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All Windows 10 customers want their data protected. In some instances, the information can be hugely critical, such as authorities passing data, political campaigns, governments, and military organizations. Microsoft Accounts for users running elections campaigns, in political committees, or politician staff can now protect themselves with AccountGuard. This new feature beings added security to Microsoft Accounts across platforms and services. Including more in-depth threat monitoring, AccountGuard regularly monitors accounts for security breaches....

To end NCSAM, Microsoft is announcing a machine learning algorithm that will detect password spray attacks. It is available in Microsoft Azure AD Identity Protection. Importantly, Redmond says the tool provides significantly better results than the previous algorithm. Password spray attacks are a common type of digital attack that rely on fairly primitive methods. A bad actor will use thousand of IP addresses through a botnet with common passwords. This is different to a password attack on a single user where the actor will use many passwords....

“Our grant fund will provide financing, technology, mentorship, networking opportunities and other support to help scale these start-ups’ innovative new technologies, services and business models,” explains Shelley McKinley, head of technology and corporate responsibility at Microsoft. Half of Microsoft’s investments are in its home continent, supporting startups in New York, West Virginia, and California. The rest support companies in Rwanda, Nigeria, Kenya, and Bangladesh. Here’s the full list: “US: CV Wireless (Essex County, New York), Skylark Wireless (Mingo County, West Virginia), Tribal Digital Village (Valley Center, California) and Numbers4Health(Texas, Maine, and Compton, California)....

When Microsoft said it would stop support for new chips on older Windows builds, there was considerable backlash. In reply, the company extended support for a year for Intel’s Skylake, and then came back and said it would extend until 2020. Again, this extension was just for Skylake. Newer processors like Intel’s Kaby Lake and AMD’s Ryzen are not supported. Microsoft is now implementing its changes. Of course, this is not a surprise as the company has been talking about it or a long time....

The move away from the legacy desktop app is because Microsoft will launch Office 2019 this year. Part of the suite’s updates is a new UI design which will extend to OneNote. The company wants all versions of the app to be the same across Windows. That obviously means Microsoft will push its UWP version over the older legacy app. With that in mind, a new version of OneNote is available on the Inside in preview....

Available from today, Bing Maps can now toggle on/off for colored mapping of traffic on maps. As mentioned, this has been available as two separate features in the past. Bing Maps would previously allowed users to follow routes by seeing which areas are most congested (green least, orange middle, red most). This ability is still available, but now users can also select options that overlay color schemes for added information such as time of routes, distance, and mode of transport....

Azure Managed Disks brings an easier way to manage disks. This is achieved via enhanced scalability and allows developers to scale without worrying about storage limitations. For developers, this means Azure CLI works like other cross-platform solutions. Customers can use the Azure Python SDK and the azure-mgmt-compute package 0.33.0 to administer Managed Disks. In its blog post, Microsoft explains that developers have previously needed to use multiple storage accounts to maintain images for VMs....

Azure Container Instances has launched in six regions through in the United States, Southeast Asia, and Europe. Microsoft says users can currently create containers for free, but a pricing structure will start from July 1, 2018. Developers use containers to host applications in virtualization, and Microsoft is already deep in this area with Azure Container Service. The hosting service needs virtual machines to work, but the new Instances solutions does not: Microsoft will continue to supply Azure Container Service as some customers will need it....

In terms of iOS and Android versions of OneDrive, Microsoft has added a new Mobile Capture feature. With this capability, users can add metadata to images they take on their device. Mobile Capture works with normal images, documents, or other scanned items. OneDrive already allows users to take an image directly in the app, so you will not have to leave to use Mobile Capture. Once an image is selected, you can choose which added data to include....

The addition allows customers to debug in Linux and Windows using direct serial-based access. Microsoft says some issues in virtual machines are hard to diagnose and fix. The company already supplies numerous tools for managing and securing VMs, but fixing tools are relatively scarce. For example, Microsoft offers tools like configuration, patching, automation, and scripting tools, but limited diagnostic abilities. Introducing Serial Console access gives users access to Microsoft’s datacenter-grade diagnostic tools to solve problems....

According to Microsoft, Universal Print will become a permanent part of OneDrive. In other words, users of the cloud storage and file sharing platform will be able to tap into the printing tool: “Before Universal Print, an IT admin or device owner had to install a printer on the device so they could use it to print documents. In a large organization where people often have multiple devices and use multiple printers, this experience can range from inconvenient to completely unmanageable....

Under the new policy terms, Bing Ads will also clamp down on ads for weapon accessories, such as attachments and reloading products. Microsoft points out that it already banned advertising weapons and ammunition. The company says the further restrictions have been implemented to bring consistency to Bing policies: “This change will also help reduce confusion about products advertised. Many of the recreational type guns like air rifles look like real guns and consumers may be led to click on offers that are different than their expectations....

Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei was effectively banned from working with U.S. companies earlier this year. Concerns over 5G tech being used to aid the Chinese government led the Department of Commerce (DoC) to place Huawei on its entity list. This means Huawei cannot purchase from U.S. suppliers. Furthermore, the company cannot access services like Android after Google adhered to the list. The situation has harmed Huawei’s chances of growth in several markets....

Default is the important word here. Microsoft will continue to offer 32-bit versions of Office apps, but they won’t be recommended. This makes sense. It has been interesting to see even modern installations of Office install the 32-bit apps by default, with 64-bit as an added option. The company made the announcement at Ignite 2018, where Office 2019 was moved to general availability. Not only will the suite be 64-bit by default, but the cloud service Office 365 will follow suit....

KB4535996 was rolled out last month to solve a long-standing issue with Windows Search. While it did its job, it also caused all-new problems, something that is becoming all too familiar with Windows updates. Users reported the Sign Tool that allows users to sign their credentials on documents was broken. Worse, many complained that the patch prevented them from booting their machines. Complaints range from machines taking a long time to boot up to getting completely stuck in the start cycle....

The popular Netflix Original Series has dropped today (July 4) and it seems Microsoft is involved in a cross-promotion. Stranger Things Season 3 is set in 1985, the same year in which Microsoft’s launched Windows 1.0 for the first time. While the show is streaming from today, we have yet to see if Windows 1.0 features in the season. While it is likely that’s the case, we have to get a bit pedantic....

It seems Microsoft has been working behind the scenes to make Cortana catch up. Still it is another example of the company’s assistant lacking the functionality of Alexa. Perhaps there’s little wonder that Alexa has been making moves on Windows 10 and Xbox, while also integrating with Cortana these days. Jonathan says he recently purchased a new Xbox One and found the new Cortana feature as part of Xbox Skill....

Windows Sets is a tabbing system that will work across Windows 10. Essentially a universal tab ability for applications. It works like tabs on a web browser, allowing users to open a tab in an application by clicking a + symbol in the title bar. A new tab will show recent apps, documents, and a search. According to Tero Alhonen, references for Sets are found in the Windows 10 SDK for version 19577....

Bloomberg reports U.S. President Donald Trump is preparing to become involved in the contract. As we have discussed in the past, some cloud companies are unhappy with the terms of the JEDI contract. Trump’s Involvement It seems some Republican members of Congress agree with Orcale’s stance. They have written to the White House arguing the terms of the JEDI contract have frozen some cloud providers out. Trump is reportedly angered by this development and has ordered the Pentagon to provide him with more information regarding JEDI....

The B-Series VMs have been available in preview since September. Now they are moving to general availability. These are the lowest cost flexible vCPU VMs available, coming in six different sizes. These combustible B-Series virtual machines are ideal for workloads such as smaller databases and web servers. Customers get a consistent baseline CPU performance across a flexible range of sizes and value. “These sizes are available in East US, East US2, West US, Central US, North Central US, South Central US, North Europe, West Europe, Southeast Asia, Japan West, Australia East, Australia South East, Central India, Canada Central, Canada East, West US2, UK South, UK West and Korea Central....