Operating Systems

Microsoft is betting big on artificial intelligence and generative AI at all levels of the company, from servers and Azure down to individual Windows PCs. And that big bet is about to become a lot more visible on Windows machines in the future, as Microsoft has instructed Windows OEMs to change their keyboard layouts to include a dedicated key for their Copilot AI service. Replacing the Menu key (or equivalent) on Windows 11 laptop keyboards, the repurposed key will instead provide direct access to Copilot, launching Microsoft's hub application for on-system AI. The Copilot key's primary function is to activate the Copilot generative AI assistant in Windows 11, provided that it the system has Copilot installed and logged in to a Microsoft account. Otherwise, on...

Microsoft Announces Q3 FY 2017 Results

This week, Microsoft announced their earnings for the third quarter of their 2017 fiscal year. Despite missing some expectations in a few segments, Microsoft’s revenue was up 8% to...

9 by Brett Howse on 4/28/2017

The Windows 10 Creators Update Arrives

Windows 10 launched in July 2015, and on April 11, 2017, Microsoft released the third major update to their latest operating system. First announced in October with the Surface...

70 by Brett Howse on 4/25/2017

Microsoft Details Project Olympus Open Compute Standard

Today, at the 2017 Open Compute Project U.S. Summit, Microsoft unveiled some significant announcements around their hyperscale cloud hardware design, which they first announced in November as Project Olympus...

65 by Brett Howse on 3/8/2017

Microsoft Announces Q2 FY 2017 Results

This afternoon, Microsoft had its earnings announcement for the second quarter of their 2017 fiscal year. The results for this quarter are the first to contain results from their...

7 by Brett Howse on 1/26/2017

Microsoft Readies Game Mode For Windows 10 Creator’s Update

The Windows 10 Creator’s Update was announced in October, at the same event where the Surface Studio was launched. It promises many new features for makers, but when makers...

50 by Brett Howse on 1/25/2017

Examining Windows 10 Anniversary Update's Driver Signing Enforcement Policy

Windows 10 Anniversary Update came out at the beginning of August, with plenty of new user-facing features. There were also plenty of changes under the hood as well, including...

85 by Brett Howse on 10/14/2016

Windows 10 Anniversary Update: The Road To Redstone

It’s already been a year since Microsoft launched Windows 10, and we have had a couple of updates since release. The biggest update yet though is the Windows 10...

196 by Brett Howse on 8/2/2016

Microsoft Announces FY 2016 Q4 Results

Microsoft announced their fourth quarter results for their fiscal year 2016. For the quarter, Microsoft had revenues of $20.6 billion, which is a 7% decline compared to Q4 2015...

20 by Brett Howse on 7/19/2016

A First Look At Apple's macOS Sierra

As with past years, Apple's WWDC 2016 keynote showcased the upcoming updates to Apple's operating systems and developer tools. It's hard to believe that iOS is now on its...

81 by Brandon Chester on 7/13/2016

Windows 10 Anniversary Update Launching August 2nd

While certainly not as big of an update as the original launch of Windows 10, the next major update now has a release date. August 2nd will be the...

35 by Brett Howse on 6/30/2016

Apple Announces macOS Sierra: Siri, Better iOS Convergence, New Metal Features, & More

With Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) in full swing, as part of the company’s annual festivities they have unveiled the next version of their venerable Macintosh operating system...

32 by Ryan Smith on 6/14/2016

Microsoft Adds V-Sync Control And Adaptive Framerate Support To The Universal Windows Platform

Microsoft has certainly gone all-in on their Universal Windows Platform (UWP) and have been updating it, including the name, for several years now. What originally started as WinRT apps...

49 by Brett Howse on 5/10/2016

Microsoft Announces Q3 FY 2016 Results: Lower Revenue But Strong Cloud Growth

Today Microsoft also announced their earnings for the third quarter of their 2016 fiscal year. Revenue, income and earnings were all down compared to Q3 2015, with revenue for...

16 by Brett Howse on 4/22/2016

Microsoft Announces Xamarin Will Be Included Free With Visual Studio, And Open Source

Back in February, Microsoft announced it was acquiring Xamarin, the cross-platform toolkit which allows developers to write native apps for iOS, Android, Windows, and Mac, using Visual Studio and...

12 by Brett Howse on 3/31/2016

Windows 10 Gaming Updates: DirectX 12 and Xbox One

With the Windows Anniversary Edition, Microsoft has detailed some upcoming improvements for gaming. They even brought Phil Spencer out to announce the upcoming plans for gaming on Windows. The...

21 by Brett Howse on 3/30/2016

Microsoft Announces Windows 10 Anniversary Edition

Windows 10 is unlike previous versions of Windows in that the original intent was to have it constantly updated over its lifetime. We’ve already had one big update with...

45 by Brett Howse on 3/30/2016

Windows Adds Support For Bash Scripting

With the goal of making more developers use Windows, and to help them move their workflows over to Windows, Microsoft has taken the step to enable Bash scripting natively...

41 by Brett Howse on 3/30/2016

Microsoft Extends Skylake Support On Windows 7 And Windows 8.1

Back in January, Microsoft made a rather surprising announcement that it was changing the support model for older operating systems running on the latest Skylake hardware. As part of...

50 by Brett Howse on 3/18/2016

Microsoft Acquires Cross-Platform C# Toolmaker Xamarin

In what has to be the most obvious acquisition Microsoft has made in some time, today the Redmond company announced that they have signed an agreement to purchase Xamarin. Xamarin...

21 by Brett Howse on 2/24/2016

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