The Hidden Microsoft Edge Features You Didn’t Know About
It’s hard to switch browsers when we’re comfortable with what we’re used to. But knowledge is power and it’s healthy to know your browser options.
Microsoft Edge is the new browser available in Windows 10. Here is a video that provides an overview of features you may not know about!
And in case you’re interested in other Edge details, here’s research that shows how Edge is faster than Chrome, how it’s incredibly secure, and how Cortana can help you with your web browsing experience.
How to Turn Your Computer Into a Wi-Fi Hotspot in Windows 10
How to Turn Your Computer Into a Wi-Fi Hotspot in Windows 10
By Melanie Pinola, Mobile Office Expert
You might sometimes find yourself with just one internet connection point--a single wired connection for your laptop at the hotel, for example, or your smartphone tethered over USB to your computer. But what if you have other devices that need internet access, such as your Wi-Fi-only tablet or your friend's or family member's laptop? The good news is you can share your laptop's wired or mobile broadband internet connection wirelessly with other devices.
The bad news is, with Windows 10, it takes a bit of trickery in the command prompt to turn your computer into a Wi-Fi hotspot.
To share your computer's internet connection, you'll need to open the command prompt in administrator mode and type in a few commands. The instructions below were adapted from the excellent guide on NirmalTV, which offers screenshots of the process.
Open the command prompt in administrator mode by right-clicking on the Windows Start button and selecting "Command Prompt (Admin)". Alternatively, you can use this keyboard shortcut: Windows key + X (Win+X) then select the Command Prompt (Admin) option.
When the "Administrator: Command Prompt" window opens, type the following command: netsh wlan set hostednetwork mode=allow ssid=[networkSSID] key=[password]. Replace the "networkSSID" and "password" fields with the name you want for your new Wi-Fi hotspot network and its password (you'll use these to connect other devices to your computer's Wi-Fi hotspot). Then hit Enter.
Next, type in the following command to start the network: netsh wlan start hostednetwork and hit Enter. This enables and starts the ad-hoc wireless network connection.
Next, head to your Windows' network connections page (type in "network connections" in the search field in the taskbar in Windows 10 and click on "View network connections" or navigate to the Control Panel > Network and Internet > Network Connections).
Right-click on the network connection that is your computer's source of internet access (e.g., the ethernet connection or the 4G broadband connection).
Choose "Properties" from the context menu.
Go to the "Sharing" tab and check the box next to "Allow other network users to connect through this computer's internet connection"
From the dropdown list, select the Wi-Fi connection you just created.Hit OK and close the properties window.
You should then see your Wi-Fi hotspot in Windows 10's network and sharing center. From your other devices, select the new Wi-Fi network in the wireless settings and enter the password you set to connect to it.
These command prompt steps for setting up an ad-hoc network aren't as user-friendly as having a built-in method with a graphic user interface, but it's what we have so far in Windows 10 and will do in a pinch.
If you're using an older version of Windows or are on a Mac, you can accomplish this "reverse tethering" in other ways:
Use Internet Connection Sharing (e.g., when you have a laptop wired to a router or modem and want to share the connection via your Wi-Fi adapter or a second Ethernet port)
Use Internet Sharing on Mac OS X
Use Connectify, a free app that shares a single Wi-Fi connection wirelessly (so you don't need a second network adapter). It requires Windows 7 or above.
Finally, to stop sharing your internet connection over the new Wi-Fi hotspot you created in Windows 10, enter this command in the command prompt: netsh wlan stop hostednetwork
Microsoft announced back in October that Windows 10 had surpassed 110 million installations worldwide, which for October was an impressive achievement. But that was over 3 months ago, and since 2015 is coming to a close, we thought now was probably a good time to check in on that install count. Last time I checked, 120 million was the number.
According to my contacts, Windows 10 has now been installed on over 200 million devices worldwide.
Windows 10 was released to the public exactly 5 months ago today, meaning the operating system has averaged around 40 million new installs a month. That’s pretty impressive, but when you factor in Microsoft pushing Windows 10 for free straight from the desktops of Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 users, it’s not all too surprising.
So with 2015 at a close, Microsoft has 200 million installations in the bag. 200 million thanks to people upgrading for free, Windows Insiders testing new builds, and holiday buyers purchasing new PCs and tablets for their loved ones. Still, the company is a fair way away from their goal of 1 billion devices in three years, but I’m pretty hopeful that they will reach their goal.
Microsoft makes several changes to family safety features in Windows
Microsoft Windows had family safety features for years now. Recently, Microsoft made changes to Family Safety features to offer better experiences to its users. Read about them below,
Windows 10:
◾Screen time extensions: When your kids ask for more screen time on a Windows 10 PC, you can extend it through email and the website.
◾Safer settings for younger kids: When adults create new child accounts, only kids under 8 years old will have settings automatically turned on. For kids 8 and up, adults need to turn on the settings they want when they make new accounts.
◾Simplified web experience: account.microsoft.com/family is now the one place to manage family settings for Windows Phone and PCs.
◾Web browsing limits now only on Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer: On Windows 10 PCs, and now on Windows 10 Mobile, web browsing limits will only apply to Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer. If you decide to prevent your kids from using other browsers, you can choose to block other browsers that are not supported. Learn more about this change.
When your child sets up their Windows 10 Mobile phone with their Microsoft account, the family settings you previously set up for them will automatically apply:
◾Recent activity to see their activity from Windows 10 PC and Windows 10 mobile devices.
◾Web browsing limits to block inappropriate content.
◾Set Apps, games & media limits according to their age and content ratings.
◾Find your child lets you locate your child’s device on a map.
Kids can buy the stuff they want, but you know they’ll stay within the spending and content limits you set.
◾Add money to your kid’s account without giving them your credit card.
◾Kid-friendly Store browsing limited to the app, game, and media limits you set.
◾Review your child’s recent purchases on their Purchase & spending page.
Recently, Microsoft unveiled Cortana for iOS. The company asked users in the United States to sign-up for Cortana for iOS beta, and as it seems like, Microsft has finally started rolling out Cortana for iOS to beta testers. The company is rolling out Cortana for iOS via Apple’s TestFlight. Cortana on iOS looks just like it does on Windows 10, Windows 10 Mobile and Android. The personal assistant is able to tell you the weather, keep you updated with the latest news based on your interests, track your packages, flights, keep you updated with sports scores and do some other basic tasks.
Cortana Analytics Gallery - a scalable community site built on Azure DocumentDB
By Andrew Hoh Program Manager, Azure DocumentDB as written on azure.microsoft.com . Co-authored with Elena Apreutesei, Principal Software Engineer, Azure Machine Learning.
The Cortana Analytics Gallery is a community driven website used to discover, share, and learn about solutions built from the Cortana Analytics Suite. The Gallery hosts a wide range of solutions; everything from a Retail Forecasting experiment to the ever popular Face APIs used in the How old do I look? app. Machine Learning enthusiasts can share their own experiments using the Azure Machine Learning Studio, a private space focused on Machine Learning experimentation and model creation.
The Cortana Analytics Gallery follows a micro service architecture with single purpose components working together to deliver reliable and durable functionality. This post focuses on the Gallery Catalog API, which is used as the data master within the Gallery user experience.
Gallery Catalog API
Every Gallery entity has a JSON metadata document stored in Azure DocumentDB and all CRUD (create, read, update, and delete) operations are against DocumentDB. As a micro service, the Gallery Catalog API provides REST APIs and supports OData; both of which were built through the ASP.NET library WebApi. Generally, the Catalog API pushes the query filters provided through ODATA directly down to the DocumentDB LINQ provider as an ExpressionTree, where it gets executed at the database.
The Gallery Catalog service exposes GET / POST / PATCH / DELETE operations on standard WebAPI routes, such as the generic route /entities/{entityId} and the specialized routes /experiments/{entityId}, /collections/{entityId}, /tutorials/{entityId}, etc.
The JSON objects in the REST API payload are simply the serialized form of the Catalog entity data contracts, derived from a common class EntityBase which provides the flexibility to store other entities.
Windows 10 and Xbox being updated to Windows 10, Microsoft has released the ISO of the Enterprise Edition of Windows 10 1511.
Following on the past weeks November Update to Windows 10 and Xbox being updated to Windows 10, Microsoft has released the ISO of the Enterprise Edition of Windows 10 1511. This does fall in line with Microsoft’s insistence that Windows 10 is now ready for the Enterprise with version 1511.
Within this version corporate users will be able to try out all of the new features designed for business in Windows 10 including Windows Update for Business, Windows Store for Business, and Azure Active Directory Join. In addition there are security upgrades including the ability to turn off the collection of telemetry data.
These are much requested features by businesses before they begin to look at rolling Windows 10 out across their organizations, so it is great to see them becoming available. Microsoft is looking to impress businesses with these features to encourage their quick adopting of the new OS and avoid another Windows XP problem. Microsoft has already announced that 12 million business PCs have already been updated to Windows 10.
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Cortana is Microsoft’s answer to Apple’s Siri and Android’s Google Now, both great virtual assistants in their own right, and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella believes that soon assistants like these will replace our web browsers in the future.
At the O’Reilly Next: Economy summit, Nadella spoke on the possibility of users browsing the web through a voice assistant.
“To me, AI is going to happen,” says Nadella during his keynote. “It’s technology that’s inevitable.”
The idea isn’t for the browser to disappear completely, only the way that we interact with it. Instead of using a keyboard and mouse to navigate a webpage, our voice assistants will search the web for us and present that information in a natural way.
Nadella says that it will be perfectly normal to see people walking down the street, talking to their personal assistants.
“‘Hey Cortana’ is in my vocabulary. Having that become more pervasive is my pursuit,” Nadella told the summit.
With Cortana on various Windows devices, and now in beta on iOS and Android, this definitely seems possible.
What do our readers think, can you imagine a future where your only access to the world wide web is your voice assistant, let us know in the comments. Check out the video below to see what Cortana is capable of:
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