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Smith says decisions being made by the government are forcing Microsoft’s hands. However, the corporate vice-president insists the company does not want to take that action but is running out of options. Microsoft’s decision would come if the Trump administration continues to go after immigrants. Smith says the company relies on skills of foreign workers. If they are removed from the United States, the company may have to move jobs outside the country....

Available now on the Microsoft Store, “Cat Expressions” for Windows 10 is a theme that comes with a pack of 18 free wallpapers. As its free of charge, I decided to give it a go and it is, well, as you would expect… lots of images of cats. “These cats glare, grin, stare, and reveal their fiercely adorable personalities in this free, 18-set theme for Windows 10 Themes. These images are to be used as desktop wallpaper only,” Microsoft explains....

Featuring SNL cast members Kate McKinnon and Fred Armisen as Microsoft employees, and guest host Casey Affleck as a reporter, the skit puts a target on Microsoft. Speaking to a so-called “robotic employee” Affleck questions the need for the Helix 900 and Helix 950 robots to be programmed as homosexual. This shocks the Microsoft team, who respond with: “So you don’t mind gay robots, as long as they don’t talk about being gay?...

“Our global initiative is designed to help social enterprise startups build and scale their companies to do good globally,” said Jean-Philippe Courtois, EVP and president, Microsoft Global sales, in a blog post. “The program is available in 140 countries and will actively seek to support underrepresented founders with diverse perspectives and backgrounds.” To qualify for the program, companies must have a business metric that measures their impact on “an important social or environmental challenge”....

Group Policies for Human Presence is now a part of Windows 10 Build 21332 on the Windows Insider Program. This is a Dev Channel release so it will ship with Windows 10 21H1 in May. Microsoft has not explained how the feature works. However, it is likely to a combination of Windows services will be used, including Bluetooth and Windows Hello. Signals from user smartphones will likely function to tell admins when a user is away from their PC....

“We believe there is no equivalent to Trill available in the developer community today,” said James Terwilliger, principal software engineer, Azure. “In particular, by open-sourcing Trill we want to offer the power of the IStreamable abstraction to all customers the same way that IEnumerable and IObservable are available. We hope that Trill and IStreamable will provide a strong foundation for streaming or temporal processing for current and future open-source offerings....

Panay has become synonymous with the rise of the Surface hardware brand. He led the division from a failing idea to a diverse product group enjoying success. As the integration of Windows and hardware suggests, the two are now more closely linked than they have ever been before. I will personally stop short of saying the success of Windows is now tied to Surface. Some outlets have pushed that reasoning and I can see why....

1 Bug Fixes2 Known Issues With this update, Microsoft has upgraded to Windows 10 Preview Build 18945. As this is a Windows 10 20H1 release, it is for the Windows update that will arrive next year. Microsoft is now moving closer towards Windows 10 Preview Build 18947, which was accidentally leaked by the company last week. Microsoft returned and told Insiders to roll back before they can move onto this latest update....

You can now download the Remote Desktop client for ARM64 via this link. With the release of the Surface Pro X, the availability is especially topical. Naturally, it won’t install if you’re using a non-ARM PC with an Intel or AMD chip. As it’s a preview, it’s also likely there will be bugs. In that case, it’s worth noting that the app also has a 32-bit preview. As this isn’t based on a new CPU architecture, you may be less likely to run into issues, but have reduced performance due to emulation....

1 Reasonable theory or just product placement?2 Toby Fitch confirms work on Surface Pro 53 Possible Specs of the Surface Pro 54 Surface Pro 5 Stylus5 Microsoft Surface Pro 5 Price6 Surface Pro rivals Now, a new rumor has surfaced which implies that the Surface Pro 5 release date specs may feature an AMD chipset instead of a Kaby Lake by Intel. This rumor is based on the latest Alien: Covenant trailer, titled “Meet Walter”....

When the feature arrives, it will allow users to collect images from their smartphone on their Windows PC. Furthermore, the Your Phone desktop app will also provide the ability to browse through images and delete them. ALumia discovered the upcoming feature and provided the video below of it in action. That’s not the only Your Phone feature in the works. Microsoft is also bringing a prompt that allows users to pin the app to the Windows taskbar....

In a conversation with Game Reactor at the Gamescom conference in Germany, Xbox Marketing Chief Aaron Greenberg said talks with Sony are ongoing: “We’re talking to Sony [about cross play], we do partner with them on Minecraft and of course we would like to enable them to be part of that; one community, to unite gamers. So we’re talking to them and we’re hopeful that they’ll be supportive of it” Cross-Play for Minecraft introduces the ability to play the game across platforms....

The Microsoft Security researchers found the new Sysrv variant, which the company has named Sysrv-k. This variant was spotted while scanning online for WordPress plugins with existing vulnerabilities. The botnet was also targeting a recently found remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability in the Spring Cloud Gateway (CVE-2022-22947) This is a bug in VMware’s Spring Cloud Gateway and also the Communications Cloud Native Core Network Exposure tool from Oracle. Security researchers with both organizations have given this flaw a critical rating....

To this end, three sources told Reuters that Microsoft is in talks with Walmart Inc. regarding a partnership. Competing Microsoft is developing the technology through its Business AI division. It is reported 10 to 15 people are working on solutions, which have been assessed by CEO Satya Nadella. Naturally, there is a chance this tech will never be released, but early tests are said to be encouraging.

The first feature is probably the stand-out one here. From Microsoft’s description, it appears to cut out background sounds for other people in your call. Toggling the setting on should remove annoying keyboard clacks, fans, and background chatter. Meanwhile, the raise hand feature gives a visual signal when you want to talk. In Microsoft’s example, that takes the form of a little hand emoji next to your name. The idea is to save you from an arm ache without being overly obnoxious or interrupting the flow of conversation....

While it is easy to view Xbox Cloud Gaming as a brand new product, it has been around since 2020 at this point. It is bundled into the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription. Of course, it offers plenty of Microsoft exclusive games, a number that will grow thanks to the acquisitions of Bethesda and Activision Blizzard. Xbox Cloud Gaming also includes loads of titles from third-party developers. However, the caveat has always been you need that Xbox Game Pass subscription....

First up is the Windows logo itself. The start of the video flashes through all the old start menus, before settling on a gradient Windows 10 variant. It’s clearly a reference to the new icons we’ve been seeing of late, which utilize gradients and depth for a unique but modernized look. We then get a glimpse at the lock screen, which has also seen some changes. The Windows Hello symbol appears more prominently, while a bolder font for the time should make it easier to see at a distance....

However, it seems Microsoft hasn’t forgotten about it completely. Surface chief Panos Panay told The Verge of plans to release an adapter: “I love the technology in Type-C, I believe in Type-C. When Type-C is ready for our customers, to make it easy for them, we’ll be there.” Jokingly, he continued, “If you love Type-C, it means you love dongles. We’re giving a dongle to people who love dongles.”...

Thanks to this latest update, users of the Microsoft Authenticator are able to sign in to their Microsoft Account without using their password. After enrolling their account through the application, users can sign in with only their phone. In order to do so, they just have to approve the notification sent to Microsoft Authenticator after entering their username, in Android. Microsoft clarifies in the update changelog for Android that this feature is “available on most Android devices”, which means some users may not receive it....

Flipgrid is a social learning service that has 20 million users in 180 countries. Students and educators who use the platform will receive a refund if they have a current subscription. One important step Microsoft took after purchasing the platform was to make it free. During the Flipgrid LIVE event yesterday, Microsoft added some interesting new features to the platform. Leveraging Microsoft Azure, Flipgrid now automatically transcribes and closed captions videos....