Control Flow Guard is a feature of Windows Defender that was introduced with Windows 8.1 and extended to Windows 10. Importantly, it is not available for Windows 7, hence the performance gap in Chromium. Vivaldi run Chromium unit tests on Windows 7 and found they were running faster than on the much newer Windows 10. After being informed of the problem, Google run its own internal tests. Bruce Dawson, a Google engineer, found that Control Flow Guard is the problem....

Unfortunately, some of these icons are still looking a bit strange on Windows 10 for now. Each sits fairly small in the middle of a blue tile, rather than having a transparent background. This means they aren’t quite as pretty as in Microsoft’s showcase and don’t have the same minimal readability of before. With hope, this will be addressed in future OS updates. Either way, it’s been a long time coming....

I am talking about mandatory periodic password changes, a Windows 10 feature that caused more harm than good. With the introduction of Windows 10 version 1903 (May 2019 Update) next month, the baseline settings will be dropped. “Periodic password expiration is an ancient and obsolete mitigation of very low value, and we don’t believe it’s worthwhile for our baseline to enforce any specific value,” says Aaron Margosis, a Microsoft principal consultant....

Microsoft introduced three new features. The first is the Remote Device Picker, which gives developers the ability to choose a device on cloud or on-premises from a dialogue. With this information, the application can perform tasks such as communicating with the app through a device. By leveraging Project Rome, Windows Community Toolkit can now do the following: “For example, having your app or website (using MS Graph APIs) continue a task to another device or create companion experiences that can communicate with each other across devices, like a remote control....

1 Game Pass and Continued Acquisitions2 Microsoft Success First up on the agenda for Xbox at E3 2019 was “The Outer Worlds, a new sci-fi role-playing game created by Obsidian. The studio, which was recently acquired by Microsoft, say that game is coming to Xbox One, PC, and Xbox Game Pass. Colorful in design, this dystopian adventure was described as “This is Halcyon, the further colony in the galaxy, proudly owned and operated by corporations....

First up is Capcom’s fun Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3, a fighting game that pits the most famed Marvel characters (Spider-man, Wolverine, etc.) with Capcom’s most famed characters (Street Fighter and beyond). This is an all-time classic fighting game that is now available on Xbox Game Pass: “Marvel and Capcom join forces to deliver the most frenetic 3 vs 3 tag battles ever with Ultimate Marvel VS Capcom 3. This release comes fully loaded, including all previous DLC, Marvel VS....

Perhaps the most obvious is a redesign of Edge, updating to a more modern look and improving the control experience. As well as a cleaner look, users will notice improvements to favorites and history. However, the biggest leap is the ability to download and upload pictures, video, and music directly from Edge. This is something that’s been holding it back for some time, and the content can now be viewed via the File Explorer app....

Speaking this week, Microsoft’s head of gaming, Phil Spencer, discussed the company’s overall plans for Xbox Scarlett. While creating a new era of high-resolution gaming that even surpasses the current 4K Xbox One X, Spencer says Microsoft was more focused on creating a smoother gameplay experience. When speaking to Gamespot, Spencer said frame rate is important and smoother gameplay. “I think the area that we really want to focus on next generation is frame rate and playability of the games....

Lockhart is the answer to the PS5 Digital Edition. It too will be an all-digital console at a lower price point than the Xbox Series X. This means Sony and Microsoft will be competing across two console markets. However, one ex-Sony employee says Microsoft’s console is “perfect” for modern gaming. Last week, The Verge’s Tom Warren suggested on Twitter the Xbox Series S will have a lesser-powered GPU and just 1080p resolution....

Chris Grannell is a game designer who has been involved with development on Formula 1 games. He also worked directly with Sony on the PlayStation exclusive Killzone 2. On Twitter, he said Xbox Series X is more powerful than PS5 and suggests it’s not even close. Grannell says he talked to people in the industry and said the difference between the consoles is “staggering”. He points out this does not necessarily mean good games are impossible on PS5....

The functionality lets users piggyback off their phone’s SIM to make calls at their desk. This lets them use their Windows audio devices, including a high-quality microphone, for a better calling experience. Naturally, it also means you can have your hands free while working, not having to awkwardly balance a phone on your shoulder or deal with loudspeaker. The feature has been in Insider testing for some time, so we’ve had some time to get familiar with the tool....

Check out our full report to see which updates are available as out-of-band releases. [17.01.22 – 15:54 CET] Last week we reported on Microsoft’s decision to pull its January 2022 Patch Tuesday updates for Windows Server. Severe bugs caused by those KB releases meant they were unworkable for users. It seems Microsoft’s quickly solved the issues because as of late 14/01/22, the updates are once again available. So, it took the company around one day to fix the issue after pulling the updates on Jan 13....

Microsoft’s internal carbon tax will be increased to $15 per metric to increase the financial incentive of sustainability. The fund is designed to increase the company’s carbon neutrality while ensuring long-term commitments to change. “The magnitude and speed of the world’s environmental changes have made it increasingly clear that we must do more, and today Microsoft is taking steps to do just that,” said Smith. “We’re taking action to put our own house in order, while increasingly addressing sustainability challenges around the globe by engaging our strongest assets as a company — our employees and our technologies....

If need be, students will take the new lockdown easier, and so do teachers and other academic staff. Mobile apps and technologies have made a giant leap in 2020, thus facilitating education at a distance. All you need to prepare yourself for a new remote learning challenge is to know what apps to use. This topic is something that “buy an essay” service is glad to help you with. The writers have made a list of the best ed apps you should download right away in case of another lockdown....

According to AMD, the announcement brings in the next generation of graphics. Company CEO Lisa Su says the new RDNA 3 GPUs in the Radeon RX 7000 series push performance-per-watt and have “a lot of innovation.” AMD describes the RDNA 3 technology as modular, which means the chiplet design and be mixed depending on the requirements. It has a 5nm graphics compute die and a 6nm memory cache die with 96MB of Infinity Cache and a memory subsystem....

Even though the iPhone X was the odd one out next to the iPhone 8 range, it signalled a changing ethos for Apple. The company is reported to be moving fully behind OLED technology with the next range of iPhones. Just what those devices will be remains to be seen. Whether it’s the iPhone 9, iPhone X2, or any other name, all new handsets will get OLED panels. The effect of Apple turning full attention to OLED will be a major decline in the LCD screen market....

This marks a huge step forward for Apple, a company not exactly renowned for embracing open source. Cupertino likes to keep its software under wraps, where it believes it can keep complete control of its output and users. However, Apple has increasingly said in recent years that it is embracing open source. That has not exactly been evidenced so far, but the release of the XNU kernel is a major step forward....

It’s tradition to gather your Secret Santa’s interests though their comment and post history. This year, Gates got his recipient a total of 17 presents, ranging in theme from the Great Gatsby, to Twin Peaks, cats, and camping. The package came stamped with the number 95 all over (her 95th gift exchange) and was so large it didn’t fit in her car. Among the most touching of the presents was a donation to the American Heart Association, which Gates made in memory of her mother....

Visual Search is something we first reported on last year. Back then, Microsoft was still experimenting with the service by integrating Object Detection. Objects of interest are denoted by Bing, which will detect and mark items in an image. Clicking one of these marked hotspots allows Visual Search to automatically select it. Like before, the results will be shown in the Related Products and Related Images sections. The core capability of the feature allows users to use their camera to perform web searches....

At Build 2018, Microsoft announced that Ubuntu will soon be available on those devices. In a session called Windows 10 on ARM for Developers, it demoed the app, which was also available via the store. The functionality will be available on ARM64 PCs but not x86 devices, launching alongside the ARM64 SDK. The SDK is part of the Visual Studio 15.8 preview and lets developers recompile their apps. Its existence was confirmed by Windows general manager Erin Chappie last month, along with the release date....