The Surface Pro was launched last month. It is the first device in Microsoft’s Pro hardware range since 2015 and is an updated Surface Pro 4. Packed with updated specs, it is Microsoft’s flagship hybrid portable. Customers can now purchase the Surface Pro in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, the UK and the US....

The new Windows Defender extension can be downloaded from the Chrome Web Store. Microsoft says the extension provides added protection to Chrome against malware and phishing attack while browsing. This is achieved by using the same Windows Defender technology that Microsoft uses in Edge. Once installed, the extension acts as a real-time shield that notifies users when harmful sites arrive on the Chrome browser. Windows Defender Browser Protection consistently updates its list of known harmful websites....

Microsoft has announced the fifth version of its Xiaoice AI it and adds control for Xiaomi’s smart home devices. The two companies have partnered to utilize Xiaomi’s Internet of Things platform. However, this is far from an exclusive agreement. Microsoft is also looking to partner with other companies to provide similar functionality and target more platforms. We can expect to see compatibility with other smart home devices as the bot evolves....

Sure, the movie’s vision of the future was pretty messed up. For a start, we should already be at war with machines, when the reality is we are getting along well. However, The Terminator delivered cool factor in spades, including the thermal HUD. Microsoft is now showing how to create the world as seen through Arnold Schwarzenegger’s T-800 cyborg for HoloLens. The company says aside from being merely an aesthetic addition, the HUD can integrate with Microsoft Cognitive Services....

As Microsoft builds for the removal through 2021, the company says apps that a “available for acquisition” are no longer on the Microsoft Store. As Microsoft shifts its app focus to UWP (Universal Windows Platform) and PWAs (Progressive Web Apps), the company sees little need for pushing education and business users to specific portals. It’s also another sign that developers are mostly uninterested in developing classic apps for Windows 10....

Called “The Power of Teams”, the ad starts with mundane business meeting, including familiar charts, and good old speaker phones. Attendees are using printed paper. However, the ad morphs into Microsoft Teams managing the whole meeting with modern features. It is worth noting the devices being used are Microsoft Surface, so this is a backdoor ad for the product line too. What’s interesting is Microsoft is clearly flexing its muscles against rival Slack....

The Developer Platform launched alongside Microsoft Teams in preview. Since then, Microsoft has announced features such as Tabs, Bots, and Connectors. By using the Microsoft Teams Developer Platform, customers have a number of tools to integrate with Teams. The developer preview is a place to build apps and test them before distributing them in an organization. With the new expansion, Microsoft has added the following new capabilities to the Developer Platform: “Surface bots in team conversations within channels – giving your bot maximum exposure and usage....

Today’s update brings a number of new functionalities to the mobile app that were previously exclusive to other platforms. Users can create new channels, rename group chats, update profile pictures and more. Here’s the full changelog: “Easily add or remove team members Create new channels Rename group chats and add new members to existing chats Update your profile picture Bug fixes and performance improvements.” Trello Integration Despite this, there’s one big feature we’re waiting on from the desktop app....

Starting with Dynamic View, it allows meeting hosts to have better visibility of content shared in a group. The tool automatically adjusts the size of content, such as images and slides during a meeting. In the Microsoft Teams roadmap, Microsoft explains how the tool will help video participants: “Dynamic view automatically optimizes shared content and video participants in Teams meetings. New controls let you personalize the view to suit your preferences and needs, such as the ability to show shared content and specific participants side-by-side....

Through the tie up between Airband and Watch Communications, Microsoft will bring broadband to 4 million additional people. 815,000 of those live in rural locations and would not have fast internet otherwise. Watch Communications will help the initiative by installing connectivity infrastructure to deliver TV white space internet connection. “Public-private partnerships, collaboration and understanding local initiatives are key to enabling connectivity success. Providing rural broadband can be difficult, so working as a team to solve the digital divide requires partners....

“Historically, sites such as example.com that make ‘cross-origin’ requests to other domains such as microsoft.com have generally caused the browser to send microsoft.com’s cookies as part of the request,” said the Microsoft Edge team. “Normally, the user benefits by being able to reuse some state (e.g., login state) across sites no matter from where that request originated. Unfortunately, this can be abused, as in CSRF attacks. Same-site cookies are a valuable addition to the defense in depth against CSRF attacks....

The build was announced by Windows Insider Program head Dona Sarkar. This is a rare preview release that does not come with an extensive changelog of fixes. Also, there are no new features to speak of. Instead, this is clearly a release to fix certain problems and was part of Microsoft’s Patch Tuesday. Sarkar says Windows 10 Mobile users get the following fixes with build 15223: We fixed an issue where only the first VPN profile was being displayed in the VPN settings page via Settings > Network & wireless > VPN....

Microsoft has now confirmed the platform is now available. Users can tap into the project on Microsoft’s GitHub, allowing support and development. While the platform is focused on maintaining user privacy, it also allows researchers to safely tap into insights. Microsoft has not named the platform, which is based on Harvard’s OpenDP. Redmond was eager to confirm the platform is completely open. It has a global royalty-free license from Microsoft, which means anyone from anywhere can use the platform to create datasets....

If you are unfamiliar with Project Alexandria, it is designed to find topics of information and entities that are associated with those topics. It can gather a complete understanding from a set of documents and create a knowledge base for users. It provides the backbone of Microsoft Viva Topics. Viva Topics is part of the overall Viva employee experience, which also includes Viva Connections, Viva Learning, and Viva Insights. It is a component of the platform that automatically takes large content sets and organizes them....

However, new reports suggest that a phone with a Windows Phone-like interface was once planned under the Microsoft brand. Windows Central’s Zac Bowden has managed to get his hands on a previously known feature phone prototype called the RM-1182. Its UI looks a lot like the Lumia interface we’ve become accustomed to. Not the initial variants, but Microsoft’s 2015 Windows Mobile design language. There are live tiles, account integration and more, attached to a traditional alphanumeric keyboard....

Furthermore, Microsoft says a new text-to-speech feature is now also included in the Magnifier. Elsewhere in the accessibility suite, there have been some improvements made to the Narrator. It is worth noting the changes are not available just yet. Microsoft says they are rolling out with the Windows 10 May 2020 Update, which is rolling out to users in stages. Microsoft is essentially extending tools it already offers in the standard mouse cursor to the text cursor, including the ability to adjust size and color....

Imaginatively titled “Chat” by the boffins at Microsoft, the new tool runs on an experimental AI model. It will communicate on top of Bing, in much the same way Google Assistant can on Google Search. Bing Bots themselves are hardly a new concept, using them to help search results since 2017. However, this new Chat AI takes the idea a step further, running on Microsoft Bot Framework to assist users directly during searches....

You may remember Minecraft developer Mojang first announced the Caves and Cliffs Update at Minecon back in 2019. This update would combine two updates into a single release. That has now changed slightly, but it is important to understand how major Minecraft updates work. Mojang typically sends out two major Minecraft updates per year. For example, in 2020 we got the Buzzy Bees Update (actually released Dec. 2019) and the Nether Update during June....

Until now, sharing passwords has been something of a grey area. Netflix has payment plans that allow users to watch on multiple devices. While the company hates password sharing, for years it never really did anything to stop it. While Netflix and other streaming serves look to clamp down on the practice, the UK government’s IPO says password sharing violates copyright laws: “There are a range of provisions in criminal and civil law which may be applicable in the case of password sharing where the intent is to allow a user to access copyright-protected works without payment....

The features aren’t particularly exciting but should improve the quality of life across the board. The accessibility checker is one such change, letting Word, PowerPoint and Excel users quickly determine if a document meets the needs of all employees. Microsoft is also making it easier to find files in these applications. Users can now type keywords in the search box in the back page to find what they need. In Excel, we’re also seeing the rollout of @mentions....