In a Tech Community post to announce the feature, Microsoft says OneDrive Stories will have one core difference from the similar feature on Instagram, Facebook, and other social platforms. While on those social media rival sites the stories can be shared publicly, on OneDrive they will only be private. Users will only be able to share the Stories content with friends and family. Microsoft has a new feature in the works designed for sharing content with friends and family “Photo story brings all your memories into a private, invitation-only feed that you can share with family and friends, and it supports comments, reactions, and notifications to spur authentic interactions through photos that people actually care about,” explains Microsoft....

Users can now head to a new UserVoice sits for Skype. Microsoft says the focus of the site is for users to provide their ideas for the communications service. Whether this advice revolves around how to stabilize the service, how to design it, or what features to include. Last year, Microsoft overhauled the Skype experience with a new update. This was the biggest change to the platform in 10 years....

However, these were very much early drafts of the hardware we will see next year. For instance, no smartphone flagship will find success in 2020 without a stellar camera experience. Microsoft’s Surface Duo prototypes had holes where the cameras will be. It was the same for the Neo. In other words, we don’t know what cameras the pair will have. Microsoft has been quiet on the matter, too. The most we have had from the company is Surface chief Panos Panay promising the Surface Duo will get a “good camera”....

Children with visual impairment face challenges when learning to interact. For example, knowing which direction to move their head when talking. Issues with communication can lead to blind learners becoming isolated from their peer group, leading to frustration. PeopleLens aims to improve communication methods for blind children, but also for people who communicate with blind learners. It is a headset device that uses AI to read aloud to the wearer, using spatialized audio to say the names of known people when the blind person looks at them....

At the time of writing, two ISO download links appeared on the TechBench dump site. ISO files are often the precursor for a wider system launch. In other words, it is now only a matter of time until Microsoft makes download links for Windows 11 22H2 active. When that happens, users who want to update to the new version can do so. Of course, I always recommend holding off on an early install of a major update launch....

The company says supporting the newest innovations in processor technology will allow Project Olympus to manage increasing cloud demand. The project is Microsoft’s own hardware standard. It has been created to help bring down the cost of creating for cloud services, especially on Azure. Microsoft will share its hardware designs as open source, once they are 50% complete. Announced at the Open Compute Project (OCP) annual summit in March, the new hyperscale cloud device design has been partnered with Intel from the start....

Microsoft hasn’t always been concerned about the climate, but that’s changed in recent years. The Redmond giant set its first carbon emission target in 2009 and implemented a global carbon fee in 2012. That fee allowed Microsoft to become carbon neutral, but its emissions are still high. The company has been transitioning to more renewable and energy efficient sources, and its now committed to the next big step. Microsoft plans to reduce its carbon emissions by 75% by 2030, keeping in line with the Paris climate agreement....

On January 2, Microsoft rolled out an Office 2010 update to reflect changes in the Japanese calendar. While the company did not explain, he changes reflect the impending abdication of Emperor Tenno Akihito, who is to step down on April 30, 2019. Japanese calendars work through eras. Akihito’s abdication will end the Heisei era and a new calendar will start. Microsoft’s update to reflect the changes seems to have been broken....

Windows 10 on ARM hardware has been poorly reviewed. These are the laptops running Qualcomm Snapdragon chips that deliver vastly superior battery life. When announced last November, Microsoft debuted Always Connected PC alongside these Windows 10 on ARM solutions. While Windows 10 on ARM is more about Qualcomm integration in laptops, Always Connected PC is something else. At least, that’s what Microsoft is saying now. The company says the feature is not completely tied to the success of Qualcomm ARM processors for Windows 10....

As I have discussed over numerous Insider releases this month, Microsoft is winding down this preview cycle. With the Windows 10 Creators Update officially launching to all users next month, the company is ending its preview for the build That is best evidenced by a complete drying up of new features in recent builds. Sure, a quick look at changelogs (like the one below) shows a list of new additions, but these are not features....

1 Skype for iOS Menu Changes2 Chat and Messaging Changes Microsoft soon acknowledged the issues with its update, and now the fruits of its efforts have come to bear. A new user experience update is rolling for the Skype for iPhone preview, and first impressions are positive. “It was a big change and we received a lot of great feedback from the Skype community,” said support engineer Ellen Kilbourne. “We want you to know we’ve been listening....

In a blog post, Microsoft Research says its divide-and-conquer technique could have wider implications. For example, it could be used to teach AI to do more complex tasks. The research team worked out of Maluuba, a Canadian-based start-up acquired by Microsoft this year. Using an AI called reinforcement learning, the team pitted its system against the Atari 2600 version of Ms. Pac-Man. Not only did the system complete the game, but it achieved the perfect score of 999,990....

In an accompanying blog post, Microsoft describes the heterostructure device as a composition of a ferromagnet, a superconductor, and a semiconductor. These three components where created using an ultra-high-vacuum molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) machine. Microsoft explains a heterostructure is a device created from solid materials: “When the interfaces between the different materials are clean, the device can have properties that would be difficult, if not impossible to obtain in any single material....

Microsoft Research has been working on several solutions to this issue. Haptic Links looked to improve the consistency of controls while adding bimanual haptics. Its bulky CLAW controller let users feel objects in VR. Its latest invention is perhaps the most exciting, giving users the ability to squish objects and manipulate them with fingertips. Named TORC, or Touch Rigid Controller, it consists of a palm-sized block users can apply pressure to....

AccountGuard was a service Microsoft debuted to “monitor accounts of campaigns and other associated organizations related to election processes in democracies around the world, publishing this information should help others be more vigilant and take steps to protect themselves.” Microsoft says AccountGuard was able to detect 2,700 attacks associated with the Phosphorus groups, which is linked to the government of Iran. Attackers targeted 241 accounts linked to the “U.S. presidential campaign, current, and former U....

Summaries of the bug were posted by Cisco Talos and Fortinet, who were given early access to the information and published it after a miscommunication. Attackers can exploit the bug by sending a specially crafted packet to a target SMBv3 server, allowing them to take complete control of vulnerable systems. According to Microsoft, the issue exists int he way SMBv3 handles certain requests and is classed as a buffer overflow....

Whether this means Microsoft will issue cumulative patches twice per month consistently or this is a one off remains to be seen. Either way, at least this month users are being taken care of. As always, these updates to not include any new features or abilities for Windows 10. Instead, their focused on shoring up the platform from problems. There’s a lot to get through, so we will start with the Creators Update....

You could be forgiven for not even knowing what the Global Incident Response and Recovery team is. It is a relatively secretive group known as the GIRR team. Berk Veral, Senior Marketing Communication Manager, Enterprise Cybersecurity Group, admits that the team is mostly unknown amongst consumers. However, GIRR is a vital cog in Microsoft’s enterprise-based security features. Comprised of elite cybersecurity experts, the team handles critical incidents and helps customers navigate them....

Specifically, users of the May 2019 Update and November 2019 Update are facing some critical issues. Users have taken to Microsoft’s official Forums to discuss these problems. The first issue involves desktop files randomly disappearing, while the Start Menu layout and desktop wallpapers are randomly reverting to default. On the forum, the first post describes how the problem is affecting users. “Hello. Sorry to post a random question here, but a bit new at this....

There is a lot to like about the Earbuds, and some things to be wary of, like price and design. However, one of the best features is that the Surface Earbuds works across a variety of voice assistants. Specifically, this means the device will tap into whatever assistant is being used on the connected phone. For example, if you have an Android device and use Google Assistant the buds will leverage it....