Since Windows 10 launched just over a year ago now. Microsoft is celebrating their much improved operating system with a little update to add a couple new features.
After the cake and the party streamers, Microsoft will be gifting you a present on August 2nd. It will be an update to the current Windows 10 system which boasts a whole range of new features.
Why should you care? Read on..
Hello, it’s me..
Currently in Windows 10, Windows Hello bypasses the need for any passwords, in several different ways. It lets you unlock your PC from your phone too. It lets you use fingerprint readers natively. And it lets you use facial recognition, much like the Xbox One does. For all those techies out there, it can also use iris scanners.
Ink Different.
Secondly, if you own a touchscreen which enables you to smear your fingerprints all over your display, then ink is for you. The Post-It note wannabe lets your write or draw on your screen like it’s paper. It’s convenient as it integrates with Office, Windows Maps, and the Edge browser.
It seems pretty useful as it sit on the desktop like a little Post-It note. A ‘sticky notes’ app, which isn’t new, but works conveniently well and integrates with office. A sketchpad app that allows you to doodle pretty much anything, and share it. And a screen sketch feature, that allows you to write pretty much anything across your screen, saving it as a screenshot to share.
Cortana
Since her first debut on Windows Phones, Xbox One and Windows 10. Cortana has seen a lot of behind-the-scene upgrades to her voice and query recognition. She is normally run remotely so it is easy to update her outside the Windows software product cycle.
For the anniversary update, he’ll have greater access to the Outlook, Office and Calendar applications, and greater understanding of context-sensitive instructions. This will make her ability to recall where you parked your car and your account numbers even more creepy.
“Xbox on..”
Microsoft have proudly claimed that over 19 billion hours of gaming has taken place on Windows 10 alone. Admittedly, most of that’s probably through applications like Facebook and Steam rather than through the Xbox app.
Microsoft aren’t doing one big thing to improve gaming on Windows – rather they’re doing several little things. Aiming to tie the Xbox One and your Windows PC more closely together. So every Microsoft-published game will be ‘crossbuy’, meaning you get a copy on both systems, that shares achievements, progress, saves and so on.
On The Edge
The Anniversary Update introduces some borrowed features for the Edge browser. Edge has taken a few tricks from Chrome here, intelligently auto-pausing non-essential content on the web. More importantly, Edge is also adding extension support, which allows you to heavily customize your browser. Once the extensions (like AdBlock, LastPass and Pinterest) are available, you’ll be able to download them from the Windows store.
BASH!
Microsoft has paired with Canonical (who created Ubuntu Linux). They have managed to implemented the powerful command line commands from Linux – known as Bash support.
Therefore, users will simply be able to open Command Prompt, type Bash and hit enter to run Ubuntu on Windows. This isn’t an emulator – this is a subsystem that’s running something like Linux, with all the Linux tools for the really hardcore Torvalds fans out there, and allowing Linux code to run natively on Windows.
Synced Notifications
This is a big feature which I am actually really excited for. In what I think is one of the best features arriving in the Windows 10 Anniversary Update. Action Center will now sync across your PC and phone (Android and Windows Phone only). With the help of Cortana, she’ll display your phone notifications directly in your PC Action Center. In some cases allowing you to reply to that notification directly from your PC. There’s also support for Universal Dismiss, however, that feature only works if developers opt-in to it.
Additionally, Universal Dismiss allows users to dismiss a notification on one PC and have that notification dismiss everywhere else, too. Great for those who have lots of devices running the same apps, hopefully, developers take advantages of this feature sooner rather than later.
Smaller features that don’t get their own heading include..
Dark mode – This can be toggled on and off from Settings > Personalization > Colors > Dark (or Light). It is a system wide change for tabs, menus, toolbar color etc.. The change even affects the Windows Store, which is where consumers will likely see the biggest benefit since that app is used so often.
Start screen – The user icon has shrunk to a little icon in the left column and displays your name once hovered over it. One of the bigger new features are changes to the live tiles. Before, when you clicked on them they just opened the app. Now, The live tile content is deep-linked into the OS which means when selected it opens the actual link you want to look at, instead of finding it yourself.
Action Centre (Notifications) – Notifications in the initial Windows 10 launch were pretty basic, but with the Anniversary Update Microsoft has made notifications far richer, interactive and just plain better to use. Apps can now incorporate things like images, profile icons, interactive options and more. Some notifications have adopted a “card-like” UI, being big and noticeable over all other notifications with buttons and other features that you can interact with without having to jump into the app.
Quick Actions – are now fully customizable, meaning that you can add or remove tiles from it.
Source: Windows BlogÂ
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