Microsoft has pushed today a new update to the Windows 10 Maps for Windows Insiders in the Fast Ring which adds new options to submit corrections about the maps’ data (via Neowin). Looking at the app’s hidden menu, you will see that the “Feedback” item has been replaced with a “Suggest change” option. If you don’t do any search in the app, tapping this new option will give you these three choices:

• Add a missing business or landmark
• Suggest a modification about inaccurate data on a specific area
• Open the feedback hub

If you do a search and then tap the “Suggest change,” the app will give you another set of options to submit corrections about the place you were searching for. You will then be able to suggest name changes, location adjustments, and more.

Microsoft’s Windows 10 Maps uses data from Here Maps which is usually top notch, but there is always room for improvement (especially in some countries such as Japan) and crowdsourcing can be definitely helpful. To try this new feature, make sure to download the latest version 5.1611.3162.0 which should be rolled out to the production ring in the coming weeks.

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Windows Maps

Developer:
Microsoft Corporation

Price:
Free

As the Microsoft’s Xbox One gaming console enjoys some well-deserved momentum the last few months, the original Xbox celebrates its 15th birthday today.

Over its nine years of retail availability, the first Xbox lacked the same mainstream success as its Xbox 360 successor, though it seems that some of Microsoft ideas were definitely forward looking at the time such as the x86 architecture, the global shape of the Xbox controller and the Xbox Live online gaming service.

Today, Xbox’s Major Nelson shared a couple of images of the original Xbox dashboard focusing on the Xbox Live experience, and just a week after Microsoft introduced Clubs, Looking for Groups and more to the gaming network. It is quite fascinating to look back at the beginnings (as a reminder, Xbox Live introduced in November 2002, a full year after the launch of the original Xbox in the US)

When I joined the Xbox team 13 years ago (!) this dashboard update was one of the first projects I worked on. #15YearsofXbox pic.twitter.com/OqU2hrMyV3

— Larry Hryb ????????☁ (@majornelson) November 15, 2016

A few more images from the Original Xbox dashboard showing early Xbox Live support. pic.twitter.com/xyjGKwNg0c

— Larry Hryb ????????☁ (@majornelson) November 15, 2016

In this last tweet from Major Nelson, you can watch a video recap of all the different Xbox dashboard experiences that Microsoft developed for the original Xbox, Xbox 360 and Xbox One over the last fifteen years.

I tweeted this out last year…but it's worth it again. Here are all of the major Xbox dashboards: OG Xbox, Xbox 360 and Xbox One pic.twitter.com/OWlyPj8qy9

— Larry Hryb ????????☁ (@majornelson) November 15, 2016

As those of you who own an Xbox One may know, Microsoft’s latest gaming console has been running an optimized version of Windows 10 since the release of the New Xbox One Experience last year, and it’s safe to say that the new dashboard is a vast improvement over the previous versions.

Now with more and more UWP apps reaching the Xbox Store, better social features on Xbox Live and upcoming native support for Microsoft’s Beam live streaming network, the Xbox One is also a much better entertainment device. It’s a worthwhile to look back at the past, but the future is more exciting.

Inspired by the redesigns of typing on mobile platforms, a new software app has caught our attention (thanks for the tip, itai!). LightKey is intended to make typing on the PC quicker and easier through the use of keybindings such as tab to autocomplete words. The algorithm to determine the words is based upon the context of the sentence, your previous writing styles, and even the program in which you are using.

LightKey is built specifically to be naturally compatible with Microsoft Office, specifically Word, Outlook and PowerPoint, switching the focus of suggestions through presentations, emails, and more.

Upon download of the web installer, Lightkey will automatically detect your computer’s operating system and version of Microsoft Office (if it is installed). It will also present the version of the software you are about to download. After the download, you’ll be greeted with some personalization such as indicating whether you type by looking at your keyboard or monitor, as well as selecting interests and hobbies that you write about from sports and government to social media and academics.

The dashboard for LightKey minimizes into the system tray and displays plenty of information that you might need to know to monitor your efficiency, tune the resource allocation, and set personal keybindings.

While we concluded that the software isn’t the most effective for high-speed typists, it is useful for those that might need the extra assistance. Light Key is available in over seventy languages now so if you’re curious to try the software, you can download it for free from the official LightKey.io site.

Microsoft has announced that Pivotal Cloud Foundry is now supported in Microsoft Azure. The announcement, initially made by Sean McKenna, a Principal Program Manager at Azure Compute, comes as a Microsoft commitment to matching customers with the platforms and tools to help organizations meet the challenge that comes with development, operational productivity gains, and reliability and portability.

Pivotal Cloud Foundry puts emphasis on enterprise Java applications, as it ships with first-class support for Spring, an application framework well suited to building 12-factor apps. It also comes as the Azure team worked with the Cloud Foundry community to deliver open source Cloud Foundry on Azure, which became GA in November of last year. Additionally, Customers who use  Pivotal Cloud Foundry in Azure will benefit from a cloud platform that helps simplify operations through the support of many popular application stacks.

To learn more about Pivotal Cloud Foundry be sure to head over to this Microsoft Webpage. Once you’ve checked it out, let us know what you think by dropping us a comment below!

NVIDIA announced yesterday that they were collaborating with Microsoft to improve their upcoming Tesla server GPUs with an AI framework. Inspired by Microsoft Research’s strides towards deep learning and reaching human parity with speech recognition, NVIDIA will be optimizing enterprise AI framework to run on the Tesla GPUs for both the Microsoft Azure cloud and on-premises servers.

Having missed its opportunity to become a big player in the mobile market, Microsoft has been trying to have a forward-looking approach towards other technology fields over the last few years such as cloud computing, artificial intelligence and machine learning. And as of today, the Redmond giant managed to achieve some technology breakthroughs such as its speech recognition technology which claimed the lowest-ever error rate in a recent benchmark.

But in 2016, Microsoft, which has become a big open source supporter,is also looking to open up its AI efforts. That’s why the company announced today a new partnership with OpenAI, a nonprofit AI research organization co-founded by Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and Ilya Sutskever.

“At Microsoft, we believe everyone deserves to be able to take advantage of these breakthroughs, in both their work and personal lives,” explained the company in today’s blog post, adding that “we are committed to democratizing AI and making it accessible to everyone.” In the video below, executive vice president of Microsoft’s Artificial Intelligence and Research group Harry Shum and OpenAI’s Sam Altman explain why this new partnership will help both organizations as well as other companies deliver more breakthroughs in the AI field.

The partnership also makes some sense as OpenAI already chose Microsoft Azure as their primary cloud platform and is also an early adopter of the company’s Azure N-Series Virtual Machines. “OpenAI chose Microsoft due to our deep learning research and ongoing commitment to AI, along with Azure’s support for open source technologies and its unique combination of high performance computing, big data and intelligence capabilities such as Azure Batch, Azure Machine Learning and the Microsoft Cognitive Toolkit (formerly CNTK),” explained Microsoft.

In other AI-related news, Microsoft also announced today the launch of an Azure Bot service that will allow developers to leverage the Microsoft Bot Framework to deploy them on Azure. According to the technology giant, more than 50,000 developers are already using the Bot Framework to build chat bots. “We’ve made major strides in artificial intelligence just in the past five years, achieving milestones many people who have devoted their lives to the field wouldn’t have thought possible. Now, we have the opportunity to help our partners and customers use these breakthroughs to achieve their goals,” shared the company.

A new app has just launched in the Windows Store for Windows 10 and Windows 10 Mobile devices. It’s called, PokePeople, and is a rather original take on the traditional address book app inspired by the Pokedex in the popular Pokemon video games and cartoon series.

Using PokePeople is fairly easy as it functions just like an address book. The only difference is that instead of just adding a name and profile image, users can record “cries”. In the Pokemon video games, Pokemon only really make one sound (aka, “cry”) and this is a rather humorous way to Pokemonify user contacts. Sounds can be recorded from within the app and could potentially be anything ranging from a friend saying their own name to something completely random. Here’s the description:

Do you miss your Pokédex from the classic Game Boy Pokémon games? Well now you can add your phone’s contacts to your Pokédex on your phone, and add a cry for each contact.

Features: Record a cry for everyone. Export cry to MP3. Load profile image. Add description.

PokePeople is a completely unofficial Pokemon app and has no relation to Nintendo or the Pokemon Company. Are you going to try PokePeople? Let us know your impressions of it in the comments below.

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PokePeople

Developer:
vixezApps

Price:
Free

Microsoft has taken measures to prevent Xbox Club owners and admins from spamming other Xbox users with invites.

“With the latest Xbox One System update, we have added Clubs as one of the many new features,” says the official statement Xbox’s Larry Hyrb’s blog. “I wanted to let everyone know that based on the feedback received from our Xbox Insider audience and the data collected, we have adjusted the maximum of invites each club can send and go unanswered. Most clubs won’t notice any changes. But if you are one of the few clubs that has reached that maximum, when you try to send new club invites, only a subset will be sent. The other invites will be dropped silently.”

This is a change that really does benefit all Xbox One and Windows 10 users. There’s nothing worse than being bombarded with random invites to join online clubs that you have no interest in. For Xbox Club owners and admins who want to see their clubs grow though, Larry Hyrb offers two suggestions; Only invite users who have expressed interest in joining or simply direct people to the “Request to join” button.

Xbox Clubs are a new social feature that launched this month on Xbox One and the Xbox apps on Windows 10, iOS, and Android devices. Their primary purpose is to allow gamers to communicate with each other easily and discover new friends with similar interests.

Are you enjoying the new Xbox Clubs feature? How many clubs have you joined? Let us know in the comments below.

A group of developers have come up with a concept for a new device that would allow for gamers to play video games from the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC game libraries and play them in VR. The device is called, the MVR Ascend, and it’s a tether-free virtual reality headset and controller that relies on a smartphone for most of its functionality. It has the potential to be pretty big… if it gets funded.

The MVR Ascend is relying on a Kickstarter campaign to get it off the ground and the team behind it currently has £14,772 of their £150,000 target. Here’s their official campaign description.

MVR has been set up by a group of technology enthusiasts who are keen to bridge the gap that exists in the VR gaming world today. There are some amazing devices currently available but some of them are a bit expensive, have limited games and physically tether you to a computer/console, while others are affordable and tether-free but allow you to only play basic smartphone apps.

We wanted to play our favourite AAA games in VR (not just apps or short unknown games), we wanted to be tether-free (so we don’t get wrapped up in a wire while doing a 360 degree turn) and importantly, we wanted something affordable! That’s why we created the MVR Ascend – The only VR system that is able to play existing and future PS4, Xbox One and PC games in tether-free VR. Our headset can also be used to play VR/AR apps as our system is smartphone based, so your screen quality evolves as you upgrade your phone.

So join us in this VR revolution and lets take gaming to the next level!

The MVR Ascend Kickstarter campaign only has 48 hours left and it will be interesting to see if they reach their goal and what they’ll do if they don’t. Do you think this concept is a cool idea? Share your thoughts with the community in the comments below.

Microsoft released a Windows 10 blog post today showing off how Ink can be used in conjunction with the Windows Maps application. Known for its voice navigation and turn-by-turn directions similar to Google Maps, this Microsoft version comes with the ability to use Surface Pen to improve the app’s experience.

Drawing with Ink on Windows Maps includes:

• Draw a line between two points for directions
• Save marks and add notes to your map
• Trace a route to calculate distance
• Use a ruler to plot multiple locations

Windows Maps is for free on the Windows Store so you can download and try out these features today.

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Windows Maps

Developer:
Microsoft Corporation

Price:
Free

Microsoft Office released a blog post today to announce that there’s a limited offer for SharePoint 2013 on-premises services to finally make the plunge over to Office 365. The offer allows IT administrators to make the switch without any additional cost until March 31, 2017.

The offer is being targeted for medium to large business team sites and my sites that have at least 150 licenses. It also comes with assistance from the Fast Track team to help migrate the services and build an executable plan to learn the new services on the cloud.

Data cannot exceed 10 TB per Office 365 tenant or 75% and above of the target site collection quota. If you’re looking for more information on how to get on the FastTrack to transferring SharePoint 2013 on-premises services to Office 365, Microsoft has shared a full FAQ about the offer and a full list of potentially migratable site content on their site.

As previewed in the video released last week, StaffPad is now compatible with Surface Dial. StaffPad is a professionally designed application that puts composing at the user’s fingertips. Musically inclined are able to draw their notes and scores naturally with the Surface Pen.

The update released yesterday is one of the biggest yet, with a slew of new features and added improvements to help composers. Windows Central summed up the list of additions quite nicely:

• Support for Surface Dial
• Addition of drag to move or copy selected bars
• Direct addition of tuplets
• Additional print scaling options, including lyric scaling
• Improved support for printing of sketch layer strokes
• Bar number offset for score can be set
• When sharing scores in the app, email subjects are populated with score title
• When dragging to resize tuplets, the number auto-adjusts
• Pedal retakes can be erased individually
• Added keyboard shortcuts (cut/copy/paste/delete, playback controls)
• Improved file type deduction on import when file extensions are misnamed
• Various UI updates

StaffPad’s announcement blog also mentioned that they will begin releasing new tutorial videos to correspond with the new options.

This is one of many strides that developers have made recently as we move forward towards the Windows 10 Creators Update announced a few weeks ago. App devs have been encouraged to use the newly released Surface Dial as a haptic device for a more natural touch surface experience.

If you’re looking for a hands-on experience with Surface Dial and music is your art of choice, be sure to check out StaffPad. It is available from the Windows Store for $70.

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QR-Code

StaffPad

Developer:
StaffPad Ltd

Price:
$89.99

While Microsoft already has revealed some details about what Xbox and Surface sales their retail store will offer up this holiday season, the company is also now highlighting how Santa Claus uses the Microsoft Cloud to meet the high demand for gifting this holiday season.

The post highlighting the demand was written by Joe Davies, a Senior Content Developer at Azure Documentation. Overall, it looks at how Santa’s annual Christmas process requires massive amounts of computing and storage resources.  As seen in the graphic above, the post also puts Santa in the shoes of a CEO, and highlights several steps of the process where the Microsoft Cloud helps Santa in his decisions:

• Collect and analyze current and historical data and requests for presents from multiple sources (Azure Data Lake, SQL Data Warehouse, and Stream Analytics)
• Work with vendors and partners during various parts of the manufacturing process
• Perform the final determination of just who is naughty and who is nice (SQL Data Warehouse and Machine Learning)

To learn more about the power of the Microsoft Cloud, and as to why you should use Azure and Azure Solutions, be sure to head over to this official Microsoft website, and download Santa’s Azure infographic. As always, let us know what you think of the power of Microsoft Azure by dropping us a comment in the section below!

In the last 16 years, Microsoft made some bold moves to enter new markets that met various degrees of success, to say the least. As a reminder, the company’s mobile efforts started in the early 2000’s with the Pocket PC 2000 OS, while the “Windows Mobile” brand only made its appearance in 2003. Then in 2001, Microsoft entered the gaming console market with the original Xbox, which will celebrate its 15 birthday tomorrow along with the Xbox exclusive Halo franchise.

Ten years ago, the company also entered the portable media player market with its Zune brand, which was discontinued in 2012 after the products were unable to compete with Apple’s iPods and iTunes ecosystem and the global rise of smartphones as digital hubs. However, while Microsoft released its last Zune hardware back in 2010 with the Zune HD 64, there is still a small passionate community of Zune fans who are still using the devices as of today, according to a new report from The Seattle Times.

The newspaper took an interesting look at the Zune subreddit, discovering “a small but enthusiastic crew of Zune aficionados” who collect, repair and share tips about how to troubleshoot technical issues with the now-unsupported devices. A lot of them still praise the music players, which were the first consumer devices from Microsoft to feature the “Metro” design language which went to become later one of Windows Phone’s key features.

While some consumers may still find some value in dedicated music players, this product category may well have become a niche market in 2016 as even Apple’s iPods no longer have a dedicated landing page on the company’s website.

As for the Zune brand, Microsoft replaced it with the Xbox Music brand back in 2012 before introducing the Groove Music service last year. But while Groove Music is a ubiquitous service and one of the best-designed apps on Windows 10 devices today, it’s not clear yet if the service and the brand will ever get as much devotion and loyalty from consumers compared to the Zune or Xbox brands.

A new way to keep up to date with all of your customers is now available for Microsoft Outlook. The Outlook Customer Manager is rolling out today for Office 365 Business Premium First Release customers and is built into Outlook without the need of installing more programs or connectors.

The Outlook Customer Manager automatically collects all of your customer call logs, emails, communications, bookings, notes, and tasks together in a convenient list on the side of your Outlook. You can even enable to share it across your business employees which is an invaluable feature for providing customer support with multiple connections.

The Customer Manager is aimed at smaller businesses who could use Customer Relations Management (CRM) tools, but aren’t able or willing to pay, or simply don’t need, a full range solution like Dynamics 365.

The feature is also available for mobile but only on iOS for now. The Microsoft blog post released mentions that they will be rolling it out across other platforms as it develops.

With Halloween and Election Day behind us here in the United States, the holiday season is now fast approaching. So, if you’re looking to save some money on Xbox related purchases for the Holiday shopping season (or brave and skip the crowds on Black Friday,) you might want to shop with the Microsoft Store and other participating retailers.

Leading off Microsoft’s Black Friday deals (online, in-store purchases and at participating retailers) is the fact that you can save $50 on the purchase of any new 1 TB Xbox One or Xbox One S from November 20th-November 23rd. Additionally, you also can get any new Xbox One S for $249 from November 24th to November 28th, including savings on new Xbox One S bundles which are releasing this holiday season. And as an added bonus, you also can save $20 on ReCore, and $25 on Gears of War 4, bundled with the entire Gears Xbox 360 Collection at participating retailers nationwide.

If the gamer on your holiday list already has an Xbox One, you also can take advantage of some upcoming deals coming to Xbox One, Xbox 360 digital games, movies, and TV shows. This holiday season, Xbox Live Gold members will get early access to weeklong Black Friday deals on Nov. 18 before the general public jumps on Nov. 22 – 28. They also will be able to save up to 10% more on sale titles, and get big discounts on hit Xbox and Windows 10 games such as Quantum Break, Rise of the Tomb Raider, and more.

Of course, Microsoft also will have some deals on Xbox Live and Xbox accessories, which can make for the perfect stocking stuffer for the gamer you would like to gift.  Leading off these deals is the fact that you can save $10 on 3-month or 6-month Xbox Live Gold memberships from November 24-28 at select retailers nationwide. Additionally, you also can save $10 on Xbox Stereo Headsets,  and Xbox Wireless Controllers. Last, but certainly not least, is the fact that you can get a free engraving when you design a personalized Xbox Wireless Controller with the Xbox Design Lab.

For added savings this holiday season, the Microsoft Store also has some great Black Friday deals on Surface and other Windows 10 devices and accessories.  So, be sure to check our post on that end of things, and let us know what Microsoft related gifts you will be getting this season by dropping us a comment in the section below!

Microsoft has announced today the purchase of 237 megawatts of wind energy from Allianz Risk Transfer and Black Hills Corp., its largest purchase of wind energy to date. These new contracts, which will make Microsoft’s wind energy investments reach 500 megawatts in the US, will allow the company to power its Cheyenne, Wyoming datacenter entirely by wind power.

In a separate blog post, Microsoft President and Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith reiterated that Microsoft’s commitment to build a greener cloud :

This investment in wind energy keeps us on pace to meet the energy goals we set last spring. We announced earlier this year that roughly 44 percent of the electricity consumed by Microsoft’s datacenters comes from wind, solar and hydropower, and we committed to raising this to 50 percent by 2018 and to 60 percent by early in the next decade.

With these latest wind energy investments, the company has also “structured the purchase and partnered with the local utility in novel ways to make it easier and more affordable for cities and states to move to a cleaner energy grid,” added Brad Smith. Specifically, Microsoft has partnered with Black Hills Energy to create a new tariff that will be available to all eligible customers in Cheyenne, allowing the utility to use the company’s datacenter’s back up generators. With this new solution, Black Hills no longer needs to pursue its plans to build a new power plant in the area.

“We’re focused on building a cloud that serves the broader good, a cloud that is trusted, inclusive and responsible,” explained Brad Smith. “By thinking creatively about our energy needs and the assets at our datacenters, we’re able to deliver an innovative solution in Wyoming that does just that — and serves as a model from which we all can learn,” he added.

Episode 3 of ‘Talk Microsoft’ is today at 1pm PST. We’ll be discussing the latest Microsoft news as well as which cancelled Microsoft or Windows device we want to own the most.

You can view the show live on our YouTube channel and talk in the live chat. We’ll also put the show up on YouTube and Soundcloud after we’re done.

Welcome back to our weekly “Windows 10 news recap” series where we go over the top stories of the past week in the world of Microsoft’s latest operating system. This recap is especially exciting because of all the announcements surrounding Windows 10 and its Creators Update. Let’s get started.

Microsoft is working to defend your Windows 10 PC against ransomware

In a world where technology is being increasingly used, attacks in the form of malware, viruses and ransomware are growing. Microsoft, with Windows 10, has taken steps to mitigate the potential of a ransomware attack through several changes. Security has been hardened in mnay areas, including the default web browser, Microsoft Edge, as well as the core operating system itself.

Microsoft explains everything it is doing to secure customers computers in a blog post.

Crowdbased Eve V Windows 10 2-in-1 gets some final specifications

The final specifications of the Surface-like competitor, Eve V, a Windows 10 2-in-1, have been revealed. The specifications of the device put it above that of the Surface Pro 4, however, the actual performance in real-world scenarios is still yet to be discovered.

Here are the specs in comparison to the Surface Pro 4:

Check out the new on-screen touchpad feature in Windows 10 Creators Update

Microsoft is bringing a new feature to Windows 10 in the upcoming Windows 10 Creators Update. It will add an on-screen touchpad, which perfectly compliments the on-screen keyboard that we currently have. Take a look at the on-screen touchpad below:

Microsoft just fixed a major Windows 10 security flaw

In addition to Microsoft outlining what it is doing to prevent ransomware from infecting customers’ machines, it has also fixed a rather nasty security flaw. This security flaw allowed attackers to take advantage of certain privilege settings to install and run applications. It has been widely reported that Russian attackers used this flaw en masse recently.

Windows 10 rumored to have a fourth Redstone update in the works

In true Windows 10 fashion, Microsoft is rumored to be continuing the Redstone line of updates for Windows 10. We’re already aware of Redstone 1, 2 and 3 but now it seems the company is already working on Redstone 4, slated for early 2018.

Here are the builds that released this week:

• Windows 10 build 14393.447 released for Production machines, here’s the changelog
• Microsoft releases Windows 10 Insider build 14965 to the Fast Ring

Thanks for reading – we’ll be back next week with more!

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.

Mass Effect Andromeda getting a multiplayer beta

If you’re like a huge portion of the gaming community, you’ve been waiting for a very long time to hear more about the future of Mass Effect. The last game in the original trilogy, Mass Effect 3 came out years ago and prompted a serious falling-out with the fanbase because of its lackluster ending. Since then, Bioware and EA have been very careful about how they re-introduced the franchise. On November 7th – known by fans as N7 day, a bit of a holiday where Mass Effect fans celebrate the franchise – a cinematic trailer was finally dropped for Mass Effect Andromeda. The trailer also came with a few other goodies and big news drops about the game. The most relevant news to impatient fans, however, is that Mass Effect Andromeda is going to be getting a multiplayer beta that you can sign up for right now. While we know that multiplayer is going to work similarly to how it did in the previous games, we have no idea when this beta will drop.

Xbox Preview program being rebranded

The Xbox Preview program has been rebranded to the Xbox Insider Program, moving more in line with Microsoft’s Insider branding with Windows 10 and Windows 10 Mobile. This rebrand doesn’t mean all that much when it comes to how things are handled, although it’ll come with an updated Insider Hub and will likely open the door to some more significant changes further down the line.

Microsoft asks for fan videos to celebrate 15th anniversary

Microsoft is asking for 10-15 second videos detailing some memories from Xbox players, presumably to compile into a video to celebrate the 15th anniversary of Xbox on the 15th. This is a pretty great time for people who have been Xbox loyalists for a while, and Microsoft is trying to capitalize on all of the nostalgia to throw Xbox the birthday party that it most certainly deserves. Regardless of how they’re going to be using those videos – if they use them for anything at all – you should consider sending one in. If for no other reason, do to be a part of a huge celebration.

No, you can’t get the Xbox Onesies anymore

Microsoft offered a limited time onesie to celebrate the launch of the Xbox One S, and it was sort of amazing. On top of looking cool and being an absurdly comfortable article of clothing, the onesie could have your gamertag put onto it so it’s properly personalized for you. If you were looking to get your hands on one of these onesies now, though, you’re out of luck. As it turns out, these were truly limited time – and time has been up for a while now. You’ll have to get a onesie somewhere else, and write your gamertag on it with a marker or something.

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.

The Surface Dial came out of nowhere during Microsoft’s event last month. We were all expecting a new mouse, keyboard and device, but most were caught off guard by the introduction of a new kind of peripheral. The Dial almost seems like it came right out of a science fiction novel, letting us interact with our Surface devices in countless ways with just a few simple gestures.

In an effort to add to the peripheral’s laundry list of uses, a Windows Platform Developer has written up a program that takes advantage of the Surface Dial API to turn it into a debugging tool. The interface is actually pretty simple, and you can see it in action in the video below. Turn the Dial clockwise to Step-Over, turn the dial counter-clockwise to Step-Into.

This was written up by Nico, of the Nico’s Digital Footprint blog. Nico’s blog post shows the step-by-step process to how he managed to pull this off, and could make for a fun project for aspiring developers who want to play around with the Dial. If you decide that you want to do it, you’re going to need a Surface Dial (obviously), Visual Studio 2015, and the Windows 10 Anniversary Update (or any update more recent than that.)

Spotify, one of the largest music streaming services, has been found to have a major flaw in its desktop client for Windows, Mac and Linux. This bug has the potential to reduce the lifespan of an SSD and deplete system resources. As reported by Ars Technica, this is a big issue for those using SSDs.

Essentially, the Spotify desktop client has been writing a large amount of data to hard drives constantly. This constant rewriting of data reduces the lifespan of an SSD as they only have a limited number of writes before they die and need to be replaced. It has come to light that the issue may be caused by Spotify performing a database operation constantly on users’ playlists. Therefore, users with larger playlists would see larger amounts of data being written to their hard drives, while those with smaller playlists are less likely to notice anything.

A spokesperson for Spotify had the following to say:

We’ve seen some questions in our community around the amount of written data using the Spotify client on desktop. These have been reviewed and any potential concerns have now been addressed in version 1.0.42, currently rolling out to all users.

The good news for Spotify users, however, is that the company has now deployed a fix with version 1.0.42 of the desktop client, which is rolling out to users. Nonetheless, this bug has existed since at least the middle of June, as this is when the first user reports were spotted on the Spotify Community forums.

The Dell Stack has been all the rage in the Windows phone saga, since Evan Blass’ original tweet, revealing the device from multiple different angles. Later on, more details have been revealed and we understood that Dell was the maker of the mysterious device. We now have yet another image showing yet another aspect of the device. The Continuum-enabled dock.

The image showcases the Dell Stack phone attached to the dock which ironically seems to have a more realistic render than the device itself.

Dell Stack handheld + dock pic.twitter.com/FLzbMPVqiN

— Evan Blass (@evleaks) November 12, 2016

Both of these devices fit right into Dell’s usual sleek hardware design. What is surprising is that the dock seems to have an audio jack on the side, as well as just one cable on the back.

It’s unknown what this means and why there are no other cables attached, but it could just be that the department that made this render wanted it to look more elegant and therefore only included one cable even if the dock had more ports.