Microsoft has started rolling out the June update for its dual-screen Surface Duo 2 handset. This update is about 736MB in size and brings this foldable smartphone up to firmware version 2022.418.98. It adds third-party application support to the Glance Bar that allows users to check for notifications when the Surface Duo 2 is folded. This update also adds improved functionality for the Slim Pen 2. Apart from these improvements, the June update introduces a few other new features and general performance upgrades.
According to the information available on the Microsoft support page for the Surface Duo 2, the Glance Bar will now show notifications from third-party messaging apps. Prior to this update, the Glance Bar only showed SMS, voicemail, and Microsoft Teams alerts. With the June update, the Slim Pen 2 will receive an automatic firmware upgrade when paired to the handset over Bluetooth. It will enable the Slim Pen 2 to automatically pair with the Surface Duo 2 when being used on either screen. For the automatic pairing to work, users have to ensure that their Slim Pen 2 is updated to firmware version 5.133.139 or later and software version 5.148.139 or later.
Furthermore, the Camera app will now have the option to enable haptic feedback control in the settings. The Surface Duo 2 will now offer an improved camera experience in the dual-screen mode for applications with dynamic orientation. This update also optimises charging by allowing the battery to charge gradually overnight which is expected to prevent the battery from ageing quickly. Furthermore, Device Firmware Configuration Interface (DFCI) is now supported to control device usage. The update also brings general performance, stability, camera usability, and touch responsiveness improvements.
To recall, the Surface Duo 2 was launched in September last year. It features two 5.8-inch PixelSense displays that offer a combined viewing experience of 8.3-inch when unfolded. It is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 SoC and packs a 4449mAh battery.
This week on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast, we discuss the Surface Pro 8, Go 3, Duo 2, and Laptop Studio — as Microsoft sets a vision for Windows 11 hardware. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.
The European Union is working on a possible ban on the provision of cloud services to Russia as part of new sanctions against the Kremlin for the invasion of Ukraine, an EU official told Reuters on Wednesday, noting the measure was technically complex.
If introduced, it is unclear how the EU ban would affect Russia, because top cloud providers in Europe are US companies, including Amazon, Google and Microsoft.
The European Union last week adopted a new package of sanctions against Russia and Belarus which included an oil embargo, restrictive measures on Russian banks and a ban on the provision of consultancy services to Moscow.
An initial version of a press release on the sanctions package issued by the EU Council on June 3 also referred to a ban on the provision of cloud services, but was later amended to delete that reference. That sanction does not appear in the legal texts published in the official journal of the EU.
A press officer for the Council said the initial mention of the sanction on cloud services was “a material error”, and declined to say whether it may have been caused by a debate on the matter among EU states.
An EU official familiar with decisions on sanctions said the measure on cloud services was never proposed by the European Commission, but added that the EU was working on introducing the ban in possible future rounds of sanctions despite it being technically difficult.
In a tweet on Tuesday, the Ukrainian president’s adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said that the editing of the press release by the EU Council had been done without offering a clear explanation and that it suggested a possible watering down of sanctions.
“We must increase the sanctions pressure, not decrease,” he said.
Broadcom said on Thursday it will buy cloud service provider VMware in a $61 billion (roughly Rs. 4,73,223 crore) cash-and-stock deal to further diversify the chipmaker’s business into enterprise software.
Broadcom’s shares were up 1.6 percent, while those of VMWare were down nearly one percent in premarket trading.
The acquisition is the second biggest announced globally so far this year, after Microsoft’s $68.7 billion (roughly Rs. 5,32,955 crore) deal to buy video game maker Activision Blizzard in January.
Each VMware shareholder will get $142.50 (roughly Rs. 11,000) per share, resulting in a premium of over 48 percent to the stock’s close since the deal talks were first reported on May 22.
VMware shareholders will get $142.50 in cash or 0.2520 shares of a Broadcom common stock for each VMware share held.
Microsoft at the Build 2022 developer conference has announced a list of updates that are aimed to make Windows, Edge, and Teams better productivity solutions. The software giant announced a slew of Microsoft Store updates including the ability to serve ads and allowing users to restore apps when they switch to a new PC to give developers ways to make their apps more discoverable and retain their users. Additionally, Microsoft partnered with Qualcomm to introduce Project Volterra as a new mini-PC to help developers build cloud-based artificial intelligence (AI) solutions.
Windows updates
Windows 11 has been one of the biggest focus areas for Microsoft since its launch in October last year. Although the new operating system has refreshed user experience with features including centre-aligned Start menu and widgets, the Redmond company is bringing improvements to those features to enhance user experience.
At this year’s Build virtual conference, Microsoft announced that it is soon introducing the ability to view apps available on the Microsoft Store directly using the Windows Search on Windows 11 PCs. The feature will initially be available to Windows Insiders and is aimed to allow developers to make their apps discoverable, without distracting users from their flow. Users will see a Get from Store button for each app listing they see on their search results to install apps of their choice, without requiring them to access the Microsoft Store.
Windows 11 is getting the ability to look for apps available on the Microsoft Store directly from search Photo Credit: Microsoft
Windows 11 users are also getting a feature to let users automatically restore their apps directly from the Microsoft Store. “This will also help developers retain their customers without having to remind customers to re-download their app,” the company said.
The feature to let users restore their apps will initially be available for testing in the Windows Insider channel in the coming future.
Microsoft is also expanding the Amazon Appstore preview to run Android apps on Windows 11. Currently live in the US, the preview is reaching five additional countries, namely France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom. The expansion will take place by the end of the year, the company said.
Additionally, the Windows maker has introduced Microsoft Store Ads to help developers run ad campaigns directly in the Store. It will help Microsoft to expand revenues coming from its Store and allow developers to improve discoverability of their apps.
Ads in the Microsoft Store will start appearing through a pilot based on Microsoft Advertising that will run soon, the company said.
Microsoft has also removed the waitlist programme for Win32 apps in the Microsoft Store and is opening it to all app developers. The update will particularly help increase the number of apps available on the Store for download on Windows 11 systems.
Alongside Microsoft Store-centric updates, Microsoft at Build 2022 announced support for third-party widgets on Windows 11. The company said that developers would be able to start building widgets as “companion experiences” for their Win32 and Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) on Windows 11 beginning later this year. The new experience will be backed by Microsoft’s Adaptive Cards.
Windows 11 is enabling developers to create widgets of their native apps Photo Credit: Microsoft
OneNote is also getting an updated visual design that will look and feel and will have pen and voice functionalities inspired by Windows 11. There will be modern visuals to deliver a fresh user experience. The note-taking app will also get AI capabilities to recognise inputs from voice in the form of dictations, images using the inbuilt camera of the device, and via handwriting through a stylus pen.
Microsoft Edge updates
While saying goodbye to Internet Explorer next month, Microsoft is improving user experiences on the Edge to fill in the gap left by its legacy browser and make the new offering a competitive option against Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Apple’s Safari.
One of the biggest changes that Microsoft Edge has received among the Build announcements is the general availability of WebView2 for WinUI 2 and Universal Windows Platform (UWP). The new embedded Web control is built on top of the Microsoft Edge Chromium platform.
Citing performance insights from Cerner Corporation, Microsoft said WebView2 helped deliver improvements including 85 percent reduced render time, 33 percent lower CPU utilisation, and 32 percent less memory utilisation over the traditional solutions available on Internet Explorer.
Microsoft is also enhancing PWAs on the Edge browser by enabling new APIs and improving their notifications. The company said that the underlying improvements will enable notifications coming from PWAs to appear as coming from a native app. Users will also be able to access features including the native platform’s share UI to share files on a PWA.
Microsoft is enabling PWAs to have system’s native UI for sharing files Photo Credit: Microsoft
Additionally, Microsoft is adding the ability for users to find PWAs alongside native apps in the Microsoft Store.
The Apps page in Microsoft Edge has also been updated with an improved interface. Microsoft has additionally developed a new Apps Hub experience and enabled app sync across devices in the Edge browser to improve user experience.
Microsoft Edge is also receiving a simplified DevTools interface that brings a new compact and customisable Activity Bar. This will bring over 30 tools to help personalise workflows for developers.
Microsoft Teams updates
Microsoft Teams at this year’s Build conference has received a feature called Live Share that will allow users to share apps in their virtual meetings. It will help co-watch, co-edit, and co-create in Teams meetings, the company said.
Developers will get new preview extensions through the Teams SDK to let them create Live Share experiences for their apps. Initially, companies including Frame.io, Hexagon, Skillsoft, MakeCode, Accenture, Parabol, and Breakthru have built their experiences on the new feature.
In addition to Live Share, Microsoft has introduced the Azure Communication Services sample app builder to let developers create and deploy a sample application for virtual appointments. Users will be able to use the sample app to book appointments and join a Teams meeting.
Microsoft has announced the general availability of the new Teams SDK that will help developers build apps for Teams, Outlook, and Office using a single application and deployment model.
Developers offering apps for Microsoft Teams will also be able to start giving freemium versions of their offerings as Microsoft has introduced in-app purchasing within its video conferencing solution.
App development-focussed updates
At this year’s Build conference, Microsoft has announced Power Apps with the ability to generate a working low-code app from inputs such as Figma design files, PDFs, paper forms, and even a picture of a hand-drawn app. The company has used cognitive AI technology to enable Power Apps to scan the inputs and produce working app controls. The apps created by the new experience will also have data storage.
Microsoft also partnered with Qualcomm to introduce Project Volterra — a new developer kit based on the Snapdragon compute platform. It is aimed to help developers build new AI apps using the Qualcomm Neural Processing SDK for Windows toolkit. The mini-PC carries a dedicated Neural Processing Unit (NPU) to process AI algorithms natively.
Microsoft has introduced Project Volterra for developers to create new AI apps Photo Credit: Microsoft
Exact details on the launch of Project Volterra are yet to be revealed. However, Microsoft said that the system will be coming later this year.
This week on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast, we discuss the Surface Pro 8, Go 3, Duo 2, and Laptop Studio — as Microsoft sets a vision for Windows 11 hardware. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.
Xbox Series X restock is happening today in India. In a rare move, Amazon has revealed that the Xbox Series X will be available for pre-order in the country today at 12pm (noon). The pre-orders of the Xbox Series X are notably going live at the time when Sony is once again making its PlayStation 5 consoles and bundles available in the country for pre-order. Xbox Series X was launched back in November 2020 globally, alongside Xbox Series S, as Microsoft’s latest gaming consoles. It comes in a svelte tower PC-like design and is based on the Xbox velocity architecture.
Xbox Series X pre-orders in India
Amazon has revealed on its video game home page and the dedicated Series S/X page that the Xbox Series X will be available for pre-orders in India from 12pm (noon) on Friday. It is unclear whether the console will also go on pre-orders through other channels. Gadgets 360 has reached out to Microsoft for clarity on that front and will update this article when the company responds.
Considering supply constraints, just a few Xbox Series X units are likely to be available for pre-orders. It is, therefore, recommended to log in on the e-commerce site on time to secure your order.
Since its debut in late 2020, Microsoft has rarely publicly revealed any details about Xbox Series X restocks in the country. The sales channels for the latest Xbox console have also remained silent about its availability most of the times. This is unlike the case of PlayStation 5 where we regularly get pre-order details through its sales channels, as well as Sony Centre’s official ShopAtSC website.
In October 2020, Xbox chief Phil Spencer said in an interview that the initial Xbox Series X/S pre-orders in India that took place in September of that year sold out instantly. He added: “We’ve hardly ever sold consoles in markets like that before,” without revealing the exact number of units sold.
Xbox Series X price in India
Xbox Series X price in India has been set at Rs. 49,990. In contrast, the Xbox Series S, which is available much easily, is priced at Rs. 34,990.
PS5 vs Xbox Series X: Which is the best “next-gen” console in India? We discussed this on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts.
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Microsoft may launch an Xbox streaming device in the next 12 months, as per a report. The streaming device is said to enable users to access movies, TV services along with a library of games through Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. The report also says that Microsoft is also working with Samsung to develop an Xbox game-streaming app for the South Korean company’s televisions. The news comes a few days after Microsoft announced that Xbox Cloud Gaming users will now be able to play Fortnite for free on Android, iOS, and Windows devices.
Citing people familiar with the matter, VentureBeat (GamesBeat) reported that the device will likely look like an Amazon Fire TV Stick or a Roku-like puck. As far its functionality is concerned, the device will allow users to access movies and TV services — like we do with Amazon Fire TV Stick, for example — along with their library of games through Xbox Game Pass Ultimate.
Furthermore, Microsoft is said to be working with Samsung to develop an app that’ll probably let Samsung smart TV users give the same access as the Xbox streaming device. Both these things are said to debut within the next 12 months.
The move is seen as a way to bring more users into the Xbox ecosystem. It is to be noted that Xbox consoles also allow users to download apps such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, among others and allow streaming. Microsoft is working hard to attract more casual gamers.
Recently, the company, along with Epic Games, announced that Xbox Cloud Gaming users will now be able to play Fortnite for free on Android, iOS, and Windows devices. The move will also allow users, including PC gamers, to stream Fortnite on internet browsers on their devices just like Netflix, irrespective of the hardware specifications.
Apple, Google, and Microsoft have announced that they will be implementing new capabilities of the common passwordless sign-in standard created by the FIDO Alliance and the World Wide Web Consortium on their devices as well as platforms. The standard was created in order to make the Web more secure by allowing consumers to log in to websites without any password. The FIDO, or Fast Identity Online, Alliance was formed in July 2012 to address the problem of people using hackable passwords to sign-in to various platforms.
As per the announcement, tech giants including Apple, Google, and Microsoft — the companies that led development of the expanded set of capabilities — are now enabling the new capabilities support into their respective platforms. It is to be noted that these companies’ platforms already support FIDO Alliance standards to enable passwordless sign-in on devices.
As part of the extension of implementations, there are two new capabilities for more seamless and secure passwordless sign-ins. The first one will allow users to automatically access their FIDO sign-in credentials (referred to by some as a “passkey”) on their devices without having to re-enroll every account. The second capability will enable users to use FIDO authentication on their mobile device to sign in to an app or website on a nearby device, regardless of the OS platform or browser they are running.
This means that instead of using unreliable password logins, people can be easily identified with a fingerprint reader, face scanner or even a phone making it simpler for signing-in with stronger authentication. Previously, users were required to sign in to each website or app with each device before they can use passwordless functionality. As per the announcement, the new capabilities “are expected to become available across Apple, Google, and Microsoft platforms over the course of the coming year.”
Bill Gates has finally spoken about Elon Musk’s move to buy Twitter, days after speculation of a serious disagreement between the two billionaires. He expressed uncertainty, and warned that Tesla’s CEO could actually make Twitter a “worse” platform. The Microsoft co-founder also said that he is unsure of Musk’s motive of buying the platform. In addition to his comments on the Tesla chief’s move to pick Twitter, Gates responded about shorting Tesla, which Musk recently confirmed through his tweets targeting the business tycoon-turned-philanthropist.
“He actually could make it worse,” Gates said, referring to Musk’s decision to buy Twitter, while speaking at The Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council Summit. He also expressed his uncertainty about the buyout decision by the Tesla chief, which was also initially considered as a hostile takeover.
“It’s not totally clear what he is going to do,” 66-year-old Gates said. He added, that if “[Musk] makes Twitter worse, fine, I’ll speak out about that, but I wouldn’t assume that’s what’s going to happen.” He also said social media needed to play a role in curbing misinformation.
At the time of announcing the purchase last week, Musk stated that he wanted to make Twitter “better than ever” by introducing “new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, and defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans.” The decision has, however, not yet been taken positively by a large group of people.
Human rights advocates raised concerns about hate speech due to the takeover and said that the planned changes by Musk could bring “disproportionate and sometimes devastating impacts, including offline violence.”
Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos also trolled Musk’s $44 billion (roughly Rs. 3,35,700 crore) cash deal to buy Twitter and questioned whether it could give the Chinese government “a bit of leverage over the town square.” Twitter is blocked in China, though Musk has business interests in the country — mainly due to its large market size and growing demand for electric vehicles.
Having said that, the disagreement between Musk and Gates is not due to the former’s acquisition of Twitter. Gates at the WSJ Summit referred to the recent spat — Musk recently took a dig at Gates on Twitter, and seemingly confirmed the veracity of screenshots of a conversation between them, where he asked the Microsoft executive if he held a short position of $500 million (roughly Rs. 3,800 crore) in Tesla stock. Gates confirmed that he hadn’t “closed it out”, but “would like to discuss philanthropic possibilities.” In response, Musk said he couldn’t take Gates’s philanthropy seriously if he was shorting his company.
Gates attempted to justify his trading strategy at the summit by saying, “I don’t think whether one’s short or long Tesla is a statement about your seriousness about climate change.”
He also said that he applauded Tesla’s role in helping with climate change and added that he would speak about the case if Musk made Twitter worse.
“But I wouldn’t assume that’s what’s going to happen,” the billionaire, who is second after Musk as the world’s richest person, said.
Gates became subjected to misinformation during the initial phase of COVID-19 that was mainly coming from social media, with some posts wrongly claiming that he was using vaccines to implant microchips to track people.
“That’s so unexpected and almost so bizarre,” he said.
He also noted that political leaders had a role to play in fighting misinformation.
“The way that you make those platforms spread truth and not crazy stuff, there’s some real invention required there, and it’s partly in the political realm,” he emphasised. “I don’t have the solution to that. I hope lots of brilliant people are thinking about it, but it is a huge problem in terms of legitimacy of the elections or medical innovations.”
Microsoft has revealed that it discovered a list of vulnerabilities that could allow bad actors to gain root system rights on Linux systems. Collectively called Nimbuspwn, the vulnerabilities could potentially be leveraged by attackers as a vector for root access by more sophisticated threats including malware and ransomware, the software giant said. The security flaws exist in a system component that is widely available on Linux distributions. Fixes for the reported vulnerabilities have been deployed by the maintainer of the component.
In a detailed blog post, Microsoft said that the vulnerabilities discovered by the Microsoft 365 Defender Research team could be grouped together to gain root privileges on Linux systems and allow attackers to execute ransomware attacks or malicious actions using arbitrary code.
The vulnerabilities, tracked as CVE-2022-29799 and CVE-2022-29800, were found in the component called networkd-dispatcher, which helps provide network status updates. It runs as root when a system starts to dispatch network status changes and run scripts to respond to a new network status.
However, it was discovered that the system component included a method “_run_hooks_for_state” that allows hackers to gain access to the “/etc/networkd-dispatcher” base directory. The method essentially exposes the Linux system to the directory traversal vulnerability, which is identified as CVE-2022-29799, by not sanitising the OperationalState or the AdministrativeState, according to the Microsoft researchers.
The same method is also found to have the Time-of-check-time-of-use (TOCTOU) race condition flaw, which is tracked as CVE-2022-29800. This particular flaw allows attackers to replace scripts that networkd-dispatcher believes to be owned by root with the ones that contain malicious code, the researchers said.
An attacker may use multiple malicious scripts one after another to exploit the vulnerability.
Microsoft researchers shared a proof-of-concept where they highlighted that in three attempts, they were able to win the race condition flaw and successfully plant their files.
As ArsTechnica notes, a hacker with minimal access to a vulnerable system can exploit the reported vulnerabilities to gain full root access.
Microsoft Principal Security Researcher Jonathan Bar Or told Gadgets 360 that the flaws have been fixed in the latest version of network-dispatcher. Users will be able to find the new version in a systemd update on their Linux machines. Otherwise, they can deploy the patches by manually install the latest network-dispatcher build.
Users can determine the existence of the vulnerabilities on their systems by using the details shared by Microsoft researchers. If the machines are vulnerable, it is highly recommended to look for the fixes.
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Taiwan tech firm Acer said Friday it was halting all business in Russia after Taipei expanded sanctions over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
Self-ruled Taiwan has been watching the conflict in Ukraine closely and swiftly joined the international sanctions against Russia.
The invasion has heightened fears that China might one day follow through on threats to annex its smaller neighbour.
Acer said in a statement it has decided to suspend its business in Russia “due to recent developments”.
“The company is focusing on the safety of all its employees, which includes ongoing efforts to help every individual and their families impacted by the current situation.”
Taiwan’s government recently listed 57 “strategic high-tech commodities” subjected to tighter export controls, including computers, telecoms and avionics devices, as well as equipment for making semiconductors.
Exporters must seek prior approval from the Bureau of Foreign Trade if they wish to ship the controlled items to Russia.
The island is a major manufacturing hub for microchips and home to the world’s largest contract chipmaker, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC).
Last month, another leading Taiwanese computer maker Asus announced that its shipments to Russia were “at a standstill” due to the war.
Acer’s announcement came days after Ukrainian Vice Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov published a letter to Asus chairman Jonney Shih calling on the firm to “end any relationships” with Russia.
Fedorov — who is also Ukraine’s digital minister — has also urged multinational tech companies such as Intel, Microsoft and PayPal to halt operations in Russia.
A growing number of multinationals, from McDonald’s to Adidas and Samsung, have fully or partially halted business in Russia.
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