Build 2016 kicked off this week with Microsoft’s with one of the biggest news: Windows 10 anniversary update announcement. Whatever you feel about Windows 10, whether you like it or not, the operating system is here and has Microsoft’s full support behind it. Windows 10 is on 270 million active Windows devices, with more than 75 billions hours of use and ended up on more devices quicker than Windows 7 by 145%.
In Microsoft’s announcement, a Windows 10 Anniversary Update was announced. PCs, tablets, phones, Xbox One, Microsoft HoloLens and IOT will have updates to a range of features. Biometric security is coming to Apps and Microsoft Edge through Windows Hello, artists, drawers and anyone who uses a pen will be able to take advantage of Windows Ink, Cortana will be usable with over 1000 apps, a unified Windows Store will make UWP apps available on the Xbox One and every Xbox One will be able to be a developer kit.
Windows Hello comes after research on how people use passwords, which to be blunt isn’t often the most secure. Many people use the one password across multiple platforms and devices despite warnings against doing this. Windows Hello uses biometrics with Windows Apps, Microsoft Edge (On supported sites) and to sign in to your computer. This adds an extra layer of security that’s up to enterprise standard.
Windows Ink is for those of us who prefer using a pen to anything else. Using a pen, users will be able to take notes, draw sketches or whatever else they use pens for with ease, as you would on paper, sticky notes of a whiteboard. Integration has been developed for Maps, Microsoft Edge and Office. For developers, only two lines of code are needed to put Windows Ink into an app, giving apps the ability to do more than before.
Cortana’s upgrade gives this function the ability to proactively make suggestions on your life. Cortana aims to be more of a personal assistant than before, making suggestions on how to improve your day to day life. There’s a range of apps in a Cortana Collection in the Windows Store, so users will be able to get apps that can tailor make Cortana to your life.
The Xbox hasn’t been forgotten, with Cortana being integrated into Xbox One as a personal gaming assistant. As an assistant, Cortana will give users recommendations on new games, game updates and tips and tricks. The Universal Windows Platform means that PC games will be available on the Xbox One, which means that gamers will have access to a wider range of games than previously.
Being able to turn your Xbox One into a developer kit will give a lot of people access to game and app creation from their living rooms. For many gamers, being able to develop their own games has been a dream that’s now a possibility. Games that allow users to develop levels, worlds and games within games have been popular for some time, and this feature may make Xbox One an attractive purchase for gamers and potential developers.
The Windows 10 Anniversary Update SDK was also announced, containing thousands of new APIs and features. The SDK contains new ways to devices to connect and communication, the ability to execute programs in the background rather than as two different processes, app extensions for UWP, notifications for the Action Centre are going to come to whatever device you use on thanks to the Cloud and new tools are available on the Windows Store and Development Centre.
The features mentioned above, Windows Ink, Windows Hello, Cortana and Microsoft HoloLens have new innovations available in the SDK. With designing the Windows 10 Anniversary Update SDK, the recommendations and ideas of users were taken into account, and what was able to be made possible was.
In other news, Microsoft’s HoloLens is now being shipped. HoloLens is a new way of communicating and interacting with the world. Holograms are used to create news ways of sharing ideas, products and connecting people everywhere. A plus with the HoloLens is that there’s no need for a PC, markers, external cameras wires or a phone.
Tay, Microsoft’s teenage bot recently made the news. The company forgot that the internet is filled with trolls. However, Microsoft is still developing bots to make communicating with digital devices and services easier. In a demonstration, a chatbot was used to order pizza from Domino’s. What’s being released is a Microsoft Bot Framework, so that developers and users will be able to create their own chatbots for their own purposes. According to Satya Nadella, “We want every developer to be able to build bots as the new application for every business and every service. We want all developers to be able to infuse intelligence into their applications.”
Source: Microsoft, Microsoft Blogs
