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If you are unfamiliar with Azure reservations, they allow customers to purchase plans for cloud services. For example, users can pre-pay for one year or three years and gain discounts from Azure services. Microsoft has announced the following additions for reservations: Azure Databricks pre-purchase plan App Service Isolated Stamp Fee reservations Ability to automatically renew reservations Ability to scope reservations to resource group Enhanced usage data to help with charge back, savings, and utilization API to get prices and purchase reservations...

According to the plaintiffs, both companies did not seek consent from Illinois residents before using facial recognition technology to store and analyze biometric information. You may remember both companies already faced legal action over use of facial recognition in Illinois last year. As for Microsoft, the company is said to have used facial recognition technology on residents in Illinois through a partnership with ride-sharing giant Uber. Specifically, the company took data from bio authentication for the Uber app....

Accompanied by the virtual Doctor in a virtual TARDIS (the Doctor’s time-traveling machine), users will have to solve a series of puzzles, quizzes, and other challenges. What makes the game even more interesting is the fact that it will be episodic. What that means is that every Sunday at 6 p.m. British Summer Time (BST) -10 a.m. Pacific- the companies will release a new chapter. In the blog post, the Skype Team informs users that six adventures will be published, during which users will interact with the Doctor through text, videos, and gifs....

With Bookmarking, users can save favored states as part of their report. Bookmarks are important because they allow users to pick up work where they left it. The features work well for analysis and organizing presentations in a report. It is worth noting Bookmarking is currently available in preview. It is not the only notable new addition for Power BI Desktop. Microsoft has also added the ability to use quick measures for report that are using live connection mode against SQL Server Analysis Services models....

Either way, Microsoft says it is rolling out Azure Stack Hub Fleet Management in private preview. This fork of the platform is built to provide organizations with a single management method directly from Azure. It extends across their Stack Hub deployments. Microsoft CloudForms, which has recently become ManagedIQ is coming to Azure Stack Hub. It allows cloud operators to leverage RedHat tooling to manage resources across hubs. Microsoft says this tool is now in public preview....

“SQL Server 2019 enables enterprises to gain intelligence over all data types, both structured and unstructured, by combining the power of new big data clusters with enhanced data virtualization,” said John “JG” Chirapurath, Microsoft’s general manager of Azure Data & AI, in the blog post. Big Data clusters are arguably the stand out feature in SQL Server 2019. This is a solution for scaling data virtualization build on the Kuberenetes (K8s) container....

As we know, the Surface Neo will launch later this year alongside the Android powered Surface Duo. While Microsoft rolled out a preview SDK for the Duo last month, dev’s were left waiting on Windows 10X. This is the newest specialized version of Windows 10 that runs on the Neo. Following the news yesterday, app developers can now start using Windows 10X through an emulator. This allows them to test apps on the new OS....

At the start of 2018, Microsoft acquired cloud gaming management company PlayFab. PlayFab was a cloud-based company that provides game management and analytics solutions, including multiplayer servers. Among its services are virtual currency tracking, leaderboards, authentication, commerce, and more. Shortly after the acquisition, Microsoft revealed plans to fold the company into Azure, creating Azure PlayFab. The company integrated features from the software into live game operations through Azure cloud. Among the services PlayFab brought to Microsoft are virtual currency tracking, leaderboards, authentication, commerce, and more....

Adaptive Cards give developers tools to write cards for an app or service. For the Bot Framework, the card look the same across platforms. In terms of Cortana Skills Kit integration, the Adaptive Cards can adapt to the host look. Cortana will create cards in its own aesthetic. Skills developers can improve their experience with the following tools: Input controls: Existing card formats (hero, receipt, thumbnail and sign-in) do not support input fields....

It is worth noting that Microsoft is likely to persist with this sporadic availability. The company originally said Skip Ahead would be open to Insiders for a limited period. It seems Microsoft will continue to have windows where the ability is available. The feature allows Insiders on the Fast Ring to skip ahead a branch. In this case, it means those members currently running the Fall Creators Update (Redstone 3) can move ahead to the Redstone 4 branch....

The company was also accused of GDPR violations by the Dutch Government in November, who criticized the inability to disable telemetry or know exactly what Microsoft is collecting. The new Office 365 ProPlus controls remedy this somewhat, introducing a required and optional setting. This solution already made its way to consumer versions of Office, though there’s no way to disable collection completely. Office 365 ProPlus Feature Toggles Alongside the controls, Microsoft is providing more information on the data it gathers....

When I say “decide”, it may be more accurate to say “forced” or “compelled” to make changes. A resolution filed by shareholders to give them the “right to repair” their Surface devices. Microsoft says it will give more options by the end of 2022 if shareholders end their resolution. Microsoft proposes three changes to give owners of Surface devices more repairability. None of these will include making the devices themselves easier to fix, so DIY will still not be possible for more....

With the Xbox Elite Controller Series 2, Microsoft added tension joysticks, improved bumper grips, shorter hairlock triggers, rubberized grips, and trigger grips. Elsewhere, the pad sports an internal battery, Bluetooth, and can support three gaming profiles. Launched on November 4, the controller has been plagued by issues. Customers have complained about several issues, which Microsoft has now acknowledged: “At Microsoft, we put all of our products through rigorous quality assurance testing....

When Chromium Edge becomes generally available on January 15, it will be without some important features. For example, out of the box the browser will be missing ARM64 support. While this is an at-launch omission and ARM support will eventually arrive, we are still disappointing. Not least because Microsoft is increasingly pushing ARM. Just last month, the company announced an ARM variant of its new Surface Laptop 3. Microsoft explains a blocking bug has prevented ARM-supported Edge from launching....

The company has been planning to ditch its 34-year-old legacy app for around two years. It was initially planned for the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, but that fell through. Since, it’s been showing warnings that ‘Paint will soon be replaced with Paint 3D’. However, in recent Insider builds, that message has disappeared. “Yes, MSPaint will be included in 1903. It’ll remain included in Windows 10 for now,” Windows program manager Brandon LeBlanc has now revealed on Twitter....

The bug and update have also been put into the Known Issue Rollback (KIR) System, which will stop it from spreading further. Users who have already installed KB5015878 for Windows 10 may experience widespread audio issues on the platform. In its post, Microsoft says the issue manifests differently depending on the PC, which means hardware influences how it affects Windows 10. For example, some users are experiencing a total audio blackout with no sound at all....

Desktop Analytics is a suite that helps smooth out compatibility when upgrading Windows 10 and Office 365. In its announcement, Jared Spataro, corporate vice president for Office and Windows marketing said the tool can be used by companies for sorting apps before upgrades. Organizations can “create an inventory of apps running in the organization, assess app compatibility with the latest feature updates of Windows 10 and Office 365 ProPlus, and create pilot groups....

In an announcement this week, Microsoft says the support will come to Exchange Admin Center “in the coming weeks”. While the integration is nice, it is worth noting moving G Suite content will be a 10-step process, alongside any checks IT admins have to perform before using Google tools in an organization. However, one those steps are complete, migrations from Google’s productivity platform to Exchange can happen. Microsoft says G Suite to Office 365 migration can happen through Exchange Admin Center or Exchange Online PowerShell....

For reference, this update brings Outlook on Android to version 4.0.7. As mentioned, there are some interesting new additions to the experience. Leading the feature changes is support for POP3 accounts. POP3 is over two decades old, but the Post Office Protocol is still used. Outlook now supports accounts created in POP3. Users can make an account through the app settings. Elsewhere in version 4.0.7., Microsoft has added support for larger displays....

Specifically, April 14, 2026 is now the end date for extended support for all Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack tools. “To make it easier for IT pros who use MDOP as a suite of tools, it made sense to standardize a single end of support date across all MDOP products. To ensure that we maintained the end of support promise we’d made to customers, we chose to align to the farthest date, April 14, 2026, which was originally just the end of support date for DaRT 10....