In celebration of Minecraft’s fifth anniversary on Microsoft’s Xbox consoles, all players of the game on Xbox 360 and Xbox One are being given a free Minecraft 5th Birthday Skin Pack. These free skins, rather interestingly, allow gamers to dress up their characters as individual members of the 4J Studios development team, the people currently working on Minecraft.

To celebrate the 5th Birthday on Xbox, there's a FREE Minecraft 5th Birthday Skin Pack out now on Xbox 360 and Xbox One. pic.twitter.com/ClzH1RQ6zl

— 4J Studios (@4JStudios) May 9, 2017

Minecraft 5th Birthday Skin Pack should automatically download for Xbox 360 and Xbox One game owners but if for some reason it doesn’t, it can be grabbed manually in the Xbox Store here for Xbox 360 and here for Xbox One.

There’s been a lot happening with Minecraft since Microsoft purchased it and it only looks like it’s going to evolve further with a possible 4K version being rumored for release on Project Scorpio.

Are you a Minecraft fan? Let us know how you play it in the comments below.

Prior to the shuttering of its fitness-focused smartwatch, Microsoft and the PGA were doing some arguably cutting edge collaborative work around golf and movement tracking. When using the Microsoft Band, golfers could track their steps, see a detailed view of the course, measure swings and keep score digitally for convenience.

However, as Microsoft looks forward, the company is placing more bets on AI than hardware and has seemingly come up with a solution to help golfers left abandoned by Microsoft’s departure from the smartwatch world.

Earlier today, the golf tracking startup from Stamford, Connecticut partnered with Microsoft and its powerful AI platform to create a new pocket-sized caddie like experience for golfers. As Geekwire reports, “say you’re standing on the tee box on a hole at your home course. Arccos Caddie will crunch both your previous round history — your tendencies to hit left or right, your average shot distance, etc. — with the course condition information to give you advice for the optimal shot recommendation. Maybe you think your driver can carry the water and land on a narrow fairway, but the Arccos Caddie may tell you otherwise.”

The driver (pun intended) behind Arccos Caddie is to provides golfers with actual data driven info in a matter of seconds that can help improve someone’s game in a real and tangible way.

Arccos Caddie is not without its faults. Despite the reality of people pulling out their phones every 30 to 45 seconds to look at news, post to social media, play games or simply distract themselves, some golfers have pointed out the troublesome nature of having to always whip out a phone for a shot.

As a golfer myself, I find it a bit troublesome to take out my smartphone for each shot. Syed and his team know this — “golfers are not out there to collect data; they are out there to have fun,” he said — but believe that the value delivered from the app outweighs a behavior change required.

Fortunately, some see the benefits outweighing the drawbacks of having to pull out a phone more often than desired.For those who are interested in the benefits Arccos Caddie has to offer, the service, that is exclusive to Arccos 360 users ($249.99) who have played at least five rounds, will officially launch May 22 and be available for free through the end of the month, after which a subscription based model will be implemented.

A patent for Microsoft was granted this week for ‘smart glasses’, according to CNBC news. The augmented reality glasses would make the wearer aware of nutritional facts and warnings for food related items, encouraging better health choices and keeping the wearer informed of nutritional concerns.

With multiple sensors picking up visual information about the item, the device identifies food items by comparing databases by location. The smart glasses would, of course, be transparent and include a processor and non-transitory computer readable storage.

The smart glasses would  be able to attribute the user’s personal settings for the food item, going so far as to sensing a gesture or sound of consumption. Ideally, if you start to eat something you’re allergic to, it will let you know. It’s even worth noting that ‘friend recommendations’ would be on the menu for restaurants.

As the patent describes:

A system provides a recommendation of food items to a user based on nutritional preferences of the user, using a head-mounted display device (HMDD) worn by the user. In a store, a forward-facing camera of the HMDD captures an image of a food item. The food item can be identified by the image, such as based on packaging of the food item. Nutritional parameters of the food item are compared to nutritional preferences of the user to determine whether the food item is recommended. The HMDD displays an augmented reality image to the user indicating whether the food item is recommended.

Obviously, this isn’t the only utility that such ‘smart glasses’ could be used for. One reason that the HoloLens itself has such bulky hardware is because of the power needed to run higher quality apps. But with simple overlays and item recognition, these smart glasses could be the next step up for the AR market.

As with all patent discoveries, however, these plans aren’t necessarily set in stone for Microsoft as some projects might be set aside or discontinued. Still, it’s interesting to consider how daily life could be improved with such technology.

Microsoft took its cloud computing to an entirely new level on Day One of Build 2017 when it revealed Azure Cosmos DB, a first-ever globally distributed database service that promises guaranteed uptime and almost zero latency.

“Azure Cosmos DB, built from the ground up to power planet-scale cloud services and data-intensive applications from IoT to AI to mobile with incredible performance, fault tolerance and support for every type of data, including Graph,” Microsoft says of the new service in its official announcement. “It is the industry’s first globally distributed, multimodal database service to deliver horizontal scale with guaranteed uptime, throughput, consistency and millisecond latency at the 99th percentile. Developers get incredible flexibility with the only schema-free database service, with support for popular NoSQL choices, that also offers five well-defined consistency choices while auto-indexing all your data.”

More information on Azure Cosmos DB is expect to be released over the following days at Build 2017. For all of the latest Build 2017 announcements, make sure to check out all of our posts here and let us know what you think about Azure Cosmos DB in the comments below.

Since its general release in 2015, over 568,000 developers have signed up for Microsoft Cognitive Services in over 60 countries. Announced today at Build 2017, a list of new services joined the fray such as Bing Custom Search, Custom Vision Service, Custom Decision Service and Video Indexer, creating a total of 29 services now available to developers.   But Microsoft wants to take it a step further by making AI even more available to developers as a whole.

Microsoft Cognitive Services Labs will put the creation of AI into developers hands. Through this, custom AIs can be constructed and submitted to the community for further development, expanding the reach of AI services for apps. Furthermore, the new Azure Batch AI Training is now available in preview for training custom deep neutral networks. This includes training their models to use any framework including Microsoft Cognitive Toolkit, TensorFlow, and Caffe. 

It’s the goal of Microsoft to add a bit more humanity​ into computer interactions by giving app developers the ability to make more natural experiences with data. The tech giant is putting AI into every available product and service, fusing AI and Azure together as what they consider ‘the most comprehensive AI platform’ moving forward.

Keep up with this and more Microsoft Build 2017 news here at OnMSFT.

When Microsoft officially announced Windows 10 S last week, many wondered if this locked down version of Windows 10 would be really consumer friendly. Windows 10 S is definitely no Windows RT, as the app situation on the Windows Store has gotten much better since 2012. However, Windows 10 S users will have to use Microsoft Edge and Bing as their default browser and search engine, and it’s very unlikely that we see Google Chrome or other popular desktop web browsers being released on the Windows Store in the near future.

According to a report from ZDNet, Windows Store policies currently prevent developers from using Microsoft’s Dekstop Bridge to release their desktop web browsers on the Windows Store. More precisely, Microsoft only accepts third-party browsers that, like Microsoft Edge, are true UWP apps that run in a sandbox environment. Additionally, Microsoft requires third-party browsers to use the same HTML and Javascript engines that Edge uses.

A Microsoft spokesperson shared the following details in a statement with ZDNet:

Windows Store apps that browse the web must use HTML and JavaScript engines provided by the Windows Platform. All Windows Store content is certified by Microsoft to help ensure a quality experience and keep your devices safer. With this policy, instated early this year, the browser a customer chooses in the Store will ensure the protections and safeguards of our Windows platform. If people would like to access apps from other stores and services, they can switch to Windows 10 Pro at any time.

To be fair, Microsoft is not the only company to implement these types of restrictions on its app store: iOS also requires third-party browsers to use Apple’s WebKit rendering engine, and iOS users are not allowed to set a third-party browser as default. Chromebooks are also restricted to the Chrome browser and web apps, but Google is currently working on bringing support for Android apps (including third-party web browsers) on Chrome OS.

The absence of Chrome and Firefox on the Windows Store won’t be an issue for Windows 10 users, but this could well hurt the education-focused Windows 10 S, which is Microsoft’s answer to Chromebooks. Microsoft Edge has some killer features of its own such as digital inking and better battery efficiency, but Chrome and Firefox remain much more customisable thanks to a vast collection of browser extensions.

Do you think the Windows Store needs to have popular third-party browsers to be relevant, and do you hope to see Google release a UWP version of its Chrome browser one day? Let us know what you think in the comments below.

Microsoft announced today that their augmented reality headset, HoloLens, would be launching in China and that interested industry parties and developers would be able to pre-order units beginning today from the Microsoft flagship store.

“Microsoft HoloLens launched a new vision of mixed reality,” Microsoft’s head and chief executive of the Greater China Region, Alain Crozier (known as Ke Ruijie domestically), said in a statement. “Chinese businesses and developers have great passion and energy for technology innovation and the area of augmented reality is a very promising market. We have high hopes for Microsoft HoloLens entering the Chinese market and expect it to help more Chinese companies, partners, and developers by inspiring, opening minds, and creating new opportunities in the real world.”

The Chinese HoloLens unites designed for businesses are currently priced at 39,188 Yuan while the developer model is slightly cheaper at 23,488 Yuan. The HoloLens is not currently available to the average Chinese consumer.

If you use Microsoft Edge to print PDF files, you may already be experiencing issues with “Microsoft Print to PDF” in Windows 10. There are numerous complaints about Microsoft Edge’s PDF printing issue on the Edge issue tracker. The Microsoft PDF to Print issue arises when you attempt to print using the Edge browser; what’s displayed on your screen is not always what gets printed out via your printer.

ZDNet found the user (Mathias I.) who first reported the bug via Microsoft Edge bug tracker. In his Microsoft Edge bug tracker submission, Mathias reports that the bug he experiences is in Microsoft Edge 38.14393.1066.0, Microsoft EdgeHTML 14.14393 and Edge 40.15063, EdgeHTML 15.15063.

Some users have been able to reproduce the Microsoft Edge bug, while others have been unable to reproduce Mathias’ bug experience. Mathias posted two PDF files, one that displays a table with text and numbered boxes ranging from 0-143, and the same PDF file after it is printed with Microsoft Print to PDF in Edge. Mathias notes the bug as follows:

“Edge displays PDF correctly but printed content differs notably. Printed content depends on selected printer, on printer settings, and on used computer. Please try a different setup if first result looks correct.” The Microsoft Edge team is aware of the bug report. Another user noted that switching to Adobe Reader appears to fix the Edge bug.

The great thing about Windows 10 is that Microsoft has developed a vibrant ecosystem of OEM partners creating desktop PCs, ultrabooks and 2-in-1s for all types of consumers. Some of you may prefer old-school laptops with lots of ports and no gimmicks, others may be more interested in touch screens and stylus support, but in the end everyone should be able to find what they’re looking for.

If this not the case, Microsoft is here to help: this week the company highlighted a few Windows 10 PCs from its partners that should deliver “the perfect balance of cost and capabilities.” Some of them are currently on sale on the US Microsoft Store, which is even better. We’ve selected the most interesting models below:

2-in-1s:

• At just ($249) $100 off, the ASUS Transformer Mini T102HA is one of the cheapest 2-in-1 PCs you can buy on the Microsoft Store, and it includes a detachable keyboard and pen.
• Starting at $599, the Acer Switch Alpha 12 has a slightly bigger screen with IPS technology, a faster Intel Core processor and a a 165-degree rotating kickstand.
• For the same price, you can also get the Samsung Galaxy TabPro S ($300 off), which has a beautiful AMOLED touchscreen plus some synergies with Galaxy smartphones through Samsung’s proprietary Flow technology.

Laptops:

• Starting at $329.99, the new HP Pavilion x360 is an affordable convertible laptop that is available in three different screen sizes.
• At just $699 ($200 off), the Dell Inspiron 13 5000 Series 2-in-1 comes with and Intel Core i7 processor, 8GB of RAM and a 13.3-inch full HD touchscreen
• The ASUS ZenBook UX510 (starting at $999.00) is a premium ultrabook with a 15.6-inch anti-glare display, an Intel Core i7 processor and a discrete GeForce GTX GPU.

If you’re planning to buy a new PC in the near future, let us know what do you think of these different options in the comments. We also invite you to check the PC Sale on the US Microsoft Store, which is regularly updated with new deals on Windows 10 PCs and tablets.

As we reported yesterday, two Google security researchers recently discovered a critical bug in Windows Defender, which they described as “the worst Windows remote code exec in recent memory.” The vulnerability was indeed pretty bad, as the researchers explained that attacks could work against the default install and spread to other PCs.

Fortunately, Microsoft has just announced that a fix is now available to download on PCs running Windows 7, 8.1, RT, 10 and Windows Server 2016.

Just released malware protection engine update to
address RCE vuln – Defender will autoupdate. https://t.co/rzn5QWo6sV

— Security Response (@msftsecresponse) May 9, 2017

As the company explained, the remote code execution vulnerability could be exploited when the Microsoft Malware Protection Engine was not properly scanning specially crafted files. You can find more details below:

To exploit this vulnerability, a specially crafted file must be scanned by an affected version of the Microsoft Malware Protection Engine. There are many ways that an attacker could place a specially crafted file in a location that is scanned by the Microsoft Malware Protection Engine. For example, an attacker could use a website to deliver a specially crafted file to the victim’s system that is scanned when the website is viewed by the user. An attacker could also deliver a specially crafted file via an email message or in an Instant Messenger message that is scanned when the file is opened. In addition, an attacker could take advantage of websites that accept or host user-provided content, to upload a specially crafted file to a shared location that is scanned by the Malware Protection Engine running on the hosting server.

The company added that it had “not received any information to indicate that this vulnerability had been publicly used to attack customers,” which is reassuring. The update to the Microsoft Malware Protection Engine should be downloaded automatically on your PC, but you can install it immediately by checking Windows Update.

Mass Effect: Andromeda, the fourth entry in the Mass Effect series and the first episode to be released on the Xbox One is the main highlight of this week’s Deals with Gold. If you didn’t buy it following its release in March, the open world action-RPG is currently 35% off for Xbox Live Gold subscribers.

On the Xbox One, Tom Clancy’s The Division and its Gold Edition are 60% off this week, but the Instant Indie Hits bundle (80% off) which includes ten popular indie games is also worth a look. Moreover, all Saints Row games on the Xbox One and the Xbox 360 are also being discounted, but owners of the old gen console may also want to check the tower defense games Dungeon Defenders and Sanctum 2.

You can find more details about our favorite highlights below, and we invite you to check the full list of discounted titles on Major Nelson’s blog post.

Xbox One Deals

Mass Effect: Andromeda ($38.99)

Mass Effect: Andromeda travels deep into the Andromeda Galaxy, far beyond the Milky Way. There, you will lead our fight for a new home in hostile territory where we are the aliens. Take command as the Pathfinder, a leader of a squad of military-trained explorers, with deep progression and customization systems. This is the story of humanity’s next chapter, and your choices throughout the game will ultimately determine our survival in the Andromeda Galaxy.

Tom Clancy’s The Division ($20)

New-York City, today. An unprecedented pandemic has struck the city during the fever of Black Friday. One by one, basic services fail. In only days, without food or water, society collapses into chaos. You’re part of the Division, an autonomous unit of tactical agents trained to operate independently. Your mission: protect what remains and restore hope.

Instant Indie Hits ($20)

Save up to 80% and get 10 amazing games in one bundle! Games included: The Swapper, Thomas Was Alone, Hue, Stealth Inc 2, Stikbold!,The Swindle, OlliOlli, Nova-111, Action Henk, 10 Second Ninja X.

Xbox 360 Deals

Saint Row IV ($8.74, backward compatible)

The epic conclusion to the game that changed all the rules! The Saints have gone from the crackhouse to the White House—but the Earth has been invaded and it’s up to you to free the world from Overlord Zinyak and his alien empire. With homies new and old by your side, and an arsenal of superpowers and strange weapons, you must save the world in the wildest open world game ever!

Sanctum 2 ($2.99)

Sanctum 2 is the sequel to the world’s first Tower Defense/FPS hybrid game. Pick from four unique character classes and embark on a mission to protect the oxygen-producing Cores from hordes of deadly aliens who are threatened by their existence. In Sanctum 2, you will utilize elements from multiple gameplay genres to succeed. Construct towers and walls during the building phase before the enemies attack, then jump into the fray and blast everything to pieces in FPS mode. You can progress through the single-player campaign yourself, or play with up to four friends in co-op to discover the secrets of the planet LOEK III.

Dungeon Defenders ($3.74)

An ancient evil has been unleashed on the land of Etheria and it’s up to you to defend it in this online (and offline) action RPG! Create your own hero from one of four distinct classes to summon towers and traps and fight back hordes of enemies! Customize and level your hero by defeating enemies, looting equipment and upgrading your gear and pets. Take your character through multiple difficulty modes and challenge/survival missions to earn more experience & even better treasure. To top it off, you can do all of this with up to 4 friends on the same console or over Xbox LIVE!

All discounts will be valid through May 15, let us know in the comments if you plan to purchase one of these games on your Xbox One or Xbox 360.

The pre-orders for NBA 2K18 have been announced for Xbox One ahead of its September 14th release date. Pre-orders for the vanilla version will come with some yet-to-be-announced bonus content and early access to play the game four days before release.

The NBA 2K18 Legend Edition comes with the same content and early access as the regular version plus the following: 100,000 VC, 20 MyTEAM Packs to build your perfect fantasy team, delivered one a week, featuring a guaranteed Shaq card, one random Team – 2K Free Agent card, Shaq Attaq shoes, Rookie Shaq jersey, Shaq Official Logo shirt, Shaq “nickname” jersey, and a Shaq Championship ring.

The NBA 2K18 Legend Edition Gold Edition comes with everything in the Legend Edition plus the Mitchell & Ness Shaq jersey collection (5 in total), Additional MyPLAYER apparel items, 250,000 VC (instead of 100,000) and 40 MyTEAM Packs (instead of 20).

Pre-order NBA 2K18 on Xbox One

NBA 2K18 is the latest entry in the popular NBA video game series and has proven to be very popular with basketball video game fans in the past. Are you going to pre-order this game? Let us know which version in the comments below.

The Windows 10 Dropbox app’s developer, Rudy Huyn, announced via his Twitter account this afternoon that a new update is on its way that will add support for in-app Excel file reading and drag-and-drop functionality in grid view.

Dropbox UWP updated! Excel file viewer and drag and drop added to grid view! #uwp #windows10

— Rudy Huyn (@RudyHuyn) May 8, 2017

The Dropbox app is one of the most-updated apps in the Windows Store and frequently updates with added features and visual design changes and currently runs on Windows 10 PCs, Windows 10 Mobile devices, and Microsoft’s Xbox One video game console.

Are you a user of Dropbox? Let us know what recent change you like the most in the comments below.

Download
QR-Code

Dropbox Lite

Developer:
Dropbox Inc.

Price:
Free

If Android has recently overtaken Windows as the most popular OS to browse the web, the desktop OS remains the most used OS on PCs and laptops by a large margin. And unfortunately, the popularity of Windows on the desktop means that there are more viruses and malware targeting our beloved platform.

If you use Windows as your daily driver, it is strongly recommended to use Windows Defender or a third-party antivirus to protect your PC. Actually, Windows Defender has become really good, to the point that a Google Chrome engineer recently described it as “the only well behaved AV”. It’s not often that we see someone from Google saying something nice about Microsoft, (actually, Google exec Prabhakar Raghavan recently said that Windows 10 S was “a validation of the approach we’ve taken”) but the Redmond giant also wants you to know why Windows Defender is a great choice for consumers.

Today, the company published a new white paper, Evolution of malware prevention, that explains how Windows Defender uses next generation technologies to analyze malicious signals. “At Microsoft, we have the luxury of having the efficiency and precision of traditional antivirus and automated, intelligence-based capabilities that use behavioral analysis, heuristics, and machine learning to scale out our human experts,” explained the company in a blog post.

According to the company, 97% of malware is discovered locally by consumers, and the remaining 3% can be detected by Microsoft’s machine learning-based cloud protection in a way that doesn’t impact performance. The company added:

We let our cloud protection system do the heavy lifting. Our cloud protection system is also connected to the Microsoft Intelligent Security Graph (ISG), which is informed by trillions of signals from billions of sources consisting of inputs we receive across our endpoints, consumer services, commercial services and on-premises technologies. All that uniquely positions us to personalize our protection and identify anomalies which often represent new threats.

The Windows Security Protection stack also includes several other features such as Windows Defender Advanced Advanced Threat Protection, which helps enterprise customers to detect and respond to advanced threats on their networks. “These features combined provide a secure and full-featured suite of solutions to help customers achieve the security profile that today’s modern threat landscape and customer demand,” explains Microsoft. You can learn more about Microsoft’s approach to malware protection in the white paper.

Microsoft is lagging far behind Google when it comes to education in the classroom, according to a post on GeekWire. After the introduction of the Surface Laptop and Windows 10 S, Microsoft is looking to gain more traction in education products and services with Microsoft Education. Unfortunately, Google is still the leader for education services in classrooms across the country.

At the moment, Google’s Chromebooks reign supreme in the classroom, due to Chromebooks’ low price tag, a bonus for school districts who can’t afford higher-end devices. GeekWire pointed out that the Edweek study showed a whopping 42% of educators use Chromebooks over any other device available.

Besides hardware, Microsoft software and services are used in only 17% of classrooms, compared to 68% of classrooms using Google apps and services. Although Google may be dominating the US market, Microsoft is making huge gains in the international school market, according to the last technology in education study.

In the EdWeek Market Brief survey, Anthony Salcito, Microsoft’s vice president of worldwide education said:

“When we demonstrate or show [schools] what’s possible, the lightbulb goes on, the change happens,” he said. “We just have to do a better job making that possible. We’ve got to learn, we’ve got to listen. And I think we’re making huge strides as a company to react. I’m hopeful those surveys will start to change. I’m confident they will. But I also believe that when customers understand the richness of our products, you get a very different reaction.”

Google won’t be losing their stronghold in education anytime soon. According to the same EdWeek study, 90% of US educators said they would be spending money on new Chromebooks in the upcoming school year.

A few weeks ago, Microsoft tested a version of the Windows Store with Windows Insiders which allowed users to install Windows 10 UWP apps to Xbox One using their PC. The company also later followed up to add a new progress bar and other UI improvements to the Windows Store in both Windows 10 and Windows 10 Mobile. Today both of these changes are rolling out to general non-insider PC and mobile users by way of a new update.

There is still no official changelog from Microsoft, but both the new download progress bar and the option to remotely install Xbox One apps from PC are delivered in a version 11703.1001.45.0 update to the Windows Store.

As seen above, the option to install an app on Xbox One from the PC appears between the Install and Share buttons on an app page in the Windows Store. Only certain UWP apps that are available and searchable on both PC and Xbox One will have the button, and when pressed, a message will alert users that the app is trying to be installed on Xbox One.

Also seen above, the download bar is much slimmer, and now shows the total size of the app, and the current download speed. Also new is the location of the share button, which now sits alongside install “install” and “launch” in the store.

The update is slowly rolling out to all users, so if you don’t see it just yet, it’s best to be patient and wait things out. But as always, once you have updated, let us know your thoughts by dropping us a comment in the section below.

Google has been making it a habit of setting a fire under Microsoft’s security team. Often, its Project Zero researchers will find issues and report them to Microsoft to repair. If a fix doesn’t go up within a time limit, the vulnerabilities will be published in a public report. Today, Travis Ormandy announced on Twitter that Google has found “the worst” so far (via Hacker News.)

Ormandy didn’t divulge much more information about the Windows remote code execution besides that it is “crazy bad”, potentially spelling trouble for Microsoft. He continued to explain that attacks against the vulnerability worked against the default install, didn’t need to be on the same LAN, and it’s wormable meaning it can spread. His tweets also came with some complimentary fire emojis, just in case readers weren’t worried enough.

Attack works against a default install, don't need to be on the same LAN, and it's wormable. ????

— Tavis Ormandy (@taviso) May 6, 2017

Once the report is sent to the tech giant, they will be given a 90-day leniency to correct the issue before Google goes public and it becomes an even bigger problem.

Mojang’s hit sandbox title continues to evolve as today, we learned rumors that the Minecraft UWP is coming to Xbox. MSPU reports that their sources have confirmed that Minecraft will be one of the Project Scorpio’s launch titles later this year.

What this means is that Minecraft Windows 10 Edition is joining the ranks of Xbox Play Anywhere titles. With a single purchase of the game, players would be able to play on both PC and Xbox One, join Minecraft Realms set up previously for Windows 10 Edition and have feature rollouts according to the UWP instead of the console editions.

It isn’t quite clear yet whether the Xbox One edition will be converted into the Windows 10 UWP version feature wise, or if a separate game will be distributed. However, the article states that it will be called Minecraft: Xbox One Edition still.

With Project Scorpio’s hype for being VR ready, this might be the push Microsoft needs to encourage household Minecraft in virtual reality. The ‘premium gaming console’ built by Microsoft is planned for launch later this year and no other first party titles have been officially announced at this time. It has been predicted that we’ll see more about Minecraft on Project Scorpio during the annual E3 on June 11. 

When you own a lot of Windows 10 devices, it’s sometimes hard to keep track of them all and know the status of individual devices. This problem can now be solved, as Microsoft has just quietly rolled out a revamp to the Microsoft account devices page, now displaying more information about your Windows 10 devices (via Deskmodder.de)

While the page itself is not new, there are now several new telemetry features on the device account page (accessible by going to account.microsoft.com/devices.) For one, you can now see the update status of a specific Windows 10 device, and the storage status of your main C drive on a specific device. You also can now see the individual status of other Windows Defender Settings such as virus and threat protection, firewall status, app and browser control, and BitLocker status.

Interestingly, the device account page also now lists more specs about your device (similar to about my PC on desktop,) and the Windows 10 Edition, version, OS build, serial number, processor, graphics card, RAM, and warranty information. The updated page also lists information about Windows Updates, showing the user “pending” if a device needs to be restarted for an update.

It’s also worth noting that the updated device account page now lists more information about Windows Phones, though with phones you only can see the storage space on the device, the Phone #, Edition, Version, IMEI #, and RAM.

Do you find these new features on the Microsoft Account device page useful in managing your lineup of Windows 10 devices? How many Windows 10 devices do you own? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Microsoft (MSFT) 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 announces May 23 event in Shanghai

Following on from its recent education-focused event this week, as well as Build upcoming, Microsoft is hosting another event, this time on May 23rd, in Shanghai. According to reports, new hardware will be announced at the event.

We’re having another #MicrosoftEvent. May 23 in Shanghai. Stay tuned… pic.twitter.com/gcJcaz1SsI

— Microsoft (@Microsoft) May 5, 2017

Microsoft Teams is being specialized for classrooms

Microsoft has announced that a new classroom experience will be coming to Microsoft Teams and that it will be included in the free Office 365 for Education offer, as it begins to specialize Microsoft Teams for education and the classroom.

Microsoft’s Chief Experience Officer Julie Larson-Green leaves the Office team due to health reasons

The Chief Experience Officer for Microsoft’s Office team, Julie Larson-Green, is to leave the Office team for health reasons. In a statement, Larson-Green said:

It’s been challenging to continue to lead the Office Experience Organization and dedicate the required time to my rehabilitation. It’s going to take some time for my recovery from my spinal surgery but I’m excited to continue to represent Microsoft and push the boundaries of how the company reimagines productivity.

Microsoft Teams gets an update on iOS, adds immersive video calls, tailored iPad UI

The chat-based workspace, Microsoft Teams, has received an update on iOS that adds several new features and improvements, such as immersive video calls, improved UI on Apple’s iPad, improvements to the image viewer and more.

Download
QR-Code

‎Microsoft Teams

Developer:
Microsoft Corporation

Price:
Free

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

Welcome back to our Windows 10 news recap. We are continuing the trend of our weekly “Windows 10 news recap” series where we go over the top stories of the past week in the world of Microsoft’s flagship operating system.

Microsoft Research shows off simultaneous thumb and pen interaction on Windows 10 tablets

In a new video, Microsoft Research has shown how simultaneous thumb and pen input could work on a Windows 10 tablet, enabling seamless input between the two methods.

Microsoft introduces Windows 10 S

At its education-focused event earlier this week, Microsoft introduced its next edition of Windows 10, known as Windows 10 S. It is a slimmed-down edition of the standard OS, only allowing apps from the Windows Store to be installed.

Windows 10 now has over 300 million daily active users

As people continue to adopt Windows 10, Microsoft has now released a new statistic on Windows 10 usage, stating that there are over 300 milion daily active users of the company’s latest OS.

Google’s Prabhakar Raghavan: Windows 10 S and Surface Laptop are “a validation of our approach”

A Google exec has spoken out about Microsoft’s renewed push into the education space with Windows 10 S and its Surface Laptop, saying that it is “a validation of our approach.”

That’s it for this week – we’ll be back next week with more!

At the Google Cloud Next conference in London, Google’s Prabhakar Raghavan, Vice President of Google’s G Suite, which includes Docs and Sheets, held an interview with Business Insider. During the interview, Raghavan spoke about Microsoft’s Windows 10 S and Surface Laptop, two new products that the company announced this week at its education event. Windows 10 S provides a slimmed-down version of the standard Windows 10 operating system, only permitting installation of apps via the Windows Store, while the Surface Laptop is aimed at those in education, particularly of a higher level. Both of which are similar to Google’s Chrome OS and Chromebook offerings respectively.

Of Microsoft’s approach into a Google-dominated arena, Raghavan said he’s “happy to see a validation of the approach we’ve taken,” while going on to say:

What educational institutions have demanded is simplicity. It’s a real test tube for all of us, whether it’s Microsoft or any of us, right

Continuing, Raghavan explained how the Chromebook came about and what has led its development, speaking of how kids interact with technology and the research Google conducted:

Because kids do things in amazing ways where you or I would never expect. So here’s one of the things we’ve learned in a study of kids as we were developing all our tools for classrooms, right. We would put a Chromebook in front of a kid, they would whip out their phone and write their essay. We said ‘no no no, there’s a keyboard there, you can use it,’ and they still write the essay there. They said ‘we’ll use the keyboard to touch up the formatting, but it’ll be much faster here,’ right. This is something we consistently learned when we looked at pre-teens … these kids are really forerunners, the vanguards of human evolution, in some sense, and so it’s great to see that some of the approaches we’ve taken, but I think the world is going to keep evolving and it’s a scramble for us to keep up with what people are going to do.

Judging by Raghavan’s remarks, the company isn’t too worried about Microsoft’s renewed push into the educational space, although, Microsoft seemingly believes it has a chance to usher in the area.

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.

Custom Gamerpics roll out to everyone

Custom Gamerpics have been noticeably absent from Xbox Live since its inception, and fans have been asking for their inclusion for a long time. After some periods of testing for Xbox Insiders, this feature has finally rolled out to the general public of the Xbox One community. Now, you can make your Gamerpic whatever you want – a selfie, a picture of a special interest, whatever. While this might open up Gamerpics to some “unsavory images,” it’ll do a lot more good than harm. Enjoy!

Shadow of the Tomb Raider probably won’t be at E3

Shadow of the Tomb Raider got leaked many months ago, and there are tons of people who are pretty excited about it. The first game was a great time, its sequel was even better, and the third game in the series make an even bigger splash in the libraries of Xbox One owners. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like we’re going to be seeing Shadow of the Tomb Raider at E3. A Square Enix spokesperson said on Facebook that “This will be a quiet E3 for Lara,” making it pretty clear that we can’t expect an official announcement for a new Tomb Raider game during this year’s conference.

Gears of War 4 gets new content update

Gears of War 4 has been following the Halo 5 formula to keep players coming back, offering free content updates to players every month. This time around, we have two new maps: Dawn and Security. Along with that, we see the return of franchise classic Benjamin Carbine as a playable character in the multiplayer. If you’ve been away from Gears of War 4 for a while, now’s a great time to head on back and see what kind of content you’ve been missing.

Arabic coming to Xbox One

We don’t have a date for this one, but it’s pretty exciting. Asked on Facebook whether or not Arabic would be supported on the Xbox One in the future, Xbox’s Mike Ybarra responded “We’re working on it.” Can’t get more plain than that. Again, we don’t have any idea as to when this is coming – but if Mike Ybarra was willing to commit to the feature publicly like this, it’s likely that we’ll be getting news on it sooner rather than later. Keep your eyes peeled for more news on this one.

Beam introduces new interactive features

People are slowly starting to check out Beam as it continues to pick up steam, so the team behind the streaming service are putting in new features as quickly as they can. Beam has launched what they’re calling “Interactive 2.0,” a whole new set of features built specifically for viewers and streamers to interact in more meaningful ways. The list of features is a mile long, and includes things like Spark transactions and groups. Check out our full post to see all of the new features, as well as a list of what Beam is planning to add in the future.

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