versions released after March 14th, 2017 contain the MS17-010 update. You can view the update status of your resources on an on-going basis in Azure Security Center.

Use the Azure Security Center to continuously monitor your environment for threats. Collect and monitor event logs and network traffic to look for potential attacks using the Azure Security Center, and check for new security alerts and quickly investigate any threats detected.

Use Network Security Groups (NSGs) to restrict network access. To reduce exposure to attacks, configure NSGs with inbound rules that restrict access to only required ports. You can use network firewalls from a range of companies for additional security. Azure Security Center provides a view of the security for all your networks in Azure and helps you identify those with internet accessible endpoints, insufficient NSG protections, and in some cases recommends a firewall solution.

Confirm that anti-malware is deployed and updated. If you are using Microsoft anti-malware for Azure or Windows Defender, Microsoft released an update last week which detects this threat as Ransom:Win32/WannaCrypt. If you are running anti-malware software from any number of security companies, you should confirm with your provider that you are protected. You can also use Azure Security Center to verify that anti-malware, and other critical security controls, are configured for all of your Azure virtual machines.

Configure backups with multifactor authentication. An important part of recovery from any compromise is having a strong backup solution in place. If you are already using Azure Backup, you can recover data if your servers are attacked by ransomware. Only users with valid Azure credentials can access the backups stored in Azure. We also recommend enabling Azure Multi-Factor Authentication to provide an additional layer of security to your backups in Azure.

Microsoft reminds you that you can check on their security bulletin to get the official look at MS17-010, the update that’s aimed at fixing this mess. Be sure to update to MS17-010, and stay safe out there.

If you’ve ever noticed a strange ‘J’ at the end of your emails, likely you’ve wondered where it came from. The answer was simple. Microsoft’s Wingdings font, used by Outlook to render the smiley emoticon, was not recognizable by other mail providers and browsers, thus turning the simple smiley emotion into the letter J.

However, it looks like Microsoft has finally figured out the issue or at least has taken the time to fix it nearly seven years later (via Business Insider.) Now however you access Outlook, it will recognize the emoji accurately. A writer for The Guardian found the unexpected update:

https://twitter.com/alexhern/status/864127616206483457

While ‘game changer’ might a little intense for the emoji correction, it’s nice to see that Microsoft has taken the initiative to fix these little foul-ups. As an official response, the tech giant explained that this is because emojis are now “true emojis” so any email app should be able to display them correctly.

On a completely unrelated note, The Emoji Movie hits theaters June 28.

Given the recent Google discovery of a flaw in Windows Defender, and the Google discovery of a flaw in Internet Explorer and Edge, it would appear that Google and Microsoft aren’t exactly friendly when it comes to working together. This time, however, a new flaw has been discovered which could perhaps have both tech giants to blame, as hackers can exploit the flaw so they could use Chrome in Windows 10 to steal passwords (via ZDNet)

While Google has said it is working on a fix for this flaw, DefenseCode security researcher Bosko Stankovic recently detailed how the flaw could trick the latest version of Chrome in Windows 10 into downloading a SCF file (show desktop icon shortcut) that can trick Windows (and help hackers) into capturing a user’s LAN Manager (NTLMv2) password hash.

Once downloaded, the request is triggered the very moment the download directory is opened in Windows File Explorer to view the file, delete it or work with other files (which is pretty much inevitable). There is no need to click or open the downloaded file – Windows File Explorer will automatically try to retrieve the “icon“. The remote SMB server set up by the attacker is ready to capture the victim’s username and NTLMv2 password hash for offline cracking or relay the connection to an externally available service that accepts the same kind of authentication (e.g. Microsoft Exchange) to impersonate the victim without ever knowing the password.

Currently, the attacker just needs to entice the victim (using fully updated Google Chrome and Windows) to visit his web site to be able to proceed and reuse victim’s authentication credentials. Even if the victim is not a privileged user (for example, an administrator), such vulnerability could pose a significant threat to large organisations as it enables the attacker to impersonate members of the organisation. Such an attacker could immediately reuse gained privileges to further escalate access and perform attacks on other users or gain access and control of IT resources.

The primary use case of this flaw is the way in which Chrome and Windows handle SCF files. Chrome does not label these types of files as malicious and does not scan these files for malicious intent, and Chrome relies on the default Windows settings once the file is downloaded. Because of this, the user does not even need to click or open the file, and Windows Explorer will automacially try to retrieve the icon when the user goes into the download directory, causing the capturing of the LAN Manager (NTLMv2) password hash.

To protect yourself, it is recommended for you to go to Settings> Show advanced settings> and Check the “Ask where to save each file before downloading” option.

A month ago, well known leaker Evan Blass revealed that Chinese manufacturer Huawei had three new Windows 10-based MateBook devices in the pipeline: the 2-in-1 MateBook E and the ultrabooks Matebook D and X. The official announcement is expected to take place on Tuesday, May 23 during a press event in Berlin starting at 5AM PST (via Pocketnow).

It’s time to maximise your lifestyle. Join us LIVE from Berlin on 23 May 2017 at 14:00 CEST to meet our latest products… #HuaweiMateBook pic.twitter.com/iz9hfEXw7f

— Huawei Mobile (@HuaweiMobile) May 15, 2017

As you may remember, Huawei first MateBook device was a beautiful hybrid tablet with a premium design and decent specs (12-inch full HD screen, Intel Core m3 processor and 4GB of RAM). When it launched in July 2016, it was slimmer and lighter than Microsoft’s Surface Pro 4, and it also came with a handy fingerprint sensor. We hope the company will continue to raise the bar with its upcoming MateBook portfolio, and we’ll let you know all the details next week. Actually, May 23 will be quite busy as Microsoft will also hold a mysterious Surface-related event in Shanghai on this same day.

Microsoft pulled off another blockbuster show at this year’s Build developers conference, showing off everything from HoloLens to Ubuntu, with lots of announcements in between.

Among the major announcements (most of them, at least for the consumer audience, coming on day two), Microsoft announced that the latest update to Windows 10 will be called “The Fall Creators Update.” A number of features coming to that update were revealed, including Windows Story Remix, OneDrive On-Demand, and the introduction of the Fluent Design System, or Project Neon.

Day One had its own share of important announcements, including Cosmos DB, new capabilities for the Microsoft Graph, IoT Edge, and the Cortana Skills Kit.

So what were your favorite announcements? Let us know in the poll below:

Were you impressed by Microsoft’s offerings at Build? Are you excited for the Fall Creators Update? Let us know in the comments below.

This past weekend, Windows computers around the world were affected by the WannaCry ransomware attack. While Microsoft issued a security patch for Windows Server 2003, Windows XP, and Windows 8 to patch the WannaCry exploit, the hacking group linked to the original attack is now hinting that they will soon release and sell the codes for much newer exploits, which could, in turn, be used to attack Windows 10, and phone handsets (via Reuters)

According to reports, the Shadow Brokers group released an online statement in “trademarked garbled English” highlighting that starting in June, they will release software to those who are willing to pay to access the tech industry’s secrets. The statement also shows that a “monthly data dump” has been set up, which could offer hackers the necessary tools to break into routers, phones, and even web browsers.

Worryingly, reports show that the Shadow Brokers also has plans to sell access to undisclosed vulnerabilities which could be used by hackers to attack Windows 10. Though the Shadow Brokers’ online statement did not mention any other tech industry product by name, there was mention of threats to dump data from banks using the SWIFT international money transfer network and to dump data from Russian, Chinese, Iranian or North Korean nuclear and missile programs.

Microsoft has not yet given a statement in regards to the latest threats and a spokeswoman is instead saying to Reuters that the company is “preparing a response.” Since the WannaCry attacks are believed to have been based on an NSA exploit codenamed “EternalBlue,” Microsoft released a statement about the WannaCry attacks and criticized the government for stockpiling software vulnerabilities. The US government responded at a White House briefing via homeland security advisor Tom Bossert on Monday, saying the malware “was not a tool developed by the NSA to hold ransom data. This was a tool developed by culpable parties, potentially criminals or foreign nation-states.”

The popular Shovel Knight video game is getting a significant free update on Xbox One that essentially adds an entirely new game. Called, Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment, this new free add-on adds all-new levels to complete and a new character called the Enchantress to play as. Here’s the official description and trailer:

Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment is the action-packed prequel to Shovel Knight! Take control of Specter Knight, servant to the Enchantress, in a quest to recruit a cadre of knights and create the Order of No Quarter. With his scythe and preternatural agility at the ready, he can glide across the ground, clamber up walls, and command an arsenal of curious weapons.

If he carries out his duties, Specter Knight may have a chance at regaining his lost humanity and breaking his chains of servitude. But what cruel tricks might the Enchantress have up her sleeve? Experience perfect platforming, world-class visuals, all new stage designs, new music, new bosses, and even meet a friend or two in Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment!

Have you got this new update yet? Let us know if you like it in the comments below. Hard to complain about free video game content!

Following weeks of testing with Xbox Insiders, the Xbox team is rolling out today a new Xbox One update which brings several new features to the Microsoft gaming console. Coming today are Arena on Xbox Live Tournaments for Killer Instinct, a new Party Chat overlay, Looking for Group notifications as well as a new Beam integration for Xbox Live Clubs.

First of all, the free-to-play Xbox Play Anywhere title Killer Instinct is the first game to support Arena on Xbox Live Tournaments: gamers will see a new “Tournaments” tab in the official Game Hub where they will be able to register for upcoming events. Owner or admins of Xbox Live Clubs can also create their own Killer Instinct tournaments by using the Xbox app on a Windows 10 PC and select the “Tournaments” tab. “Be sure to advertise your tournament to your Club’s Activity Feed to recruit players and hope you can stay friends even after you take first place,” explained the Xbox team.

Next, Xbox Live Clubs are now integrated with Microsoft’s live streaming video service Beam: you will now see a “Beam” tab in your Clubs that will feature all Beam broadcasts from members of a Club, and admins will be in control of the content that will be displayed to gamers.

This new update also brings Looking for Group notifications, which will alert you every time someone you follow on Xbox Live creates an LFG post. Additionally, it’s now possible to share LFG posts to your Activity Feed or your friends via private messages.

Another much-anticipated feature coming today is the new Party Chat overlay, which will display the speaking Party members’ names in a small transparent window during a gaming session. You can adjust the overlay’s position and transparency to your liking, but you can completely deactivate it if it’s too distracting.

Last but not least, the Xbox team announced today that Dolby Atmos audio will soon be available for games, movies and TV shows. To enable the immersive sound experience on the Xbox One, you’ll have to download the Dolby Access app when it will become available on the Xbox Store (the app is already available on the Windows Store for Windows 10 PCs). The Xbox team explained:

This app enables Dolby Atmos audio, creating sound that flows around you, even overhead, through Dolby Atmos enabled AVRs and sound bars. With an additional store purchase, Dolby Atmos for Headphone enables this same immersive experience on almost any set of headphones.

The experience delivers breakthrough audio that takes you deeper inside your favorite games, movies, and TV shows. For gamers, a robust slate of native Dolby Atmos titles are coming to Xbox One later this year. Additionally, the upmixing capabilities of Dolby Atmos will create a more immersive audio experience for your existing multichannel games.

You can watch the following video to learn more details about all these new features:

You should receive this latest update (the build number is 10.0.15063.3054) in the next couple of hours if your console is set to update automatically, but you can get it right now if you don’t want to wait. To do so, open the Xbox Guide and go to Settings, then select System and then Updates. Once you’re done, let us know in the comments how is your experience with the latest stable version of the Xbox One OS.

Microsoft briefly went over the new features coming to OneDrive during its developer’s conference last week. During the presentation, Microsoft explained that OneDrive files would be transitioning from the traditionally referred to the shorthand of placeholders to a much more nuanced called On-Demand state.

After a brief demo by Windows executive Joe Belfiore which highlighted the feature and “upcoming” development, the company quickly moved on, leaving some in the audience wondering about the details the company had yet to reveal.

Fortunately, Microsoft was ready to talk about On-Demand and OneDrive rather quickly after the developer’s conference. In fact, during its SharePoint Summit, the company went into rather explicit details about SharePoint, Windows 10 and OneDrive.

OneDrive:

When it comes to OneDrive and new features, users can expect to share files directly from File Explorer while either on Windows or Finder for the Mac.

“Today, we also announced that starting this summer you will be able to share Office 365 files directly from File Explorer on PC and Finder on Mac. The sharing experience has been simplified, so you can share a file or folder with specific people or send a link that enables anyone who needs access, inside or outside your organization. In addition, you can now control how long a link provides access, and you can easily view and modify the permissions you have granted. The new sharing experience is the same, whether you share on the web, in Explorer on Windows 10 and Windows 7, or in Finder on Mac.”

SharePoint:

As for SharePoint customers are now going to be able to connect even more services to the project management software as well as leveraging PowerApps to create custom forms and new digital experiences.

“Over the last year, we modernized SharePoint team sites and connected them with Office 365 Groups. Today, we announced additional enhancements—coming later this year—which will further unify collaboration experiences in Office 365, including:
The ability to connect existing SharePoint team sites to Office 365 Groups, so you can augment existing sites with shared conversations, calendar, and Planner.

Support for adding SharePoint pages as tabs in Microsoft Teams so you can add a tab to a news article or your team site’s homepage, for example. This builds upon the existing ability to add tabs for SharePoint document libraries in Teams. More integration between Teams and SharePoint will be shared at Microsoft Ignite.”

Other features coming to SharePoint include an improved search engine to find contacts quicker, the ability generates communication sites due out this summer, streamlined approval processes, and tweaks to the SharePoint admin center.

The laundry list of new and upcoming features is a rather impressive one and customers can find out more about today’s announcements by either visiting the Office Blogs or taking a look at the SharePoint Virtual Summit page.

It’s now been a year since Microsoft launched its Surface Hub digital whiteboard in select markets last year, and the Redmond giant is already seeing strong interest from business users. Today, the company announced that 15 new resellers have joined its Surface Hub partner programme, emphasizing the “huge demand” for the device in the UK.

“The 15 new partners all have extensive experience in working with audio, visual and communications solutions, but will also benefit from Microsoft support in sales and deployment of Surface Hub to customers,” explained the company. In the UK, the collaboration device has already been adopted by high profile instutions such as the University of Bristol.

“The Surface Hub is currently being used by more than 2,000 customers in 24 markets across the world, up from 500 customers last July,” added the company. This is a significant milestone for this brand new device category, and the expansion of the company’s Surface Hub partner programme seems to be exactly what the company needs to do to drive adoption among business users.

This week is a great opportunity for Xbox gamers to save big on great Xbox One and Xbox 360 games. This time, Xbox Live Gold subscribers can take advantage on cool discounts on recent Xbox One games such as Final Fantasy XV, Mirror’s Edge Catalyst or Destiny – The Collection, but everyone should also check the 100+ Xbox 360 games featured in the Xbox One Backward Compatibility Super Sale.

There are many old gems included in the list such as the BioShock trilogy, Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, Fallout 3, Portal 2 and Red Dead Redemption, and you don’t need an Xbox Live Gold subscription to save up to 75% of those games! As usual, you can find more details about or favorite deals below and we invite you to check the full list of discounted titles on Major Nelson’s blog post.

Xbox One Deals

Final Fantasy XV ($35.99 with Xbox Live Gold)

Noctis, crown prince of the magical Kingdom of Lucis, embarks on a quest to reclaim his homeland in this action RPG. Take up the steering wheel and hit the road with your colorful companions to explore a vast and breathtaking world. Invoke the power of your ancestors and effortlessly warp through the air in thrilling combat. Longtime fans and fresh faces alike, get ready to experience cutting-edge interactive entertainment in this fantasy based on reality.

Destiny – The Collection ($38.99 with Xbox Live Gold)

Destiny – The Collection contains every release from the award-winning first-person shooter franchise to date. It’s a great way for Guardians to embark on journeys they may have missed, as well as a perfect starting point for new players who want to join the Destiny community. It includes: Destiny, Expansion I: The Dark Below, Expansion II: House of Wolves, The Taken King, and the newest adventure, Rise of Iron. It also includes a character boost to send you immediately into the battle.

Mirror’s Edge Catalyst ($6.60 with Xbox Live Gold)

Follow Faith, a daring free runner, as she fights for freedom in the city of Glass. What appears to be an elegant, high-tech city on the outside, has a terrible secret hidden within. Explore every corner from the highest beautifully lit rooftops to the dark and gritty tunnels below. The city is huge, free to roam and Faith in at the center of it all. Through the first-person perspective, combine her fluid movement and advanced combat with the city’s surroundings to master the environment and uncover the conspiracy. This is Mirror’s Edge for this generation, raising the bar for immersion in action-adventure games.

Xbox 360 Deals

• Assassin’s Creed Revelations ($6.59)
• BioShock Infinite ($10.49)
• Borderlands 2 ($9.99)
• Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 ($19.99)
• Dead Space 2 ($6.59)
• Deus Ex: Human Revolution ($3.74)
• Dragon Age: Origins ($4.94)
• Fallout 3 ($4.94)
• Far Cry 3 ($7.99)
• Gears of War 3 ($4.99)
• Grand Theft Auto IV ($9.99)
• Left 4 Dead 2 ($4.99)
• Portal 2 ($4.99)
• Rayman Legends ($6.59)
• Red Dead Redemption ($11.99)

All discounts will be valid through May 22, let us know in the comments if you plan to purchase one of these titles on your Xbox One or Xbox 360.

Microsoft’s Larry Hyrb announced via his Twitter account that the company would be activating the new feature that allows for the uploading of custom Gamerpics on the Xbox Beta app on Android devices. “Xbox Beta app on Android users: We’re enabling the ability to set your custom gamer pix later today via the Beta Xbox App on Android,” his tweet read.

Xbox Beta app on Android users: We’re enabling the ability to set your custom gamer pix later today via the Beta Xbox App on Android

— Larry Hryb ????????☁ (@majornelson) May 15, 2017

Custom Gamerpics is a feature Xbox gamers have been wanting for years now and Microsoft has finally begun to rollout the feature in the past few weeks. Previously, users would have to either select a pre-designed Gamerpic from a library of images or create one with the 3D Xbox Avatar models. All Xbox users should be able getting this feature in the near future.

Have you changed your Gamerpic yet? Let us know in the comments below.

Microsoft’s Office Apps have become so utilitarian and appliance-like in the enterprise work sector that the thought of personalizing an Excel document can easily be laughed away as the fever dream of an overworked data analysis.

However, Microsoft’s Office team did just that this week; they came bearing the gift of personalized default layouts in the form of PivotTables.

“As part of this month’s update, a new Excel feature gives you the ability to personalize the default layout for your PivotTables. Enabling users to personalize the PivotTable defaults started as a feature request in our Excel UserVoice forum. Now, when you’re building complex reports or performing one-off analyses, you can quickly get started with your favorite PivotTable layout. This feature is available for Excel 2016 on Windows as part of an Office 365 subscription.”

Users will now have the option to choose between two adjustment layout settings when applying their PivotTable defaults. The first option is the most streamlined for anyone wanting to try out the new PivotTable by simply clicking the newly added Edit Default Layout option in the menus settings. The second option is to import a layout a previously saved PivotTable in a preexisting workbook.

The Office team is adding tips for experimenting with OLAP PivotTables. Users can visit the Office Blog or the support page to find out how to take advantage of the performance improvements this new update brings over previous Excel releases.

Windows 10 is one of Microsoft’s pride when it comes to the development of security. What many have forgotten, however, is that since launch there has been a feature in place to identify illegally contained content.

Now, the controversial anti-piracy tactics that Microsoft has placed into Windows 10 has recently seen light with the acceptance of its patent (via Digital Music News.) On April 4, the patent was officially approved for the Windows 10 Operating System to allow activation, potentially spelling trouble for those that want to share content illegally. As the patent spells out:

“Objects in a shared storage system can be marked as including prohibited content. Incidents that result in objects being so marked can be stored in an incident history associated with a user responsible for those objects. The incident history can be processed to identify repeat offenders and modify access privileges of those users. However, when objects are shared by one user with another user, prohibited content is blocked from being shared, while the remainder of the shared objects can be accessed by the other user.”

To put in standard terms, users that download or share illegal content on a regular basis will be flagged as offenders. Not to mention files received that aren’t original would not be accessible while running Windows 10.

The article makes a good point that Microsoft could opt to use the anti-piracy feature for its own Windows 10 OS, identifying and reporting pirated copies. But it could have the opportunity to be used on a broader scale if employed. Currently, we don’t know how Microsoft will utilize it or if at all, and no statement has been made.