Build 10080 of the Windows 10 Technical Preview for phones now available

Build 10080 of the Windows 10 Technical Preview for phones now available

windows 10 phones

 

Microsoft has released Build 10080 to windows phone users who have signed up for the Fast ring of Windows 10 Technical Preview insiders for phones. Users of devices such as Lumia 930, Icon and 640XL who felt left out of the party can now join in. Also the HTC One(M8) device have the clear to install the preview.

A list of the new features included in this build are;

New universal Windows Store Beta for phones
Universal Office apps
The Xbox app for Windows 10
Music Preview app
Video Preview app
New Camera app ( Note that high-end Lumia devices (1520, 1020, 930, 830, 640, and 640XL) have some features not supported by the new Camera app. For these devices, the new app will work but to get the full functionality from your device you will need to use the Lumia Camera app. In coming weeks we’ll have updated versions of Camera apps with the super set of all features. Here are a few things to try: try out HDR (click the magic wand button), video stabilization for video and look for faces getting recognized (not identified) in the camera preview window (will help with auto focus).

In as much as Microsoft will want everyone to join in on building the best experience you should know that it has complications. You shouldn’t install the preview if the device is your one and only working phone. That’s because it still includes bugs. But if you still don’t want to miss out on the experience you can subscribe to the slow ring update; you have a much richer and better experience with little or no bugs. Or get a second budget friendly device and run the preview on it.

The guys over at windowscentral.com have a hands-on on the new features, check it below.

Give the new build a try and let me know what you think.

Source : Microsoft

Windows 10 will be made available in 7 Editions

Windows 10 will be made available in 7 Editions

Windows 10 is coming and in 7 editions
Windows 10 Cross Platform

Microsoft has detailed out the versions/editions Windows 10 will be made available in when finally released later this year. They are Windows 10 Home, Mobile, Pro, Enterprise, Education, Mobile Enterprise and Internet of Things (ioT). Most PC users will use either the Windows 10 Home or Pro; the home version will mostly come pre-installed on budget pc’s whilst the pro on the more expensive devices.

 

“Windows 10 will power an incredibly broad range of devices – everything from PCs, tablets, phones, Xbox One, Microsoft HoloLens and Surface Hub. It will also power the world around us, core to devices making up the Internet of Things, everything from elevators to ATMs to heart rate monitors to wearables. No matter which Windows 10 device our customers use, the experience will feel comfortable, and there will be a single, universal Windows Store where they can find, try and buy Universal Windows apps.”

 

Here is a summary of the Windows 10 editions and what they affect in real life;

Windows 10 Home is the consumer-focused desktop edition. It offers a familiar and personal experience for PCs, tablets and 2-in-1s. Windows 10 Home will help people do great things, both big and small. With it, they will be more productive and have more fun thanks to a long list of new innovations: Cortana, the world’s most personal digital assistant; the new Microsoft Edge web browser; Continuum tablet mode for touch-capable devices; Windows Hello face-recognition, iris and fingerprint login; and right out of the box, a broad range of universal Windows apps like Photos, Maps, Mail, Calendar, Music and Video

We are also bringing the Xbox gaming experience to Windows 10, giving games and gamers access to the Xbox Live gaming community, enabling the capture and share of gameplay and giving Xbox One owners the ability to play their Xbox One games from any Windows 10 PC in their home.

Windows 10 Mobile is designed to deliver the best user experience on smaller, mobile, touch-centric devices like smartphones and small tablets. It boasts the same, new universal Windows apps that are included in Windows 10 Home, as well as the new touch-optimized version of Office. Windows 10 Mobile offers great productivity, security and management capabilities for customers who use their personal devices at work. In addition, Windows 10 Mobile will enable some new devices to take advantage of Continuum for phone, so people can use their phone like a PC when connected to a larger screen.

Windows 10 Pro is a desktop edition for PCs, tablets and 2-in-1s. Building upon both the familiar and innovative features of Windows 10 Home, it has many extra features to meet the diverse needs of small businesses. Windows 10 Pro helps to effectively and efficiently manage their devices and apps, protect their sensitive business data, support remote and mobile productivity scenarios and take advantage of cloud technologies. Windows 10 Pro devices are a great choice for organizations supporting Choose Your Own Device (CYOD) programs and prosumer customers. Windows 10 Pro also lets customers take advantage of the new Windows Update for Business, which will reduce management costs, provide controls over update deployment, offer quicker access to security updates and provide access to the latest innovation from Microsoft on an ongoing basis.

Windows 10 Enterprise builds on Windows 10 Pro, adding advanced features designed to meet the demands of medium and large sized organizations. It provides advanced capabilities to help protect against the ever-growing range of modern security threats targeted at devices, identities, applications and sensitive company information. Windows 10 Enterprise also supports the broadest range of options for operating system deployment and comprehensive device and app management. It will be available to our Volume Licensing customers, so they can take advantage of the latest innovation and security updates on an ongoing basis. At the same time, they will be able to choose the pace at which they adopt new technology, including the option to use the new Windows Update for Business. With Windows 10, Enterprise customers will also have access to the Long Term Servicing Branch as a deployment option for their mission critical devices and environments. And as with prior versions of Windows, Active Software Assurance customers in Volume Licensing can upgrade to Windows 10 Enterprise as part of their existing Software Assurance benefits.

Windows 10 Education builds on Windows 10 Enterprise, and is designed to meet the needs of schools – staff, administrators, teachers and students. This edition will be available through academic Volume Licensing, and there will be paths for schools and students using Windows 10 Home and Windows 10 Pro devices to upgrade to Windows 10 Education.

Windows 10 Mobile Enterprise is designed to deliver the best customer experience to business customers on smartphones and small tablets. It will be available to our Volume Licensing customers. It offers the great productivity, security and mobile device management capabilities that Windows 10 Mobile provides, and adds flexible ways for businesses to manage updates. In addition, Windows 10 Mobile Enterprise will incorporate the latest security and innovation features as soon as they are available.

There will also be versions of Windows 10 Enterprise and Windows 10 Mobile Enterprise for industry devices like ATMs, retail point of sale, handheld terminals and industrial robotics and Windows 10 IoT Core for small footprint, low cost devices like gateways.

“As we announced earlier this year, for the first time ever, we are offering the full versions of Windows 10 Home, Mobile and Pro as a free and easy upgrade for qualifying Windows 7, Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1 devices that upgrade in the first year after launch. Once you upgrade, you have Windows 10 for free on that device.”

 

These are all the details and all you must know on the editions and version.

Introducing Windows Spotlight

Introducing Windows Spotlight

windows spotlight

  Joe Belfiore Corporate Vice President, Operating Systems Group during his demo at build 2015 mentioned a new idea in works on the lock screen called the Windows Spotlight feature.

Windows Spotlight gives you beautiful lock screens which delivers a service driven personalized stream of information on your lock screen. It is interactive and has a like what you see feature at the upper right corner called hot spot.

The Windows Spotlight service will learn what’s interesting to you and give you more of that kind of images. It is also able to understand a users use of the pc and makes relevant suggestions and recommendations for users to discover, learn, engage as well as preview applications. This feature is optional you can turn it on or off and just use your favorite family picture.

The new lockscreen feature, which Microsoft calls the Windows Spotlight, will not only show you beautiful images from Bing, but also images of Windows devices running certain apps for example. You can choose to ‘like’ or ‘not like’ the lockscreen images so you can curate the types of images which will be displayed on your lockscreen. So for example, if over time, you’ve ‘liked’ images of nature, you’ll start seeing more images of nature show up on your lockscreen, the same goes with pictures of kittens. – winbeta.org

 

Source: Microsoft, Winbeta.org

Introducing the new Microsoft Surface 3

Introducing the new Microsoft Surface 3

surface 3

 

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.

 

Source: Microsoft

Project Spartan comes in new Build 10049 of Windows 10 Technical Preview

Project Spartan comes in new Build 10049 of Windows 10 Technical Preview

spartan

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.

 

Source : Microsoft