Recent News – Page 151

Posted on August 20, 2019 by sick skills — Leave a comment

Azure Archive Storage expanded capabilities: Faster, simpler, better

Since launching Azure Archive Storage, we have seen unprecedented interest and innovative usage from a variety of industries. Archive Storage is built as a scalable service for cost-effectively storing rarely accessed data for long periods of time. Cold data such as application backups, healthcare records, autonomous driving recordings, etc. that might have been previously deleted could be stored in Azure Storage’s Archive tier in an offline state, then rehydrated to an online tier when needed. Earlier this month, we made Azure Archive Storage even more affordable by reducing prices by up to 50 percent in some regions, as part of our commitment to provide the most cost-effective data storage offering.

We’ve gathered your feedback regarding Azure Archive Storage, and today, we’re happy to share three archive improvements in public preview that make our service even better.

1. Priority retrieval from Azure Archive

To read data stored in Azure Archive Storage, you must first change the tier of the blob to hot or cool. This process is known as rehydration and takes a matter of hours to complete. Today we’re sharing the public preview release of priority retrieval from archive allowing for much faster offline data access. Priority retrieval allows you to flag the rehydration of your data from the offline archive tier back into an online hot or cool tier as a high priority action. By paying a little bit more for the priority rehydration operation, your archive retrieval request is placed in front of other requests and your offline data is expected to be returned in less than one hour.

Priority retrieval is recommended to be used for emergency requests for a subset of an archive dataset. For the majority of use cases, our customers plan for and utilize standard archive retrievals which complete in less than 15 hours. But on rare occasions, a retrieval time of an hour or less is required. Priority retrieval requests can deliver archive data in a fraction of the time of a standard retrieval operation, allowing our customers to quickly resume business as usual. For more information, please see Blob Storage Rehydration.

The archive retrieval options now provided under the optional parameter are:

Standard rehydrate-priority is the new name for what Archive has provided over the past two years and is the default option for archive SetBlobTier and CopyBlob requests, with retrievals taking up to 15 hours.
High rehydrate-priority fulfills the need for urgent data access from archive, with retrievals for blobs under ten GB, typically taking less than one hour.

Regional priority retrieval demand at the time of request can affect the speed at which your data rehydration is completed. In most scenarios, a high rehydrate-priority request may return your Archive data in under one hour. In the rare scenario where archive receives an exceptionally large amount of concurrent high rehydrate-priority requests, your request will still be prioritized over standard rehydrate-priority but may take one to five hours to return your archive data. In the extremely rare case that any high rehydrate-priority requests take over five hours to return archive blobs under a few GB, you will not be charged the priority retrieval rates.

2. Upload blob direct to access tier of choice (hot, cool, or archive)

Blob-level tiering for general-purpose v2 and blob storage accounts allows you to easily store blobs in the hot, cool, or archive access tiers all within the same container. Previously when you uploaded an object to your container, it would inherit the access tier of your account and the blob’s access tier would show as hot (inferred) or cool (inferred) depending on your account configuration settings. As data usage patterns change, you would change the access tier of the blob manually with the SetBlobTier API or automate the process with blob lifecycle management rules.

Today we’re sharing the public preview release of Upload Blob Direct to Access tier, which allows you to upload your blob using PutBlob or PutBlockList directly to the access tier of your choice using the optional parameter x-ms-access-tier. This allows you to upload your object directly into the hot, cool, or archive tier regardless of your account’s default access tier setting. This new capability makes it simple for customers to upload objects directly to Azure Archive in a single transaction. For more information, please see Blob Storage Access Tiers.

3. CopyBlob enhanced capabilities

In certain scenarios, you may want to keep your original data untouched but work on a temporary copy of the data. This holds especially true for data in Archive that needs to be read but still kept in Archive. The public preview release of CopyBlob enhanced capabilities builds upon our existing CopyBlob API with added support for the archive access tier, priority retrieval from archive, and direct to access tier of choice.

The CopyBlob API is now able to support the archive access tier; allowing you to copy data into and out of the archive access tier within the same storage account. With our access tier of choice enhancement, you are now able to set the optional parameter x-ms-access-tier to specify which destination access tier you would like your data copy to inherit. If you are copying a blob from the archive tier, you will also be able to specify the x-ms-rehydrate-priority of how quickly you want the copy created in the destination hot or cool tier. Please see Blob Storage Rehydration and the following table for information on the new CopyBlob access tier capabilities.

	Hot tier source	Cool tier source	Archive tier source
Hot tier destination	Supported	Supported	Supported within the same account; pending rehydrate
Cool tier destination	Supported	Supported	Supported within the same account; pending rehydrate
Archive tier destination	Supported	Supported	Unsupported

Getting Started

All of the features discussed today (upload blob direct to access tier, priority retrieval from archive, and CopyBlob enhancements) are supported by the most recent releases of the Azure Portal, .NET Client Library, Java Client Library, Python Client Library. As always you can also directly use the Storage Services REST API (version 2019-02-02 and greater). In general, we always recommend using the latest version regardless of whether you are using these new features.

Build it, use it, and tell us about it!

We will continue to improve our Archive and Blob Storage services and are looking forward to hearing your feedback about these features through email at ArchiveFeedback@microsoft.com. As a reminder, we love hearing all of your ideas and suggestions about Azure Storage, which you can post at Azure Storage feedback forum.

Thanks, from the entire Azure Storage Team!

Posted on August 20, 2019 by sick skills — Leave a comment

Microsoft Edge Insiders: Try out an experimental preview of Collections for Microsoft Edge

Today, we’re releasing an experimental preview of Collections for Microsoft Edge. We initially demoed this feature during the Microsoft Build 2019 conference keynote. Microsoft Edge Insiders can now try out an early version of Collections by enabling the experimental flag on Microsoft Edge preview builds starting in today’s Canary channel build.

We designed Collections based on what you do on the web. It’s a general-purpose tool that adapts to the many roles that you all fill. If you’re a shopper, it will help you collect and compare items. If you’re an event or trip organizer, Collections will help pull together all your trip or event information as well as ideas to make your event or trip a success. If you’re a teacher or student, it will help you organize your web research and create your lesson plans or reports. Whatever your role, Collections can help.

The current version of Collections is an early preview and will change as we continue to hear from you. For that reason, it’s currently behind an experimental flag and is turned off by default. There may be some bugs, but we want to get this early preview into your hands to hear what you think.

To try out Collections, you’ll need to be on the Canary Channel which you can download from the Microsoft Edge Insider website.

Once you’re on the right build, you’ll need to manually enable the experiment. In the address bar, enter edge://flags#edge-collections to open the experimental settings page. Click the dropdown and choose Enabled, then select the Restart button from the bottom banner to close all Microsoft Edge windows and relaunch Microsoft Edge.

Once the Collections experiment is enabled, you can get started by opening the Collections pane from the button next to the address bar.

When you open the Collections pane, select Start new collection and give it a name. As you browse, you can start to add content related to your collection in three different ways:

Add current page: If you have the Collections pane open, you can easily add a webpage to your collection by selecting Add current page at the top of the pane.

Drag/drop: When you have the Collections pane open, you can add specific content from a webpage with drag and drop. Just select the image, text, or hyperlink and drag it into the collection.

Context menu: You can also add content from a webpage from the context menu. Just select the image, text, or hyperlink, right-click it, and select Add to Collections. You can choose an existing collection to add to or start a new one.

When you add content to Collections, Microsoft Edge creates a visual card to make it easier to recognize and remember the content. For example, a web page added to a collection will include a representative image from that page, the page title, and the website name. You can easily revisit your content by clicking on the visual card in the Collections pane.

You’ll see different cards for the different types of content you add to Collections. Images added to a collection will be larger and more visual, while full websites added to a collection will show the most relevant content from the page itself. We’re still developing this, starting with a few shopping websites. Content saved to a collection from those sites will provide more detailed information like the product’s price and customer rating.

Add notes: You can add your own notes directly to a collection. Select the add note icon from the top of the Collections pane. Within the note, you can create a list and add basic formatting options like bold, italics, or underline.
Rearrange: Move your content around in the Collections pane. Just click an item and drag and drop it in the position you prefer.
Remove content: To remove content from your collection, hover over the item, select the box that appears in the upper-right corner, and then select the delete icon from the top of the Collections pane.

Once you’ve created a collection, you can easily use that content by exporting it. You can choose to export the whole collection or select a subset of content.

Send to Excel: Hit the share icon from the top of the Collections pane and then select Send to Excel. Your content will appear on a new tab with pre-populated table(s) that allow you to easily search, sort, and filter the data extracted from the sites you added to your Collection. This is particularly useful for activities like shopping, when you want to compare items.

Copy/paste: Select items by clicking the box in the upper right. A gray bar will appear at the top of the Collections pane. Select the copy icon to add those items to your clipboard. Then, paste it into an HTML handler like Outlook by using the context menu or Ctrl+V on your keyboard.

Sending content to Excel is available for Mac and Windows devices running Windows 10 and above. We’ll add support for Windows devices running Windows 7 and 8 soon. Additional functionality, like the ability to send to Word, will also come soon.

This is the just the first step in our Collections journey and we want to hear from you. If you think something’s not working right, or if there’s some capability you’d like to see added, please send us feedback using the smiley face icon in the top right corner of the browser.

Thanks for being a part of this early preview! We look forward to hearing your feedback.

– The Microsoft Edge Team

Posted on August 20, 2019 by sick skills — Leave a comment

Community builder couldn’t turn away when she heard about Flint’s water crisis

Shy’s pastor, Rev. Dr. David Roberson, became a father figure for her. He said that Shy had always been a leader. But she’s only ever been comfortable in the background.

“She would tell the kids what to do,” he says, his whole face smiling at her as they reminisce in his office on one of Shy’s many return trips home, “and then when they did it, she would sit back and act like she didn’t tell them anything. She never wanted credit.”

Though confident, Shy is still deeply and visibly uncomfortable with any sort of attention—she hates having her picture taken and avoids eye contact when asked to explain her seemingly untiring service.

“That’s my mom again,” Shy responds, when asked where her humility comes from, pulling forward a few of her shoulder-length braids to cover her mouth. “She would say, ‘It’s not about money. It’s not about fame. It’s not about recognition. It’s all about how you treat people.’ That was it. I didn’t know how to operate any other way.”

The apple hasn’t fallen far from the giving tree.

Shy’s life-purpose—found through the tenants of love, faith, and humility—now inform all of Shy’s outreach work, both professionally and in her volunteer activities. And in her relationship with her mom.

They are each other’s favorite people—”next to Jesus” they’ve both added.

Wary of taking credit for her clear influence on Shy, Jackie believed the source of Shy’s devotion to doing good is simple.

“It’s the capacity for love that both of us have; that’s the foundation,” Jackie said. “From there, you don’t have that far to go.”

Posted on August 19, 2019 by sick skills — Leave a comment

gamescom 2019: Find out what’s new with Xbox Game Pass

During our latest episode of Inside Xbox live from gamescom 2019, we detailed new titles joining Xbox Game Pass this month and updates to the new Xbox (Beta) app for PC to make it even easier to discover and play your next favorite game. At Xbox, we’re always listening to fan feedback, and our community has continued to tell us they want even more great games. So, we’re thrilled to share more details on these amazing new titles – many that are available with Xbox Game Pass starting today:

Games Coming to Xbox Game Pass

August 19

Age of Empires: Definitive Edition (Xbox Game Pass for PC, Xbox Game Pass Ultimate)
The iconic real-time strategy game returns with all-new 4K visuals, 8-person multiplayer battles and a host of other new features bringing together all the officially released content. Age of Empires: Definitive Edition is the complete RTS package

Devil May Cry 5 (Xbox Game Pass for Console, Xbox Game Pass Ultimate)
The devil you know returns. From the creators of the best-selling action franchise comes the latest chapter in the Devil May Cry saga. Prepare to get downright demonic in the most over the top, technically advanced, utterly insane action experience of this gaming generation!

Stellaris (Xbox Game Pass for Console, Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, and coming soon to Xbox Game Pass for PC)
Featuring deep strategic gameplay, with rich and diverse alien races and emergent storytelling, Stellaris puts the complexity of the galaxy in your hands. Whether you’re exploring the unknown, discovering the mysteries of the universe, or conquering it for the glory of your empire, you now have more inter-galactic strategy awaiting you than ever before.

August 22

Ape Out (Xbox Game Pass for PC, Xbox Game Pass Ultimate)
In this wild, colorfully stylized smash‘em up about primal escape and frenetic jazz, build up nearly unstoppable momentum and use your captors to your advantage as you crush everyone on your path to freedom. Embrace bold colors, use the rhythm of jazz in the chaos to guide you and take on a dazzling perspective as you rush through tight corridors, open areas, and twisting labyrinths on a mad dash for freedom.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance (Xbox Game Pass for Console, Xbox Game Pass for PC, Xbox Game Pass Ultimate)
A story-driven open-world RPG that immerses you in an epic adventure in the Holy Roman Empire. Avenge your parents’ death as you battle invading forces, go on game-changing quests, and make influential choices. Explore majestic castles, deep forests, thriving villages and countless other realistic settings in medieval Bohemia.

August 27

Bard’s Tale IV: Director’s Cut (Xbox Game Pass for Console, Xbox Game Pass for PC, Xbox Game Pass Ultimate)
The triumphant return of one of the most iconic RPG series of all-time. Delve into a tactically rich combat system that rewards creativity, solve puzzles to gain treasure and advantages, and discover a beautifully crafted world.

August 30

Blair Witch (Xbox Game Pass for Console, Xbox Game Pass for PC, Xbox Game Pass Ultimate)

A young boy disappears in the Black Hills Forest near Burkittsville, Maryland. As Ellis, a former police officer with a troubled past, you join the search. What starts as an ordinary investigation soon turns into an endless nightmare as you confront your fears and the Blair Witch, a mysterious force that haunts the woods…

And as a preview of what’s coming for September, we also announced that Dead Cells (Xbox Game Pass for Console, Xbox Game Pass for PC, Xbox Game Pass Ultimate) is coming September 5!

Since launching Xbox Game Pass for PC (Beta) alongside the new Xbox (Beta) app at E3 2019, we’ve been listening closely to your ideas on how to make your PC gaming experience better and are excited to share some updates, driven by your feedback. In addition to delivering more great games, we’ve made some updates to the Xbox Game Pass for PC experience to make it easier for you to discover and manage the titles in your library, as well as connect with your gaming community. Some of these features are available today, and others will release in the coming weeks.

Here’s a breakdown of what’s new:

Find Your Friends Across Networks: We know staying connected to your friends while gaming is important, so we’ve made some updates to make it easier to find and start playing with your friends with new account linking options. In addition to adding friends via their Xbox gamertags, you’ll now be able to search for friends from Facebook or Steam that are also on Xbox. You’ll also be able to link your accounts for YouTube, Twitch, Twitter, Discord, and Reddit on your player card so your friends can follow your gaming adventures no matter where you are.
New Ways to Find and Filter Games: We’ve also heard you wanted improvements to the way you can manage your games within the new Xbox (Beta) app. Soon, you’ll be able to take advantage of new filter options from the sidebar to make finding your favorite games and managing your DLC even easier.
More Control on Managing Downloads: We’re also making some updates to the drive selector that not only display the disk space required for each game, but also enable you to select the drive where you want your games installed.
PC Joins the Mobile App: To make it easier for you to manage your Xbox Game Pass for PC library while on the go, we’re excited to share the Xbox Game Pass mobile app now includes PC titles. With this update that we’re currently testing in Beta, you can also browse and discover games in the Xbox Game Pass for PC library and download them anytime and anywhere to your PC. To take advantage of these features, gamers can download the Xbox Game Pass mobile app (Beta) available on iOS and Android This feature is available in public beta on Android devices, and in a closed Beta on iOS devices, and we will have more to share soon.

We’re excited about the progress we’re making to deliver a great Xbox Game Pass for PC experience and we will continue to deliver more improvements over the coming months based on your input, so please keep the feedback coming.

And if you’re not a member yet, join now and get your first two months of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate for $2. Already an Xbox Game Pass for Console or Xbox Live Gold member? You can also upgrade your existing pre-paid months to get two months of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate for $2. Xbox Game Pass Ultimate gives you access to all the benefits of Xbox Live Gold, plus over 100 high-quality console and PC games for one low-monthly price.

To stay up to date on the latest Xbox Game Pass news, including new titles joining the library and updates to the Xbox App, check out our Twitter and Instagram.

The Xbox Game Pass team is looking forward to continuing this journey with our fans.

Posted on August 19, 2019 by sick skills — Leave a comment

gamescom 2019: Introducing the newest Xbox Wireless Controllers

At Xbox, we know the controller you reach for can be a form of self-expression as personal as the kicks you choose to rock. They can be reflective of your style and personality or symbolic of a deeper connection to a game, friend or even a nostalgic memory. As we expand our collection of Xbox Wireless Controllers, we aim to provide our fans with new opportunities and more choices to make those kinds of meaningful connections – which is why we’re excited to announce not one, but two new special edition Xbox Wireless Controllers releasing this fall.

Xbox Wireless Controller – Night Ops Camo Special Edition

The Xbox Wireless Controller – Night Ops Camo Special Edition is the first in a brand-new series of controllers and our take on a pattern that is classic and iconic – camouflage. The dark palette of black, grey and warm metallic gold on a slightly textured body gives the Xbox Wireless Controller – Night Ops Camo Special Edition a rugged and urban street vibe. It features a metallic gold D-Pad and etched trigger grip that gives you extra control where you need it most. If gritty and cool are your style, you’ll want to scoop one up beginning October 8 for $69.99 USD or pre-order now at select retailers worldwide, including Microsoft Store, near you or online.

To celebrate this new camo series, we teamed up with Meta Threads for the new Xbox Night Ops Camo Label Tee, exclusive to the Xbox Official Gear Shop. Take your love for all things Xbox to the streets with this 100% combed cotton tee in medium weight, pre-shrunk and finished with silk screened detailing and a woven Xbox label. Available in Unisex and Women’s styles, you can get yours from Xbox Official Gear Shop online starting August 20 in the US and Canada for $24.99 USD/$32.99 CAD. If you’re at gamescom this week, swing by the Xbox Official Gear Shop in Hall 5.2 or the Xbox Open Doors location in Gloria Theater to pick up the Xbox Night Ops Camo Label Tee and other Xbox gear in person starting August 19.

Xbox Wireless Controller – Sport Blue Special Edition

Inspired by sports lifestyle, activewear and pop culture, the Xbox Wireless Controller – Sport Blue Special Edition is the third installment in the Sport Series. Like its predecessors, the Sport White Special Edition and Sport Red Special Edition, the Xbox Wireless Controller – Sport Blue Special Edition features a geometric design with eye-catching metallic accents and a metallic D-Pad. The vibrant blue rubberized grip gives it a pop of color while providing enhanced comfort that helps you stay on target. How’s that for form and function? You can pre-order yours now at select retailers worldwide including Microsoft Store, near you or online, or pick one up beginning September 17 for $69.99 USD.

Controller Gear Xbox Pro Charging Stands

To complete your ensemble, be sure to pick up the matching Night Ops Camo Special Edition Xbox Pro Charging Stand or Sport Blue Special Edition Xbox Pro Gear Charging Stand by Controller Gear for a seamless charging setup. Controller Gear Xbox Pro Charging Stands are built with the same high-quality materials as Xbox Wireless Controllers, so it’s always an exact match and perfect fit. Each Xbox Pro Charging Stand comes with a premium charging stand, battery cover, rechargeable battery and 6-foot power cord. At $49.99 USD, you can pre-order now or pick up the Night Ops Camo Special Edition Xbox Pro Charging Stand starting October 8 and the Sport Blue Special Edition Xbox Pro Charging Stand starting September 17 at select online retailers in the US and CA, including Microsoft Store.

As with all Xbox Wireless Controllers, the Night Ops Camo Special Edition and Sport Blue Special Edition controllers are compatible with the Xbox One family of devices and include fan-favorite features you know and love such as a 3.5mm stereo headset jack, Bluetooth technology to play your favorite games on Windows 10 PCs and tablets or Samsung Gear VR. You can also take advantage of the custom button-mapping feature through the Xbox Accessories app to customize your gear just the way you like it. In select markets, these controllers come with 14-day trials for Xbox Live Gold and Xbox Game Pass, so you can explore and discover your next favorite game.

Posted on August 19, 2019 by sick skills — Leave a comment

Teachers can get free top-rated English Language Arts curriculum for their student

Microsoft Education & Open Up Resources partner to launch top rated English Language Arts curriculum

Today we’re announcing the general availability of the Open Up Resources ELA curriculum and Microsoft Education free offering. Open Up Resources is an education nonprofit that creates high-quality, standards-aligned curriculum, and provides it for free to improve education equity. This English Language Arts (ELA) curriculum was written by EL Education, and currently spans grades K–5. Recently, EdReports.org rated this curriculum as the highest rated K–5 ELA curriculum.

Any educator can now easily sign up to use the Open Up Resources curriculum. With today’s announcement, Microsoft Education is offering this ELA curriculum through OneNote Class Notebooks. This solution is free and can be used by teachers and students on any platform and device.

Any educator can now easily sign up to use the curriculum. With today’s announcement, Microsoft Education is offering this ELA curriculum through OneNote Class Notebooks. This solution is free and can be used by teachers and students on any platform and device.

Classroom-Friendly Materials Access with OneNote Class Notebooks

The Office 365 Education solution takes the EL Education K–5 Language Arts curriculum by Open Up Resources and pairs it with a free solution for content.

Organize all your class materials, including those provided by Open Up Resources, into one digital notebook with OneNote Class Notebooks. Then, create more compelling, interactive content that you can easily collaborate on with students and colleagues. Students can also use the built-in Immersive Reader to help access content. To get a sense of the solution, we put together a video for the original Math pilot demonstrating the overall concept.

OneNote Class Notebooks integrate seamlessly with common LMS and SIS platforms and now it’s easy to import any OneNote content (such as Open Up Resources!) into your Microsoft Teams Class Notebook.

Get Started today!

To help teachers and schools get up and running, we have put together Getting Started materials on the Microsoft Support site which includes instructions and support information. You can also file a Help ticket easily here.

If you or your district would like to begin using the new offering,

Go to the Open Up Resources contact page
Fill in your information, and scroll down the page
Request sign up instructions and check the boxes for “EL Education K–5 Language Arts” and “OneNote integration”
Example of choosing ELA and OneNote

We look forward to your feedback on this exciting new offering for the new school year!

This post was originally published on this site.

Posted on August 19, 2019 by sick skills — Leave a comment

Microsoft acquires jClarity to help optimize Java workloads on Azure

Today Microsoft is announcing the acquisition of jClarity, the leading contributor to the AdoptOpenJDK project, to support their continued contributions to open source while driving increased performance for Java workloads on Azure. The team, formed by Java champions and data scientists with proven expertise in data driven Java Virtual Machine (JVM) optimizations, will help teams at Microsoft to leverage advancements in the Java platform. At Microsoft, we strongly believe that we can do more for our customers by working alongside the Java community. The jClarity team, with the backing of Microsoft, will continue to collaborate with the OpenJDK community and the Java ecosystem to foster the progress of the platform.

In the last few years, Microsoft’s usage of Java has grown and now includes multiple large-scale deployments, such as Azure HDInsight and Minecraft. Additionally, Microsoft customers like Adobe, Daimler and Société Générale have brought their Java production workloads to Azure. With more than half of compute workloads running on Linux, Azure has become a great platform for open source, and that certainly includes Java.

The jClarity team are JVM experts who have helped their customers optimize their Java applications while also providing leadership and support within the Java open source community. For us, this is the perfect match. The relationship with this team is not new: since June 2018, Microsoft has sponsored the AdoptOpenJDK project to help build binaries of OpenJDK for different platforms, including Linux and Windows.

Microsoft Azure and jClarity engineers will be working together to make Azure a better platform for our Java customers, and internal teams, improving the experience and performance of the platform for Java developers and end-users.

Posted on August 16, 2019 by sick skills — Leave a comment

Back-to-school update for ‘Minecraft: Education Edition’ now available

We are excited to bring you the Back to School Update for Minecraft: Education Edition, now available for all users. The update was first announced at ISTE, and over the past month we ran a beta program to collect feedback from thousands of educators across our global community. This new set of features further supports student-centered learning and improves the in-game experience, just in time for many of you to return to the classroom!

We have integrated Immersive Reader, added a Single Sign On (SSO) option for one-click authentication, improved the user interface and multiplayer experience with join codes, and more. These features are available for download on all Minecraft: Education Edition supported platforms (Windows, macOS, and iPad).

Windows and iPad users will receive an automatic update at the next login. MacOS users will have to reinstall Minecraft: Education Edition to access the updated version (remember to back up your worlds). If you have any issues, please fill out our product feedback form.

Here is a summary of what the Back to School Update brings to Minecraft: Education Edition:

Immersive Reader

Immersive Reader is now integrated into Minecraft: Education Edition to support reading and translating in-game text, such as NPC dialogue and boards. The tool offers formatting options for students with learning differences such as dyslexia, and a Picture Dictionary with Minecraft-specific imagery such as ‘Creeper’ and ‘Mooshroom’.

Improved multiplayer

Students can now invite others to join their Minecraft world using fun join codes. Students must be invited to participate in a multiplayer world, promoting digital citizenship and a smoother user experience. We’ve also made it easier to set and change permissions for how others join your world. Invite others to join as a Visitor or give them full Member permissions to build and create together. Learn how to use multiplayer in our Help Center.

Single Sign On (SSO)

Users can choose to be automatically logged in based on their credentials, and also sign out at any time and sign in as a different user as needed.

Site Map Updates

A more visual site map helps educators and students find Minecraft worlds in the Library, or navigate to their in-progress worlds.

Share Link to Library Content

We’ve also made it easier to assign or share a link to worlds from within your Learning Management System (LMS).

Export as PDF

Students can now use the export function in the Book & Quill tool to save their work as a PDF. This new feature supports formative assessment, in addition to helping students document and share their work. Learn how to use helpful items like the Camera, Portfolio, and Book & Quill here.

As always, we welcome your continued feedback and would love to hear how you’re using these new features in your classroom! Join our community to earn badges, and stay tuned for updates by following us on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube, and signing up for our monthly newsletter.

The post Back to School Update Now Available for All Users appeared first on Minecraft: Education Edition.

This post was originally published on this site.

Posted on August 16, 2019 by sick skills — Leave a comment

New Office 365 ProPlus subscription for education provides device-based access

Office 365 ProPlus enables schools to accelerate learning and inspire all students to create their best work. Connected to the cloud, students and teachers can work together in the same document at the same time, autosave, and easily share their work.

A world where every student has a device would make deploying and managing your school’s Office 365 ProPlus and devices much easier but isn’t always possible—students need to learn to share after all! We’ve heard from many schools and IT admins who would like an easier way to set up shared school devices with user-based licensing (just think about those wonderful libraries and computer labs, it’s like device musical chairs!).

We know this is a pain, and we want to make it easier to deploy and manage Office 365 ProPlus in shared-device scenarios so that all students and teachers can access the value of Office 365. That’s why we’re introducing Office 365 ProPlus Device-based Subscription for Education. Available exclusively in EES (Enrollment for Education Solutions) starting today, this new, no-additional cost add-on license will allow administrators to assign an Office 365 ProPlus license to a device rather than to a user with an AAD identity.

Would my school benefit from device-based subscription?

It depends! Device-based subscription may be beneficial if:

Your school has several students per shared computer—device-based subscription makes it much easier to set up and manage shared devices.
Your school has library and computer lab devices with Office 2016 or 2019 client apps—device-based subscription provides users with a consistent experience by enabling access to the Office 365 desktop apps.

Device-based subscription sounds right for my school; what’s the nitty gritty?

Office 365 ProPlus Device-based Subscription for Education will provide a device-based subscription experience that mirrors our user-based subscription model in ease of management and access to the desktop Office 365 desktop apps. Education customers may assign the device-based subscription on any device within the institution’s organization, including, but not limited to, any open access lab or library devices.

Once available, Admins will select the device-based subscription as a no-additional cost add-on to existing Office 365 ProPlus user-based licenses. Institutions with Office 365 ProPlus user licenses assigned to all faculty and staff in EES are eligible to acquire Office 365 ProPlus Device-based Subscription for the same number of Office 365 ProPlus Users licensed by the institution. If device-based subscriptions seems like a good solution for you, talk to your partner to get these licenses added to your contracts with your partners, AE or CEs.

With classes starting soon and preparation already well underway, we look forward to having this solution available for you the next time you set up and manage your devices. Want more info? Check out this article on Office 365 ProPlus activation and licensing and read the FAQs below!

FAQs

Q: What is a “device-based subscription”?

Office 365 ProPlus Device-based Subscription for Education is an add-on license that will allow admins to assign an Office 365 ProPlus license to a device rather than to a user with an AAD identity.

Q: When will I be able to buy a device-based subscription?

Office 365 ProPlus Device-based Subscription for Education will be on the price list August 1st and available to use worldwide on August 15th.

Q: What is the cost of a device-based subscription?

There is no additional cost! Office 365 ProPlus Device-based Subscription for Education will be available as a benefit for every O365 Pro Plus, O365/M365 A3 or A5 Faculty and Student license, as long as all Education Qualified Users are covered with O365 Pro Plus, O365/M365 A3 or A5.

Q: How different is device-based subscription from user-based licensing?

The most important difference is in the licensing method. Users on a licensed device will have access to the Office 365 desktop apps (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.). Access to Office 365 services like OneDrive will depend on the user’s license.

Q: Would everyone have the same Office experience when using a computer with a device-based subscription?

No. The specific user experience will depend on the user’s license. A student with a qualifying Office 365 or Microsoft 365 user-based license signing in to a licensed device would have full access to the Office 365 ProPlus apps—including Word, Excel and PowerPoint—as well as all licensed cloud services, such as OneDrive or SharePoint. A visitor without a license would have full access to the desktop apps but none of these cloud services.

Q: Will users have to use one of their five downloads?

No, users with Office 365 or Microsoft 365 licenses will not have to use one of their five downloads in order to access and use Office client apps on a device using/assigned a license for using Office 365 ProPlus Device-based Subscription for Education.

Q: Is the device-based subscription available through partner sales?

No. At launch, Office 365 ProPlus Device-based Subscription for Education is only available through EES, and will not be available through CSP at this time.

Q: Does device-based subscription replace the current “lab and library” benefit?

For EES, the Office 365 ProPlus Device-based Subscription for Education can be deployed on any device in the organization and will replace the need to deploy a different version of Office on open access lab or library devices. Starting in August 2019, we will remove the older “lab and library” benefit that relied on an Office 2019/16 license in favor of this new, more comprehensive solution. The lab and library benefit with the Office 2019/16 license will be only available for OVS-ES, where Office 365 ProPlus Device-based Subscription for Education is not available at this time.

Q: What are the qualifications and requirements?

Device-based Subscriptions for Education will be available as a benefit for every customer who covers all Knowledge Workers or Education Qualified Users with an Office 365 ProPlus, an Office 365 A3/A5, or Microsoft 365 A4/A5 Faculty license.
Qualifying customers are entitled to as many DBS licenses as the total number of Office 365 ProPlus, Office 365 A3/A5, and Microsoft 365 A3/A5 Faculty and Student licenses.
Device-based subscription will be available through EES (Volume Licensing), and not CSP.
Device must be Azure AD joined or Azure AD Hybrid joined.

Posted on August 15, 2019 by sick skills — Leave a comment

devcom 2019: Meet Microsoft game stack developers, learn from panels and more

Next week is one of the biggest gaming shows of the year: gamescom! And for game developers, that also means devcom. This year, team Microsoft will be representing at both conferences: devcom from August 18 to 19 and gamescom from August 20 to 22.

If you’re a game developer, we have a jam-packed lineup of talks, demos, and games to play in our booth. We’re bringing game development experts from Microsoft Game Stack for tools across Azure and PlayFab, Xbox, Project xCloud, Havok, Visual Studio, App Center and more to support you and get you answers to the pressing questions you have in your game development. If you have plans to attend, we’d love to meet you and hear about what you’re working on!

Let’s talk about the show happening at Congress Center East where we have several exciting and informative talks to kick off devcom starting Sunday, 18 August.

The Psychology of LiveOps – Hall 11, Stage 4 at 12:30pm CEST, Sunday 18 August

In our first talk we’ll break down how online games increasingly rely on live operations to grow and engage their player base and how LiveOps can expand fun through continual engagement and modular features. And we’ll explore how player psychology impacts your design and live operation.

Spatial Sound Platform – Dolby Atmos Stage at 1:30pm CEST, Sunday 18 August

Sunday’s second talk focuses on our Spatial Sound Platform. Here, we break down the fundamentals and best practices, and show off some cool implementations around how spatial audio can be used to increase the fidelity and overall experience of your video games.

LiveOps Workshop – Showfloor Stage at 4:00pm CEST, Sunday 18 August

We then take it to another level on Sunday afternoon with a LiveOps Workshop, hosted by our PlayFab team. Here, you’ll pick up critical skills around how to increase engagement and player retention, ideas for monetization and content updates, and have a chance to workshop your real-world scenarios with our LiveOps experts.

On Monday, come visit us at our Microsoft Game Stack booth in devcom (Booth 17 in Congress Center East)! Our experts on LiveOps will be there to keep the conversation going from our Sunday workshop. Here, you’ll be able to talk through your game and get free 1:1 guidance and support for Live Operations.

Hyper scale with Azure – Stage 5 in Hall 11 at 3:00pm CEST, Monday 19 August

Monday afternoon, we’re giving a talk on how your game can achieve hyper scale with Azure. Here, we’ll talk through how to implement massively scalable architecture to support your game by designing with CAP theory and distributed systems, web APIs, and dedicated game servers.

Then we move over to gamescom. Team Xbox will have an awesome booth and experience in the Koelnmesse – go play some games and get your hands on Project xCloud. You’re not going to want to miss it! Over in the Business Center, located in Hall 4.2, Microsoft Game Stack will have an oasis of game developer support. Come have a coffee with our game development experts, talking through solutions for developer tools, backend services, analytics, and programs to help you drive your business. We want to hear about the game you’re building and support you in working through any challenges you’re facing.

For those who won’t be at the show, we’re planning to record our sessions and content and post them here immediately following the conference.

Hope to see you in Germany!