Software & Apps - Page 62

At the event in New York, Microsoft has announced they are partnering with top PC makers, such as HP, Lenovo, Dell, ASUS, and Acer, to build VR headsets. They also revealed the Surface studio, an ultra-thin transforming all-in-one aimed at transforming your desk into a fully-fledged workstation studio.

The company is pushing virtual and augmented reality pretty hard, and they will show that in their next Windows 10 update named Creators Update. Due out in spring next year, the Windows 10 Creators Update will be focused on bringing the VR and AR experience to millions of users around the world.

At the event, the representatives of the company stated they want 3D available to everyone. The Creators Update will be largely built around Microsoft Paint, which will become Paint 3D, and from what we saw, it's pretty impressive.

We all know the pain of reinstalling or getting your Windows installation on a new OEM "clean" install of your OS, but Microsoft has just made this a million times easier with their new Windows 10 refresh tool.

Microsoft's new tool lets you "reset" the entire operating system, removing the bloatware that comes on some PCs from big brand companies like Lenovo (sorry for picking you out of the bunch, Lenovo - so how about I add Samsung, Dell, and others). The new tool can be downloaded right here, where Windows will reinstall itself to the same state as if you were to install it from the USB flash drive or DVD - without all that OEM bloatware crap.

Rob Williams from HotHardware (and TechGage!) says: "First and foremost, you don't have to lose your files by doing this; you'll be provided the option to keep them. Second, you may run into some roadblocks with regards to app licenses (eg: the preinstalled apps that are no longer preinstalled). That even includes vendor-specific drivers, so if your notebook or desktop has special hardware that Windows 10 can't install on its own, you'll need to hit up the vendor's website to download and install the drivers manually".

You may have noticed recently the lack of a 'Gaming Evolved' check box in the AMD driver installation window. As it turns out, the company has discontinued the app, so if you want to record or stream gameplay, you'll have to look externally to Plays.tv, OBS Studio, and so on.

"Starting September 12, 2016, AMD is no longer bundling the AMD Gaming Evolved App by Raptr with builds of Radeon Software," reads the official statement. "The application will still work. AMD will cease to undertake any compatibility testing, install support or general technical support for this application, nor will it be available through Radeon Software or its installer. Previous builds of Radeon Software that include the AMD Gaming Evolved App dated before September 12th 2016 will remain intact and will not be affected."

The news isn't too surprising as most found the app clunky and inefficient, particularly in comparison to competitor GeForce Experience. One hopes then AMD is hard at work on a proper, internal solution.

Following a long power struggle, Steve Jobs was forced out of Apple in 1985. After leaving Apple, Jobs took a few of its members with him to found NeXT, a computer platform development company specializing in state-of-the-art computers for higher-education and business markets.

The new company began to build the NeXT computer that has been launched on this day in 1988 in San Francisco. The NeXT Computer was revealed at an invitation-only gala launch event on October 12th, 1988. The following day, selected educators and software developers were invited to attend the first public technical overview of the NeXT computer, and they had to pay $100 registration fee to witness Steve Jobs himself introducing the computer.

The NeXT Computer was not a significant commercial success. It failed to reach the level of sales of Apple II, Commodore 64 and Macintosh. However, this vast and expensive black cube is quite important for the IT history, and Jobs said the NeXT computer was ahead of its time.

Google recent sent out an e-mail to its Mobile Services partners indicating Hangouts will no longer be required to be bundled with hardware. Rather, video calling app Duo will take its place.

"Duo will replace Hangouts within the suite of core GMS apps, and Hangouts will become GMS Optional for telephony products," it reads. "This change will take effect on December 1, 2016."

What's also interesting is Google's text messaging app Allo isn't getting the nod alongside Duo; for whatever reason, the company is content to not push the text side of their new communication apps in this regard, at least for the time being.

Every day, more than 100 million people use Facebook events, so it made perfect sense for Facebook to introduce it as a standalone app.

Facebook events app is perfect for users who like to have a better overview of the upcoming events, but Facebook doesn't require you to download the app to be able to use Events in your Facebook app, at least not for now.

When you open Events, you can see the events your Facebook friends are interested in, recently-announced events by the pages you like, and updates from events you're already connected to. You can also browse the events based on your interests or location. Events app features an interactive map that will help you browse trough the events easier, something that the Events feature in Facebook's main app doesn't have.

Facebook has announced a "lite" version of its Messenger app - Messenger Lite. The app is designed for older phones that run on slower internet connections.

Messenger Lite will initially launch in Kenya, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Tunisia and Venezuela, but it will come to other countries as well. The app will have basic Messenger features like sending messages, photos and stickers but compared to the official Messenger app some features will be left out.

The app will be available for Android devices and there is no information if a version of Messenger Lite will be launched for iOS.

The Wi-Fi Assist feature on iOS was introduced last year in iOS 9, and Apple is sticking with it. This feature is designed to prevent the use of a poor Wi-Fi connection but it could cause you a headache and a larger phone bill, especially for those who don't have unlimited data traffic.

Both iOS 9 and iOS 10 have this feature enabled by default and it is set to automatically switch to the mobile internet when your Wi-Fi is weak.

This can be useful for maintaining a good internet connection when, for example, leaving the house, but if you do not have unlimited data traffic, this could affect your phone bill.

As I type this news from a Windows 10-powered desktop PC, news has landed that Microsoft has hit a milestone of 400 million active devices running Windows 10.

It has taken Microsoft around 14 months to hit 400 million users on Windows 10 since its launch, with 100 million users poured into the Windows 10 pool since May 5. Towards the end of March, there were 207 million active devices running Windows 10 - now remember, "active devices" is a considerable team of products.

We're talking about desktops, laptops, tablets, phones, Surface Hubs, HoloLens devices, and more. Microsoft isn't quite at its 1 billion goal yet with Windows 10, but the latest desktop OS is definitely the fastest-growing Windows platform in history.

Google is celebrating its 18th birthday today (feeling old yet?) with an appropriate Google Doodle full of balloons. Google's birthday varied during the years, but September 27th is its official birthday since 2006.

Google was founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were Ph.D. students at Stanford University, California. Their goal was to "organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful". 18 years ago Google's headquarters was in the garage of Susan Wojcicki, Larry's and Sergey's friend, and today Google is situated in Mountain View with over 57,000 employees.

In the 18 years of existence, Google has become one of the biggest companies in the world and our daily lives are unimaginable without it.

It's a hard life if you're an AMD user and like to stream and record. Whereas NVIDIA users enjoy the sleek, performance-light, and feature-rich Shadowplay, there's really nothing as good for the other camp.

The gap narrows somewhat today though as Open Broadcaster Software (OBS) Studio (the new and improved version of OBS) gains support for AMD's Video Coding Engine (VCE). Essentially, this means fast, high-quality recording and streaming, in contrast to Windows Media Foundation offered, particularly at 1080p and 60 FPS.

VCE support has been in testing for awhile now and today marks the first stable release. To download it, hit the source link below, or if you're in no hurry, wait until the next OBS Studio release with which it will be bundled.

While we're all distracted with the news of Google's upcoming media event for the unveiling of the next-gen Pixel smartphone, Android Police has an incredible tease for the future of Google, something that will be unveiled on October 4.

Google's next big thing is reportedly something massive for the company, with Horishi Lockmeimer - the Senior VP of Android, Google Play, and Chrome teasing on Twitter:

The top reply to Lockheimer's tweet is "@lockheimer Are you going to announce A*******a finally?" with a picture of stars next to it.

Two months after the news Opera's browser business would be sold to Chinese firms, the company's eponymous browser now offers a built-in virtual private network (VPN) service. Available in beta form since April, it goes public today, making it the first major browser to do so.

VPNs allow one greater privacy and security while granting access to region restricted content. Opera cites surveys where users who declined to use one typically did so to avoid difficulty and subscription fees, so it appears their aim is to eliminate both barriers.

To enable the service in Opera, navigate to Settings/Preferences, Privacy & Security, then toggle as you see fit. Once you do so, a convenient VPN icon will appear in the browser, and you can toggle it from there going forward, as well as choose a location, or let the browser intelligently choose one for you (the idea being to minimize any performance impact, and possibly to automatically access content).

Popular leaker Evan Blass has made it known: Google's Allo app is due to launch this week on September 21.

The company launched its Duo video messaging app last month; users have been anticipating the text messaging complementary app Allo ever since. Allo was originally slated for a summer release; Google has just a few days to technically meet that deadline, lending credibility to the leak.

Allo features deep integration with Google Assistant, and with that comes the standard suite of messaging app features: sticker packs, voice messages, GIF searching, full encryption, private chatting, and more.

One of the issues with PC gaming these days is having multiple game libraries across multiple services. While many attempts have been made at creating all-in-one frontend solutions, you might say they've all fallen short. The newly launched GameRoom, however, looks to be the best of the bunch so far with a sleek interface similar to Origin prior to its recent overhaul.

Feature-wise, it includes automatic import, sorting, support for command line arguments, a power saving mode, a play time tracker, and more.

The downside: it requires Java, which has been swiftly going the way of the dodo. If that doesn't dissuade you, download GameRoom here.

A recently published guide goes through a series of different reasons and solutions on how to properly address not getting the Windows 10 Anniversary Update. This update has a lot of pretty major features that Microsoft is saying significantly improve the Windows 10 experience.

Microsoft actually has their own blog that they published last month that tells you how to get the Windows 10 Anniversary Update if you haven't tried already. If you have tried to get the update, but it didn't work then this new guide might be helpful.

The potential ways that could be preventing you from getting the Windows 10 Anniversary Update include:

Android Pay gets better today with the addition of support for major US bank Chase. As of now, you can add your Chase Visas (Freedom, Slate, Sapphire, United Mileage Explorer, Hyatt Credit Card, etc) to Pay and use them to make quick payments in online and retail stores with your phone.

Note that if you have a Chase card grandfathered in from Google Wallet, you'll have to re-add it to get going.

UK customers will soon get some love, too, as Santander and TSB customers are to be added to the list of supported banks in the region, among others. No exact dates are set, but Google says they will announce each of them on the @Android Twitter account.

Android's latest major update Nougat launches today, five months after it entered beta. It's ready to install on Nexus 6, Nexus 5X, Nexus 6P, Nexus 9, Nexus Player, Pixel C tablet, and General Mobile 4G, and will come pre-installed on the LG V20 when it launches around early September.

Nougat introduces approximately 250 major features. Among them: quick switching between apps, multi-windows, support for Vulkan API, built-in VR support, improved battery life, faster booting, and data saving for background apps.

If you don't see an update prompt on your phone now, you should soon. If you don't own one of the above listed phones, unfortunately you're likely to wait a long while for the update as per usual.

Microsoft's recent Windows 10 Anniversary Update has been causing problems with USB webcams, where the update prevents them from using MJPEG and H.264 encoding processes, in favor of the NV12 and YUY2 formats that are causing issues for many more people than Microsoft had anticipated. Millions of webcams have been affected.

Windows insider Paul Thurrott said that the Anniversary Update allows new situations where multiple applications can access the webcam, and the banned processed would duplicate the encoding stream, slowing it down. Only allowing a certain few compressions formats would stop multiple simultaneous processes, but now Microsoft has just made millions of webcams across the world not work in a click of their fingers.

Many users have taken to a developer forum where "Mike M" from the Windows Camera team at Microsoft explained why they removed the formatting, with the developer saying there's a fix for the MJPEG issue that will arrive in the September update, but the H.264 fix is a while away yet. You've got 10 days to roll back the Anniversary Update, which will have this problem solved, but if you pass that then you're going to have to wait until the fixes are delivered through Windows 10 updates.

Crytek's newly published roadmap for CryEngine reveals big features are not far off at all.

First is DirectX 12 multi-GPU support, a complete DirectX 12 renderer, the possibility of support for NVIDIA's PhysX, and more. All of these are labeled for version 5.2, due out any day now.

Version 5.3, meanwhile, will introduce the increasingly popular Vulkan API. Developed as a spin-off of AMD's Mantle, it serves as another low-overhead solution that's been shown to majorly increase performance in games. 5.3 is planned for mid-October.