Microsoft has brought its elusive enterprise-focused collaboration device, the Surface Hub, out of hiding at business IT expo CeBIT 2016, happening today in Hannover, Germany. The information was discovered by Reddit user u/chisk_.

According to the original source in German, the Surface Hub demonstrated features a 55-inch Full HD stylus-supported screen at 120Hz refresh rate, an Intel core i5 4th generation (Haswell), 8GB of RAM, and 128GB SSD. Up to three people can work on it simultaneously. There is one Full HD camera on each side of the Surface Hub that can dynamically track users depending on their position. Notably, there is no built-in hardware for Windows Hello which depending on use cases may be a missed opportunity for Microsoft, especially in the enterprise environment.

On the software side, the Surface Hub runs a special version of Windows 10 with a customized lock screen that shows the scheduled meetings for the day, as well as three icons for calling, whiteboard, and connecting to other devices. Inside Windows, there’s a permanent button for Skype for Business group calls of up to 250 people. The Surface Hub can install and run Universal Windows Apps through the Windows Store; the file explorer, however, is stripped down for touch optimization, so those looking for a full desktop experience with the Hub will be disappointed.

The performance of the Surface Hub reportedly improved greatly from its July 2015 debute, and now leaves little to be desired: navigation is quick, calls can be made with two steps, and the 120Hz screen looks smooth in motion. The fact that its functionality is based on Universal Windows Apps, despite not being as severe a problem in the enterprise, should still put more pressure than ever on Microsoft to make progress with developers in the times to come.

The device is going to retail in Germany for 10000€, with an as-yet undetermined release date. Stay tuned to WinBeta for updates.

The annual Woman of the Year ceremony has been celebrating California’s extraordinary women since 1987, and this year the assembly chose to honor education and technology advocate and Microsoft Innovative Educator Expert Tammy Dunbar as the 2016 California Woman of the Year for the 12th Assembly district.

Proud of @TammyDunbar and inspired by all that you do for #edtech. Thank you! https://t.co/rBKMwTAW7F #MIEExpert pic.twitter.com/8xdThP64LJ

— Microsoft Education (@MicrosoftEDU) March 15, 2016

Dunbar is a fifth grade teacher in the Manteca Unified School District and an instructor at the Teachers College of San Joaquin in Stockton, California. She believes in a “student-first, project-based learning model” and is a strong advocate for incorporating technology into the classroom. As one of 11 teachers nationwide to be named a Microsoft Innovative Educational Expert Regional Lead, she has also trained thousands of teachers on digital technology integration and her efforts have garnered her many awards, including being named Teacher of the Year at Manteca Unified School District. According to assembly member Kristin Olsen, “Tammy is a role model for teachers and students alike, she has contributed greatly to the advancement of technology in education, and her impact will be felt for years to come.”

According to assembly member Kristin Olsen, “Tammy is a role model for teachers and students alike, she has contributed greatly to the advancement of technology in education, and her impact will be felt for years to come”. Dunbar herself released the following statement:

“I am humbled and honored to be recognized by Assembly member Olsen who understands that teaching is not a job; it’s a vocation. We are called to help students discover their strengths, skills and gifts while helping them realize each one has a genius the world needs. I am proud to nurture life-long learners who realize life’s challenges must be embraced with enthusiasm and joy.”

This celebration is not only acknowledging Dunbar’s outstanding community service but also shining the light on Microsoft Innovative Educator Experts program that today counts 3,700 educator visionaries around the globe who work closely with Microsoft to lead innovation in education. Don’t hesitate to check Microsoft Education website and also Tammy Dunbar’s own website if you want to know more!

If you own an Xbox One or an older Xbox 360, you may be aware that Microsoft’s popular video game consoles are not only used to play video games: a lot of entertainment services are indeed available on both consoles to enjoy movies, TV shows and listening to online music. However, we just spotted that official Twitter account @XboxEntertain that used to share content deals on the Xbox store will become inactive starting March 22:

Have you followed @WindowsStore yet?​
Our last tweet goes out March 22, so don't forget! pic.twitter.com/DG9VWqBsj7

— EntertainmentForXbox (@XboxEntertain) March 16, 2016

With this last tweet, Microsoft is pushing its followers to follow the Windows Store Twitter account instead, making it clear that the new unified Windows 10 store is where Xbox users can now get all their media content from Microsoft. After the company removed Xbox branding from its new Groove Music and Films and TV services on its new Windows 10 operating system, tt’s another sign showing that Microsoft doesn’t want to focus its Xbox brand on entertainment anymore.

The @XboxEntertain account which has been created in July 2009 currently has 128K followers, that’s 41K more than the @WindowsStore account which has been created in January 2010, so we’ll see if the Windows Store account will gain more followers in the coming months. Please tell us in the comments if you think Microsoft is right to push its users towards its new Windows Store!

With words sometimes having multiple meanings depending on context, learning a new language can sometimes be hard. Thankfully though, if you’re trying to quickly find the best translation for a specific word, Microsoft has you covered with a new English Bilingual Dictionary feature on Translator for Bing, and is featured on a post on the Microsoft Translator blog.

Perfect for an English language learner or even English speakers learning a new language, the new feature gives you exactly what is needed to learn the language easier. It displays alternative translations from or to English, examples of words in context, and even an example of translated sentences using the selected word.  The new feature even displays a confidence meter next to each alternative to show how relevant the alternative might be.

The technology behind the new feature uses Microsoft Translator, an automatic translation service that uses statistical analysis to determine the best translation from one language to another. Microsoft claims that because of the way automatic translation works, translations are best when you provide some context to tell the computer how to translate a word.

The new feature is currently only available in translations to or from English. Regardless, Microsoft Translator still supports over 50+ languages through Bing Translate and the Microsoft Translate API.

Microsoft’s Product Manager for developer monetization, advertising and Dev Center in the Windows Apps and Store team, Bernardo Zamora, has taken to the Windows blog to highlight a new way for app developers to get more revenue out of their products: through the Microsoft Affiliate Program.

In Zamora’s own words, the program is “a performance-based referral program that lets you earn commissions by referring customers to paid and freemium digital content in Windows Store and paid content in the Microsoft Store.” This is done by providing a special “Affiliate link” on your website to the app on the Windows Store; when a customer clicks on the link and go to the Windows Store, you earn money. The detailed commission rates are as follow (you can visit Microsoft’s complete list for more details):

• For the first 24 hours, you earn 7% commission on Windows Store sales
• For the first 14 days, you earn 7% commission on in-app purchases from apps and games purchased above; you’ll also earn $5 on every Groove Music Pass subscription, and a variety of commissions on other devices and software sales at microsoft.com/store

There are a number of ways for one to earn money throug the Affiliate program; provided examples include Shazam’s links to songs in Microsoft’s music catalog, and German Microsoft enthusiast Martin Geuss, who promotes his app Dr. Windows. As can be seen, Windows developers are at the best position to take advantage of the program, as they can continue promoting their apps while earning money for it.

Developer’s revenue has always been a debatable point for Microsoft’s Windows app store, as user numbers are reportedly usually not enough to generate revenue continued app support. The affiliate program, then, is hitting two birds with one stone, and will hopefully keep developers on the Windows board a bit longer for Windows to catch on with app users. Signing up is as easy as going to the Microsoft Private Affiliate Program and follow instructions. Microsoft also provides additional tools to make generating Affiliate links easier, which you can check out in the original link.

At the Game Developers Conference, many amazing new games from independent developers in the ID@Xbox program were on show.  More famously though, the biggest story from this event was the announcement of Cross-Network play on Xbox One and Windows 10 through Xbox Live. While that may be huge, there is still some even bigger news for Indie gamers coming out of the event.

A long list of new Indie titles for Xbox One and Windows was released at the event, and some of these titles will soon be heading to Xbox fans across the world.  The new titles are from all kinds of genres, ranging from stealth, adventure, strategy, platformer, explorer, sci-fi, and even puzzle.

Here’s a list of just some of the titles:

• 2Dark (Gloomwood): Horror and adventure game.
• Adventure on Colver Island: Action platformer game.
• Ananorphine: First person surreal exploration game.
• Beacon: Sci-fi themed Action Roguelike game.
• Below: Top-down perspective adventure game.
• Candle Man: Game with unique low-light gameplay.
• Chambara: Local multiplayer stealth/death match game.

Below are just some of the new Indie titles for both Xbox One and Windows 10.

• EVERSPACE: 3D Shooter
• Kingdom: 2D Pixel art sidescrolling strategy/resource management game.
• Kyub: Action/Puzzle game.

The complete list of games features over 40 titles. If you’re a fan of Indie games, you can check out the complete list of games here. Once you have, let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

The recent remake of the classic Patrick Swayze and Keanu Reeves surfer movie, Point Break (which stars neither Patrick Swayze nor Keanu Reeves) is now available digitally on the Movies & TV (or Films & TV) app across Windows 10 PCs, Windows phones, and Xbox 360 and Xbox One.

Here’s the film’s description:

In “Point Break,” a young FBI agent, Johnny Utah (Luke Bracey), infiltrates a cunning team of thrill-seeking elite athletes–led by the charismatic Bodhi (Edgar Ramirez). The athletes are suspected of carrying out a spate of crimes in extremely unusual ways. Deep undercover, and with his life in imminent danger, Utah strives to prove they are the architects of this string of inconceivable crimes. The film is replete with the most daring athleticism ever seen in a motion picture. These action adventure feats are performed by elite athletes representing the world’s best in class in big-wave surfing, wingsuit flying, sheer-face snowboarding, free rock climbing, and high-speed motorcycling.

Point Break’s Blu-ray release is currently set for March 29 so this is a pretty good opportunity to see it before then. Quentin Tarantino’s latest movie, The Hateful Eight, is also available today digitally ahead of its own March 29 Blu-ray release. Like Point Break, it can now be purchased across all of Microsoft’s devices in the Movies & TV app.

All about The Hateful Eight:

In THE HATEFUL EIGHT, set six or eight or twelve years after the Civil War, a stagecoach hurtles through the wintry Wyoming landscape. The passengers, bounty hunter John Ruth (Kurt Russell) and his fugitive Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh), race towards the town of Red Rock where Ruth, known in these parts as “The Hangman,” will bring Domergue to justice. Along the road, they encounter two strangers: Major Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson), a black former union soldier turned infamous bounty hunter, and Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins), a southern renegade who claims to be the town’s new Sheriff.

Do you like watching movies digitally or do you wait for their Blu-ray releases? Share your thoughts on the topic with the community in the comments below.

The Australian Microsoft Store is discounting a wide variety of Microsoft stock for a special March Madness sale campaign that’s running until April 6.

Among the discounted items is the Microsoft Band 2, which has been reduced by AU$50 to AU$329.99. The Microsoft Band 2 is the latest version of Microsoft’s fitness tracker and features a redesigned form and several new features such as UV monitoring that set it apart from its competitors. You can read our hands-on impressions with it here.

The two new Windows 10 Mobile flagship phones, the Microsoft Lumia 950 and Microsoft Lumia 950 XL, have also had their prices slashed and are now selling for AU$100 cheaper than their usual cost. In addition to the AU$100 savings, both models are unlocked and a purchase of either device will come with a free one year subscription to Office 365 Personal.

Also being discounted as part of the Microsoft Store March Madness sale is the Xbox One 1TB Racing Bundle which usually sells for AU$708.90 but is now going for AU$599.

The Xbox One 1TB Racing Bundle comes with an Xbox One console with one TB of memory, one Xbox One wireless controller, one Xbox One Special Edition Forza Motorsport 6 Wireless Controller, a physical disk copy of Forza Horizon 2 Ten Year Anniversary Edition, and digital versions of Gears of War: Ultimate Edition, Rare Replay (itself featuring 30 games), and Ori and the Blind Forest. As an extra bonus, gamers who play Gears of War: Ultimate Edition online will also be given the entire Xbox 360 Gears of War collection to play on the console as well.

Probably the biggest discount in the sale is the Surface Pro 3 which has had its regular price reduced by over AU$400 and is also giving customers a free Surface Pro 3 Type Cover which usually sells for AU$199.95. Not bad value at all!

Are you tempted by any of these reduced items or do you think they should have had their prices reduced more? Let us know in the comments below.

With Microsoft’s developer conference right around the corner starting March 30^th, 2016, the company is trying to get out ahead of API and code talk with a new series dedicated to designing. In what the company is calling “the first in a multi-part series,” Microsoft is introducing tips, tricks and design principles for crafting unique and, more important, successful apps in the Windows Store.

The new series of blog posts can be found at Building Apps for Windows, and the first installment is a lengthy one that looks to cover the demystifying design, what content to focus on while designing an app, understanding customers, and much more.

Other useful tidbits from the blog also include advice on quickly iterating an app and its design.

Mock up different screen designs based on your customer feedback, either as sketches or wireframes and imagine the workflow that customers will go through to accomplish their tasks. You can use whatever method works best for you to create these prototypes. If it’s faster for you to do rough interface designs in Visual Studio or Blend, use these tools. But note that you don’t need specialized software for this process, nor do you need to be able to draw. Notecards and sketchpads are just fine.

Even better, you can sketch your app design on sticky notes. This way you can easily move screen elements around to see how they look — and, more importantly, quickly put them back if things don’t work out the way you expect.

If you aren’t sure what to try first, take a look at apps that are similar to yours, then see how the workflow might look for your app.

Now try moving screen elements around. If you started with top navigation, you can try left navigation instead. If you have a large header with text, try moving it to the bottom. Buttons and content panels can go just about anywhere. Move them around. Switch out buttons with text; switch out text with links. Experiment. Iterate through this process for every screen until your gut tells you that you’ve gotten your layout to where it needs to be.”

Microsoft has its work cut out for itself this month as it tries to thread together a story around its UWP platform that can entice once-lost and current Windows developers to come along for the ride. Getting developers excited about the design of an app and explaining how user interface leads to user engagement seems like a solid beginning.

Interested in Microsoft’s UWP platform or creating for one of the company’s other platforms such as Xbox, Office, or Cloud? If so, head over to the Building Apps for Windows section of the Windows Blog to catch the first installment of app design walkthroughs.

After being previewed back in September, Microsoft finally introduced its new Office 365 admin center yesterday with the promise to give Office 365 admins more effective and easier management of Office 365. While the new dashboard will roll out to Office 365 users over the next few weeks, Microsoft is also explaining today in a blog post that a new reporting portal is also rolling out today.

While the Office 365 team gathered customer feedback during the development process of this new reporting portal, it became clear to the team that Office 365 admins could make good use of additional insights about how the Office 365 services are being used. That’s why the first version of the reporting portal includes a new activity dashboard featuring a highly improved user experience as well as a variety of reports providing insights on all services.

As you can see below, the cross-service portal uses graphs to give admins a key summary of the activity within each product (it’s also possible to switch between 7, 30, 60 and 90 days reporting periods to identify trends).

The new reporting portal can also provide detailed insights on individual services and tell administrators if users in an organizations are using them or not. That’s a key insight to effectively plan training and improve a user’s productivity, and the new portal will allow admins to quickly get data that they can also export in CSV format for further analysis.

As the Office 365 Team is just getting started, this new reporting portal is currently only available to customers in the U.S, Australia and Canada, while the rollout for Europe, APAC and Latin America will start in April. Moreover, Office 365 admins can only get three types of reports right now (Active Office 365 users, Email activity, Office activations), but the Office Team shared a roadmap of the upcoming features:

This is just the beginning. In April, we’ll make more reports available to U.S., Australian and Canadian organizations, providing insights on SharePoint and OneDrive site usage as well as on Yammer and Skype for Business activity—with organizations in Europe, APAC and Latin America following in May. More reports focusing on SharePoint and OneDrive for Business user activity and on user interaction with Office 365 (i.e. which browsers or operating systems do they use when they access the service) will be incrementally added.

We’ll also provide you with a Power BI Content Pack, which will combine your organization’s Office 365 usage data with your user’s information to provide richer insights into how your users are using Office 365. The content pack will allow advanced analytics scenarios, such as pivoting email usage by attributes like departments or regions and will make it easy for you to share insights within your organization. The Power BI Content Pack will be rolled out in June.

In the fall, we will provide new public APIs that will enable you to programmatically access the usage data and integrate it into custom applications like a company reporting portal.

While this new reporting portal is rolling out to customers, Microsoft also shared that the reports in the old admin center will be available until an equivalent report has been added to the new report portal. Last, customers can help the Office Team to improve this new reporting portal by using the feedback widget on the site. If you’re an Office 365 customer, please tell us in the comments what you think of this new reporting portal!

The technology industry has proven to be very competitive at times, and Microsoft is no stranger to falling victim to or defeating the competition. Today, competition has risen to a high level, as Microsoft has “disinvited” sponsor Okta from its upcoming Ignite tech conference.

The situation was first reported on by Business Insider, with a statement from Okta CEO Todd McKinnon.  In emails obtained by Business Insider, Microsoft claims that the event’s leadership team refused an Okta sponsorship and removed the company as an exhibitor due to “Okta’s broad competition between our companies in the mobility solution space.”

The primary products from Okta help companies manage employee passwords for cloud services and also help employees manage mobile devices. Under CEO Satya Nadella, Microsoft has recently introduced several cloud products that are similar to Okta’s. The “cloud-first, mobile-first” strategy is likely why Okta was ejected from the event.

According to McKinnon, being kicked out of this conference is a big deal:

“…rarefied air. Amazon, Google, and Okta are the only ones not allowed,”

Microsoft notified Okta of the ban last week. Ignite will be held from September 26 to 30 in Atlanta. The event brings together all of Microsoft’s customers and partners that relate to the company’s cloud products.

In a recent post, Microsoft is rumored to be working on the next big update to the next full version of Visual Studio, dubbed “Visual Studio 15.”, which will reportedly (and unsurprisingly) be called Visual Studio 2016. According to WalkingCat on Twitter, this might be a “lightweight installation experience of Visual Studio 2016.”

https://twitter.com/h0x0d/status/709684542877990912

According to Mary Jo Foley‘s Microsoft sources, they’re special features in Visual Studio 15 that will likely show up in Visual Studio 2016:

“There’s also a feature called “AnyCode” in the new VS release. AnyCode allows developers to use Visual Studio with source code that hasn’t been organized into projects and solutions. The private preview of VS’15 also includes TypeScript 1.8, and NuGet 3.4. NuGet 3.4 adds support for running NuGet in Linux and Apple environments, among other features. The preview also adds support for SQL Server 2016 and the most recent Azure SQL Database features in SQL Data Tools and Server Explorer.”

Microsoft made Visual Studio 2015 available in July 2015, and its received a several updates. The last Visual Studio 2015 update was in first week of March.

The Microsoft Cloud has reached new levels in bringing the power of Microsoft Azure to customers in regions across the world.  Microsoft’s cloud services have been enhanced for customers in Canada, Germany, and the United States, thus marking a significant expansion of Microsoft cloud services.  The total amount of Azure regions is now up to 30, and this means more choices for Microsoft Cloud customers across the world.

As part of this, and here in the United States, Microsoft is establishing two new physically isolated Azure Government regions for Department of Defense and DISA Impact Level Impact 5. These regions are designed to meet the DoD security control and compliance requirements and will fit the requirements of the DoD workloads and data level 5.

In Canada and Germany, Azure Canada and Azure Deutschland (Microsoft cloud with German data trustees) have started the expansion of Microsoft’s cloud services. Here, an operational preview of Azure cloud services will be rolled out by these teams to selected customers. Combined with in-country data residency, the preview will give customers the benefits of Azure services and enterprise-grade reliability and performance.

In line with the other expansions, at the business IT event CeBIT Microsoft Germany also announced the availability of regional Azure IoT hub. This addresses the evolution of businesses and the growing digital transformation of the Internet of Things movement.

For more information on Microsoft Azure, you can click here. Then, for information Microsoft Cloud for Government you visit this web page from Microsoft. Information on Azure Deutschland and the IoT is also available by clicking here and here.

According to a new post on the official HERE blog, HERE 360 will be removing all HERE apps from the Windows Store. As of March 29, HERE Maps, HERE Drive+, and HERE Transit will no longer be available on Windows Phone 8.1 or Windows 10 Mobile. HERE apps for Windows Phone 8 will continue to be supported (you STILL use Windows Phone 8?).

“We’ve been developing mobile maps applications for about 10 years, since the first smartphones came with GPS. As the market evolves, we keep in step by introducing our apps for new operating systems while stopping support for others. Although the essence of the HERE apps lives on in the Windows Maps app, we are removing the HERE branded apps from the Windows 10 store on March 29, 2016 and will limit the development of the apps for Windows Phone 8 to critical bug fixes.”

For Windows Phone 8.1 and Windows 10 Mobile users, that means that HERE-branded apps will no longer be functional as of June 30, 2016. HERE 360 would have to invest money in building the apps from the “ground up,” which is a business scenario that they are not interested in pursuing.

So, HERE-branded apps will work until June 30, 2016, after that, Windows 10 Mobile will have to rely on the Windows Maps default application, but have hope, there should be some exciting features coming to Windows 10 Mobile Maps soon.

The loss of HERE Maps is nothing to be upset about, I know of a couple awesome improvements coming to the Win10 Maps app soon ?

— Zac Bowden (@zacbowden) March 15, 2016

Do you rely on HERE Maps? Do you prefer HERE Drive+? Let us know in the comments below.

If you’re running the latest Windows 10 Mobile build 10586.164 on your Windows phone, we previously reported last week that this latest cumulative update included “Improvements for the reliability of app notifications, including text messages and alarms not ringing as scheduled”. Well, in the case your alarms are still not ringing as expected, Nokiapoweruser is reporting today that the Windows Alarms & Clocks has just received an update on both Windows 10 and Windows 10 Mobile, and the app has been bumped to version 10.1603.11020.0.

While we have yet to receive the new app on our own devices, the update is reportedly bringing the usual bug fixes and performance improvements, as well as some UI changes on the Edit Alarm page. If you already got the update on your Windows 10 PC or phone, please tell in the comments if you find the app more reliable of if you spotted anything new!

Spotify made headlines this week when word a customer service rep let it be known that they would no longer support Windows Phone 8.1. Thankfully, they quickly retreated and announced that they would still support Windows Phone with an incoming app update. Now that the saga is over, there is more Spotify news to report on, this time dealing with a change in Microsoft’s internal team of employees.

The head of Microsoft’s general counsel, Horacio Gutierrez, is leaving Microsoft to take on the same role at music streaming company Spotify. Gutierrez previously led Microsoft’s intellectual property group and was responsible for the Redmond company’s efforts to license patents to other companies. After joining Microsoft in 1998, he was elevated to general counsel when longtime counsel Brad Smith was promoted to company president.

The acquisition of Gutierrez comes at a time when Spotify is in the middle of a battle over royalties and licensing in the music industry.

Gutirrez has even posted mixed emotions over the situation on Twitter:

Today I truly understand what "mixed emotions" means. But I'm really excited to join the @Spotify team! https://t.co/Q0Tbee7yYH

— Horacio Gutierrez (@horaciog) March 14, 2016

According to the Seattle Times, Gutierrez will start at Spotify in April.  A Microsoft spokesman also told The Times that the company expects to announce plans for the management of Microsoft’s legal unit by the time Guiterrez departs.

Once again, the Windows team has taken to the Insider Hub to describe another feature that’s been implemented on behalf of the users. A few months back, the Windows team introduced the Made By You series of blog posts highlighted in the Insider Hub. The Insider Hub that is made available to those participating in the Windows 10 Insider Preview acts as an open forum for feedback and suggestions for the Windows team as they attempt to encourage a healthy discussion of when, how and why certain features get delivered to the Windows 10 platform.

Today’s highlighted feature involves Windows 10 and audio troubleshooting. A handful of Windows staff employees involved with the Answers Forums for Windows took out time to go over how audio improvements in Windows 10, as well as the process of collecting error reports and addressing audio issues, is done.

John Wink, Matt van Eerde or “maurits” and Ikemefuna Udeze a.k.a “Ike” begin the post with the a breakdown of the labor-intensive process of collecting user feedback as well as error reports to understand better the specific issues users were experiencing.

We began our journey by talking directly with a lot of you in the answer forums, and you us started with great information. We soon realized that we were dealing with more than one issue.

• Audio services had a tendency to crash in certain situations
• Some drivers from older OS’s didn’t play well with Windows 10
• Some drivers were okay, but their add-on APOs (audio processing objects) weren’t
• Sometimes changing the playback bitrate and depth broke (or conversely fixed) audio

With a starting point, the team then began collaborating their efforts with information gained from the Windows Feedback App aka UIF. UIF is an abbreviation the team uses to describe the engine the app runs on, User-Initiated Feedback. The UIF essentially auto-categorizes feedback based on how Insiders apply choose to identify their issues. Beyond categorizing issues, the UIF also helps prioritize issues based on Insiders upvoting and diagnostic data collected whenever an item is submitted.

Specifically, the team can gather information such as:

• A DxDiag report from your machine
• An export of the audio section of your registry showing audio endpoints, drivers, and APOs
• Details on local audio stack failures

Once all the data is gathered, it’s solution time. Before most solutions are rolled out in a consumer-facing update or Patch Tuesday, the team begins distributing their solutions via the Answers Forums. Eventually, the information is trickled out amongst Insiders to one another and then makes its way out to media sources who pick up on it. Once Insiders can reliably count on the solutions, does the solution then get integrated into Windows 10 Audio Troubleshooter and posted online. The final step is to take that solution and roll it into a Windows 10 update.

Lastly, the Windows team used their blog post to encourage the continued use of the Insider Hub and Answers forums to help address issues with Windows 10. Part of their encouragement includes asking users to make use of keywords to narrow down overlapping situations.

The best piece of feedback is one that gives us useful keywords like “Realtek,” “glitch,” “no audio,” “static”, and such and such that provides detailed steps on how we can reproduce the issue and that uses the “Reproduce” option (available when you select “Problem” in the Windows Feedback Tool.”

As the Windows team continues to tool away at more Windows 10 features, it is becoming evident that the Insider Preview, along with the Answer Forums and other feedback tools are becoming more important than ever to the future of the operating system.

For Insiders interested in directly contributing to the development of Windows 10, visit the Insider Hub on your device and give as much feedback (positive or negative) as possible.

Microsoft has rolled out a new Xbox One preview build for those who are participating in the preview program. This new build is th2_xb_rel_1603.160311-1900 and is rolling out now. Here’s what’s been fixed:

• Fixed an issue which caused navigating the party menu in the Guide to not correctly update the party state.
• Additional fixes for graphics and DirectX.

Microsoft has also added a new feature called feedback notification. Basically, this feature will offer you notifications that allow you to rate certain experiences. Don’t worry, if they become annoying, you can adjust the settings and turn it off.

You’ll now periodically receive notifications asking you to rate certain experiences on Xbox One. These notifications, when acted upon, will launch a new lightweight app where you can supply a rating and optionally input text to further explain your score.

Too busy to give feedback when you get the notification? No problem! Just ignore the toast and you can access it under Notifications in the Guide when you’re ready. You’ll also find a new Setting for this feature under Preferences.

Grab the update and share your feedback in the comments below!

One of the most-requested features in Microsoft’ Edge browser, by a long shot, are extensions, the snippets of add-on code that extend browser functionality. Microsoft has made extension support a priority in its efforts to make Edge more popular among Web users, and so far we expect Edge extensions to show up soon in an upcoming Windows 10 Redstone release.

Now, via MSPoweruser, we have the first real hint at what Edge extensions might look like in their initial preview mode, thanks to a dedicated page on Microsoft’s developer site. So far, it’s looking like we’ll have three extensions to try out when they’re enabled in the next Windows 10 build:

Microsoft Translator extension

Translate foreign language pages for 50+ languages by downloading the Microsoft Translator extension. The translation icon will appear in the address bar when visiting a foreign-language web page in Microsoft Edge. Click on the icon to instantly translate the web page to your current Windows language.

Reddit Enhancement Suite extension

A suite of modules that enhance your Reddit browsing experience.

Mouse Gestures extension

An extension for Microsoft Edge that allows customers to perform basic browsing tasks by right-clicking and then gesturing with the mouse. For example, right-click and hold, then move the mouse down and to the right to close the current tab, or move the mouse from right to left to go back to the previous page.

Each extension has its own download button and runs a text file that opens giving instructions on how to enable the extension, which initially will mean selecting an extension after extracting it via Edge’s More (…) functionality. In the future, extensions will be installed via the Windows Store.

Keep your eyes peeled to WinBeta for the requisite Windows Insider build of Windows 10. We’ll be sure to let you know just as soon as these extensions are working.

Update: We noted a similar page popping up back in December.

Update 2: As with the previous page, Microsoft has shut things down. The page is no longer responding, but we remain convinced that extensions are coming soon.

Today marks an auspicious milestone for Microsoft’s content management platform, SharePoint Server 2016. Specifically, the on-premise and cloud-based content management solution has hit Release to Manufacturing (RTM), meaning that customers will soon have access to its enhanced features.

Here’s a video providing an update on what’s new in SharePoint 2016, care of the Microsoft Office Blog:

Customers will be able to access SharePoint Service 2016 in early May from Microsoft’s Volume Licensing Service Center, and you can learn more about the solution by accessing a reviewer’s guide or downloading a trial version. Microsoft will also be hosting a live online event on May 4, where the company will provide information on their vision and future plans for the solution. You can register for this event here.

Here’s Microsoft’s take on the importance of SharePoint Server 2016 to the company cloud services line of business:

Billions of documents are stored on SharePoint sites—making it the center of content management and collaboration for over a decade. Whether enabling students to work together or helping a company transform its entire intranet, we have continually evolved SharePoint to meet the changing needs of the digital workplace.

As work teams become more dynamic and digital content growth continues to skyrocket, SharePoint will play an ever increasing role in enabling content collaboration for the new way of working. As a part of Microsoft’s broader ambition to reinvent productivity, we are on a mission to make SharePoint more simple, mobile, intelligent and secure to help customers unlock the value of having it as an integrated part of Office 365. This year, we will release significant new innovations spanning user experiences, document collaboration, mobile enhancements and platform improvements that will redefine modern content collaboration.

If your organization uses SharePoint to manage your content and communications, then today marks an important event. If you’re just now beginning to think about how to manage your content, then you’ll want to head over to Microsoft’s various resource and check out SharePoint Server 2016 as a viable option.

While consumer demand for tablets appears to be tapering off a bit, there are still healthy levels of curiosity and testing for alternate, lighter, and more portable forms of computing within the enterprise and industrial sectors.

Thanks in part to a combination of Windows 10 and Windows 10 enabled convertibles, detachables or 2-in-1 devices, industry segments such as airlines are seeing weighty relief from more traditional forms of computing.

With the FAA’s official approval, ExpressJet is changing the game for its pilots. With the Microsoft Surface 3 ‘Electronic Flight Bag’ (EFB) using Windows 10 we’re helping take that burden off of ExpressJet pilots. Nearly 4,000 ExpressJet pilots are now using the EFB solution on Windows 10 and can officially access up to 50 pounds’ worth of navigation charts at the tip of their fingers on their Surface 3 devices.”

The new FAA approval means that not only can pilots do away with additional heavy luggage, but through the Windows 10 EFB program, they can shave off hours of updating charts in between several flights a day. Other benefits of the combined Surface 3 and EFB pairing include real-time data about weather conditions before each flight as well as doubling as a single device for both preflight preparation tools and addressing work emails and other information.

The move to using tablets such as the Surface 3 as alternatives to the lumbering luggage full of charts is also being utilize by other airlines such as Delta, Emirates, SkyWest, Lufthansa, and Belgian Airlines. Microsoft’s ambitions regarding robust computing in more portable packages is already having a positive impact on the airline industry as Delta is reporting savings of 1.2 million gallons of fuel along with 7,500 sheets of paper being saved each year thanks to the combination of Windows 10 and Surface tablets.

Just a few days ago we reported to you on the PlayStation 4 once again surpassing Xbox One sales in the month of February. Despite efforts such as backward compatibility, bundles, cross-buy, and even the release of new titles to the Tomb Raider and Forza franchises, the NPD report made it apparent that Microsoft is still lagging behind Sony in console sales.  While Microsoft does not release official sale figures for consoles, VGChartz is a website which gives out fairly accurate estimates for console sales, and they too now are showing statistics that are not necessarily in Microsoft and Xbox’s favor.

While the statistical methods behind figure can be argued about, as of March 5th, the website is listing that Microsoft has sold about 20.4 million Xbox consoles. This is still a bit far behind their listing of Sony’s 38.8 million PS4 consoles sold.  The website, however, has proven to be fairly accurate with its listings and is close to Sony’s most recent official PS4 sales figure of over 36 million units sold.

Nonetheless, it has still been a good internal year for Microsoft and Xbox. The company has said that exclusive games sales for the Xbox One were up by 49 percent compared to February 2015. Microsoft even further mentioned that the number of hours spent by Xbox users has dramatically increased by a whopping 93 percent.

Compared to a few years ago with the Xbox 360, Microsoft has now shown a clearer understanding of the wants and needs of gamers. The company has listened to the feedback of fans in the Xbox Preview program by releasing a new Xbox One dashboard experience, and even released a new 1 TB systems for those storage hungry gamers.

Do you think Microsoft will ever catch up to Sony in console sales? The topic sure can be controversial, so be sure to let us know what you think in the comments below.

College basketball fans are hard at work creating their NCAA basketball tournament brackets since the seeds were announced yesterday. And the team at Bing has also been going over the seeds and modeling the data to come out with their predictions and tools to help college basketball fans build their own brackets.

For this year’s NCAA tournament, Bing has rolled out their own bracket builder on the web which you can access by simply searching “march madness” in Bing or clicking here. From Bing’s bracket builder you can make your picks, view schedules, and view more information and stats about every team that made the tournament this year.

The Bing Predict team has also released their bracket. And they have integrated their predictions into the bracket builder to give you more information as you are making your own picks.

In a blog post yesterday, the Bing Predicts team spoke more about how they make their predictions and highlighted their success with last year’s tournament. They boasted that last year Bing’s smarter bracket picked “73 percent of the games correctly and finished in the top 30 percent of all brackets created nationwide—outpacing Google, Facebook and Sports Illustrated brackets.” The team makes their predictions using machine learning to pore over different types of data. The types include the usual statistical data from the NCAA but the team also analyzes social and search signals on the web.

And when the Bing Predicts team announced their bracket this morning, they also released a blog post highlighting their picks for upsets and the final four for both the Men’s and Women’s brackets. The Bing team is expecting to see upsets from Arkansas-Little Rock, UT-Chattanooga, Gonzaga, Pittsburgh, VCU, and Butler. Bing predicts the final four will be made up of Duke, Michigan State, North Carolina, and Kansas, with Kansas beating North Carolina in the championship game on Monday, April 4th.

The Bing team also announced local Microsoft Stores near tournament games will be giving away tickets to local March Madness games. And the Microsoft Store in Woodlands, Texas will be having a special event with Basketball Hall of Famer Clyde Drexler and a chance to win tickets to the Final Four in Houston. To learn more about ticket giveaways you can head over to the Microsoft store Facebook page.

As the one-year anniversary of Windows 10’s launch date approaches this summer, the list of Windows 10 devices just keeps on growing. Today, Dell has added to this growing list of Windows 10 devices by launching two new versions of its XPS laptops in India.

The Dell XPS 12 and XPS 13 laptops will go on sale in India for Rs 76,990 (about $1,146 US) and Rs 1,24,990 (about $1,861 US). As is the usual in devices these days, they both will also be powered by the Intel’s sixth generation processors, and will support Windows 10 features such as Cortana and Continuum.

In all its glory, the XPS 12 is a Surface Book like device. It is a 2-in-1 convertible laptop and features an IPS display with full 4k resolution.  The display supports 170-degree vieiwing angles, 400 nit brightness, and also Gorilla Glass protection. As for the body, it is made of magnesium alloy and has a 8 MP rear camera and a 5 MP selfie camera. In addition to a backlit keyboard and touchpad, support for Dell’s Active Stylus is also included.

Meanwhile, the XPS 13 is another top of the line device. It features an Infinity Edge Display with ultra-thin bezels, up to 1 TB SSF Storage, 16 GB of RAM, and a battery life of up to 18 hours. Dell also claims that this device is the smallest 13-inch laptop in the world.

The models will support a variety of Dell accessories, including the Dell Thunderbolt 2 USB Type 3 dock, and USB Type C to HDMI, VGA, Ethernet, and USB 3.0 adapters.

If you’ve used Skype for Web recently (either on the standalone website or via Outlook.com), you may have seen that the service has just received several new features. Fortunately, the Skype team is highlighting some of them in a blog post today, and we’re happy to see that the feature gap with desktop users seems to be closing.

First, you can now use the web app to call landlines and mobile phones using your Skype credit or a subscription: to use the feature, just click on the new “call phones” tab, select your destination then dial the number.

Next, YouTube videos shared in Skype for Web can now be watched directly in Skype, as they now appear like a video embed on the web. It’s a handy time-saving feature as you no longer have to open a new browser tab to watch the video, and you will also get the same volume and playback controls you have in YouTube.

Skype for Web also gets a feature that was previously exclusive to desktop users: it’s now easier to invite other to Skype conversations as you can invite people by sharing them a unique conversation URL. Anyone who gets the link will be able to join your chat, and they don’t need even need to have a Skype account to join the fun.

The Skype Team also improved notifications on Skype for web, as you’ll now receive notifications for your Skype chats even if you’re in another browser tab or another app. More than that, we spotted in the Settings tab a new “@mention notifications” feature that “always notify you when someone mentions you on Skype”. This interesting new feature only works in group conversations.

Last, we’re not sure if it’s new and Skype’s blog post doesn’t mention it, but we also spotted a “Translator preview” button in our Skype conversations on the web. It’s not clear if the feature works for voice conversations or written chats, but we couldn’t make it work anyway.

While Skype for web is still labeled as a “beta”, we’re still happy to see that the Skype team keeps improving its web app, and that may well help Skype to stay one of the most ubiquitous messaging apps. We just hope that Skype for web will ditch the plugin requirement for phone calls in the future. Please tell us in the comments what you think about these new Skype for web features.

Microsoft has long been known for making contributions to help make the world a better place. In perhaps the best example of this, the company launched a #UpgradeYourWorld initiative  back in October of 2015 to help the world pick out the most prominent nonprofit organizations.  By virtue of the initiative, the winners have since received the honor of becoming Microsoft’s new local nonprofit partners. Team Gleason is one of these partners, and since winning, Windows and Microsoft have bettered Team Gleason’s cause.

As part of the partnership, Windows hosted an intimate fireside chat with former NFL athlete and ALS advocate Steve Gleason ahead of the debut of the film GLEASON at SXSW in Austin Texas. In the March 11th discussion (which was monitored by NBC’s Olivia Sterns) Gleason spoke about the integral role of technology in his life.

With the help of his Microsoft Surface Pro 3 and Pro 4, Steve has been able to live his life to the fullest. Along with this, he has also worked with Microsoft to help develop life-changing technology, especially with eye gazing software.

He described his situation in the Windows Experience blog:

“Microsoft was the only company who stepped forward and was eager to deeply understand the needs of those who utilize technology as an extension of themselves. The company committed time, money, and talent to not only enhance the Surface Pro beyond its expectations, but went above and beyond to integrate controls for my power chair, allowing me to regain much more independence. The process has been as exciting as it has been liberating.”

The primary purpose of Team Gleason is to help provide individuals with neuromuscular diseases or injuries with top of the line technology and services. You can learn more about Team Gleason by visiting their website at teamgleason.org. You can also learn more about the technology developed with Team Gleason and Microsoft by clicking here and here.

Ever since its inception, Microsoft’s Xbox One is lagging behind the PlayStation 4 in terms of hardware sales. The company has introduced a handful of bundles and promotions over the past few months in order to boost its sales.

In another attempt to give the Xbox One sales a push, the company has introduced a new promotion where gamers will get a free copy of Grand Theft Auto V with the purchase of the Xbox One. This is in addition to another free game which customers can receive with the Xbox One bundle.

The offer is live at the moment through Microsoft Store, but if you’re interested, you should act fast as the promotion is set to expire on March 19th. Head over to the Microsoft Store to check out the bundle, or any other bundle if you’re interested.