windows

Windows 10 Tip: Use Cortana above your lock screen Happy Monday, everyone! In last week’s Windows 10 Tip, we showed you how to get started with Microsoft Edge extensions. Today, we’re going to show you how your personal digital assistant, Cortana*, can help you with all kinds of tasks across your device – even above your lock screen, thanks to the Windows 10 Anniversary Update. Cortana allows you to perform tasks including set timers, track flights or even check the traffic, just using your voice. And now, with the Windows 10 Anniversary Update, you can talk to Cortana on your PC’s lock screen. Here’s how to use Cortana above your lock screen: Start by saying “Hey Cortana,” and ask her what the weather will be like this week, to remind you to do something or to play your favorite songs – without unlocking [ more… ]

This Week on Windows: Skype Bots, Minecraft, Windows Holographic Welcome to This Week on Windows, where we’ll bring you the latest in Windows news, apps, and tips every Friday from experts here at Microsoft. To learn more about what’s mentioned in this week’s episode, head over here to read about building Minecraft on Oculus Rift or Windows Holographic. Check out what we shared earlier this week about the Surface Special Edition NFL type covers, and our blog posts on the new gaming devices announced by Lenovo and HP at gamescom. Get Steven Tyler’s album, “We’re All Somebody From Somewhere,” from the Windows Store for only 99 cents. And, if you missed it, check out this week’s Windows 10 Tip on getting started with Edge extensions. We hope you enjoyed this week’s episode of This Week on Windows! Here’s what else is [ more… ]

Zachary Milot: A student using Surface to study Marine Science Today, I’m highlighting Zachary Milot, a 19-year-old sophomore who is using Surface to study Marine Science at Boston University. I’ve been talking to a lot of students recently and what stood out and really inspired me about Zach was how he’s not afraid to change direction and go for what he knows he believes in. “My Surface keeps everything in one place: my notes, my programs and websites, my music, and my projects and papers.” Before Zach even went to college he enrolled in a vocational high school to learn how to design websites and code – it’s just a hobby now in his spare time but a really valuable skill for any student. Like most high school grads, Zach didn’t know exactly what career he wanted to pursue when [ more… ]

Introducing the UWP Community Toolkit Recently, we released the Windows Anniversary Update and a new Windows Software Developer Kit (SDK) for Windows 10 containing tools, app templates, platform controls, Windows Runtime APIs, emulators and much more, to help create innovative and compelling Universal Windows apps. Today, we are introducing the open-source UWP Community Toolkit, a new project that enables the developer community to collaborate and contribute new capabilities on top of the SDK. We designed the toolkit with these goals in mind: 1. Simplified app development: The toolkit includes new capabilities (helper functions, custom controls and app services) that simplify or demonstrate common developer tasks. Where possible, our goal is to allow app developers to get started with just one line of code. 2. Open-Source: The toolkit (source code, issues and roadmap) will be developed as an open-source project. We [ more… ]