Arguably the company that started the VR market, Oculus now faces increased competition. The HTC Vive is its closest competitor, but Microsoft’s Windows Mixed Reality platform has opened the VR area up. Numerous OEMs have backed Windows with their own HMDs. Elsewhere, Sony has been eating up sales with its PlayStation VR. In other words, a new Oculus Rift is probably overdue. Either way, the Oculus Rift S makes several changes to the previous model, including a resolution increase from 1080 x 1200 to 1280 x 1440 for each eye....

A VICE report previously revealed that human contractors listen in on private Skype conversations. While Microsoft’s privacy policy admitted conversations were analyzed at the time, many were unaware this was by a human contractor. At the time, the company said it requires non-disclosure agreements with vendors and employees and ensures that vendors meet high privacy standards. However, while user account information is removed from the samples, the audio itself can naturally contain identifiers....

Underwater environments present various challenges for image processing. Water is a constantly moving property that reduces visibility and reduces contrast. Processing digital images is problematic, but the researchers believe they have solved some issues. Through a new algorithm, the team was able to record photos with improved contrast and resolution. Noise was something the researchers had to overcome, particularly small pieces of debris that often float in underwater environments. Artificial lighting results in uneven contrasts, while underwater photographers also face problems such as color distortion, diffractions, and light attenuation....

Microsoft has been testing Skype Preview for around a year. The app is built off the company’s Universal Windows Platform (UWP) idea. This allows the same app to be synced and functional across all Windows 10 devices. We know the app was only in preview and would be fully released eventually. It debuted as Skype Preview last August when Microsoft rolled out the Windows 10 Anniversary Update. Since then, the company has continued to update the service....

This trimmed-down version or the main client is designed to burn through less mobile data, work better on slow connections, and take up less system space. It should be particularly useful in developing countries, but should also help any who don’t have a generous data cap. The app cuts a few features from its bigger counterpart. Users will notice that the Library has been replaced by a favorites icon, though user’s playlists still show up here....

It will be joined by hand-tracking features, as well as voice and facial recognition. The technology should allow for foveated rendering, a technique that increases the fidelity of graphics where the user is looking. In turn, this should allow for performance increases without a degraded user experience. “By collaborating with Samsung Electronics, our technology was internationally recognized at MWCS 2017, enabling us to secure a bridgehead for future global marketing efforts,” said Visual Camp CEO Suk Yunchan in a press release....

Customers can now order the Surface Pro 6 and Surface Laptop 2. Microsoft has debuted its new hardware in ten countries. You can buy the devices if you live in: in Australia, Austria, Canada, China, Germany, Ireland, Japan, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and United States. Neither the Surface Pro 6 or Surface Laptop 2 change much in terms of design, although both are now available in black. Instead, Microsoft has updated what’s happening with these products on the inside....

This system is known as The Music Genome Project, a project dedicated to bringing a personalized listening experience to every listener on Pandora. But there are a few ways to use The Music Genome Project to further customize your Pandora experience. Before that, just know that Pandora is only allowed in the United States at the time of writing. Fortunately, users can have Pandora unblocked by using a VPN....

1 Pricing compared – Freemake Video Converter vs. VideoProc 2 Main Feature Differences3 VideoProc Conversion and Editing Features4 VideoProc Video Downloader5 VideoProc Screen Recorder6 Final Verdict There is a freeware edition available which adds a watermark to every converted video which can be pretty annoying. If you consider purchasing the commercial version to get rid of watermarks we strongly suggest giving the Freemake alternative VideoProc a try. It includes most of Freemake Converter´s features plus some extras and also offers a freeware edition which is just limiting output length but not placing any watermarks....

There is no way to make audio and video calls on WhatsApp Desktop. You can probably see where we are going with this, but WhatsApp has announced it is now bringing audio and video call capabilities to its desktop client. It’s worth noting this ability was first announced as “coming soon” two years ago. It’s been a long road, but WABetaInfo says the WhatsApp Calls feature is now coming. According to the report, Voice and Video Calls are in beta....

If exploited, however, it could have proved extremely annoying. By using WhatsApp Web, its WhatsApp Manipulation Tool, and a Python server, Check Point Research was able to crash the app for all participants in a group conversation. Further, it was able to put WhatsApp into a crash loop on those devices via a Null Pointer Exception, modifying a participant’s phone number to a non-supported one. The crash loop can only be resolved if a user clears their app cache or reinstalls, and the chat history must be wiped for the app to resume functioning....

The most significant addition is protection history, which is exactly what it sounds like. Windows Security will give users greater detail about threats and actions, alongside Windows Defender detections. One of the additions in this regard is the ability to see protected folder access blocks. Microsoft is also doing its part to ensure security features aren’t tampered with. Features like Windows Sandbox are a strong addition, but not if attackers can modify or circumvent them....

This week, Unigram receive a sizeable update that made numbers changes to the experience. With this release, the app has moved to Version 4.0. There are several noteworthy additions to the service, including the introduction of Chat Folders. Specifically, users can organize chats into separate folders and create custom folders. Elsewhere, users can now stream audio and video files with Unigram, making the app more useable as a media tool....

Through the Windows Subsystem for Android roadmap on GitHub, Microsoft confirms it is working on WSA running Android 13. Of course, this is the latest edition to Google’s mobile OS and one of the most significant yearly updates to date. Google officially unveiled Android 13 in August and it seems Microsoft has been working on bringing the platform to Windows 11 through WSA. While it is unclear which Android 13 features will make their way to Windows 11, it seems the file transfer tool to move files between the WSA container and Windows will be included....

Thanks to an updated Ink Editor in Windows 10, new pen commands provide more functionality with a pen, such as Microsoft’s own Surface Pen. Among the abilities added to Microsoft Word are word joining, splitting, and editing line breaks. Additionally, it is now possible to add new words with the pen. “If you like the flexibility of editing Word documents using digital pen, we also have some great updates for you....

Well, not least because there is a shred of officiality to add into the mix. Specifically, there is evidence in a recent Windows Gaming package for the Xbox Insider app on Windows 11 and 10. A change to the Xbox Cloud Gaming interface shows iconography for a mouse and keyboard. It is also worth noting the change also shows a new filter for the search tool that allows users to find games that offer mouse and keyboard support....

It builds on a 2015 deal where 51% of ads were through Bing, and 49% through Yahoo’s Gemini platform. Partners of Gemini included competitors like Google, which will no longer have any search inventory. For Microsoft, it’s a big win, but marketers will also benefit. “Marketers will have a single global platform to create search advertising campaigns that reach audiences across the Bing, Yahoo, and AOL networks,” explained Kya Sainsbury-Carter, VP global partner service, advertising sales, Microsoft....

YouTube says the support is currently in an experimental state. However, the company is embracing AV1 early to ensure it is prepared for when web browser add support. That is expected to happen any time between now and 2020. Importantly, AV1 is likely to become a standardized format, so companies are working to embrace it. YouTube is preparing its videos to work with the coding ahead of widespread support. A playlist is available on the YouTube Developers account that showcases the first videos transcoded in AV1....

Using malicious apps that look like legit money-lending services, threat actors have been able to trick potentially thousands of victims. Attackers behind the campaign are using the Flutter framework. MoneyMonger “takes advantage of Flutter’s framework to obfuscate malicious features and complicate the detection of malicious activity by static analysis,” Zimperium points out. “Due to the nature of Flutter, the malicious code and activity now hide behind a framework outside the static analysis capabilities of legacy mobile security products....

Now, Telegram has had two of its apps removed from Apple’s App Store for featuring “inappropriate content”. The company’s CEO, Pavel Durov, took to Twitter to confirm the apps have been removed. The removal came the same day the Telegram X app was launched. This new client gives developers tools to “quickly test new approaches and technologies”, and is built from a new code base. Just hours after the app arrived on the App Store, it was removed, along with the regular Telegram app....