The Microsoft Surface Corporate Vice President Panos Panay has today in a blog post revealed a new Surface tablet, the – Microsoft Surface 3 – . The Surface 3 has a lot of resemblance with the Surface 2 and Surface Pro 3 devices. The natural replacement to the Surface RT tablets as it runs desktop applications with a full 64-bit Windows 8.1 and will be available with Windows Pro for business customers, It also will be upgradable to Windows 10 for free when it’s available.
The Surface 3 powered by Intel’s newest system-on-a-chip, the Quad-core Intel® Atom™ x7 processor is the thinnest at 8.7mm and lightest Surface to be produced so far at 622g (1.37 lbs.). It has a 10.8″ screen but uses the 3:2 aspect ratio form factor as the Surface Pro 3.
Surface 3 spots 3.5MP front and 8 MP rear-facing cameras that both capture 1080p video with a battery of up to 10 hours and features a new Micro USB charger so you can basically use the same connector as most mobile phones, also comes with a 3 stage kickstand.
It includes a one-year subscription to Office 365, Outlook and OneNote and 1 TB of OneDrive storage. And it starts at $499.
The Microsoft Surface 3 is for you if the majority of your work is less intense – working in Office, writing, using the Internet (using IE, Chrome, or Firefox!), and casual games and entertainment, then you’ll find that Surface 3 delivers everything you need but if you do very demanding work – things like editing and rendering video or complex 3D modelling – then the power and performance of a Surface Pro 3 is for you.
Microsoft has released a new build update to users testing out it’s windows 10 OS. The latest build, 10049 of the Windows 10 Technical preview for desktop also for the first time has the much talked about new browser “Project Spartan” integrated. The new windows 10 technical preview build is all about “Spartan” but in the build are some small improvements and fixes from the previous build 10041.
This update is available if you have set your update to fast ring, ISO’s won’t be available till the slow ring updates are available.
Here are some issues fixed in build 10049
The issue from Build 10041 for when the Photos app on your PC crashes when you tap on the circular icon at the top left to view the photo you just took.
Where you might end up in a state where windows open on your desktop are accidentally visible behind the Start Screen, Task View, Snap Assist, and when rearranging windows in Tablet Mode.
You will no longer get stuck when you manually lock your PC (Windows Key + L) during the initial out-of-box experience.
Here are some known issues for build 10049
After logging in, you may see a blue screen instead of your desktop. To work around this issue, lock your PC (with the hardware button or by pressing the Windows Key + L) and try logging in again. You can also try Ctrl + Shift + Esc to open Task Manager.
Indexing of new email in Outlook is not working, so search results will be limited to when the last index was built.
If you have Virtual Machines hosted in Hyper-V on your PC running Windows 10, you will want to move to the Slow ring and wait for the next build as this build breaks the ability to run VMs.
There are 2 issues using Visual Studio 2015 preview on this build:
The emulators will not boot and you won’t be able to deploy a Windows Universal app to the Mobile emulator.
The XAML designer in VS and Blend will crash when opened.
If you are a developer using these tools today to develop Windows Universal apps and need this functionality to work – we recommend switching to the Slow ring until we release a patch to fix these issues.
Can’t wait to see Spartan in action?, get the update and tell us what you think about the new browser.
In designing Windows 10 the Microsoft OS team had making computing very personal for the end user says Corporate Vice President, Operating Systems Group at Microsoft Joe Belfiore and as such are introducing like some of the other already cool features (if you are signed up for the Insiders Program you’ll know this) another cool new “personal computing” feature – Windows Hello and Microsoft Passport -.
Windows Hello is a biometric authentication feature which can provide instant access to your Windows 10 devices. With Windows Hello, you’ll be able to just show your face, or touch your finger to new devices running Windows 10 and be immediately recognized without hassle. And not only is Windows Hello more convenient than typing a password—it’s more secure! Our system enables you to authenticate applications, enterprise content, and even certain online experiences without a password being stored on your device or in a network server at all.
How Windows Hello works?
It uses a system support for biometric authentication using the face, iris or fingerprint with specialized hardware including fingerprint reader, illuminated IR sensor or other biometric sensors. If your device already has a fingerprint reader, you’ll be able to use Windows Hello to unlock that device, A picture of you or someone trying to impersonate you can’t be used to login. The cameras use infrared technology (like that of the Kinect technology) to identify your face or iris and can recognize you in a variety of lighting conditions.
Microsoft Passport is a code name for a programming system that IT managers, software developers and website authors can use to provide a more secure way of letting you sign-in to their sites or apps. Instead of using a shared or shareable secret like a password, Windows 10 helps to securely authenticate to applications, websites and networks on your behalf—without sending up a password. Thus, there is no shared password stored on their servers for a hacker to potentially compromise.
Microsoft passport gives you access to online content and apps without passwords but more securely and will work with your Microsoft account and the Azure active directory and other sites using the azure active directory.
At the renewed Windows Hardware Engineering Community (WinHEC) summit in Shenzhen, China, Terry Myerson, Microsoft executive vice president of the Operating Systems group spoke about Windows 10’s innovation and opportunity to partners.
He shared that Windows 10 will be available this summer in 190 countries and in 111 languages. He also stressed on Microsoft’s commitment to offer a free upgrade to Windows 10 for hundreds of millions of customers running Windows 7, Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1 for the first year after it is released.
Months of testing and running pilot projects in Koforidua using tv white spaces to provide internet service has come to an end and the first commercial internet service network using TV white spaces in Ghana has begun. This makes SpectraLink Wireless the first company outside the United States to operate a commercial Internet service using the TV White Space radio technology.
TV white spaces, are the unused portions of wireless spectrum in the frequency bands generally set aside for television transmissions. Better use of the spectrum is said to lead to cheaper, more ubiquitous and higher-bandwidth wireless broadband connectivity. TV White Space network has the ability to penetrate foliage, hills, and other barriers while covering an area about 10 kilometers in diameter utilizing minimal equipment and infrastructure.
The commercial service builds on the success of the initial TV white spaces pilot launched in May 2014. Spectra Wireless is the first company in Africa to offer a consumer broadband Internet access service leveraging TV white space technology
Spectra Wireless’ new service launched as the “djungle” or “djungleEd” targets African tertiary education. The service has been launched in Koforidua Polytechnic and is packaged to allow students to have their own internet bundles, determine their own usage and purchase an internet-enabled device for anytime, anywhere access and enhanced productivity.
Affordable ubiquitous Internet access for the entire university population (Purchase high speed internet bundles)
Productivity applications from Microsoft such as Office 365, hosted email and cloud storage (Use relevant apps, including Microsoft Office 365 and The Microsoft Virtual Academy)
Affordable devices and attractive zero interest loans for students in partnership with UT Bank (Apply for zero-interest loans in partnership with UT Bank to purchase select, internet-enabled Microsoft, Lenovo, Dell and HP devices)
“High-speed broadband offers students and teachers a way to access learning resources from all over the world, equalizing the divide between developed and developing nations,” says Fernando de Sousa, Microsoft’s Africa Initiatives general manager.
Packages include Learner (1 day unlimited data for 3 GHS), Trainee (1 month X 1/2 X speed unlimited data for 30 GHS) and Professor (1 week X 4 X speed unlimited data for 33.75 GHS). Subscribers can access the network via WiFi, which is deployed across the campus and in their hostels. White Space radios are used to connect to hostels up to five kilometers from the campus, ensuring that all students have equal opportunities in accessing the service.
“We are excited about finally launching this service. Word is spreading fast, and we are already receiving interest from other universities in Ghana, as well as from the Ivory Coast and Nigeria. I personally want to thank our investors, strategic partners and employees who helped make all of this a reality.” – John Sarpong – President & CEO
The Spartan is a single browser designed to work great across the entire Windows 10 device family – from keyboard and mouse on the Windows 10 desktop to touch, gestures, voice, controllers and sensors.
Microsoft’s project Spartan, the brand new browser announced at the Windows 10 briefing will ship with the new operating system when available for consumers.
The brand new browser, codenamed “Project Spartan” is designed for Windows 10. Spartan is said to provide a more interoperable, reliable and discoverable experience with advanced features including the ability to annotate on web pages, a distraction-free reading experience and integration of Cortana for finding and doing things online faster.
The new browser will allow users to easily annotate (- a web page with a stylus and send the notes and annotations to a friend or colleague -), share Web pages, has a great built-in reading experience capability and Cortana integration and is expected to work on Windows Phones, tablets and PCs.
The browser is reported to support Chrome extensions, this would allow Spartan access to a lot of third party applications originally made for Google’s web browser.
About Project Spartan Microsoft says;
Powered by a new rendering engine, Spartan is designed for interoperability with the modern web. We’ve deliberately moved away from the versioned document modes historically used in Internet Explorer, and now use the same markup as other modern browsers. Spartan’s new rendering engine is designed to work with the way the web is written today.
Like Windows 10 itself Spartan will remain up-to-date: as a service, both providing new platform capabilities security and performance improvements, and ensuring web developers a consistent platform across Windows 10 devices. Spartan and the new rendering engine are truly evergreen.
Spartan provides compatibility with the millions of existing enterprise web sites designed for Internet Explorer. To achieve this, Spartan loads the IE11 engine for legacy enterprise web sites when needed, while using the new rendering engine for modern web sites. This approach provides both a strong compatibility guarantee for legacy enterprise web sites and a forward looking interoperable web standards promise.
Spartan is the internal codename that Microsoft is currently using for the project and has not made it clear if that will be the final name of the browser. Windows Central reports possible names being considered include Edge, Entourage, Elixa, Evo.
