While Microsoft has still not officially discussed the Cloud Download feature, Windows 10 watcher Albacore has provided more information. It seems Microsoft has been working on the feature for some time, or at least had previous plans to develop something similar. According to Albacore, the feature currently downloads a version of Windows 10 Build 14393. That is a Redstone 1 release from way back in August 2016, a build Microsoft no longer supports....

Working at Microsoft has several perks. The company has an employee-centric culture, meaning they constantly aim to offer the best to their team members. This is because the organization knows how important it is for employees to feel valued and how this factor affects their performance. Not so long ago, the company announced new changes that aim to enhance employee relationships and workplace culture. More specifically, they have made shifts to their policies related to non-competition clauses, pay transparency, as well as the implementation of a civil rights audit....

If you are unfamiliar with Presentation Translator, it brings real-time captions to a PowerPoint live presentation. At public launch, the add-in supports Arabic, Chinese (Mandarin), English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish. Users can speak these languages during a presentation and the add-in will translate it into one of more than 60 languages in real time. With the ability, users will be able to overcome language barriers when making a PowerPoint presentation....

Yes, the launch means we are getting two new Surface Pro models in the same year. In January, Microsoft launched the Surface Pro 7 Plus. This was a mid-generation update specifically for business users. Over the years, Microsoft’s Surface devices have taken a design route that relies on incremental updates. While all Surface Pro devices are excellently made, look premium, and feel premium, telling generations apart is not easy. With the Surface Pro 8, Microsoft is promising the biggest design changes since the Surface Pro 3....

Socl (also known as So.cl) never became more than a research project within the walls of Microsoft. It was the company’s response to the rise of social media. While it was clearly a potential rival for Facebook, the look and feel of Socl was closer to the Google Plus network. Trying to mix the sharing focus of Google Plus with social interaction like Facebook, So.cl was made public in 2012....

The announcement was made with the release of Windows 10 Preview Build 19033 on the Inside. As we have seen with recent Windows 10 20H1 updates, the preview did not include any new features. Instead, Microsoft rolled out bug fixes and performance improvements. Typically, Microsoft signs off a Windows update a month before it goes public. For example, Windows 10 1803 (April 2018 Update) made RTM in March (hence the build number)....

Last week, it was Hyrb who leaked the streaming service. Xbox Live users claimed to have seen the executive using the app on the online gaming platform. With the proverbial cat out of the bag, Xbox Live Director of Programming, Hyrb, showed the app without officially announcing it. Each week, Major Nelson hosts this week on Xbox series. The video shows the latest news from Xbox One, including new games and trailers....

This is a substantial update for the Microsoft Teams service on desktop. The company is introducing numerous new features and functionality. Of course, this is all with a view to make Teams as powerful as possible ahead of its global launch. Microsoft knows it faces stiff competition from Slack and Google Hangouts. Meetings – Users will see an improved Meetings experience on Microsoft Teams, thanks to two new additions. Firstly, there is now support for users to conduct one-to-one meetings....

On both platforms, participants can now turn on live captions during a meeting or group call. This should mean they’ll be able to understand participants even if they’re in a noisy environment or have their phone at a low volume. Cellular callers also received some love, with the ability to view shared content when they join a meeting, while PSTN callers on hold will now hear music. You can view the full changelog for iOS below:...

The announcement came in a quiet moment on the last day of Build 2018 during a Cognitive Services Speech SDK session. The idea is to have the common speech API and SDK support all modern programming languages and run on all platforms. It will be positioned under the Microsoft Cognitive Services offering and will be named the Microsoft Speech Service. The API and SDK will provide easier access to speech-to-text, speech translation, speech-to-intent, and custom keyword spotting....

Last November, Microsoft launched the Visual Studio Mobile Center Preview at the Connect conference. The suite comprises a set of cloud services that help to building manage mobile applications. Built for iOS and Android developers, Mobile Center supports numerous languages. Indeed, developers using Swift, Objective-C, Java, Xamarin, and React Native can develop their apps through the Mobile Center. Microsoft is upping he functionality significantly with today’s new features. Among them is Windows support, which allows users to manage developments on the Universal Windows Platform (UWP)....

The AI company brings machine intelligence to enterprises in a strategic and risk mitigated manner. It combines and analyzes data from hundreds of sources to create actionable insights, while simultaneously learning from user input. It’s a dream that began in 2013 in Austin, Texas, and has expanded to envelope various softwares. For the moment, its largest foothold is in the healthcare and finance industries, and that makes USAA’s new investment very strategic....

In other words, Microsoft is still working on the Surface Neo and Surface Duo. Between now and the launch of the hardware in 2020, the company will continue development of features and design. A new Microsoft Patent (discovered by WindowsUnited) points to some potential inclusions for both Surface devices. Published on November 21, the patent shows Microsoft is working on a vapor chamber. This will act a cooling section that will be spread over the hinge mechanism....

For all its customizability, Minecraft has never let the user create their own character. Sure, you can change clothes, but the game has been limited to stock in-game avatars. That is changing thanks to a new Character Creator that is available in the Minecraft beta version. As the name suggests, Character Creator allows gamers to personalize their character: “The Minecraft Character Creator [lets you] personalize your avatar in a number of ways, including body size and shape, limb replacement and tweaking of eyes, mouth, hairstyles, and colors, facial hair and skin tones,” a new post to the Minecraft Feedback blog notes....

Both apps were announced at the Build 2018 conference, which it uses to inform developers of the latest tools. Remote Assist lets users collaborate via the internet with hands-free video calling, AR annotations, image sharing, and more. Microsoft often shows its HoloLens headsets working in tandem with others, and Object Theory’s Prism lets users interact remotely in real-time. Remote Assist seems targetted more towards assistance from someone without a headset in order to guide various tasks....

While Nvidia is best known as maker of graphics cards (GPUs) for high-end gaming performance, Mellanox is an Israel and California-based company specializing in networking and supercomputer chips. The company’s manufacturers Ethernet and InfiniBand solutions for cloud and data centers, and has increasingly moved into powering artificial intelligence (AI). Mellanox says it has developed processors for 250 of the top 500 most powerful supercomputers. “The emergence of AI and data science, as well as billions of simultaneous computer users, is fueling skyrocketing demand on the world’s datacenters,” said Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang in a statement....

Known inventively as ‘Request Files’, it lets anyone with the link upload files, even if they don’t have an account. The uploaders cant view, edit or see other’s files, which makes it perfect if you are looking for multiple submissions. Microsoft gives examples of teachers collecting assignments, managers asking for feedback, or bid collection. This could also be useful for holiday photo albums, but the features appear to be restricted to OneDrive for Business for now....

“We’ve heard loud and clear from you that we needed an option in Power BI Desktop to easily print or email copies of your reports out to others in your company,” said Power BI program manager Amanda Cofsky. “We’ve been working on a solution to this problem for a while now and are glad to share that with this month’s update you can now export all visible report pages to PDF....

The latest information surrounding Microsoft’s device can be filed under dubious but certainly not impossible considering the source. Forbes reports data from market research giant HIS Markit that suggests the folding Surface will allow users to run Android apps as well as Windows 10. While it is surprising Microsoft would embrace Android to this extent, there is some logic behind such a decision. Much of what we know about the folding Surface suggests it will bridge a gap between Smartphones and laptops....

In the case of businesses and educators, the store was designed so that admins could make apps that were available outside of the regular consumer channels. Foley’s sources didn’t give the details on why Microsoft has decided to shutter the project, but it has previously acknowledged that it wasn’t panning out the way they expected. It’s also looking at ways to move UWP and win32 apps closer together and stopped supporting its UWP Office app....