Items tagged with Microsoft
We imagine Microsoft's engineers are dealing with sore feet from having to stomp out all the bugs that were discovered in the October 2018 Update for Windows 10, but even so, the company is moving full steam ahead to the next major release. That would be 19H1, as it's currently called, and there's a new build available for Windows Insiders to test. The latest preview build (version 18298) just got released to the Fast ring, which contain releases earlier in the development cycle than more polished builds in the Slow ring. "As is normal with builds early in the development cycle, builds may contain...
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Rumors were circulating last summer that Microsoft was at work on a HoloLens 2 that was supposed to launch in Q1 2019. At the time, that rumor claimed the next HoloLens was supposed to be lighter, more comfortable, and have improved holographic displays. A new rumor circulating now claims that the next-generation device will be powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 850 Mobile Compute Platform. This chipset is not entirely new, and there are devices on the market already that use it including the Lenovo Yoga C630 and the Samsung Galaxy Book 2. Qualcomm was recently in the news for rolling out its Snapdragon...
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Microsoft made somewhat of a surprise announcement last week when it detailed plans to overhaul its struggling (in terms of market share) Edge browser and rebuild it around Chromium (much to Mozilla's dismay), the exact same platform that powers Google's own customized Chrome browser. That's a big change, but will Edge support Chrome's extensive library of extensions? If all goes to plan, the answer is yes. Microsoft is rebuilding its Edge browser around Chromium That wasn't a topic Microsoft chose to address in its blog post announcing the upcoming change to Edge. However, Edge product manager...
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Earlier this week a rumor surfaced that Microsoft was moving its Edge browser from its own custom EdgeHTML rendering engine over to Chromium. Microsoft confirmed that rumor as accurate yesterday despite not giving a firm timeline for when the move would happen. All Microsoft said for a timetable was "in the next year or so" and noted that Edge on Chromium would be updated more frequently and would land for macOS. Naturally, Mozilla isn't happy at all about Microsoft's decision on adopting Chromium. Mozilla says that Microsoft is "officially giving up" on an independent shared platform for the internet....
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Not long ago a rumor was making the rounds that Microsoft's Edge browser was going to move to Chromium as its rendering engine. Microsoft has now confirmed that move to Chromium will be happening. The software giant says that it has increased its participation in the open source software (OSS) community and is one of the largest supporters in the world of OSS projects. Redmond says that the move to Chromium will create better web compatibility for customers and less fragmentation of the web for developers. Microsoft also announced its intention to become a "significant" contributor to the Chromium...
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We're beginning to hear a little bit more about Microsoft's next-generation Xbox gaming hardware. Although we don't have an official name for the console, the device is currently being developed under the codename Scarlett according to various reports. So, what will Scarlett bring to the tablet? Well, according to Microsoft Insider Brad Sams, it will be based on AMD's upcoming 7-nanometer Zen 2 microarchitecture, which should be no surprise. Zen 2 forms the basis of Rome-based EPYC server processors, and will also underpin AMD's third-generation Ryzen 3000 Series mainstream...
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Microsoft would probably like to take a mulligan on the October 2018 Update for Windows 10, which has been plagued by bugs that should have been squashed prior to its eventual roll out in November (it made a brief appearance in October, but Microsoft quickly hit the pause button for several weeks to address a file deletion bug). Instead of a do-over, however, Microsoft has been fixing numerous issues one at a time, post release. Along those lines, the newest patch finally addresses an issue with mapped drives that's been driving some IT professionals bonkers. This specific issue dates back to at...
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Microsoft has just encountered a string of bad luck with Windows 10 updates in recent months. It had to pull its October 2018 Update after it went rogue by deleting users' files. Most recently, a Windows Update borked the Windows Media Player in Windows 10. Now, we're heaving that a rather routine release of cumulative updates resulted in trouble for owners of Microsoft's own Surface Book 2. You wouldn't expect for a cumulative update (KB4467682) for Windows 10 version 1803 (April 2018 Update) to have harmful effects on a machine, but in the case of some Surface...
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Apple really annoyed the snot out of people around this time last year with its condescending and downright annoying commercial for the iPad. In it, a young girl can be seen going about her day working on her iPad performing varying tasks. Towards the end, she's laying on the grass outside her house typing away with the iPad's keyboard accessory when a woman asks, "What are you doing on your computer?" The girl responds by saying, "What's a computer?" The ad was so controversial and so hated that Apple removed it, and it sparked a entire wave of memes mocking the company (and unfortunately,...
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There once was a time when the Microsoft Internet Explorer web browser was the most popular browser in all the land, but that time has passed. People tend to rely on browsers like Chrome, Firefox, and others over Microsoft's offerings these days. In 2015 with the launch of Windows 10, Microsoft hoped to change that with Edge built using a new at the time rendering engine called EdgeHTML. The problem for Microsoft is that Edge launched festooned with issues that turned web surfers off to the browser early on and it never recovered. A new rumor is going around claims that Microsoft is working on...
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If you missed out on the Black Friday deals that were out there for Xbox One consoles last month, you have another chance to get a good discount for the holidays. Microsoft has deals on Xbox One bundles that started over the weekend offering $50 off the regular price. The bundle prices are good at all participating retailers. The discounted bundles include $50 off the Xbox One S Fortnite bundle that consists of the game, the Eon cosmetic set and 2,000 V-bucks for buying items in the game. If Fortnite isn't what you are after, another bundle includes Xbox One S Battlefield V with the same discount....
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Slowly but surely, Windows 10 is getting a fresh coat of paint, one piece at a time. These changes to the look and feel of Windows is what's known as Microsoft's Fluent Design language (previously called Project Neon), a long-term project to alter the way certain parts of Windows 10 look and how users interact with the OS. The latest test build available to Windows Insiders highlights more of these design elements that are bound for the next major update to Windows 10. Preview build 18290 in the Windows Insider program is an early look at Redstone 6 (the October 2018 Update is Redstone 5), which...
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We realize we're beginning to sound like a broken record, but Microsoft’s Windows 10 October 2018 Update has been beyond disastrous. There have been numerous issues with Microsoft's second major update for Windows 10 this year, with the first one resulting in the October 2018 Update being pulled (and later reinstated in November). Now we're learning of yet another issue plaguing the Windows 10 October 2018 Update. In this case, it's a cumulative update (KB4467708) that is causing problems with the already troublesome Windows Update (also known as Version 1809). The...
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At this point, a case could be made for Microsoft slowing down its aggressive bi-annual upgrade approach to Windows 10, which consists of two major updates to the OS every year. The latest one, the October 2018 Update, has been plagued with issues. And once again, Microsoft is blocking the update on some Intel PCs, this time to deal with a display driver issue. Despite extensive testing in the Windows Insider program, there have been numerous bugs disrupting what otherwise would have been a smooth rollout. Instead of taking additional time to squash them all, Microsoft is blocking the update to...
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