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This behavior appears to originate from the Your Phone Companion app and has been present since April. At that point, Your Phone mirroring was in beta and the future was unclear. Microsoft’s Android companion app initially acted as a hub for all its apps, showing which users had installed. It was previously known as ‘Microsoft Apps’ for this reason. However, the company introduced a degree of cross-platform functionality between Windows and Android with the Windows 10 April 2018 update....

This latest tease was offered by Frank X. Shaw, Corporate Vice President and Corporate Communications for Microsoft. It comes just days after Microsoft hardware chief Panos Panay teased a bumper case for the Surface Duo. Make no mistake, Microsoft higher-ups would not be offering these leaks if the Duo was not imminent. It is also worth noting Shaw’s Twitter image not only showed a Surface Pen, but also the bumper case....

Both iOS and PC versions of Project xCloud will be delivered through Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. Game Pass is Microsoft’s game subscription service. It provides access to a catalog of titles, some that rotate off the service from time to time. Although, all Microsoft Game Studios titles are constants on Game Pass. The Ultimate package of Game Pass is already a solid package, but it looks even better with Project xCloud in tow....

Shortly after announcing Windows 10 S, Microsoft said it would allow users to upgrade to Windows 10 Pro for free. This made sense because it would open the Surface Laptops to business users, as well as education ones. Microsoft said at the time this upgrade offer would be available until the end of this year. After the deadline passes, customers will have to pay $49 to upgrade. However, what about users who may want to revert to Windows 10 S at some point....

As you’d expect, the major announcement is that FSLogix container technology is available at no extra cost to Microsoft 365 business customers. This should significantly improve the performance of ProPlus in virtual environments, including Windows Virtual Desktop on its release later this year. The improvement is available to those on the following plans: Microsoft 365 E3/E5/A3/A5/Student Use Benefits/F1/Business Windows 10 Enterprise E3/E5 Windows 10 Education A3/A5 Windows 10 VDA per user Remote Desktop Services (RDS) Client Access License (CAL) and Subscriber Access License (SAL)...

GW-BASIC was released by Microsoft way back in 1983 for the IBM PC XT. It is based on IBM’s Advanced BASIC/BASICA, which itself was ported from Microsoft’s own BASIC language. Microsoft says GW-BASIC is now available on GitHub. Microsoft says the source code has been written on the assembly language: “These sources, as clearly stated in the repo’s readme, are the 8088 assembly language sources from 10th Feb 1983, and are being open-sourced for historical reference and educational purposes....

While building up any ecosystem, developer participation is vital to growing and expanding platforms. Microsoft arguably knows more about this than most companies. The company is built on services that rely on developer support. By giving independent software vendors a support platform, Microsoft believes it can nurture developers across its services. Those who sign up towards the App Accelerate program get access to several “strategic planning resources”. Developers can see e-books and reports that discuss market trends and connecting with customers....

This year we are seeing a design revolution get underway in the laptop market. OEMs are innovating with dual-screen devices. We have already seen the first exploration of this idea with the Asus ScreenPad, while Dell is working on its dual display Januss concept. Microsoft may not be making the Surface Phone, but laptops will go all-in with dual screens. One obvious design constraint from having a dual-screen is where will the keyboard be?...

However, it’s worth pointing out that the Surface Duo will likely only be the first of a new generation dual-screen hardware. In a new Microsoft Patent, the company showcases the hinge system it plans to use on future Surface devices. Of course, we have already seen the Surface Duo, but what we know of the hardware comes from a prototype. In the patent, Microsoft sheds a bit more light on the finer workings of the hinge....

A new Microsoft patent titled “FORMING TOUCH SENSOR ON FABRIC”, the company describes sensors in Surface hardware that create small fabrics. Touch sensors could be created atop fabric to be used on hardware, including handheld devices, laptops, and wearables. While the exterior would be a fabric covering, the sensor underneath would be fully interactive with the device: “The tactile interface provided by the first and second touch sensors, may be in addition to a tactile interface provided by a touch-sensitive screen incorporated with the display,” Microsoft explains....

The public preview is available for download now. Microsoft says the SQL Server vNext Replication Management Pack is a ground up build. It was created to brings several monitoring capabilities to SQL Serve vNext. Among the pack’s capabilities are performance, configuration, and availability monitoring. Events and performance data can also be collected and analysed. To help customers use the features, Microsoft has provided knowledge base articles. The company says the pack also feature the following abilities beyond monitoring: “this management pack includes dashboards, diagram views, state views, performance views and alert views that enable near real-time diagnostics and remediation of detected issues....

As noted by Microsoft, the following update packages will be available this month: Surface Book Surface UEFI v89.1203.768.0– Improved system stability when resuming operation from sleep or hibernation, and optimized battery use in connected standby. Surface Base Firmware Update v1.2.104.0– Reduced unexpected shutdowns while the device is sleeping. Surface Integration Driver v1.1.291.0– Resolved issues where the touchscreen remains active when the clipboard is closed against the keyboard. Surface Pro 4 Surface UEFI v105....

The new update is available to everyone and it brings a major visual redesign to the application. Users will now be able to find notebooks, sections, and pages in columns on the side of the app. That way, they will be able to browse them easier with screen readers or keyboards. To get your hands on the app or to update your existing OneNote for iOS app, visit the App Store....

As is typical for Microsoft, there was no update rolled out through December because of the holiday season. That means this is the first firmware update since November. Microsoft will now resume monthly firmware releases through the rest of this year. Microsoft has reportedly been dealing with a bug that was difficult to squash. It seems this update resolves that bug and also brings a round of improvements and Google’s Android security patches from both December and January....

At first, Microsoft said Xbox Live Gold subscriptions will increase in price by $1 to $10.99 to customers paying monthly. For those on the three-month renewal plan, the company said the increase would be $5 to $29.99. There were also price increases for the longer six-month plan. Specifically, a six-month subscription would cost $59.99, which is the same as Sony charges for its one-year PlayStation Plus subscription. That would mean Xbox Live Gold would cost the $120 for a full year membership....

First, though, users may notice a considerable redesign. According to MSPowerUser, Skype for Windows 10 now has the Fluent Design features seen in Insider builds. The new look is now available on release preview rings, with some reports of them on production builds. The message list and top menu bar have received a rework, with reveal highlight also present. In general, it looks better than before, though there’s still a bit of work to be done....

Bethesda and other ZeniMax properties will now be under the Microsoft Game Studios umbrella for Xbox and Windows 10. The European Commission was expected to issue approval last Friday (March 5). It seems the EU has granted that approval. While this phase can be a stumbling block, it rarely is. Instead, it’s more of a formality for major acquisitions. In its decision published Monday morning, the European Commission says the merger “does not raise serious doubts as to its compatibility with the common market....

Typing in the Scheduler.microsoft.com URL redirects to the Calendar.help location. To know more about the tool, Microsoft will be holding sessions showcasing the chat bot at Ignite 2019 in November. One of the sessions focused on Scheduler shows that Microsoft sees the bot as a personal assistant. “We’ve been working to create a digital assistant that can help you schedule meetings so there are no more back and forth emails....

So confident is the company, it says conversational speech recognition is now as accurate as professional human transcribers. Microsoft Artificial Intelligence and Research says its system can achieve its accuracy without some human-related benefits such as listening to text several times. Last year and this year, Microsoft tested conversational speech recognition by studying recordings from the Switchboard corpus. This is a collections of around 2,400 telephone conversations carried out by researchers in the 1990s....

This is because Skype no longer supports Windows 10 Mobile/Windows Phone. Yes, the new app is still a Universal Windows Platform (UWP) service, but the framework has changed. Mobile support on Windows has been cut, so along with it an important feature. Users of Skype (UWP) on Windows 10 Mobile could select the app to be their default messaging service. The main benefit of doing this would be to allow Skype to send and receive text messages....