Looking for some entertainment this week? The Windows Store is hosting the Comedy Sale from now until the 20th, offering a selection of some relatively recent comedy movies for your viewing pleasure, along with some classics. Movies like Sausage Party and Swiss Army Man are on tap for the sale, but you’ve also got access to films like Spaceballs, Hot Rod, and Dodgeball. An exceptionally strong lineup, to be sure.

Save big on your favorite funny films with the Comedy Sale on #MicrosoftMoviesTV, now through 3/20 https://t.co/ei5bUoVkBB pic.twitter.com/UQdDIzjpyJ

— Windows Store (@windowsstore) March 14, 2017

The highest price tag you’ll find on this sale is just $10.99, but discounts can go as low as $2.99 if you’re looking to enjoy a dive in the bargain bin. If you’re on the east coast of the US and snowed in right now – or you’re just looking to have a lazy night sometime this week – you should definitely take a look at the selection and pick something up.

Earlier today, Microsoft announced that its Teams collaboration app was now generally available to Office 365 customers. The new chat-based workspace in Office 365 has been available in preview since November, and more than 50,000 different organizations have already started using it.

One of them is J. Walter Thompson, a global marketing communications agency. In a new guest post on the Office blog, Jamie McLellan, chief technology officer at J. Walter Thompson explained how embracing Microsoft Teams allowed the company to improve collaboration among its 12,000 employees. According to him, Teams can really appeal to anyone already using other Office 365 apps:

Microsoft Teams connects our organization with an interface that supports the way we work, and I have seen firsthand how diverse working styles and demographics can all flourish within the Teams framework. For the employees in our company who are excited about technology that mirrors the software they use at home, the immediate chat-based collaboration and feedback across devices and the engaging Teams interface are very familiar and appealing. At the same time, employees who prefer a structured working environment, or who are concerned with policy, find that Teams fully meets their needs as well. It’s the best of both worlds and it’s not often that you find a single tool that has such a wide appeal.

The CTO also praised the advanced Office 365 security and compliance capabilities, adding that high-security standards also matter for the company’s clients. “Clients are likely to feel safer interacting with us in a Microsoft platform like Teams as opposed to a third-party or start-up program,” he added.

Overall, McLellan expects Teams to beat its rivals in this highly competitive space. “We see it outpacing third-party tools that are not designed for enterprise collaboration, and enticing users back onto a single platform,” he explained. You can learn more about how J. Walter Thompson uses Microsoft Teams by reading the full case study.

It’s hard to believe how far a small project can become a worldwide software program, but it’s a story that Microsoft isn’t stranger to. With Microsoft Teams becoming generally available today, the collaborative software team explained to The Verge in an exclusive interview that it’s nowhere near where it started.

In fact, Microsoft Teams was conceived as a close-knit model pitched in February 2015 to compete for business interest against Slack and Hipchat. Brian MacDonald, head of Microsoft Teams, wanted to go to offsite locations to learn more about what businesses would need for their tools. One of these, as you might have guessed, was a fruit farm in Hawaii. The other, a Las Vegas hotel room where the engineering team bunkered down.

The idea was to simulate a digital workspace that incorporated global offices and a need for remote tools. Apparently, their month at each location proved just what the coder ordered with a working prototype already built as of April 2015. According to Jigar Thakkar, engineer head of Microsoft Teams, using the early build daily helped them make it that much better.

“Every Friday we used to have these 60-second demos,” explains Jigar Thakkar, head of engineering for Microsoft Teams. “Every developer on the team would come and demo what they had built in that week to all the developers, program managers, and designers. Week after week we’d see the whole product coming together very quickly.”

When they weren’t using the prototype of Microsoft Teams, they also used competitor products to compare the two. The Teams focus on business integration in Office 365, however, makes it unique to its predecessors. It already has 150 third-party integrations and over 50,000 organizations have adopted Microsoft Teams. All before it even went generally available just earlier today.

Learn more about what’s coming to Microsoft Teams for Office 365 on its official launch event page.

Seems like Overwatch fans have been waiting just long enough, according to a Blizzard tweet posted earlier today. After months of speculation and teasing, the dev team is ready to bring Orisa out of testing and into the live game (via Tech.Mic.)

On March 21, the ‘spider tank’ modeled after the OR-15 robots in Overwatch lore will be busting onto the battlefield. Her serve and protect artificial intelligence renders her quite the capable tank, joining the lineup to fight the good fight. Blizzard also released a behind-the-scenes video showing the process. From concept, Orisa is inspired by African tones and design. Her unique place in Overwatch makes her the youngest not only in gameplay but in the game’s team of heroes.

After two weeks in PTR, this patch will be launching across PC, Xbox One, and PS4 simultaneously.

Microsoft Teams, the company’s much-talked-about Slack competitor is now generally available to Office 365 commercial customers. The global launch was announced today during a live streamed event from Microsoft headquarters, where the company announced that more than 50,000 different organizations including Accenture, Hendridck Motorsports and Expedia have started using Teams during the public preview.

Starting today, Teams is now automatically provisioned within Office 365 and Microsoft hopes that its 85 million monthly active Office 365 commercial e users will quickly adopt the new offering. From the beginning, Microsoft emphasized that Teams is not a replacement for email, SharePoint, Yammer and Skype for Business but a flexible chat-based workspace in Office 365. The native integrations with the Office apps, OneNote, SharePoint and PowerBI also give Office 365 customers a big incentive to choose Teams over its competitors.

“Microsoft Teams is a digital workspace built on four core promises: chat for today’s teams, a hub for teamwork, customization options, and security teams trust,” explained Microsoft.

During the preview, Microsoft delivered more than 100 new features including built-in audio and video calling on mobile, public teams, a scheduling assistant, support for bots in channel and more. And while Teams is already highly customizable by organizations, Microsoft also announced today new integrations with SAP SuccessFactors and Trello. “These partnerships give users shared perspective on all their work without having to switch tools,” explained Microsoft.

Among the companies that are already on board with Microsoft Teams, Trek Bicycle highlighted that adopting the new chat-based workspace allowed its employees to significantly improve their workflow. Laurie Koch, Vice President, Global Customer Service, Trek Bicycle, explained:

Across Trek’s global teams, the integrated collection of Office 365 applications serves up a common toolset to collaboratively drive the business forward. We see Microsoft Teams as the project hub of Office 365 where everybody knows where to find the latest documents, notes, and tasks, all in-line with team conversations for complete context. Teams is quickly becoming a key part of Trek’s get-things-done-fast culture.

Microsoft is committed to improving Teams with new features in the coming months: in June a new update will bring guest access capabilities, deeper integration with Outlook and a richer developer platform. “Expect our pace to be rapid and responsive to customer needs,” explained Microsoft. If you want to learn more about the Teams, make sure to follow Microsoft’s Ask Us Anything session on March 22nd at 9:00AM PST on Microsoft’s Tech Community website.

Survival horror video game Resident Evil: Revelations will be re-released on the Xbox One in Fall 2017, Capcom announced on Twitter yesterday (via Polygon). The game originally launched on the Nintendo 3DS back in 2012, but an HD version of the game was released a year later on Windows, the Xbox 360 and other 7th gen consoles.

Resident Evil Revelations is coming to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One physical and digital (NA and EU) Fall 2017! More information coming soon. pic.twitter.com/RnhFbk3xvE

— Resident Evil (@RE_Games) March 13, 2017

Resident Evil: Revelations will be the last remastered episode to land on the Xbox One following the launch of Resident Evil 4, 5 and 6 last year. The game is set between the events of Resident Evil 4 and Resident Evil 5 and features fan-favorite characters Jill Valentine and Chris Redfield. The action takes place aboard a ghost ship in the Mediterranean Sea where players have to fight off a bioterrorist organization trying to infect the Earth’s ocean with a deadly virus.

Capcom shared that the game will be available in both digital and physical editions, and we should get more details about features and pricing in the coming weeks. If you didn’t play the game on other platforms already, let us know in the comments if you’re looking forward to discovering it on the Xbox One.

Game Troopers has always been known for their loyalty to the Windows Store, and the developer is at it yet again and has released “The Great Wobo Escape” for Windows 10 PC and Windows 10 Mobile. As always, we’ve included all the details for you below, complete with a download link.

As noted by Windows Central, the game is available for $7.99 and even supports Xbox achievements. In the world of “The Great Wobo Escape,” you’re alone and unarmed, and your only chance is to hide in shadows and use the environment to your favor while crushing dieselpunk enemy robots. You must also create diversions and chaos, and use stealth approaches, shift into fast-paced escape mode to be successful in this game. Other features of the game include the following.

• STEALTH & ACTION Fast-paced action-filled stealth game full of puzzles, deadly enemies, hidden passages, dangerous traps and tricky hazards.
• BEAUTIFUL 3D GRAPHICS Pushing limits of mobile devices with detailed, high-res textures, environments and characters.
• VISUALLY UNIQUE Unique visual style – play as a futuristic high-tech robot, fight dieselpunk enemies of various sizes and shapes.
• SCI-FI STORY Rich story in an absorbing sci-fi world exploring a thin line between a machine and a living intelligence, where colony’s AI went rogue and persecutes robots.
• FAMILY FRIENDLY FUN Approachable by young audience – no blood, just a comic mischief with a pinch of sabotage towards evil robots!
• CONSOLE-LIKE EXPERIENCE Enjoy playing in 1080p* resolution and full gamepad controller support.

What are your favorite Windows 10 and Windows 10 Mobile games? Let us know your thoughts in the comments, and feel free to check out the game by clicking below!

Download
QR-Code

The Great Wobo Escape

Developer:
GAME TROOPERS

Price:
Free

German shoes company, 43einhalb, teamed up with Microsoft and Nike to create a special limited edition Xbox One video game console for the Lased Up Sneakermesse shoe event in Frankfurt yesterday.

The new console design was inspired by Nike’s Nike Air Max 1 Atmos footwear and even came boxed with two specially colored Xbox One controllers and a pair of the much-hyped shoes. Only 10 units were created for the promotion and all of them were awarded to fans who visited the 42einhalb stall at the event.

Microsoft often releases design variants of its console to help promote sales and reward users and while most of these designs revolve around new game titles, occasionally some rather fascinating creations emerge such as the Year of the Monkey designs from China and Taiwan.

Do you have a limited edition Xbox One console? What do you think of this Nike one? Let us know in the comments below.

Been waiting to play Gears of War 4 for Xbox One until all the reviews have been accounted for, or simply waiting to squeeze the game into a tight household or college budget?

Well, Amazon has your back by offering this late deal on Gears of War 4 for Xbox One for the low cost of $27.29. Gears of War fans can now pick up the latest installment in the franchise for a steep 55% discount and start enjoying the fan favorite split screen co-op while leveling up skills and narrowly escaping horde upon horde of enemies until their heart’s content.

For our international readers, it, unfortunately, seems the deal is only for US residents, but a quick change of location in the settings menu could net a sweet deal for anyone interested.

Head over to Amazon to see the rest of the details for this amazing deal.

Once again, Microsoft is opening up one of its services and expanding its preview program to include on-premises Dynamics 365 for Operations. The new program will be open to eager testers next month in April allowing customers to test three different deployment options which will include on-premises/local version specifically for its Dynamics 365 for Operations ERP product.

According to a report from ZDnet’s Mary Jo Foley, Microsoft made the announcement earlier today that detailed the company’s rebranding of its Dynamics AX7 and its combined Dynamics 365 CRM and ERP efforts to Dynamics 365 for Operations along with plans to release both the hybrid and the on-premises versions of Dynamics 365 later this summer.

“In order to obtain the on-premises/local version, customers will need a Dynamics 365 for Operations license with Software Assurance/Enhancement Plan or a subscription model.”

Despite today’s announcement, Microsoft was relatively scant on the details and Foley believes there will be more news revealed in Seattle, Washington at the company’s Dynamics 365 Tech Conference this week.

We’ll update accordingly.

Those who prefer Google Chrome as their preferred browser often do so praising its massive library of extensions. Even Microsoft has its hands in the competition’s interface through the popular Skype extension, which boasts over 10,000,000+ users on Chrome’s Web Store alone. Today, the Skype extension was updated to expand integration into email, calendars, and social media.

Until now, the Skype extension for Google Chrome was mainly a way to access Skype for Web on the fly, making calling significantly easier. With the integration into these everyday tools, users can create/insert Skype call links with the convenient browser button.

The announcement post by the Skype Team explains as follows:

• Email – Add a Skype call link from within the email composition window in Gmail, Google Inbox, and Outlook.com.
• Calendar – Create Skype call links right inside your calendar items in Google Calendar and Outlook.com.
• Twitter – Add a Skype call link for an “Ask Me Anything,” webinar, or open meeting while you’re composing your tweet.

You can download the Skype extension in the Google Chrome store to install it easily into that browser.

Last year, Microsoft made headlines when it announced that its speech recognition technology achieved the lowest error rate in the industry: with a 5.9 percent word error rate, the technology giant claimed that it had reached “human parity,” a big milestone for a company betting big on conversation being the next big platform.

Unfortunately for Microsoft, IBM recently shared that its Watson cognitive computing system has since reached new records in speech recognition with a 5.5 percent word error rate on the same SWITCHBOARD Industry corpus that Microsoft used (via ZDNet). In the announcement, the company hinted that Microsoft was misguided to think that its own speech recognition had already reached human parity:

Reaching human parity – meaning an error rate on par with that of two humans speaking – has long been the ultimate industry goal. Others in the industry are chasing this milestone alongside us, and some have recently claimed reaching 5.9 percent as equivalent to human parity…but we’re not popping the champagne yet. As part of our process in reaching today’s milestone, we determined human parity is actually lower than what anyone has yet achieved — at 5.1 percent.

IBM explained that it determined this 5.1 percent with the help of Appen, a global speech and search technology services company which provided guidance on how to reproduce human-level results. “this discovery of human parity at 5.1 percent proved to us we have a way to go before we can claim technology is on par with humans,” shared IBM.

Overall, it’s still not easy to find a standard measurement for human parity across the industry as the SWITCHBOARD corpus is not the only one corpus of linguistic data to use as a reference. IBM explained that it also tested its Watson technology with CallHome, another corpus composed of casual conversations between family members on topics that aren’t fixed in advance. “On this corpus, we achieved a 10.3 percent word error rate – another industry record – but again, with Appen’s help, measured human performance in the same situation to be 6.8 percent,” explained IBM.

It remains to be seen if Microsoft will fight back, but the Redmond giant still seems to have a more viable shot at making voice the new computing interface thanks to Cortana, than IBM’s somewhat smaller distribution efforts. The ubiquitous digital assistant has now been opened to developers, car manufacturers, and other device makers, and we expect it to be a major topic during the upcoming Build 2017 developer conference.

An Xbox executive, Mike Ybarra, has commented on a fans’ complaint about sharing content from Xbox One to social media. The complaint revolved around the fact that Project Scorpio is releasing this year, yet Xbox haven’t even sorted out the social media sharing on its current console as yet.

We are on it. Should have been fixed long ago. We know it is bad now. @Bear360

— Mike Ybarra (@Qwik) March 12, 2017

In response, Ybarra says they’re working on improving the social media sharing functionality, while admitting that “it is bad now.”

Would you like to see social media sharing improvements on Xbox? Let us know 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 is cutting 50 jobs from Reading UK office

Microsoft has been reported to be planning to cut 50 jobs from its Reading, UK campus. As part of the move, it is asking some of its UK partners to take on those who will be made redundant. 20 full-time employees and 30 contractors are affected by the cuts.

Microsoft is moving St Louis offices, creating another new Technology Center

In another part of the world, Microsoft is moving one of its offices, St Louis, from the CityPlace complex in Creve Coeur, to the Central West End technology district. As part of this, a new technology hub will also be built, which allows the community to participate in building custom technology information systems.

So.cl, the little known social network from Microsoft FUSE Labs is shutting down

While many may have never heard of it, Microsoft ran a social network, known as So.cl. It arose from Microsoft’s FUSE Labs. For those who do use it however, it is unfortunately shutting down.

Microsoft doubles some Bug Bounty payouts from $15k to $30k in limited time offer

Between March 1 and May 1, 2017, Microsoft is doubling Bug Bounty payouts from $15k to $30k. The double payouts are eligible on security flaws found with the Microsoft Office 365 Portal and Microsoft Exchange Online.

That’s all the top Microsoft news this week – we’ll be back next week with more!

Microsoft has released another Xbox One Insider build to those who are on the Alpha ring. This update brings many fixes for issues that some were experiencing.

Here are the fixes:

• Games & Apps

Fixed an issue which could sometimes cause games to unexpectedly crash during play.

Improved the launch times for certain games and apps.

• Party ChatResolved an issue which caused Party Chat to display a “no microphone” error when a microphone is connected and in use.
• Microphone
  Fixed an issue which sometimes caused microphone audio to not be recognized or sound distorted. This affected game chat (users in group can’t hear the user speaking, or audio quality is poor) and voice messaging (voice messages fail to record correctly).
• Skype
  Resolved an issue which could sometimes cause Skype to crash while multiple users are signed in.

Additionally, there are quite a number of known issues:

• Party Chat
  Party chat will stop functioning when headset audio is switched from Stereo Uncompressed to Windows Sonic while in a party.
• Controller
  Upon resuming from connected standby, you may be prompted to update your controller firmware when no update is available.
• Cortana
  Cortana may take a long time to respond when activated while playing certain games.
• Notifications
  Some users may not receive certain types of notifications.
• Game Clips
  After capturing a game clip, the game clip fails to automatically post to the Activity Feed (if your profile is configured to do so).
  **Workaround:**Manually view game clips in Profile > Captures > Manage captures and post to the Activity Feed.
• EA Access
  The EA Access app may indicate you are not an EA Access subscriber when you are. This does not affect your ability to download or play games from the Vault, or receive discounts on EA titles.
• Screen Dimming
  The screen may dim after a short amount of time while viewing videos in certain apps (Hulu Plus).
• Settings – Ease of Access
  When enabling the Mono output setting in Ease of Access – Audio, Settings becomes unresponsive, crashes, and fails to launch on subsequent attempts.
  **Workaround:**To launch Settings, perform a hard reset (hold down the button on the front of the console for five seconds until it fully powers down, then power it back on).
• Settings – Display & sound
  The Audio output page is under construction and some of the new settings are not yet functional. New support is planned for Dolby Atmos for home theater, Dolby Atmos for headphones, and more in upcoming builds. An announcement will be made when these new features are ready to try out; enabling these settings now will have no effect.
• Wireless Display
  The Wireless Display app fails to launch and immediately crashes to Home.

This update is available now and you’ll be prompted to update when turning on the console.

One other thing to note is that, “Workwombat” aka Brad Rossetti, has said that Ring 3 should get an update next week:

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.

Scorpio will enhance your gaming experience on 1080p, too

We already know that Project Scorpio will be giving gamers access to true 4k gaming and virtual reality, but it turns out that those won’t be the only improvements. Changes made to shading and dynamic resolution are going to be enhancing the gaming experience on 1080p televisions, regardless of whether or not you’re playing a 4k TV or not.

Reddit users complaining about Popular Now

Many Xbox One users have a problem with the new “Popular Now” section of the dashboard. Complaints on reddit have been popping up which are frequently accusing people of using the Popular Now feature to beg for likes. While Microsoft struggles to deal with the feedback, many reddit users are just requesting an option to opt out of the Popular Now feature.

MS, I do not want this content in my social gaming feed. PLEASE add filters or allow us to disable "Popular Now" if you won’t address this from xboxone

New Japanese games could be on the way

Last week, Phil Spencer took a trip to Japan to talk over the possibilities of new Japanese games on Xbox One. According to one of his recent tweets, he mentions that it was “a great trip.” Hopefully, while he was overseas, the Xbox boss managed to snag some new JRPG’s for us to get our hands on in the near future.

Ion, Dean Hall’s new game, isn’t coming out

Dean Hall, the creator of DayZ and founder of RocketWerkz, has left the Ion project, leaving the game to bleed out. An article from Eurogamer shed light on the project’s current state, all but confirming that it will never come out. Dean Hall was quoted as saying that he would “far rather people were pissed off I didn’t release something than I release something I wasn’t happy with and try to take money from them.”

Voodoo Vince being remastered on Xbox One

Feeling nostalgic? Get ready for the latest remaster on Xbox One. Voodoo Vince, the classic title from the original Xbox back in 2003, is getting the full HD treatment on April 18th this year. If you’d like, you can check out a trailer which shows off all the new textures, and indulge a bit in your nostalgia for the early days of Xbox.

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

Driver update Microsoft – WPD – 2/22/2016 12:00:00 AM – 5.2.5326.4762 has been a hot mess for some unfortunate Windows 10 users.

According to a few complaints lodged with the Microsoft Community forum, Windows 10 users, in particular, have been suffering connectivity issues with devices, despite the update going out to Windows 7, 8.1 and 10 computers alike.

While the update was automatically downloaded to Windows 10 PCs, the Windows team pulled the update shortly after release due to its effect on connecting devices such as phones, cameras, or external hard drives to computers.

After installing a driver update “Microsoft – WPD – – Microsoft Community

Microsoft has been taking the successes of the Windows Insider program to heart, recently starting up a Visual Studio preview program along with one for Xbox. The Xbox Insider program is being run in a series of “rings”, with gamers who complete quests and are generally active with Xbox getting in as Alpha participants. The earliest adopters, in the “alpha ring” have recently gained access to Beam integration along with sneak peaks at new dashboard improvements.

Now, however, it’s time to open up the latest bits to more (but not all) gamers enrolled in the program, according to a tweet from Xbox chief marketing guy Mike Ybarra:

We're expanding the Preview audience on Monday – going much broader but not everyone! Stay tuned. #Xbox

— Mike Ybarra (@Qwik) March 10, 2017

If you’re enrolled in the Preview Program but haven’t been getting the latest updates, make sure to check your Xboxes on Monday to see if you’ve gained access!

Microsoft is rolling out today the Windows 10 Insider build 15055 to PC users on the Fast Ring, and the new bits bring no new features but a significant list of changes and fixes. The most important highlights are several fixes for Microsoft Edge, but there are also some improvements for multi-monitor settings, bluetooth pairing, printing and the OneDrive desktop app.

You can fin the full list of fixes and improvements below:

• If you have Symantec/Norton anti-virus software installed on your PC, you should no longer get an 0x80070228 error when attempting to download this build. Symantec released updated anti-virus definitions last week that fixes this issue. Please make sure your Symantec/Norton anti-virus software has the most up-to-date anti-virus definitions BEFORE taking trying to install today’s build.
• PCs should no longer fail to update to this build at 71% and roll-back to the previous build.
• If you have additional language packs installed, this build should install just fine.
• We fixed an issue where sometimes the context menu when right-clicking a misspelled word in Microsoft Edge would launch in an unexpected place or under the Edge window.
• When using “Cast media to device” in Microsoft Edge, it will now open the Connect pane (also seen when using Win + K).
• We fixed an issue from recent builds where Microsoft Edge might immediately show a “Not responding” state after opening a link or pasting a URL in a new tab.
• We fixed an issue where sometimes the tab mouse-over description tooltips in Microsoft Edge would stay on the screen even after closing the relevant tab.
• We fixed an issue that could result in Microsoft Edge unexpectedly attempting to download certain webpages rather than navigating to them when the uBlock Origin extension was enabled.
• We fixed an issue where it wasn’t possible to use touch to set focus to text boxes in Microsoft Edge’s Web Notes in order to enter text.
• We fixed an issue where, after using Ctrl + W to close multiple tabs in Microsoft Edge at once, the active tab might lose focus and keyboard shortcuts would stop working until moving focus away from and back to the tab.
• We fixed an issue recently where if you have selected text in Microsoft Edge, moved focus away from the window, then returned focus using Alt + Tab or the mouse, trying to copy the selected text wouldn’t work. We also fixed a recent issue where if you used Ctrl + C to copy selected text in the Edge URL bar, and then Ctrl + Shift + P to open a new InPrivate window or Ctrl + N to open a new regular window, using Ctrl + V to paste the copied URL into the new window’s address bar wouldn’t work.
• We fixed an issue for Insiders where, if focus was set to a Microsoft Edge window, touchpad and keyboard input might periodically stop working for a few seconds at a time.
• We fixed an issue for Insiders with multiple monitors resulting in flickering and rendering issues when the Hub button in Microsoft Edge was pressed.
• We fixed an issue where Insiders with multiple monitors might find one of their monitors would stop rendering (with the exception of the mouse).
• We fixed an issue resulting in Microsoft Groove sometimes no longer rendering correctly after snapping the app to one side of the monitor and changing the size.
• We fixed an issue from recent flights resulting in the taskbar getting into a state where many of the thumbnail previews would be unexpectedly blank.
• We fixed an issue for certain USB-powered monitors where the taskbar clock would sometimes stop rendering for a few minutes (seemingly stuck, but would refresh on mouse-over).
• We fixed an issue where the battery flyout would crash the second time the battery icon in the taskbar was clicked.
• We fixed an issue from recent flights resulting in OneDrive.exe unexpectedly sometimes running with a high percent CPU for a long time.
• We fixed an issue that Insiders may have experienced resulting in paste not working if the copied content was from a UWP app that was currently suspended.
• We fixed an issue where certain devices were unexpectedly not being discovered when searching for available pairings to add in Bluetooth & Other Devices Settings.
• We fixed an issue where for those with certain printers, clicking on “More settings” in the UWP app print dialog would result in the print dialog hanging.
• We fixed a recent issue where many of the advanced settings dialogs, such as the one seen when searching for driver updates, were grey or had grey components instead of the expected white.
• We fixed an issue resulting in Windows Defender Antivirus notifications not opening Windows Defender Security Center when clicked.
• We fixed an issue resulting in a Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime Library error dialog citing a TabTip.exe runtime error unexpectedly appearing on the login screen for some Insiders.

As usual, you can download this latest build by checking Windows Update on your PC Settings. As you can expect, this build also includes some known issues and we invite you to check the full list over here.

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has just made a generous $40 million gift to the University of Washington (via Geekwire). The UW will use the donation (plus an additional $10 million gift from Microsoft) to elevate its computer science and engineering department into a full school, which will be named the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering.

“UW has always felt like home to me for several reasons,” explained the Seattle-born business magnate and philanthropist on LinkedIn. In a lengthy blog post, Allen revealed how he used to spent a lot of time in the university’s graduate computer lab when he was a high school senior… until he was kicked out after causing some trouble with the equipment. A few year later, Allen, Bill Gates and UW student Paul Gilbert also developed the Traf-O-Data machine, a computer designed to automate the traffic-measuring process.

Flash-forward to 2017, Allen now thinks that today’s computer science and engineering students have “a wonderful opportunity to put their skills and expertise to use solving the world’s biggest problems.” To begin, the University of Washington will use the donation to develop new research initiatives, hire new professors, purchase new equipment and more. “The gift is meant to give CSE flexibility in responding to short-term needs or taking advantage of fortuitous circumstances that can be highly leveraged with discretionary funds,” explained Ed Lazowska, Bill & Melinda Gates chair in the UW CSE department.

“I look forward to watching the new Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering continue to make profound contributions both to the field and to the world,” concluded Allen. You can learn more about the Computer Science school on the official website.

Microsoft announced yesterday that it will give developers new ways to promote their apps to Windows 10 users. With “Playable Ads”, it will soon be possible for consumers to try an app by clicking on an ad without actually installing the app on their devices.

Microsoft described the new call to action as “a completely new way for end users to interact with ads and apps.” When clicking on a playable ad, Windows 10 users will be able to stream an app without leaving their current app and decide if they want to actually install it to get the full experience. “The ad click will result in inline expandable app streaming: for three minutes, the user can interact with the app as if it’s already installed on his/her device,” explained Microsoft. “At the end of the streaming session, users can click on a link to install the app if the app experience met expectations.”

Overall, The experience seems quite similar to Android Instant apps, which allows Android apps to run instantly, without requiring installation. Microsoft listed the following advantages to get developers on board:

• Users will not leave the current app context after ad click since these are inline expandable ads.
• Users can abandon the app stream at any point of time based on the quality of the game. He/she is not blocked until the end of the game play.
• Developers can create an engaging experience during the first few minutes of a game to better explain its capabilities compared to screenshots.
• Users who install the game after three minutes of engagement are more inclined to use the game/app than those who just installed the app based on the product description page.
• And finally, we believe that users acquired via playable ads will have a higher life time value compared with users acquired through the regular channels.

Playable ads seem to a be a win-win feature for both developers and consumers. Moreover, the company explained that app developers won’t have to write a line of code to leverage the new feature. “Microsoft does all the background work to give a seamless experience to the end users without you, the developer, having to change anything,” explained the company.

Developers will be able to try “Playable Ad” campaigns in the Windows Dev Center when creating new ad campaigns. The feature is currently in limited preview but developers can get started by sending to an email to [email protected]. Sound off in the comments if you think Playable Ads could improve app discoverability on Windows 10 devices.