“Join us for X018, a global celebration of all things Xbox. X018 is for Xbox fans, where people can watch online for news, first looks, and surprises on the largest live Inside Xbox episode ever.” While E3 and Gamescom are place Microsoft makes big announcements, the company has plenty planned for XO18. Among the topics scheduled for discussion are news on Xbox Game Pass, new Xbox One bundles for the holidays, and information on games coming to the console....

“We can now, with real knives and real guns, PK them again, win again,” he said. “In 2010, when Google withdrew from China, its market share was declining and Baidu’s market share had exceeded 70 percent.” The CEO was speaking in response to reports that state media welcomes Google back as long as it complies with the law. The idea has proven controversial among employees and U.S. senators, who believe Google has a moral imperative to not condone censorship....

On Wednesday, CEO Satya Nadella sent an email to employees addressing the issue and expressing his disgust with the Trump administration’s policies. However, his statement was seen as vague, and the company failed to pull out of its contract. A History of Co-operation However, knowingly providing technology to an organization that has been criticized as inhumane raises different questions altogether. About whether companies will be transparent and open with the employees that create its software, or sell quietly to the highest bidder, no matter the consequences....

As a recap, Microsoft’s study conducted by GigaOm and published in December compared costs of SQL Server databases on Microsoft Azure against AWS competitor EC2. According to the study, Azure was “up to 3.4 times faster and up to 87 percent less expensive” than AWS in that scenario. In a rebuttal published last week, AWS general manager of enterprise and benchmarking Fred Wurden, argued against the study. Wurden claims the study is not valid because “Microsoft and GigaOm use configurations of AWS that generate weaker performance, they have not been transparent on how it was run, and the benchmarks are not reproducible....

It sits below the AMD Radeon PRO w6800 and AMD Radeon PRO W6600. We will cover the differences between those models and compare with a couple of rival GPUs from Nvidia below. Firstly, let’s look at the details of the Radeon PRO W6400. AMD is trying to balance affordability with performance. The company says the W6400 allows professional-grade capabilities without necessarily offering the highest performance metrics. An example is how effectively the GPU manages multiple screens....

In its latest announcement, AMD is showing results for the RX 7900 XTX running on four games: Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2, Cyberpunk 2077, Resident Evil Village, and Watch Dogs: Legion. It seems that the XTX will mostly keep pace with the more powerful Nvidia RTX 4090. The only game where a direct comparison between the rival GPUs is available is Cyberpunk 2077. AMD’s new flagship ends up around 155 slows than Nvidia’s RTX 4090....

“The video game sector is currently manufacturing, or beginning to, a once-in-several-years’ product generation change for the 2020 holiday season,” said Jefferies Group. “If [company] shutdowns exceed a month or so, game schedules will be delayed. New consoles may likewise suffer supply issues from a prolonged disruption, ahead of their Fall 2020 planned launches.” Basically all of the parts for consoles are made in China, meaning factory shutdowns could have a big impact....

According to the company, 200 teams already use Anomaly Detector across Azure and its other products. As its name suggests, the tool makes it easier to detect strange patterns and events in data, identifying problems before they snowball. “Through a single API, developers can easily embed anomaly detection capabilities into their applications to ensure high data accuracy, and automatically surface incidents as soon as they happen,” explained Anand Raman, Microsoft chief of staff, in a blog post....

The process of moving data, apps, and several other aspects of a company’s operations into a cloud computing environment is referred to as “cloud migration.” Migrations to the cloud may take many different forms for an organization. One popular model for cloud migration involves transferring data and applications from an on-premises data center to a cloud platform. However, a cloud migration may also entail moving data and applications across cloud platforms or providers....

However, some have risen concerns, should this become a widespread practice. Environmental building firm SPIE UK believes it could present a problematic attitude towards climate change. At his speech at Future Decoded, Nadella said the project is “sustainable because it uses wind power”. While SPIE UK’s director of energy and engineering believes in the benefits of the idea, he also thinks there are some downsides. “Given huge international concern about the rising temperature of the oceans and the wider implications for the environment, using the ocean as a heat exchange to reduce energy used to cool data centres, could be construed as conflicting with environmental objectives....

Before getting into the details, let’s see how Microsoft sums up Experience Insights for Microsoft 365: “We’ve developed Experience insights to give our customers’ designated IT admins an at-a-glance view of core user experience metrics like product usage, in-product feedback, Net Promoter Score™ (NPS) values, and data on help content viewed across an organization.” Essentially, with the new service customers can get deeper understanding of the user experience through data points across Microsoft 365 apps....

The L.A. Times reports Facebook is allowing advertisers to continue to target users who show an interest in Nazism. Of course, learning and understanding about the atrocities of Nazism should be fundamental history knowledge, but there are an increasingly amount of people who are adopting the feelings of the movement. In the report, the Times says Facebook is letting advertisers target users who are showing interest in Neo-Nazi content: “We started with Skrewdriver, a British band with a song called “White Power” and an album named after a Hitler Youth motto....

Audio and video calling is an integration between Facebook groups and chats on Messenger. Community Chats allow users to contact people who are in a group they have created. Yes, this is a tool that is already on many other social media sites, such as Twitter Spaces. It is also similar to a service such as Discord channels, allowing users to join group chats, call them, send texts, and add more participants....

1 Remove and Reset Your Windows 10 PIN from the Login Screen2 Reset or Change Your Windows 10 PIN from Settings How do Windows 10 PINs work? Windows Hello is Microsoft’s overarching term for its password-less sign-in options, including biometrics, but also the humble PIN. You can have a separate PIN for each device, which in theory makes it better than your Microsoft account password, but also makes it easier to forget....

We have seen Google’s main rivals embrace the idea of software unification. Convergence has certainly been a driving factor behind Microsoft’s Windows 10. One OS is now what the company is pushing for, offering the same experience across mobile, desktop, HoloLens, and Xbox. While Microsoft has arguably been the most successful at this platform synergy, Apple has also been seeking convergence. The company’s iOS and MacOS are getting closer and will continue to do so....

1 How to Mute All Autoplay Videos in Google Chrome2 How to disable Autoplay for Videos with a Special Shortcut3 How to Disable Autoplay with Chrome Extensions As well as removing the stop autoplay videos setting, Google removed the developer flags, meaning many older guides no longer work. Though Chrome still disables some autoplay videos by default, it’s far from all of them and is dependent on its autoplay policies. First, the browser enables autoplay without sound at all times, even if you’re on a metered connection....

Fair enough, you may be thinking. If Google Cloud observes suspicious activity it must act. However, the situation has caused a debate about Google’s customer service infrastructure. An anonymous Google Cloud customer who admins a system that monitors “hundreds of wind turbines and scores of solar plants”. Last Thursday, an email was sent by Google saying all services had been blocked, citing suspicious activity. “All my systems have been turned off,” the admin says....

Google has fallen foul of regulators on the Old Continent and has been found to be using its position as the search market leader to stimmy other rivals. The court says the punishment was given because the company’s “abuse of its dominant position by systematically favoring.” This conclusion wraps an investigation that has lasted seven years. Through that, many companies have complained against Google, while the search company tried to strike a deal with regulators....

But it turns out Glass isn’t entirely dead. Glass Enterprise Edition presents an updated version of Google’s device, not just in hardware, but in its market. It will stay in the world where it’s always been best suited, and it’ll do so with some major improvements. The new Google Glass ups camera megapixels from 5 to 8 and upgrades processing power, battery life, Wi-Fi speeds, and more. It also comes with a recording light to allay those privacy concerns....

There’s a better way, and Google has just implemented it on the Pixel. Instead of just averaging your entire usage, the Pixel will look at your battery life on similar days. During the work week, for example, you probably use your phone a lot less. However, Google also goes further than that, drilling things down to specific timings. For example, if you listen to music on your commute, Google will remember that, and take it into consideration when estimating....