There’s another Free Play Days event for Xbox Live Gold members this weekend. Starting today through Sunday, January 14, Star Wars: Squadrons, Dragon Ball FighterZ, and Yooka-Laylee will be free to play with Xbox Live Gold, and limited-time discounts are also available on the Xbox Store.

Star Wars: Squadrons allows you to take control of iconic starfighters such as the X-wing and TIE fighter. The game occurs after the events of Return of the Jedi, and you can learn what it means to be a pilot whether you fight for The New Republic or The Empire. In addition to the short single-player campaign, the game supports cross-play multiplayer with PC and PlayStation 4 players.

Dragon Ball FighterZ is a fighting game that takes all the things you love about the Dragon Ball series and packs it into an intense fighting game. As for Yooka-Laylee, it’s a light-hearted open-world platformer where you can explore huge colorful worlds with up to three friends on your console.

If you’re already an Xbox Live Gold subscriber, we remind you that you can still upgrade to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate for just $1. Xbox Game Pass Ultimate includes all the benefits of Xbox Live Gold, plus unlimited access to a catalog of over 200 high-quality Xbox and PC games, as well as the EA Play catalog.

Following the launch of Microsoft’s Xbox Series X|S and Sony’s PlayStation 5 consoles in November, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) published a report yesterday that focuses on the power consumed by the two machines. Microsoft once again claims to have the most powerful console on the market with the Xbox Series X, but the US energy agency has criticized the company’s decision to ship the console with its not eco-friendly “Instant On” setting.

As you may know, Microsoft’s Xbox One received similar criticism back in the day as the console also shipped with this Instant-on mode enabled by default. This choice was made to allow Xbox One consoles to be able to instantly respond to Kinect commands such as “Xbox On,” and Microsoft has kept enabling the Instant-on mode by default on newer consoles even though Kinect has now been deprecated.

“Based on modeling NRDC performed through 2025, this one seemingly inconsequential decision by Microsoft could result in the equivalent of one large (500 MW) coal-burning power plant’s worth of annual electricity generation and cost new U.S. Xbox owners roughly $1 billion on their electricity bills,” the NRDC emphasized yesterday.

To be fair, Europe is the only region where Xbox Series X|S consoles ship with the “Energy Savings” setting to comply with local efficiency requirements. According to the NRDC’s measures, “Instant On” consumes 9 to 10 watts on Xbox Series X, while the “Energy Saving” setting draws less than 1 watt. The latter also still allows Xbox Series X|S consoles to check and wake for updates during sleep, with a very acceptable resume time of 10 to 15 seconds thanks to the new SSDs.

When playing games, the NRDC observed that the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 can draw between 160 and 200+ watts, which is slightly more than previous generation consoles. However, next-gen consoles are more power efficient than previous gen hardware when playing backward compatible games, something that Digital Foundry and other publications also confirmed. The NRDC also confirmed that the less powerful Series S used the less amount of energy during gameplay, with the US agency noting a 53 to 57 watts consumption when playing games like Moto GP20, Descenders, and Call of the Sea.

If the main purpose of game consoles remain to play games on a TV, many consumers are also using them as media centers, even though doing that can also use a lot of energy. “The console will draw between 30 and 70 watts—about 10 to 25 times more power than a streaming device like Apple TV, Roku box, or Amazon Fire Stick to watch the same show. We have repeatedly urged Sony and Microsoft to include a dedicated low-power chip for video playback in their consoles, and this request is even more important today given the potential for long hours of “binge watching” via the console,” the NRDC explained in the report.

Overall, the US energy agency believes that both Sony and Microsoft can do more to reduce power consumption on their next-gen consoles, and the first step would be to “make further improvements in implementation of auto power down and standby modes to reduce overall annual console energy use.” The suggestion to add low-power chips to use for video playback is also interesting, though it would likely require some re-engineering work that both Sony and Microsoft may not be willing to do in the short term.

It’s worth reminding that even though the new Xbox and PlayStation consoles are quite power hungry, they’re still much more power efficient than high-end gaming PCs. A top of the line GPU like the new NVIDIA RTX 3090 will require a PC with 750W power supply, while the Xbox Series X ships with a 315W power supply. All things considered, the Xbox Series X isn’t really much more power hungry than the Xbox One X, though we have yet to see games that really take advantage of the new hardware.

If the NRDC is right to push both Microsoft and Sony to improve the efficiency of the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5, it’s worth reminding that console manufacturers usually ship a “slim” version of their new consoles after three or four years that are also more power efficient. It remains to be seen if this will also happen for the Xbox Series X and the PlayStation 5, though Microsoft already has the Series S as a more environment-friendly option.

A more recent version of Windows 10X “leaked” online, thanks to the work of the community. Available as a VHD file, this “leaked” version of Windows 10X is a bit different from what we last saw from Microsoft when the operating system was being designed for dual-screen PCs back in January of 2020.

While it’s been confirmed that Windows 10X has now been tweaked a bit (and will only be included on new and lightweight single-screen PCs only,) Microsoft hasn’t officially shared much about the project. Thanks to the “leaked” build, though, we’re able to go a bit closer with the upcoming operating system.

Again, the “leaked” build isn’t final or the RTM version of Windows 10X, some things can change in it between now and when we see the first 10X devices, but this is the closest to final as we’d get. Here’s a hands-on look at the experience, and why it’s like Microsoft’s own version of ChromeOS.

The setup experience and mandatory Microsoft Account

As many on Twitter have pointed out, and as the rumors had originally indicated, this leaked version of Windows 10X comes with a new out of box experience. Unlike regular Windows 10, there’s no Cortana here to help you through things. In place of that, you get helpful and colorful visuals and icons, representative of which step you’re in the setup process. You’ll also need to be connected to the internet for setup, as the leaked version requires you to sign in with a Microsoft Account. Do note that Windows 10X comes with a new startup sound and splash screen, too.

App support and Microsoft Edge

An important note about this leaked Windows 10X build comes in regards to app support. This can change between now and when we get an official release, but in my tests, it looks as though this leaked version of Windows 10X doesn’t support Win32 apps. It also doesn’t have a “windowed” mode to window and move apps around like in regular Windows 10. All apps in Windows 10X appear to only support split-screen or full-screen. That’s just like how it was with Microsoft Store apps in Windows 8 and 8.1

This was the leading rumor, anyway, so it does make a lot of sense. Windows 10X is intended to be lightweight, so it cuts out a lot of the legacy Windows features such as Command Prompt, Powershell, etc in favor of Microsoft Edge and apps in the Microsoft Store.

I tried downloading and installing Chrome, but the .exe file simply would not work. I ended up using Microsoft Edge and creating PWAs for things like Spotify, or Twitter. It’s nothing new to me, as I’m familiar with using Windows 10S, which is also this “locked down” and, as I last argued, isn’t all that bad.

Anyway, it looks as though there is a setting to allow you to install “All Apps” and well as developer options to enable Win32 app development, but I wasn’t able to get these to work as the check box for the feature is disabled.

The Start Menu and Action Center

If you played with the original version of Windows 10X intended for dual-screen PCs, then the Start Menu and Action Center should look and feel familiar. It’s not changed very much between dual-screen and single-screen 10X. Much like what Google has done with the Chrome OS launcher, we’ve lost Live Tiles and a traditional “list” of apps from Windows 10 in favor of a static row of icons. The Start Menu also has a search bar on the top, too, allowing you to search for applications and files, or search the web. You’d also see a list of your most recent files on the bottom half of the Start Menu, too.

As for the Action Center, it also has not changed between dual-screen and single-screen Windows 10X. It’s much more modern and has more elements of Fluent Design compared to Windows 10’s. There’s a slider of volume and quick toggle buttons for location, rotation lock, and more. You even have access to power options, and the ability to summon the keyboard and settings from Action Center, too.

The Taskbar

If you have an eagle-eye like me, then you might have noticed that the Taskbar in this single-screen version of Windows 10X has changed a bit from when we last tried Windows 10X. While the dual-screen version has “levers” which let you pull up the Taskbar from a minimized state when not needed, this single-screen leaked version drops that out. Instead, the Taskbar is always persistent.

Otherwise speaking, icons in the Taskbar in Windows 10X are centered, unlike in regular Windows 10. Pressing the Start Menu button lights it up in Blue. Hovering over an app shows a preview, and there’s a multitasking button on the right side, to show you open apps, and enable split-screen (we’ll have more on that later.) Clicking the Task view icon also lights it up in blue and “expands” the tiles which represent it. Overall, it’s very reminiscent of what we see in Windows 10 Teams OS, which runs on Surface Hub.

Of course, you can also pin open apps to the Taskbar in this leaked version of Windows 10X, too. And, you can see a “preview” of any open app in the Taskbar. The preview window and most things in this leaked version of Windows 10X now has more touches of Fluent Design and has rounded corners, too. When put together, all of these small touches are quite cool.

The Modern File Explorer

As I tweeted before, unlike the original dual-screen version of WIndows 10X, Microsoft looks to be shipping just a “modern” File Explorer in this “leaked” build of 10X. It’s designed almost exactly like the Files app on an iPad with its column view and sidebar. There’s also updated modern iconography in the top right corner for opening files, copying files, and changing views. This matches with the new icons we’ve seen make their way to Windows 10.

Note the sidebar in it. Just like in Chrome OS, seems like you only have a "Downloads" folder in Windows 10X. (It's at the bottom left side of the screen. There's no "My PC," etc. For comparison, here's the one from the earlier Windows 10X build, for dual screens. pic.twitter.com/y5vBm8HAEP

— Arif Bacchus (@abacjourn) January 14, 2021

Overall, though, the Modern File Explorer seems to put emphasis on the cloud and OneDrive, just like Google does with Chrome OS and Google Drive. In this release, the Modern File Explorer has no “My PC” or “Documents” and “Photos,” rather the only thing you see in it is your “Downloads” folder, just like in Chrome OS.

The split-screen as well as the animations

Windows 10X has a lot of cool animations here and there, as well as the same snap assist feature from regular Windows 10. Opening and app cause the icon to “bounce” upwards in the Taskbar, a bit similar to what we see in MacOS. Minimizing an app, meanwhile also causes the icon to do a little “shake.” Closing it, meanwhile, will cause the icon to fade down and away in the Taskbar This is quite the nifty little touch, which I didn’t notice in the original version of Windows 10X.

As for split-screen, in this release, it functions just like it does in the original version of Windows 10X, except it is designed for single-screen setups. You can drag an app from the top with the title bar to the side of the screen you want it on, and have Windows 10X suggest other open apps to snap to the other side. You can also summon all open apps with the Task view button, to help you switch between which one you want to put forward and use. Note that the windows for the previews and the Task view all have rounded corners, which is big in Windows 10X.

Try it yourself!

If you want to try this out for yourself today at your own risk, you can check out the original file from Albacore (@thebookisclosed) on Twitter. You’ll need to have Windows 10 Pro, as well as download and install 7Zip to extract the VHD. You’ll also need to create a virtual machine in Hyper V, which Microsoft explains how to do here. We do warn you though, you’d be doing so at your own risk.

At any rate, it’s still great to see this leaked version of Windows 10X in the wild. It’s not much different from the original dual-screen version we saw last year, but the small touches like the splash screen, new animations, as well as Fluent Design, and the new Start Menu breathe new life into Windows. Even if it’s just like what we see in Chrome OS, this could be the start of a new era for Windows.

Microsoft has announced that the new Approvals app is now generally available in Microsoft Teams. The new workflow tool was first announced back in September 2020, and it started rolling out earlier this week. As the name suggests, it streamlines requests and processes with partners and helps to create and manage requests within the Teams collaboration platform.

“Approvals in Microsoft Teams lets you easily create, manage, and share approvals directly from your hub for teamwork. You can quickly start an approval flow from the same place you send a chat, in a channel conversation, or from the Approvals app itself. Just select an approval type, add details, attach files, and choose approvers. Once submitted, approvers are notified and can review and act on the request,” the company explained.

Microsoft says that Approvals is a native Teams application, and it’s turned on by default if Power Automate is already enabled in your organization. To be clear, these approvals leverage the Power Automate infrastructure to trigger an approvals action directly and doesn’t require a flow to work within the Teams app.

For those of you who are interested in trying out the new Approvals app, users need to have an F3 license to be able to use this feature. To access the app in Teams, click the three dots icon (. . .) available on the sidebar, type “Approvals” in the search box, and click on it to open the app. Here’s how users can create, view, track, and manage their approval requests directly from Microsoft Teams:

Create an approval request

To create an approval in a chat or a channel conversation, click the “Approvals” icon and enter all the required details. These details include the name of the request, approver, and relevant information. Finally, upload an attachment if needed and click the “Send” button.

Approve or reject a request

Once a request is submitted by the user, Microsoft Teams will automatically notify the approvers to take appropriate actions. They will be able to quickly review the details and relevant attachments included in the approval request to approve or reject it. The approvers will see an approvals card along with all the relevant actions related to the requests that are submitted in a chat or a channel.

Track and manage approvals

As mentioned above, the Approvals app in Teams will allow users to view and manage all your approvals from one place. Users will be able to see important details, including the status, source, along with the name of the requestor, and approvers with each request. However, they need to click on a specific approval request to track its progress and see additional details.

The ability to use Approvals in Teams is a welcome addition, and it can help to improve productivity in the workplace. The company is also planning to add an option to create an electronic signature approval natively within the Approval app, and the feature will be available in the coming months. We invite you to check out this support article for additional details on managing the Approvals app in Teams.

A more recent version of Windows 10X, different from the original dual-screen emulator for developers that was officially released by Microsoft, has “leaked” online. As uploaded by Albacore (@thebookisclosed) this build comes in at 20279 (and isn’t an RTM candidate,) but does offer what could be considered a near-final look of the upcoming operating system.

It’s important to note that this “leaked” version of Windows 10X which has circulated isn’t technically a final build from Microsoft. And, as far as we know, Windows 10X is still only for new light-weight devices only, meaning you still can’t download an ISO. The leak is a VHD, or a virtual hard drive containing the operating system. We went hands-on with it here.

However, noted by Rafael Rivera, since Microsoft is officially hosting the files on its update platform, the community used this as a chance to put together a combination of files which makes it possible to try out the experience in a virtual machine on any Windows 10 Pro device. This means it doesn’t reflect any actual features or what we will see when Windows 10X actually ships. Things we’re seeing in this leaked build could still come and go.

Those animations though! Wish regular Windows 10 would get these. So clean, so fluent, so modern. Amazing to see this! The ways the icon bounce! The window animation! pic.twitter.com/cnD9801Ydy

— Arif Bacchus (@abacjourn) January 14, 2021

Still, there are some interesting changes between this version of Windows 10X, and the original dual-screen version from Microsoft. For one, we’re getting a closer look at the Modern File Explorer, which in Windows 10X only appears to have access to OneDrive and downloads. This version also behaves similarly to Chrome OS, in that files save to your downloads folder, and there’s no way to access “My PC,” and other legacy areas of Windows 10. Other new things include the ability to change the desktop background, as well as do split-screen multitasking. There are also some new animations and touchpad gestures for navigation here and there, too.

The way multitasking works reminds me a lot of Windows 10 Teams OS… what Surface Hub is powered by. You can drag apps to one side of the screen or the other, just like in the original dual-screen build, and you see the new fluent UI for the previews, though. SO CLEAN!!!! pic.twitter.com/hh4JRbHNZx

— Arif Bacchus (@abacjourn) January 14, 2021

Though you’d be doing so at your own risk, you can try the emulator today by downloading the image from Albacore, unzipping it with 7Zip, and setting up a virtual machine in Hyper-V Manager in Windows 10. You’d need Windows 10 Pro to do this, however. The leaked build is set up as a virtual hard drive, and not an ISO which according to Albacore, only works with Hyper-V. We’re planning a hands-on look at this leaked build soon, so be sure to stay tuned.

Ever since Microsoft launched its US-based Xbox Gear online storefront back in 2018, international gamers had been clamouring for news concerning a possible expansion to other regions. Shipping to Canada and some European countries was added later in 2018 but there really hadn’t been any major news regarding support for additional regions since.

Imagine my surprise this morning when I saw a tweet from MissDeusGeek, an Xbox Ambassador from Australia, who casually mentioned in a tweet that the Xbox Gear Shop now shipped internationally. Shocked, I asked her how long this had been happening for and she confirmed that international shipping had been supported since late-2020.

New year. New @Xbox Gear Shop t-shirt.

Am I obsessed?! Yes, yes I am ????????

FYI: Xbox Gear Shop ships internationally now ???? pic.twitter.com/GHkymXxBWt

— Dhayana (@MissDeusGeek) January 14, 2021

This was a genuine surprise as there doesn’t seem to have been any kind of official announcement made about this via the main Xbox social media channels or on the Xbox Gear Shop website itself. I did find a tweet by Xbox’s James Monosmith who announced this expansion on his personal Twitter account. This tweet confirms that international shipping was added in November at the same time as the Xbox Gear Shop’s design refresh and the plethora of new merch that was added for the holiday season.

As someone who was looking longingly at several items in the store in December, I do kind of wish they had added some kind of notification to the site saying something along the lines of “Hey, you can actually order this now!”

Regardless, it’s great that Xbox gamers in more regions can finally order products from the Xbox Gear Shop which had some legit high quality clothing and merchandise inspired by the Xbox brand and a number of video game franchises. Tell your friends!

Microsoft has just released the Windows 10 preview build 21292 for Insiders in the Dev channel, which brings various fixes to the new shortcut for news and interests on the taskbar. This feature made its debut with last week’s build 21286, and it remains only available to select Insider in the US, Canada, , Australia, India, and the UK .

This new build also brings improvements to x64 emulation on ARM64 devices, fixing bugs and crashes in apps like Your Phone, Steam, or Serif Affinity Photo. You can find the full list of changes, fixes and known issues in the build 21292 below:

Improvements to news and interests on the taskbar

Thanks for all the feedback on news and interests, which we announced in last week’s blog post. The team has been reading it all! We’re continuing to improve the experience and this week are happy to announce a handful of fixes:

• We fixed multiple issues impacting performance and reliability.
• We fixed an issue where an empty flyout would be shown after opening news and interests.
• We fixed an issue where the text on the taskbar button wasn’t being read by screen readers and some tooltips were missing.
• We fixed an issue where news and interests in the taskbar was not displaying correctly when using small taskbar icons.
• We fixed an issue where the news and interests button would temporarily show no content.
• We fixed an issue where the news and interests flyout would not dismiss by tapping outside the window or again on the taskbar button.
• We fixed an issue where the content of the taskbar button would look blurry.
• We fixed an issue where news and interests would not show fresh content after toggling the background apps setting.
• We fixed an issue where the flyout would not dismiss when you hover off the right edge.
• We fixed an issue where it was not possible to navigate into the flyout using keyboard.
• We fixed an issue where the news and interests taskbar setting would be reset to show icon and text after updating to a new windows version.

Changes and Improvements

• Based on feedback, we’re updating Settings > System > Sounds to now display a message when microphone permissions have been turned off for the whole system or for all apps, with a link to the microphone privacy settings page.

Fixes

• We’re continuing to work on improving x64 emulation on ARM64 thanks to your feedback. This build fixes issues in several apps, including crashes in Zwift, Serif Affinity Photo, and Your Phone as well as blank pages in Steam.
• We fixed an issue resulting in an increase in Insiders seeing a message saying “Critical Error: Your Start menu isn’t work” in recent builds.
• We fixed an issue from the last two builds where explorer.exe / the Windows shell was hanging and or crashing, particularly after interacting with audio/video.
• We fixed an issue where NTFS was logging false positive torn write events.
• We fixed an issue resulting in Microsoft Teams and certain other apps unexpectedly displaying as just “Program” (instead of the app name) in Task Manager’s Startup tab.
• We fixed an issue where it wasn’t possible to sort processes in Task Manager by Status.
• We fixed an issue that could result in not seeing notifications following WIN + Shift + S shortly after clean installing or resetting your PC.
• We fixed an issue from the previous build where when Xbox Game Bar was launched from Start or via the Windows key + G when using a text editor, the computer might appear unresponsive.
• We fixed an issue where when using Windows with scaling greater than 100% in recent builds, if you opened and closed Task View, open windows would appear unexpectedly large in the transition back to the desktop.
• We fixed an issue where typing “-“ on a number pad when using the Japanese IME wasn’t taking into consideration whether the IME was in full width or half width mode.
• We fixed an issue where Hanja word conversion with the Korean IME wasn’t working in Excel when the Korean Language pack for Office was installed.

Known issues

• We’re working on a fix for an issue Insiders have reported where certain games like State of Decay 2, or Assassin’s Creed, may hang or crash when launching.
• We’re investigating an issue where Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War may not launch starting with this build. If you play these games, you may wish to pause updates until the issue is resolved.
• You may experience some rendering / graphic issues after resizing certain app windows. If you minimize all your app windows and open them again it should resolve the issue (Press the Windows key plus D twice).
• We’re investigating an issue where some 32-bit systems may lose network connection after taking this build. If you are running a 32-bit version of Windows, you may wish to pause updates until the issue is resolved.
• Miracast users may experience very low frame rates in this build.
• We’re looking into reports of the update process hanging for extended periods of time when attempting to install a new build.
• Aero Shake is disabled in this build. To enable it, you will need to go here in Registry Editor and create a new DWORD entry named DisallowShaking with a value of 0:
  • HKCUSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerAdvanced
• Live previews for pinned sites aren’t enabled for all Insiders yet, so you may see a grey window when hovering over the thumbnail in the taskbar. We’re continuing to work on polishing this experience.
• We’re working on enabling the new taskbar experience for existing pinned sites. In the meantime, you can unpin the site from the taskbar, remove it from the edge://apps page, and then re-pin the site.
• [News and interests] Upgrading to this build will cause your news and interests taskbar setting to be reset to “Show icon and text”. This is fixed going forward.
• [News and interests] Sometimes the news and interests flyout cannot be dismissed with pen.
• [News and interests] News and interests uses more taskbar space on the left than expected.
• [News and interests] The taskbar button can show stale information each time the user signs into their Windows session.
• [News and interests] The news and interests flyout shows content in a single column before quickly switching to double column.
• [News and interests] Text in taskbar button can look pixelated in high resolution screens.
• [News and interests] The taskbar context menu and news and interests overlap.
• [News and interests] In certain circumstances, news and interests uses 100% of CPU when first launched.
• [News and interests] Attempting to share content dismisses the flyout.
• [ARM64] Insiders who installed the preview version of the Qualcomm Adreno graphics driver on the Surface Pro X may experience reduced brightness of the display. This will be addressed in a future update.

In today’s blog post, the Windows Insider team shared more details about how to get started with news and interests in the taskbar, explaining how to get quick access to the latest headlines and weather, real-time traffic conditions, and more. “We’re continuing to improve the experience,” the team said today, and we’re hoping to see the experience coming to more markets in the next couple of weeks.

Microsoft Teams is now testing a new feature that will make virtual communication more engaging and impactful than ever before. This week, Linus Cansby, a Microsoft MVP, spotted that the company has rolled out the PowerPoint Presenter View for Teams meetings in preview.

For those unfamiliar, Microsoft Teams already supports a built-in presentation mode but with certain limitations. Currently, presenters can’t enable the PowerPoint View to change the way slides are presented to other participants in a meeting. It makes it impossible for them to see their notes and move between slides out of order, but this should change soon.

With the new addition, presenters will be able to view the current slide, the slide notes, and a thumbnail strip of all the slides during ongoing meetings. For starters, this should enable them to discuss the meeting notes as needed and move back and forth between slides to provide a quick recap. This change will help presenters to keep their meetings on track.

To get started, you need to opt into the public preview program for Microsoft Teams. To use this feature, users need to click the Share icon available besides the Leave button in the meeting window. Then select a recent PowerPoint file from the Teams Share Tray or browse for a local/OneDrive file to automatically open the Presenter View.

It is important to note that only the presenter needs to enable the new meeting experience in the Teams desktop app Settings to use Presenter View, and it only works in multi-window meetings. While the new functionality is currently available in public preview, it will start rolling out to the general public later this month.

Towards the end of last year, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 was updated to make it compatible with the most popular VR headsets. Oculus, Valve, HTC, and even Windows Mixed Reality headsets all now allow you to experience the simulator from an entirely new perspective.

I recently got my hands on a Samsung Odyssey HMD+ Windows Mixed Reality headset so I could try out the experience, and it was truly breathtaking. I took the skies over my hometown of New York City and playing Flight Simulator 2020 in Virtual Reality really felt like piloting an actual airplane.

But just my words won’t do justice as to how real it felt. Watch the video above to see for a hands-on look at the experience, and why it’s so real that you might need a pilot’s license.

Editor’s Note: You might notice a “black bar” effect and some slight lag as I turn my head in certain parts of this video. This black bar isn’t noticeable to me when I had the headset on, it’s just the hardware limit, and the effect of recording the preview of the Windows Mixed Reality feed in the background for this video so you can get the same view that I have through the headset.

The Specs

Before getting into anything, I’ll mention the minimum specs for VR in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020. You’ll need to have a PC with at least an Nvidia GTX 1080 or equivalent, 16GB of RAM, 150 GB of free space on an SSD or HDD, as well as Direct X11 installed.

I played on my HP Envy 15, which I previously reviewed. I’m able to get *decent* framerates at 30-40 frames per second on high settings, and beyond that on medium, but your experience might depend on your hardware.

My specs include the following — Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 Max-Q GPU with 6GB GDDR6 VRAM. 16GB DDR4-2933 SDRAM. and the 6-core Intel Core i7-10750H processor. If you’re hoping to run Flight Sim in Virtual Reality, I suggest you open and run the Windows Mixed Reality Portal to see if your PC is compatible. It will give you a checklist of things, and suggestions on how to improve your PC for maximum VR compatibility. You also can check out the Flight Simulator forums, where people are posting about their setups and what’s working and what’s not.

The initial setup

Launching Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 in virtual reality is a multi-step process. First, I needed to set up my headset through the Windows Mixed Reality portal. From there, once everything is set up, I took my headset off and booted up Microsoft Flight Simulator on my desktop. With the game fully loaded at the menu, I needed to press CTRL+TAB to toggle the simulator into VR mode. This caused my headset to “reboot” and open Flight Sim as an application.

When this happens, I put the headset on, and see the menus in a virtual space. It’s suggested to press the spacebar key on the keyboard to center the headset and the images for the best possible experience. Once in VR, I also suggest pausing the simulator, heading into the graphics settings menu, and going to VR graphics options, and tweaking the settings for your graphics card and your PC. Don’t overload the settings if you know your PC can’t handle VR that well.

Note that Windows Mixed Reality controllers currently aren’t supported by Simulator 2020. I needed to connect my Xbox controller to my PC via Bluetooth and use it for navigation, as well as controlling the airplane. You can also use a flight stick, too, if you have one.

The pre-flight-checks and initial experience

The first time I booted into Flight Simulator in Virtual Reality, my mind was instantly blown away. I felt like I was standing on the runway next to an actual airplane. The Robin Cap10 I was sitting in front of me before my eyes on one of the shorter runways at JFK International Airport. I moved my head left and right, and it was like I was standing on the tarmac next to the airplane getting ready to board it.

But that was just the start. Right away, I switched views to the cockpit mode. I moved my head forward, and back, the simulator moved with me in the game. It knew I was looking closer at the dashboard and it zoomed in for me. I was able to perform pre-flight checks, move forward to check all my gauges, look outside the window at the wings, and even turn my head back and check out the tail of the airplane. The tracking in Windows Mixed Reality headsets is spot-on, despite only using sensors built-in on the headset itself.

As a side note, I want to mention that you can use a keyboard and mouse to touch these gauges and tweak certain settings if need be, too. It would have been great to see support for the WMR controllers, but I can see the technical issues of making that happen.

Anyway, it’s not like the gauges were blurry. The closer I moved my head to the dashboard of the airplane, the more real the gauges looked. I was able to spot the carbon emissions sticker, check the mileage on the airplane, check the buttons, look at the frequency on the radio, and explore the cockpit in all its glory.

The takeoff and flying experience

I thought that seeing the gauges and looking at the airplane on the ground was amazing, but as soon as I started my takeoff roll down the runway at JFK, it got even better. Thanks to spatial audio and the built-in speakers in the Samsung HMD Odyssey + my ears were blessed with the greatness of aviation that is usually only reserved for real pilots.

I heard the tires screeching as they lifted off the runway. I heard the gears in the engine start to turn up as I pumped up the throttle, and I even heard and saw tiny dirt particles hit the windshield as I started climbing. It’s truly a breathtaking experience.

What was even more breathtaking was turning my head and looking out the window. As I slowly pulled back on the analog stick to gain altitude, I felt the sense of speed as the airport was getting smaller under me. I even could see a departing airplane taxi on the runway, too. Even the radio on the dashboard reflected my change in altitudes, and the switch in radio frequencies as my flight got handed off from Kennedy Ground to Kennedy Departure. It doesn’t get more real than this!

The exterior views, and the flight

Just like the main game, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 in VR isn’t just limited to the cockpit view. Once in flight, I switched to the exterior view as I approached some of the tourist sites in New York City after I departed JFK Airport. This experience itself is also something that’s quite unique, too.

In the exterior view, you’ll be placed behind your plane in the flight, and are free to look around by turning your head. You can get a “birds-eye view” of anywhere you’re flying, and look down on the world as if you were in a glass helicopter. I did this when I was playing over New York City’s Central Park, the trees and the water looked so realistic. Even looking down at the West Side and East Side of Manhattan looked real, especially when approaching the MetLife building. It’s like I was a bird flying over my own city. I could make made out the smallest of details.

A great simulator, that shows Windows Mixed Reality at its best

After spending more than a week doing virtual flights in Microsoft Flight Simulator, I must say that this should be the new hallmark game for virtual reality. The way Flight Sim pulls from Bing Maps and the high level of details in the airplanes and environments and the head tracking make for a truly realistic experience. I’ve tried other titles such as Project Cars 2, and Starwars Squadrons, but flight Simulator has the perfect combination of everything to equate for realism.

If your laptop or desktop is capable, I highly suggest you download the game, invest in a Windows Mixed Reality headset or other VR headset, and give the game a go. You won’t regret it, and you won’t need a pilot’s license.

The Windows Insider team came back from the holidays last week with the first Windows 10 Insider build of 2021, which brought an interesting addition to the OS. Select Insiders in the Dev Channel can now see a new shortcut for news and interests the Windows 10 Taskbar, right next to the system tray. It had been a while since we last saw a significant new feature make its way to the Dev channel, but the Windows Insider team could have a lot more to share with Insiders.

Indeed, it has been previously reported that a big Windows 10 redesign codenamed “Sun Valley” could be planned for the Windows 10 21H2 update coming in the second half of 2021. Microsoft’s Panos Panay himself announced last year that the company was “going to accelerate innovation in Windows 10”, and a recent Microsoft job listing teased “a sweeping visual rejuvenation of Windows experiences.”

While Microsoft has yet to discuss these design updates in more detail, Zac Bowden from Windows Central shared today a couple of mockups showing new features and UI changes that could be part of this “Sun Valley” redesign effort. The first mockup below represents a rounded Start Menu that would appear as a floating windows above the taskbar.

The second mockup shared by Windows Central represents improvements to the Snap assist view, with Microsoft Edge tabs being separated from app windows. “I’m also told that snap assist will be getting an update to make it more reliable when docking to and from a larger display, now remembering which apps are snapped where instead of forgetting once you connect or disconnect,” Bowden explained.

Bowden also mentioned several other new features and improvements that Microsoft could be planning to deliver as part of the “Sun Valley” update, including a simplified Taskbar inspired by the one on Windows 10X, as well as a new battery usage chart in the Settings app. The Task view area could also welcome a new “dashboard” feature highlighting key information on personal or work/school Microsoft accounts, including recent Office documents and upcoming calendar events.

It remains to be seen if any of the new features described in the report will soon be available for Insider testing. Again, Microsoft has yet to officially discuss this Sun Valley update, and the Windows Insider team keeps saying that new Insider builds and their new features are not tied to a specific release.

Still, the upcoming release of Windows 10X on Chromebook-like devices should be the start of a new era of Windows 10 design. It’s going to be interesting to see if Chief Design Officer Panos Panay will be able to leave his mark on Microsoft’s operating systems, and we hope that the company will implement consistent design guidelines across Windows 10X and the regular Windows 10.

Seems no better way to sell you cloud services and products than to use them yourself. Mary Jo Foley over a ZDNet is reporting Microsoft’s chief technology of Azure Mark Russinovich recently spoke about how the company has followed through on its decade long journey to host its own cloud services on its Azure cloud platform.

“Most of Microsoft 365 services, including Teams, SharePoint Online and Office online, as well as Xbox Live services run primarily on Azure infrastructure today. Mailbox storage for Exchange Online and Outlook.com is also in the process of moving to standard Azure infrastructure.”

Russinovich’s statement comes after some digging on Foley’s part to clarify what of Microsoft’s services were precisely running on Azure after a handful of Microsoft ran blogs claimed “all” of its services were running on the cloud platform back in the summer of 2020.

Aside from invoking confidence in its own product, Microsoft’s move to standardize its Office 365, Xbox Live, and Bing Services onto Azure also serves as both a cost-cutting measure and a way to closely monitor outages, inconsistencies, standards compliance, and bugs.

With that being said, there are still significant outliers that Microsoft needs to migrate over to Azure that include Exchange Online and SharePoint which currently run-on Autopilot.  Much of the day-to-day management of these holdouts can be done via virtual machines or other custom instances of Azure, but the underlying databases and mailboxes servers still need to be ported over.

In the grander picture, however, Microsoft is closer than it’s been in almost ten years to actualizing one of its broader sweeping goals, and the feat is impressive, to say the least. Now we’ll just have to check in on CEO Satya Nadella’s goal of having people “love Windows” is going.

Microsoft corporate vice president of Commercial Management Experiences, Brad Anderson, is leaving the company after 18 years. As noted in a post on ZDNet, Anderson will join Qualtrics as President of Products & Services. Anderson posted about his decision to leave Microsoft in a post on LinkedIn.

“My new role, as President of Products & Services at Qualtrics brings an opportunity to dig in, learn more & contribute to the category of Experience Management (XM) that Qualtrics is defining and building. It also presents an opportunity to return to my hometown in Utah & help accelerate the growth of the tech sector of Silicon Slopes in addition to Seattle.”

Qualtrics shares two co-headquarters, one in Seattle, Washington and another in Provo, Utah, where Anderson will be moving to join Qualtrics. Harv Bhela, corporate vice president of Microsoft 365 Security and Compliance is rumored to take Anderson’s place. Bhela is another Microsoft veteran, with over 24 years at the company. Anderson will join another former Microsoft employee already working at Qualtrics; Julie Larson-Green left Microsoft in 2017 and now serves as the chief experience officer at Qualtrics. Qualtrics chief executive officer Zig Serafin is another former Microsoft employee.

Microsoft Planner users can now try out a new Smart Backgrounds feature that brings the ability to personalize Planner boards. The company has announced that the feature is currently rolling out to all users in the Planner web experience, allowing users to add custom background images to their plans.

“Smart backgrounds is powered by the same Designer feature that suggests creatively designed templates in PowerPoint. Designer works in the background, trying to match the title of your plan with relevant and unique high-quality background images, like a coffee scene for your Coffee Store plan, a business backdrop for your Online Marketing plan, or a city skyline for your Town Hall Meeting plan,” the company explained.

To try smart backgrounds, you’ll need to click the ellipsis (…) menu and head to “Plan settings.” In Planner settings, select the General tab and choose one of the backgrounds available in the recommendation list. Currently, users can not upload their own images, but we hope that the company will add this capability soon.

Furthermore, the company has also introduced a new Settings UI for Microsoft Planner. The revamped Settings menu is now divided into three different groups, including General, Group, and Notifications. The change makes it easier for users will now be able to find relevant settings. Have you spotted this feature on your PCs? Sound off in the comments down below.

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is the latest EA and Respawn Entertainment game title optimized for Microsoft’s new Xbox Series X|S consoles. This optimization update improves Xbox’s Backward Compatibility, increased framerate, and improved dynamic resolution range. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order launched back in November 15, 2019 on Xbox One and other console platforms. Both the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S get a better framerate of 60 FPS (up from 45 FPS). However, the Xbox Series S only gets the framerate boost. The Xbox Series X benefits the most from the Jedi Fallen order game optimization update as seen below.

Xbox Series X Performance mode

Framerate has been increased to 60 FPS
Dynamic resolution added in the range of 1080p to 1440p

Xbox Series X Normal mode (non-performance mode)

Postprocessing has been increased to 4K
Dynamic resolution in the range of 1512p to 2160p

The EA Play library is currently available free as part of an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription, and provides access to over 80 EA games including FIFA 20, Titanfall 2, and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, as well as some of EA’s most popular franchises including Battlefield, Mass Effect, and more. Xbox Game Pass Ultimate is a great value for just $14.99/month, and new subscribers can still get their first month of subscription for just $1.

Download
QR-Code

Xbox Game Pass Ultimate

Developer:
Microsoft Corporation

Price:
$1.00

Microsoft is adding a new “Meeting recap” feature to its Teams collaboration platform later this month, according to the Microsoft 365 Admin Center. Indeed, the feature is currently set to begin rolling out by the end of January and will be available to all Microsoft Teams users in mid-February.

Originally announced in September 2020, this new meeting experience will allow participants or people unable to attend the meeting to access meeting content after it has ended. Microsoft Teams will automatically share the meeting recording, transcript, chat, shared files, and more in the meeting’s details tab.

The recap feature could prove extremely useful for Teams users in learning scenarios, making it easier to find everything they need to catch up instead of contacting the organizer of the meeting. The recaps will be accessible for users in Microsoft Teams and from the meeting event in their Outlook calendar.

In addition to this, Microsoft has also confirmed another important update that is in development for Teams. The company is introducing a new Teams meeting lobby setting to enable meeting organizers to ensure that only Calendar meeting invited users will be allowed to bypass the lobby after a new meeting is scheduled.

The Microsoft 365 roadmap listing for the feature indicates that it’s currently in development and is scheduled to release in February. At launch, the feature will be available for both Production and GCC environments. This is a minor update, but it should help Teams meeting organizers to have greater control over their meetings.