This year we are seeing a design revolution get underway in the laptop market. OEMs are innovating with dual-screen devices. We have already seen the first exploration of this idea with the Asus ScreenPad, while Dell is working on its dual display Januss concept. Microsoft may not be making the Surface Phone, but laptops will go all-in with dual screens. One obvious design constraint from having a dual-screen is where will the keyboard be?...

However, it’s worth pointing out that the Surface Duo will likely only be the first of a new generation dual-screen hardware. In a new Microsoft Patent, the company showcases the hinge system it plans to use on future Surface devices. Of course, we have already seen the Surface Duo, but what we know of the hardware comes from a prototype. In the patent, Microsoft sheds a bit more light on the finer workings of the hinge....

A new Microsoft patent titled “FORMING TOUCH SENSOR ON FABRIC”, the company describes sensors in Surface hardware that create small fabrics. Touch sensors could be created atop fabric to be used on hardware, including handheld devices, laptops, and wearables. While the exterior would be a fabric covering, the sensor underneath would be fully interactive with the device: “The tactile interface provided by the first and second touch sensors, may be in addition to a tactile interface provided by a touch-sensitive screen incorporated with the display,” Microsoft explains....

The public preview is available for download now. Microsoft says the SQL Server vNext Replication Management Pack is a ground up build. It was created to brings several monitoring capabilities to SQL Serve vNext. Among the pack’s capabilities are performance, configuration, and availability monitoring. Events and performance data can also be collected and analysed. To help customers use the features, Microsoft has provided knowledge base articles. The company says the pack also feature the following abilities beyond monitoring: “this management pack includes dashboards, diagram views, state views, performance views and alert views that enable near real-time diagnostics and remediation of detected issues....

As noted by Microsoft, the following update packages will be available this month: Surface Book Surface UEFI v89.1203.768.0– Improved system stability when resuming operation from sleep or hibernation, and optimized battery use in connected standby. Surface Base Firmware Update v1.2.104.0– Reduced unexpected shutdowns while the device is sleeping. Surface Integration Driver v1.1.291.0– Resolved issues where the touchscreen remains active when the clipboard is closed against the keyboard. Surface Pro 4 Surface UEFI v105....

The new update is available to everyone and it brings a major visual redesign to the application. Users will now be able to find notebooks, sections, and pages in columns on the side of the app. That way, they will be able to browse them easier with screen readers or keyboards. To get your hands on the app or to update your existing OneNote for iOS app, visit the App Store....

As is typical for Microsoft, there was no update rolled out through December because of the holiday season. That means this is the first firmware update since November. Microsoft will now resume monthly firmware releases through the rest of this year. Microsoft has reportedly been dealing with a bug that was difficult to squash. It seems this update resolves that bug and also brings a round of improvements and Google’s Android security patches from both December and January....

At first, Microsoft said Xbox Live Gold subscriptions will increase in price by $1 to $10.99 to customers paying monthly. For those on the three-month renewal plan, the company said the increase would be $5 to $29.99. There were also price increases for the longer six-month plan. Specifically, a six-month subscription would cost $59.99, which is the same as Sony charges for its one-year PlayStation Plus subscription. That would mean Xbox Live Gold would cost the $120 for a full year membership....

First, though, users may notice a considerable redesign. According to MSPowerUser, Skype for Windows 10 now has the Fluent Design features seen in Insider builds. The new look is now available on release preview rings, with some reports of them on production builds. The message list and top menu bar have received a rework, with reveal highlight also present. In general, it looks better than before, though there’s still a bit of work to be done....

Bethesda and other ZeniMax properties will now be under the Microsoft Game Studios umbrella for Xbox and Windows 10. The European Commission was expected to issue approval last Friday (March 5). It seems the EU has granted that approval. While this phase can be a stumbling block, it rarely is. Instead, it’s more of a formality for major acquisitions. In its decision published Monday morning, the European Commission says the merger “does not raise serious doubts as to its compatibility with the common market....

Typing in the Scheduler.microsoft.com URL redirects to the Calendar.help location. To know more about the tool, Microsoft will be holding sessions showcasing the chat bot at Ignite 2019 in November. One of the sessions focused on Scheduler shows that Microsoft sees the bot as a personal assistant. “We’ve been working to create a digital assistant that can help you schedule meetings so there are no more back and forth emails....

So confident is the company, it says conversational speech recognition is now as accurate as professional human transcribers. Microsoft Artificial Intelligence and Research says its system can achieve its accuracy without some human-related benefits such as listening to text several times. Last year and this year, Microsoft tested conversational speech recognition by studying recordings from the Switchboard corpus. This is a collections of around 2,400 telephone conversations carried out by researchers in the 1990s....

This is because Skype no longer supports Windows 10 Mobile/Windows Phone. Yes, the new app is still a Universal Windows Platform (UWP) service, but the framework has changed. Mobile support on Windows has been cut, so along with it an important feature. Users of Skype (UWP) on Windows 10 Mobile could select the app to be their default messaging service. The main benefit of doing this would be to allow Skype to send and receive text messages....

Microsoft describes the Windows Desktop Program as a one-stop portal for desktop applications analytics. The service allows developers to access data through an API. Through the portal, charts and statistics break down app performance and usage. For example, how many customers have viewed the app. Additional abilities include viewable crash and failure data. Additionally, developers can track fixes and even monitor them. Monitoring app distribution is now easier with added app optimization....

The original Windows File Manager is now available as a Universal Windows Platform (UWP) app. Users can try it out now by downloading it from the Microsoft Store here. This is the Windows File Manager that first appeared in Windows 3.0. Microsoft open-sourced the project last year and has now made it widely available. File Manager can be installed on mobile, PC, HoloLens, and Surface Hub. While it is a cross-platform application, the official system requirements are pegged to at least Windows 10 build 16299....

The problem stems from a new file type called “.SettingContent-ms”. Yes, this is a Microsoft file for Windows 10 and comes with a range of privileges. At its core, the file allows shortcuts to be made to the Settings app. Despite its apparent usefulness, SpecterOps security researcher Matt Nelson says the XML file is too widespread and can be exploited. According to Nelson, the SettingsContent-ms file accepts any filepath in deeplink, including Powershell and CMD paths....

The idea here is, the Xbox One X makes in-game environments look so good you may want to buy those games regardless of other elements, such as gameplay. As such, in the locations provided from game, Microsoft buries a link to the Microsoft Store page for the title. So, on its surface Visit Xbox is simply a new campaign that shows some images of in-game worlds and links to the store....

One of those was Windows’ default spell checker, the commit for which was first spotted in early July. It seems the feature is now available in Chrome Canary, albeit via the chrome://flags menu. Currently, Chrome uses Hunspell, the check used by Libre Office, Open Office, and Firefox, as well as software like Photoshop, and macOS. The plan is to let Chrome users on Windows switch to the native spell checker if they wish, increasing consistency....

Those apps can surface the following error: “The EMS System encountered a problem” with “Message: [Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver] Protocol error in TDS Stream” or “Message: [Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver]Unknown token received from SQL Server.” On the Windows Health Dashboard, Microsoft points out the bug is a problem for both client and service versions of Windows starting from Windows 7 and also affecting Windows 8.1, Windows 10, and Windows 11....

Perhaps the biggest new addition to Microsoft Seeing AI is support for the LiDAR sensors on Apple’s new smartphones. This allows users to see unfamiliar locations in a 3D spatial audio map. This essentially means users with visual impairments will hear objects within the room. Elsewhere, Microsoft is also taking advantage of the haptic proximity sensor on the iPhone 12 Pro and Pro Max to use LiDAR to help assess the distance of objects....