As 2016 comes to a close, we’re looking back at the moments that have marked our year here at Skype. With a mission of doing things together whenever you’re apart, we’ve developed more text, voice and video features to make it even easier for all of you to share experiences with the people that matter most.
Let’s take a look at some of the highlights of 2016:
Skype Bots: We released some intelligent little helpers to increase productivity and make planning tasks easier than ever. From finding gig tickets with StubHub, to planning flights to your perfect vacation with Hipmunk and Skyscanner, or simplifying shipping with UPS—you can achieve so much more, right from a chat window. We’re looking forward to taking the next steps in artificial intelligence and conversational computing in the upcoming year.
Skype Translator: Since 2014, Skype Translator has been breaking down language barriers, making it easier for you to connect with people around the world. This year we added Arabic and Russian to our seven existing spoken languages (English, Spanish, French, German, Chinese (Mandarin), Italian, and Portuguese). These languages have joined over 50 IM languages in text-to-text translation—bringing the world closer together.
This week we’ve started to roll out the next milestone for Skype Translator: voice translation for calls to mobiles and landlines for users on Skype Preview for the Windows 10 Anniversary Update. This means you can use Skype to call people on their phones* and communicate across languages—even if they don’t have Skype. So now you can save time before you travel by calling a restaurant to book a table, or a hotel to make a reservation, without worrying about the language barrier. (*Requires Skype Credit or a subscription to use. To learn more, please visit Skype.com.)
As we mark the two-year anniversary of Skype Translator, we’ve seen people from all over the world using it to connect to friends, family and enable them in business. One of the stories we came across was that of New York fashion designer Bing Cai, founder of ‘Alouit New York’—a company that creates comfortable stilettos (yes you read correctly!) and uses Skype Translator to communicate with their factory in Italy.
See how Skype Translator helps inspire and encourage people to think beyond all limitations:
Skype Preview for Windows 10: We’ve been working closely with the Windows team to build a new Skype—redesigning the app to work seamlessly with Windows 10 and taking advantage of the Universal Windows Platform. This summer, we rolled out a faster and easier way for Windows 10 customers to use Skype which comes installed on the Windows 10 Anniversary Update.
Group video calling on mobile: Group video calling continued its evolution when we introduced the feature on mobile phones and tablets—enabling you to video call up to 25 people on the go, so nobody gets left out.
New personal expression content: We had fun teaming up with Marvel Studios, Coldplay, Monty Python, Angry Birds, Tangerine Band, The Late Late Show and Sir Paul McCartney to create original Mojis and emoticons to add to our collection.
Check out our new holiday themed emoticons and Mojis that will help spread the festive cheer. You can also record a personalized Skype holiday card video to share over Skype, or on social networks including Facebook and email!
#SkypeTogether: 2016 saw our partnerships with advocates and influencers come together to form #SkypeTogether—unique ways to access our social community, directly within Skype itself. We kicked it off with #SkypeFit, where we connected a community of health conscious people with influencers via YouTube videos, challenges and Skype group chats. #SkypeTogether also saw our first ever influencer-focused gaming collaboration: #GamingWithSkype. Over the summer, we partnered with ESL and 343 Studios (the makers of Halo) to engage gamers within Skype and via Twitch. At present, we’re excited, to be working with One Nation of Gamers (ONOG) on an exclusive Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft tournament.
Your stories: 2016 has seen lots of inspiring stories showcasing new and original ways that people use Skype. Here are a few highlights:
Dr. David Nott used Skype from the UK to oversee surgery in war-torn Aleppo, Syria.
Jenn Nicken, founder of The Chef & The Dish, offers cooking classes over Skype with chefs around the world.
The 2016 Skype-a-Thon which featured classrooms from 75 countries, travelling almost 10 million virtual miles over Skype, in 48 hours.
From Antarctica to the North Pole, and out of this world to the International Space Station—this year has been full of exiting Skype stories. And we can’t wait to see where you’ll take Skype next!
From the Skype & Managed Solution families to yours, we wish you happy holidays and a wonderful New Year!
Are you an educator? If so, use this guide to learn how to use the Windows 10 operating system in your classroom. Discover how to personalize devices running Windows 10 for use in the classroom and use the built-in apps to make learning more productive and effective. The advanced user features in Windows 10 help you run and manage apps in your classroom to achieve your learning objectives more easily than other operating systems and even previous versions of Windows.
Review the lab environment
There is an online lab environment that you can use to perform the exercises in this lab. This lab environment contains all the virtual machines, users, and files that you need to complete these exercises. You can use this lab environment without charge and it is available online at all times.
Perform the following steps to access the lab environment online:
In Microsoft Edge or Microsoft Internet Explorer, browse to TechNet Virtual Lab: Teacher Try-It-Out.
Note: If you are already signed in using your Microsoft account on Microsoft Edge or Internet Explorer, then you can go to step
On the TechNet Virtual Labs page, click Sign In.
On the Sign in page, enter your Microsoft account and corresponding password, and then click Sign in.
On the TechNet Virtual Labs page, click Launch Lab. TechNet Virtual Labs builds the lab environment and displays the lab environment once completed as shown in Figure 1.
The Content tab (as shown in Figure 1) contains the step-by-step instructions for completing the lab exercises.
The Machines tab (as shown in Figure 2) contains the list of virtual machines that you will use in the lab exercises.
The Support tab (as shown in Figure 3) in the lab environment lists information about the lab environment and provides access to frequently asked questions about the lab interface.
Sign in to, and personalize, Windows 10
So, you just received your new Windows 10 device. What's the first thing you'll do? Sign in. In this section, you learn how to configure your Windows 10 sign-in experience and customize it for yourself or your students.
Configure sign-in
You can sign in to Windows 10 by using a traditional password, a PIN, a picture password, or the facial-recognition capabilities in Windows Hello.
Use a PIN to sign in to Windows 10 instead of your password (similar to the PIN or password you use on your mobile device). Or, use Windows Hello, which allows a Windows 10 device to recognize you through digital imaging, such as Kinect for Windows or the Intel RealSense sensor. (Note that because no such device exists in this virtual environment, the Windows Hello feature will be disabled, even if you define a PIN.)
Windows Hello integrates with Microsoft Passport to allow other software to leverage the Windows Hello sign-in page. For example, a public website could use Microsoft Passport to authenticate a user who signed in through Windows Hello.
Finally, you can set up a picture password instead of a traditional password. With this feature, you define gestures on a picture that you can use to uniquely identify yourself.
Perform the following steps on the WIN10 virtual machine (VM) signed in as Lori Penor with a password of Passw0rd:
Click Start (as shown in Figure 4), and then click Settings.
In SETTINGS, click Accounts.
In ACCOUNTS, click Sign-in options.
Review the options, specifically, the Passwordoption, which allows you to change your password.
Under PIN, click Add.
In First, verify your account password, in Password, type Passw0rd, and then click OK.
In the Set up a PIN dialog box, in New PIN and Confirm PIN, type 1234, and then click OK.
Under Picture password, click Add.
In Create a picture password, in Password, type Passw0rd, and then click OK.
In Welcome to picture password, click Choose picture.
In the Open dialog box, go to Pictures, click PicturePassword, and then click Open.
In How's this look, click Use this picture.
In Set up your gestures, select the three gestures that you will use as your picture password. The simplest gesture is to use three mouse clicks (or touches) on the tips of three of the flower petals (as illustrated in Figure 5). Figure 5. Location of gestures on a picture password
In Confirm your gestures, repeat the three gestures that you just selected (as shown in Figure 5).
In Congratulations, click Finish.
Close Settings.
On the Start menu, click Lori Penor, and then click Sign out (as shown in Figure 6). Figure 6. Location of the Lori Penor account on the Start menu
Sign in as Lori Penor by using the gestures you created.
Note: If you are unable to sign in with the picture password, you can still sign in by using Lori Penor with a password of Passw0rd.
Personalize the lock screen and account pictures
In Windows 10, you can personalize the lock screen to show app status and provide essential information, even when the device is locked. This information is similar to the notifications you see on a Windows Phone device's lock screen. You can also add a picture to your account, which helps identify you as the owner of the device.
Perform the following steps to personalize the lock screen and account pictures:
On the Start menu, click Settings.
In SETTINGS, double-click Personalization, and then click Lock screen.
Under Choose an app to show detailed status, click the plus sign (+), and then click Calendar (as shown in Figure 7). Figure 7. Lock screen settings
Under Choose apps to show quick status, click the second plus sign (+), and then click Mail.
Under Choose apps to show quick status, click the third plus sign (+), and then click Alarms and Clock.
In Settings, click back (as shown in Figure 8), and then click Accounts. Figure 8. Back button in Settings
In Accounts, click Your account.
In Your account, under Your picture, click Browse.
In the Open dialog box, go to Pictures, click LoriPenorPicture, and then click Choose picture. The picture for Lori Penor is displayed.
Close Settings.
Explore Microsoft Edge
One of the important new Windows 10 features is Microsoft Edge, a web browser that provides an enhanced user experience over other web browsers, allowing you to take notes by using your finger, stylus, or mouse and keyboard on web pages. You can save your notes, and then look at them anytime. You can also share your notes with other users.
Microsoft Edge builds on the reading features found in Internet Explorer by providing Reading view, which allows you to view web pages in an easy-to-read format. Microsoft Edge also allows you to create a reading list, where you can identify web content that you want to read in the future. In addition, Microsoft Edge is the default PDF reader in Windows 10.
Note: You can determine the name of a Microsoft Edge icon by hovering the mouse pointer over the icon or right-clicking the icon (as shown in Figure 9).
Figure 9. In Microsoft Edge, hover over or right-click an icon to see its name.
Figure 10 identifies the icons on the menu bar in Microsoft Edge. Use Figure 10 as you perform these tasks to help identify the icons.
Figure 10. Microsoft Edge menu bar icon names
Explore note taking in Microsoft Edge
In Microsoft Edge, you can make notes on any web page displayed in the browser by using your finger or a stylus on touch devices or a mouse and keyboard on non-touch devices. You can then share these notes with other teachers or students.
Perform the following steps to explore note taking in Microsoft Edge:
On the taskbar, click Microsoft Edge.
In Microsoft Edge, on the menu bar, click Hub, click Favorites, and then click Microsoft Edge - The Browser for Doing (as shown in Figure 11). Figure 11. Microsoft Edge Hub and Favorites.
On the menu bar, click Make a Web Note.The Make a Web Note menu opens, as shown in Figure 12. Figure 12. The Make a Web Note menu in Microsoft Edge
On the Make a Web Note menu, click Pen.
On the web page, click and drag the pen to draw a circle around the Introducing Microsoft Edge heading, as shown in Figure 13.
On the Make a Web Note menu, click Highlighter.
On the web page, click and drag the highlighter to highlight The brand new browser for doing text, as shown in Figure 13.
On the Make a Web Note menu, click Add a typed note.
On the web page, click next to the Introducing Microsoft Edge heading to create an empty note (as shown in Figure 13).
In the note, type Need to increase the font for this heading, as shown in Figure 13. Figure 13. Web page with notes
On the web page, click next to the coffee cup in the picture.
In the note, click Delete (the trash can icon).
On the Make a Web Note menu, click Eraser.
On the web page, click the highlighting to remove it from The brand new browser for doing.
From the Make a Web Note menu, click Save Web Note.
In Name, type Notes on Microsoft Edge home page, and then click Add.
From the Make a Web Note menu, click Share.
Review the information in the Share panel, and then click elsewhere to close the Sharepanel.
From the Make a Web Note menu, click Exit.
In Microsoft Edge, open a new tab.
On the menu, click Favorites, and then click Notes on Microsoft Edge home page. The webpage with your web notes opens. You can see all the notes and highlighting you made earlier in this section.
Close the tab.
Leave Microsoft Edge open for the next section.
Explore reading features in Microsoft Edge
Microsoft Edge has many features for reading web content. Often, web pages are cluttered with advertisements and nonessential information. Reading view in Microsoft Edge eliminates the advertisements and any nonessential information from the content so that you can read it in a concise manner. Reading view retains the pertinent graphics and pictures associated with the content.
Microsoft Edge also has a reading list, which is similar to the familiar Favorites found in both Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer. The reading list is specifically designed to help you and students keep track of web content that you want to read at a later date. The process of adding items to your reading list is similar to adding a Favorite website.
Perform the following steps to explore Microsoft Edge reading features:
In Microsoft Edge, open a new tab and browse to http://www.msn.com/news.
Review the content on the page, and then choose a news article.
In the news article you're reviewing, on the menu, click Add to favorites or reading list.
In the drop-down panel, click Reading list, and then click Add. You can use the Microsoft Edge reading list to keep track of content that you want to read.
On the menu, click Reading View.
Leave Microsoft Edge open for the next section.
Explore Microsoft Edge PDF print and read functionality
You can print web content to PDF in Microsoft Edge (or in any other Windows 10 app). You can also read PDF files in Microsoft Edge. In this section, you browse to web content, print the page to PDF, and then view the PDF in Microsoft Edge.
Perform the following steps to explore Microsoft Edge PDF print and read functionality:
In Microsoft Edge, on the menu bar, click Hub. Click Favorites, and then click Windows 10 Specifications.
On the menu bar, click More actions, and then click Print (as shown in Figure 14). Figure 14. Print menu option on the More actions menu
In the Print dialog box, in Printer, select Microsoft Print to PDF, and then click Print. Windows 10 displays a notification about the .pdf file being stored in the Documents folder.
Close Microsoft Edge.
In File Explorer, go to Documents, and then double-click Windows 10 Specifications - Microsoft.pdf.
Review the .pdf file in Microsoft Edge.
Minimize Microsoft Edge.
Explore the Mail and Calendar apps
Another improvement in Windows 10 are the redesigned Mail and Calendar apps. Both apps have been reimagined to provide a better user experience for both touch and mouse users. Also, both apps more closely model the familiar Microsoft Outlook user experience.
Explore the Mail app
Microsoft has made several user experience improvements in the Windows 10 Mail app. One of the design goals for the Mail app is to have a great user experience for both mouse and touch users, and the app now more closely resembles Outlook.
Perform the following steps on the WIN10 VM to explore the Windows 10 Mail app:
On the Start menu, click Mail.
In the Mail app, click Add account.
In the Choose an account dialog box, select the type of account for your personal email account.
Add your email account based on your personal information.
When you have added your email account, on the Accounts page, click Open inbox.
In the Inbox, select various email messages and view them in the reading pane. The menu interface at the top of the app provides a touch- and click-friendly experience for accessing email.
Click Settings (the gear icon) in the lower left portion of the Mail app.
In Settings, click Accounts, and then click back.
In Settings, click Options.
Under Notifications, select the Show a notification banner check box.
Under Notifications, select the Play a sound check box, and then click away from the Settings panel to close the panel.
Minimize the Mail app.
Explore the Calendar app
As with the Mail app, Microsoft redesigned the Calendar app for easy click or touch. Like Mail, the Calendar app now more closely models the calendar user experience in Microsoft Office.
Perform the following steps on the WIN10 VM to explore the Calendar app:
On the Start menu, click Calendar.
On the Accounts page, click Open calendar.
On the menu, click Day.
On the menu, click Work week.
On the menu, click Week.
On the calendar displayed in the left panel, click a day 2 weeks in the future.
Click New event.
In the new event, in Event name, type Project Update Meeting.
In Location, type 12th Floor Conference Room.
In Start, select 11:00 AM.
On the menu Save & Close.
The event is saved and displayed in the calendar. As with the Mail app, you can see that the Calendar app is optimized for mouse and touch, providing a user experience that mirrors Outlook.
Access apps, data, and information
You can access your apps, data, and information by using the Windows 10 Start menu, Cortana, and the taskbar. In this section, you learn how to access your apps, data, and information more quickly and easily than in previous versions of Windows.
Start apps by using the Start menu
The new Start menu in Windows 10 is an elegant blend of the Windows 7 Start menu and the Windows 8.1. Start screen. Perform the following steps to start apps from the Start menu:
Click Start, and then click All apps.
In the list of apps, scroll down to Microsoft Office 2013. Expand Microsoft Office 2013, and then click Word 2013.
Close Microsoft Word 2013.
On the Start menu, click All apps.
Click above the list of apps (which brings up an alphanumeric matrix).
In the alphanumeric matrix, click M. Expand Microsoft Office 2013, and then click Excel 2013.
Close Microsoft Excel 2013.
Note: Starting apps by using the Start menu in Windows 10 is similar to the user experience in Windows 7 for keyboard and mouse users.
Press Windows logo key+A to open the Windows 10 Action Center.
In the Action Center, click Tablet mode.
Click Start. The Start menu now takes up the entire screen, just like in Windows 8.1. In tablet mode, Windows 10 converts to a touch-friendly user interface (UI). Although you made this change manually, Windows 10 can automatically detect whether the device is in tablet mode, a feature called Continuum.
In the upper left corner of the Start menu, click the menu icon (three horizontal lines). The same UI you saw previously for keyboard and mouse interaction appears.
Press Windows logo key+A to open the Windows 10 Action Center.
In the Action Center, click Tablet mode. The Start menu reverts to the keyboard-and-mouse-friendly UI. Again, you made this change manually, but in a convertible device (such as the Surface Pro 3) this change would happen automatically if you added or removed the keyboard.
Click anywhere on the screen to close the Start menu.
Find apps, data, and information by using Cortana
Cortana allows you to search your local device and the Internet for apps, data, and information. You can access Cortana by using your keyboard or by voice command. Perform the following steps to find apps, data, and information by using Cortana:
On the taskbar, in Search the web and Windows, type Word. Cortana returns a list of results. At the top of that list is the locally installed copy of Word 2013.
On the taskbar, in Search the web and Windows, type LoriPenor. Cortana returns a list of results. At the top of that list is the LoriPenorPicture.png file that you selected earlier for the user profile.
On the taskbar, in Search the web and Windows, type Windows 10. Cortana returns a list of results, including local files that have Windows 10 in the name, web searches that relate to Windows 10, and apps in the Windows Store that relate to Windows 10.
On the taskbar, in Search the web and Windows, type What is the cube root of 55. Cortana returns the correct answer (3.80295246).
On the taskbar, in Search the web and Windows, type Distance between Los Angeles and New York.
Click the first item in the list of results. Cortana opens Microsoft Edge. The first result in Bing is by Bing Maps, showing the driving distance between Los Angeles and New York (2,778 miles).
Close Microsoft Edge.
You can perform these same tasks by using voice commands on devices equipped with a microphone.
Manage apps on the Start menu and taskbar
Managing apps on the Start menu and taskbar is again a blending of the Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 user experiences. You can pin apps to the Start menu (just as you could with the Windows 8.1 Start screen), and you can pin apps to the taskbar (just as you could in Windows 7). Perform the following steps on the WIN10 VM to manage apps on the Start menu and taskbar:
On the desktop, right-click Recycle Bin, and then click Pin to Start.
Click the Start menu. The Recycle Bin appears as a tile on the Start menu.
On the Start menu, right-click Recycle Bin, click Resize, and then click Small. Windows 10 displays the Recycle Bin tile as a small tile.
On the Start menu, right-click People, and then click Pin to Taskbar. The People app appears as an icon on the taskbar.
Run and manage apps
Running and managing apps in Windows 10 is more intuitive than in previous Windows operating systems. Desktop and Windows 10 Universal apps are treated as equals in Windows 10. Windows 10 introduces Snap Assist, which helps you snap multiple apps on your desktop for optimal viewing. Finally, Windows 10 supports virtual desktops, which allows you to have multiple logical groupings of apps so that they are easier to manage and use than on a single desktop.
Manage running apps
Perform the following steps on the WIN10 VM to manage running apps:
On the taskbar, restore the Mail app that you minimized earlier.
In the upper right corner of the app, view the Minimize, Restore, and Close buttons. Then, click Restore. (You may remember that Windows 8.1 apps only started in full-screen mode and took up the entire desktop. In Windows 10, these apps behave more like a traditional desktop app and are similar to the user experience in Windows 7 desktop apps.)
In the upper left corner, on the title bar, right-click Mail. The standard Windows system menu appears, with the Restore, Move, Size, Minimize, Maximize, and Close options.
Minimize the Mail app.
View multiple apps
You can view multiple apps in an optimal visual arrangement by using the Windows 10 Snap Assist feature. Perform the following steps on the WIN10 VM to view multiple apps:
Restore the Mail app.
Click the Mail app title bar, and then drag the title bar to the left side of the desktop. When the mouse pointer hits the edge, a visual queue lets you know when to release. The Mail app is snapped to the left side of the desktop.
In the list of apps on the right side of the display, click the Calendar app. The Calendar app is snapped to the right side of the display.
Click the Calendar app title bar, and drag it to the top of the desktop. The Calendar app is maximized.
Minimize all apps.
Manage virtual desktops
Virtual desktops in Windows 10 provide you with another layer of productivity when you're running multiple apps. You can use Windows 10 virtual desktops to give the appearance of running your apps on multiple systems. For example, you could have one virtual desktop dedicated to working on grades while using another virtual desktop to present information to your students.
Perform the following steps on the WIN10 VM to manage multiple virtual desktops:
On the taskbar, click Task view. In Task view, you can see the list of apps running in your current desktop. You can click any of the apps to bring that app into focus.
In the lower right portion of Task view, click New desktop. Desktop 2 is added to the list of desktops.
In Task view, click Desktop 2.
On the taskbar, click Word 2013.
On the taskbar, click Task view.
In the lower right portion of Task view, click New desktop. Desktop 3 is added to the list of desktops.
On the Start menu, click Store.
On the taskbar, click Task view.
In Task view, click Desktop 1. The original desktop appears.
Press Windows logo key+Control+Right Arrow to move to Desktop 2.
Press Windows logo key+Control+Right Arrow to move to Desktop 3.
Press Windows logo key+Control+Left Arrow to move back to Desktop 2.
On the taskbar, click Task view.
Close Desktop 2. Any apps running in a desktop that you delete are automatically moved to another desktop. For example, notice that the apps running in Desktop 2 moves to another desktop.
Open the new Desktop 2.
You can use the Windows shortcut keys, your mouse, or touch to move quickly and easily between virtual desktops. Use virtual desktops to keep track of your different tasks and apps so that you can be more efficient and effective.
4 Reasons Windows 10 is the Right Classroom Technology for Your School
What's the point of implementing classroom technology? Is it to make the curriculum more fun and exciting, maybe it's to make teaching less tedious? While these two examples might be a true bi-product I don't think these were the main factors taken into consideration when a school board or CIO creates their technology strategy.
From my time writing about the K-12 IT environment I've realized that deploying classroom technology is about three main points:
Offering teachers, administrators and students tools to increase efficiency, transparency and organization
Creating a more interactive and more personalized learning environment
Preparing students to be responsible digital citizens ready for a technology driven society
From software to hardware there are new ed tech tools becoming available almost everyday and it's critical that school IT leaders keep up with what's available and potentially valuable for their schools.
Recently Microsoft released its next big operating system in Windows 10 and it’s a huge overhaul from Windows 8. The start button is back for starters, which is a clear indication that Microsoft is finally taking user feedback into consideration.
The biggest thing to note however is how some of the new Windows 10 features are perfectly suited for education, empowering both teachers and students to become better organized, more interactive and just flat out more productive.
To give you a better idea how Windows 10 can help position your school to take on new developments in digital learning, we’ve listed 4 reasons why Windows 10 is the right classroom technology for your school.
1. Better presentations with note sharing
The new Windows OS comes with a brand spanking new browser called Edge, which is faster and less resource-heavy.
Educators can also take advantage of the new Web Note feature that will allow them to scribble notes directly on the web page using a stylus or fingers. The pages can be shared easily with the class for more efficient presentations.
“Obviously this works best on a touchscreen Windows device like a Surface, but it works with a mouse too, and will be perfect for interactive whiteboards,” writes educator Jonathan Wylie.
Edge manages your reading list as well, so when using the app on a small tablet it becomes your eBook reader.
2. Augmented Reality in classrooms
Augmented Reality has been around for a while but not quite in classrooms. With Windows 10, students can have completely immersive experience through Hololens (Holograms).
There are enormous learning possibilities with AR. For one , students can model designs before construction. They can also take trips to virtually anywhere in the world and it would be like they’re right there.
AR combines the physical with the digital world and this in itself makes Windows 10 an invaluable tool that can inspire your students and teachers.
3. Every student’s new research assistant
Cortana is Microsoft's new personal digital assistant and with Windows 10 she has now come to desktops and notebooks. Students can call her up for different program features including helping with research projects and assignments.
Cortana will also make sure that students keep up with their daily tasks.
“Beyond reminding you of appointments, due dates, and traffic concerns Cortana really supports the execution of required academic tasks in the day. This is essential for students who need support in their executive functioning,” writes Martha Jez, the director of professional development programs at Fair Chance Learning.
Cortana is in the early stages of development, which means we will see more personalized learning opportunities for students in the future. Reports did mention that WindowsPhone integration is already available and Android and IOS compatibility will come soon.
4. Facial recognition for logins
When conducting online classes, it always takes a while to log everybody in and it can be very time consuming. Windows 10 takes care of that with Windows Hello.
Hello uses a 3D camera to authenticate users through facial recognition, shaving off a huge chunk of logging time.
However, you need RealSense 3D cameras installed for this special feature and at the moment the cameras are only available in a few configurations, including the HP Sprout.
In any case, you can opt to use a fingerprint scanner for log-ins without using a password.
This may be a “nice to have” feature right now but with how new technologies are popping up here and there, it wouldn’t surprise me if manually keying in passwords will be obsolete in the near future.
This project is part of Microsoft’s Hack the Home initiative, which provides makers with free, open-source components for effortless interfacing with devices and services that makers use most to hack their homes.
The new Windows.Devices namespace from the Universal Windows Platform (UWP) APIs in Windows 10, enable developers to leverage the power of Windows while interacting with the real world via sensors and actuators.
This project uses the I2C bus and general purpose input/output (GPIO) ports available on the Raspberry Pi 2, to create an internet connected weather station using the SparkFun weather shield.
The instructions provided will give a developer first-hand experience setting up the required hardware along with writing and debugging the newly available Windows 10, UWP Windows.Devices API's. This lab will also demonstrate how to aggregate your data in cloud using the Azure Event Hub, via the easy-to-use ConnectTheDots API.
Hardware
Pinout Diagram (Raspberry Pi 2 --> Sparkfun weather shield):
GND-------(black)------GND
5V----------(red)---------VIN
3V3-------(brown)------5V (shield hack; not a typo)
GPIO2-----(yellow)----SDA
GPIO3----(orange)----SCL
GPIO5-----(green)-----D8
GPIO6-----(blue)-------D7
Software
Identify your computer name:
The weather station is actually two applications! What?!?! That's right. The first is a long running (indefinitely, actually) background task that reads the sensors and acts as a weather station server. The second, a UI that makes a request to port 50001 of the server and displays the data. The UI application is universal and can be deployed on any Windows device from the Raspberry Pi 2 all the way to a desktop PC - and anywhere in between!
You need to find the following line in the `Mainpage.xaml.cs` file from the `build2015-weather-station` project, and replace the computer name, "minwinpc", in the URL with the name of your IoT device.
//TODO: On the following line, replace "minwinpc" with the computer name of your IoT device (i.e. "http://:50001").
private Uri weatherUri = new Uri("http://minwinpc:50001");
Enable the "Task List" display
Double-click on any item in the list and jump straight into the source!
Each //TODO: is preceded by comments and HINTS to help you with the missing sections.
Install the weather station application:
Clone the linked repository (using the --recursive flag)
select the "lab" branch (default), if you want to learn the new UWP Windows.Devices API's and complete the code yourself
select the "master" branch if you want the completed code
Open "WeatherStationWeatherStation.sln" in Visual Studio 2015
Navigate to "WeatherShield.cs" in the "Solution Explorer" pane
If you chose the lab branch, Navigate to “View >> Other Windows >> Task List”, to view the remaining work (depicted above).
You will notice there is quite a bit of detail in the comment to help you complete the task. However, if you still need that extra nudge, there will be a “HINT” provided to remind you to look to nearby code for help (illustrated above).
Once the //TODO:'s have been completed, click the “Debug” menu item, and select “WeatherStation Properties…”
Under the “Debug” tab, in the “Start options” section
Select “Remote Device” as “Target device:”
Enter the IP address of your Windows IoT Core device in the “Remote machine:” field
Deploy to the Windows IoT Core device
Interface with and/or debug the application:
Set a breakpoint in "WeatherStationTask.cs", in the "PopulateWeatherData" function,/li>
Step through the individual I2C transactions as they occur
OR
Ping the IP address of your Windows IoT Core device on port 50001 in an internet browser window (i.e. http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:50001)
Integrating with ConnectTheDots:
Select the "lab_ConnectTheDots" branch, if you want to learn how to use ConnectTheDots and complete the code yourself
Open "WeatherStationWeatherStation.sln" in Visual Studio 2015
Navigate to "WeatherStationTask.cs" in the "Solution Explorer" pane
Use the "Task List" to jump to each “//TODO:” and write the necessary code
The AppSettings, ConnectTheDotsSensor, and ConnectTheDotsHelper files are all part of the code created to help you use the ConnectTheDots interface to the Azure Event Hub.
AppSettings: Saves the settings for connecting to the Event Hub
This information can be found under your ServiceBus in Azure.
Go to your "*-ns" servicebus instance -> Event Hubs -> ehdevices -> Connection Information -> Look for the SAS "D1"
Copy the connection string which should look like this (It contains information for your AppSettings)
Once you have it deployed, it should start sending data to the event hub and the data should be viewable on http://iotbuildlab.azurewebsites.net/ or your own website.
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Windows 10 Tip: Use Cortana above your lock screen
Today, we’re going to show you how your personal digital assistant, Cortana*, can help you with all kinds of tasks across your device – even above your lock screen, thanks to the Windows 10 Anniversary Update.
Cortana allows you to perform tasks including set timers, track flights or even check the traffic, just using your voice. And now, with the Windows 10 Anniversary Update, you can talk to Cortana on your PC’s lock screen.
Here’s how to use Cortana above your lock screen:
Start by saying “Hey Cortana,” and ask her what the weather will be like this week, to remind you to do something or to play your favorite songs – without unlocking your device!
Check out Cortana’s Tips and Tricks menu in your taskbar to see what tasks Cortana can help you with, and have a great week!
Continuum for Phones, available on select Windows 10 Mobile devices, allows customers to connect their phone to a monitor, projector, or TV for a full-sized desktop experience, powered by their phone. Because Microsoft Edge is built on the Universal Windows Platform, Microsoft Edge in Continuum is able to provide a full desktop browser experience.
Let’s walk through a quick overview of how Continuum works and a few key differences between Microsoft Edge running in Continuum and on a PC.
Using Continuum on Windows 10 Mobile
Continuum allows Windows 10 Mobile users to have a PC-like experience when connected to an external display and a mouse and keyboard. When connected (via a wired dock or via Bluetooth and Miracast), Universal Windows Apps like Office and Microsoft Edge will adapt their interface and behavior to provide a desktop-like experience tailored to mouse and keyboard input.
Microsoft Edge takes full advantage of the Universal Windows Platform to provide a complete desktop-like experience in Continuum — when the device is connected to a larger display, Microsoft Edge turns into a desktop browser, adapting the interface and rendering characteristics to match Microsoft Edge on PCs.
In fact, Microsoft Edge in Continuum is nearly indistinguishable from its PC twin, which is a fun party trick when presenting at events or in meetings!
To enable an experience that’s as true to the desktop equivalent as possible, there are a couple of important things to keep in mind.
One rendering engine
Because Microsoft Edge uses the same engine across all Windows 10 devices, the rendering behavior is the same across Windows 10 devices, including Windows 10 Mobile devices. The only differences are due to certain device-specific qualities – for example, codec support may be different on phones due to missing hardware acceleration, and Flash is not supported on Windows 10 Mobile. Because Windows 10 Mobile has a different background model, RTC is also currently not supported. Finally, Windows 10 Mobile does not support Flash in order to provide a modern, touch-focused, and power-efficient experience appropriate for a mobile device. Because of this, Flash is not supported in Microsoft Edge in Continuum.
Details for web developers
Developers in general won’t have to give any special consideration to Microsoft Edge in Continuum. By design, it will behave like a desktop client, including sending a desktop User-Agent string.
As always, we recommend that you don’t try to detect based on the User Agent string — if you use responsive design and feature detection, your site should just work on Continuum. However, for some cases, including analytics or to provide a specifically tailored experience, developers may wish to detect when Microsoft Edge is running in Continuum.
In Continuum, Microsoft Edge changes a few tokens to make sure it gets desktop markup:
Microsoft Edge UA (Mobile)
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows Phone 10.0; Android 6.0.1; Microsoft; <Device>) AppleWebKit/<Rev (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/<Rev> Mobile Safari/<Rev> Edge/<Rev>
Microsoft Edge UA (Continuum)
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; ARM) AppleWebKit/<Rev> (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/<Rev> Safari/<Rev> Edge/<Rev>
Microsoft Edge UA (Desktop)
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/<Rev> (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/<Rev> Safari/<Rev> Edge/<Rev>
The revision numbers will, as in all browsers, change regularly as Microsoft Edge is updated, to ensure modern markup is received.
Independent scroll
Running desktop sites on phone is challenging, so we’ve made optimizations in the Anniversary Update to tailor performance to provide a more desktop-like experience. On PCs, Microsoft Edge offloads scrolling from the UI thread to provide a more fluid scrolling experience during page load/painting. In the Anniversary Update, this same feature is now supported in Continuum, even when scrolling via the mouse or keyboard. This results in a smoother experience even while the page is loading or painting.
Switching from mobile to desktop
Microsoft Edge will recognize when a phone switches into Continuum and any sites opened after the switch will render using desktop behavior, including the desktop UA string.
If a tab is open to a mobile site, and the device switches to Continuum, the tab will be sustained. If the tab is refreshed, and it isn’t a mobile-specific URL, it will reload in a desktop view. This ensures that users do not lose unsaved changes (such as a partially-filled form) on a site while switching from the phone to Continuum.
We’re committed to making Continuum as close to the desktop experience as possible without adding any additional overhead for Web Developers – try it out on a Windows 10 Mobile device and let us know what you think! If you have questions or are curious how your site looks in Continuum, reach out to @MSEdgeDev on Twitter, and we’d be happy to help.
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Get in-depth with the future of game development at Microsoft
At GDC Europe 2016, the Microsoft developer platform team is excited to showcase the technologies we’ve been working on to make both game development and gaming better on Windows 10. Not only are we bringing games from our partners to play on the show floor, but we’ve also set up a hands-on area with workstations, where developers can engage 1:1 with Microsoft experts and get a free in-depth consultation on topics like Visual Studio, UWP, Unity, Azure gaming services, Windows Store, and Xbox. In the article below, we’re going into more depth into what gaming technologies are being rolled out as part of Windows 10 Anniversary Update this summer, and how Microsoft envisages the future of game development across Windows devices. You can also stay connected with us at future events or online on our game developer site.
Game development has come a long way since the first game of Tic-Tac-Toe appeared on a vacuum tube display in 1950. At Microsoft, we’ve been engaged in making game developers more productive for several decades, with the release of the Windows Games SDK in 1995 as only one example. Starting with the launch of Windows 10, and with the ongoing release cycle that moves away from monolithic OS releases, our vision for game devs has included constant integration of customer feedback to improve the developer experience. Moving forward, our developer platform and tools investments reflect this commitment. Combined with our broad vision of enabling developers to maximize their reach across devices with the Universal Windows Platform (UWP), we are building our vision future of game development on Windows devices – PCs, tablets, Xbox consoles, and HoloLens.
The way Microsoft is approaching the process of integrating customer feedback is by listening to developers’ needs and pain points, and constantly doing original research to come up with better ways to address them. This articles goes into depth on our key initiatives to make Windows game development better, what we’ve learned from that process over the years, and where our roadmap will lead us, starting with the release of Windows 10 Anniversary Update in August 2016. We are happy with the rapid embrace of Windows 10 by gamers, with over 45% of Steam users on Windows 10 as of July 2016, but understand that we need to remain responsive and engaged with this passionate audience.
When we were thinking about how to talk about our goals for game development tools on Windows 10, the conversation kept circling back to what we, many of us being software developers ourselves, expected from our dev environment. Together with asking game devs what they want, this has been our north star throughout: making sure game developers never having to ask themselves if Windows 10 is really the best possible dev box for creating PC games. This question informed how we’re thinking about building the over-arching goals we’ve set for ourselves: openness & community, power & capability, and finally engagement & reach.
Openness & Community
From the release of the new UWP technologies on Windows 10, our long-term vision has been to build a truly inclusive, open gaming ecosystem that spans device families and offers a great experience for all gamers, and an easy way to reach all of those customers for game developers.
In Windows Anniversary Update, a lot of the promise of openness is being realized. One concern that had previously been raised for the ease of selling and distributing UWP applications to users without using Windows Store, whether it’s a free download, or distributed through your own or a third-party online storefront. It’s clear that in prior Windows 10 releases, it wasn’t as intuitive to install UWP games obtained outside of Windows Store for many users. The end user had to either run a PowerShell script to install the certificate and install the game, or even type a command directly into PowerShell. Users were at times confused by certificate errors, or by the perception that sideloading games wasn’t the best way to install something. What we’re calling the “App Installer” is a pre-installed tool in Windows Anniversary Update that handles easy app installation: this enables a user to double-click any .appx or .appxbundle for straightforward installation, without the need for scripts or commands.
Just open Explorer and find your .appx or .appxbundle file, double-click, tell App Installer about your app, click Install, and that’s it. For advanced users, be aware that the game you’re installing needs to be trusted by your device, which safeguards against malware and other issues: this means that if you’re installing a developer or enterprise app with special rights/permissions, you need to have the signing certificate on the device you’re installing on. And unlike random .EXEs downloaded from the Internet, the App Installer specifically calls out what capabilities your game needs, such as accessing your Contacts.
We also keep openness in mind when building the Windows Store experiences on PC, which has traditionally been – and will remain – a rich, vibrant ecosystem, with competing and complementary platforms that allow developers to fully express their creativity, building and selling their games in any way they want. We are acutely aware that bringing games to market through Windows Store, for instance, needs to be a smooth, friction-free experience that gets out of the developers’ way whenever possible, but empowers them with tools and insights to improve their game experiences. Thinking about Store openness means having an easy onramp to sell your PC game in Windows Store: there’s no complicated account management process, requiring you to speak personally with someone at Microsoft to sell in Windows Store: simply create an account on Windows Dev Center, upload your content, and you’re ready to target the hundreds of millions of devices running Windows 10 today.
As Dev Center is evolving, we are adding new features and capabilities all the time, we roll them out first to the free Dev Center Insider Program. Recent dev-centric features added to the program were for instance targeted push notifications, allowing you to create custom notifications to send to specific groups of users only, for instance based on specific criteria you define, or bulk IAP management to avoid having to make submitting individual updates for each purchase.
As we roll out Windows Store to additional device families, we’re evolving the experience to where your games will be able to reach more gamers. With that in mind, we realize that many game developers have existing Windows games (Win32) that they’d like to bring to Windows Store. We are helping those developers with the Desktop Bridge, a set of technologies that game developers can use to convert, enhance and extend their games.
The bridge enables you to take your existing Windows game and convert it using the Desktop App Converter. After conversion, you will have a UWP app package (.appx or .appxbundle), which targets Windows 10. If you choose, you can then add UWP APIs to extend your game with Windows 10-specific functionality. To bring your existing game using the Desktop Bridge to Windows Store, please let us know.
Finally, we understand that games are often best played with others, and that game developers look for simple, powerful ways to plug into social gaming ecosystems to give their games staying power and build lasting communities. We are very proud of the success of Xbox LIVE, which has nearly fifty million monthly active users playing with and against each other, sharing gameplay videos, building clubs and making new friends. We’ve tried to make it as easy as possible to integrate LIVE into your games, including on Windows 10: the ID@Xbox program offers a simple sign-up process for getting access to the right Xbox APIs to reach those tens of millions of gamers.
Being part of ID@Xbox also gives game developers easy access to some of the most exciting gaming features we’re rolling out in 2016: Play Anywhere and Cross-Device Play. With Play Anywhere, participating game developers can make their game available on Windows 10 and Xbox One with the purchase of a single SKU, ensuring that your customer has your game playable on all of their gaming devices. Their progress is saved, and they can continue seamlessly from where they left off, including their game add-ons. Cross-Device play takes the promise of seamless gaming to another level: participating developers can enable play between different platforms, including Windows and Xbox One, in their games, reaching the widest audience of gamers and building the biggest possible community.
We are incredibly excited to see where game devs will take this, and what they’ll be building – IDARB, the first game to leverage the cross-device functionality is a great preview into what the future holds.
Power & Capability
The biggest reason why we talk about device families when we address game developers is because our goal is to build the best possible platform & APIs for each type of device, which in itself has multiple types – which make up the device family. A mobile experience, for instance, can come in different screen sizes and power levels, but shares commonalities around input method, rotation, and so on. Similarly, a desktop PC can have integrated graphics and limited RAM, for instance, but will usually have a mouse & keyboard connected. Consoles are often experiences at a ten-foot distance, with the resulting concerns around input mechanisms, UI display on screen, etc. Yet game developers will often want to target multiple device types without having to rewrite substantial chunks of code. The biggest challenge has been to accommodate device-specificity without requiring that ground-up rewrite, even when leveraging middleware and game engines that do a lot of heavy lifting.
This was the pain point we had in mind when building the Universal Windows Platform, enabling developers to write once and target multiple device families. Each device type needs code tailored to its unique capabilities. UWP provides that guarantee – both the core APIs that are available on every Windows device, and then unique APIs that are accessed conditionally depending on the device the code is run on. For game developers looking to target desktops, laptops, tablets, Xbox, and Windows Holographic, UWP will provide the seamless scalability requires on each device family.
Features are lit up by device type, presenting a differentiated, appropriate experience: if your UWP game is run on a tablet, for instance, it seamlessly adapts to touch controls and rotation, for instance. The same applies to UI and controls – UWP layout panels allow for tailoring across many screen sizes & resolutions.
The same applies to input handling – UWP games support universal controls that handle any input, such as mouse, keyboard, touch, pen, and controller (such as the Xbox controller). Scaling across displays and input modalities is only the beginning, however: UWP provides the building blocks for ensuring your game truly leverages the full capabilities of the multi-device family paradigm. Cloud services power your game no matter where the game’s users are, and game developers can build notifications to follow their user across Windows devices.
2016 is a big year for proving out the multi-device promise of UWP for game developers: the first huge block was the availability of Dev Mode for Xbox One, allowing any owner of a retail Xbox One console to start developing UWP games on their Xbox immediately. Coming soon, game-centric features from the Xbox Store will start appearing in the Windows Store, with the eventual combination of both stores into a single cohesive experience on Windows devices. Looking ahead, the announcement of Project Scorpio in 2016 also showed that developing for UWP is a straight path to deployment devices: creating UWP games today ensures compatibility with new Microsoft hardware initiatives.
Another peek at the future of game development on Windows was the introduction of DirectX12 on Windows 10. The best way to think about DirectX 12 is that it allows many gamers’ PC hardware to not just talk better to each other internally, squeezing out graphics performance out of existing GPUs and CPUs, but that it’s a technology that allows game developers to write closer to the metal than ever before. CPU and GPU performance is significantly increased, partially by reducing API overhead and by increasing overall efficiency.
Also in the graphics category, gamers and developers alike also asked us for broader support for core gaming features in UWP that they expect from classic Windows games. In May, Microsoft rolled out UWP support for AMD’s Freesync™ and NVIDIA’s G-SYNC™ in Universal Windows Platform games and apps, as well as unlocked frame rate support.
The last puzzle piece for capability is the support for Universal Windows Platform and Windows 10 in the most popular and powerful game development tools around, as well as their integration into the overall UWP ecosystem. Unity is a great example of a popular game engine integrating support for UWP, with easy creation of new UWP projects built into the interface. In turn support for new Unity projects is easily accessible from Visual Studio, with VS tools for Unity natively supported in Unity and both tools bundled in a single installer.
Similarly, recognizing of the popularity and power of Unreal Engine and game developer demand, Microsoft developed and released the source code of a UE4 fork with UWP support on GitHub in July, providing a clear development path to UWP for the most popular game development engines on Windows and game consoles.
Engagement & Reach
One of the biggest pain points we keep hearing from game developers isn’t necessarily around coding itself, but rather in how to reach an audience. The gaming market is getting crowded, with huge backlogs, tons of sales, and overflowing merchandising surfaces in online stores. Getting attention is getting harder all the time. Our goal is to ensure game developers have an end-to-end go-to-market pipeline that can maximize both the reach of their game, and engagement with potential customers. Unfortunately, this is often the least sexy part of making games, especially for indie devs, but crucial to driving developer success on a platform.
The first step is to make your game available in as many markets as possible; Windows Store is currently accessible in over 240 markets world-wide – knowing how to correctly engage with all of those potential customer is crucial. The advances promotional approaches available or coming soon to Windows Store are a result of listening to game devs’ long-running concern about how it’s sometimes very challenging to gain visibility, merchandising space or any kind of exposure when selling their game online.
Reach gamers directly inside Windows: UWP games can send notifications and Live Tile updates to segments of your users directly from Dev Center. This helps connect your users directly with new offers, features, updates and other news.
The promote your app feature is available in many markets, allowing developers to target regionally-relevant ads with localized content
New community ads are a mechanism to share unused ads-in-games space to promote each other at no cost
With Facebook Install Ads, devs can choose the type of user they want to reach, and deliver relevant ads directly to acquire & engage them. In addition, the Facebook Audience Network (SDK) allows devs to monetize through Facebook ads in Windows Store apps – more info coming later this year
Just as important as promotion and merchandising is your ability to understand what gamers are doing inside your game, and engaging with them in a way that deepens your game’s lifecycle and staying power. Some of the UWP development tools we offer are:
The new feedback API allows gamers to provide more targeted feedback/reviews about your game, giving you the ability to solicit feedback about a flight or version, prompt customers for their opinion on a specific feature or level, and more
Improved usage reports give you better insight into how customers are using your game
App Health reports that go deeper into what’s happening with your game, including crash event breakdowns, failure logs, debugging tools, and a lot more
Improved A/B testing for UWP games – by creating different experiences and rolling them out to different user segments, you can run experiments without modifying or republishing your game
Looking Ahead
So what does the future for game development on Windows devices look like? Above all, it’ll end up being even more about the gamer than today. The reason why the gaming market is rapidly getting crowded is because gamers are a passionate group of fans, and why many of us got into the gaming industry in the first place. For game developers, we think this means a couple of things:
First, attempts to limit game developers’ creativity or the desire of gamers to explore new types of games aren’t going to work, and shouldn’t be attempted. Success in this business means empowerment. The Windows gaming ecosystem can’t be locked down, and will defend itself against attempts to do so. For Microsoft, this means a commitment to preserving the open nature of the PC platform by making UWP as open as Win32 applications in terms of distribution, installation, and commerce.
Second, gamers want to play their content wherever they are, and where the game modality makes sense. If someone has both a console and a PC (or tablet with a connected controller), they usually don’t want to double-dip. But making a SKU available in multiple places will unquestionable deepen the gamer’s engagement with the product. We talked a lot about ‘scaling gracefully’ to the device the game finds itself on, and in the long run we will find that gamers are going to be expect their games just “be there,” a lot like what we’re seeing in music and video services.
Third, game development is undergoing massive changes right now to make it clear that it really is for everyone. Gamers have always come in all shapes and sizes, but not all of them have always felt that the culture was for them, even if they enjoyed gaming. This isn’t just about diversity in audience but also about inclusion in design. We’re incredibly aware of many gamers’ desire to have gaming become more accessible and welcoming.
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