Windows 10 Anniversary Update: What’s In It For Developers

The Windows 10 Anniversary Update became available to the general consumer today. Wondering why you should care? Microsoft has a rundown of the changes relevant to developers on its dev blog. The Windows 10 Anniversary Update SDK has been released as part of Visual Studio 2015 Update 3. Here’s what’s in it: Windows Ink support.…

Project Centennial Apps Will Soon Be Available in Windows Store

With the release of the Windows 10 Anniversary Update, desktop apps converted with Microsoft’s Project Centennial bridge tools will now be available to purchase in Windows Store, reports WindowsCentral. That means developers with existing Win32 apps can market them via the store without turning them into true Universal Windows Platform apps that function on all Windows…

French Regulators Say ‘Non’ to Windows 10’s Data Gathering

A French regulatory agency this week said the data Microsoft collects on users of Windows 10 is “excessive” and ordered the company to stop. The French National Data Protection Commission (CNIL), made the charge in a formal notice filed Wednesday. It gave Microsoft three months to change a number of data-gathering methods that the agency…

Microsoft Publishes REST API Guidelines

Microsoft has publicly shared its REST API design guidelines, the internal rules that its developers use to create cloud services. The guidelines recently became available on Github. “It’s our hope that by contributing our [guidelines] to the community conversation, we can add to the body of community knowledge and reusable content so that anyone can…

Microsoft Will Offer Online Certification In Data Science

Microsoft debuted an online certification in data science this week, part of what the company is calling the new Microsoft Professional Degree Program. Aspiring data scientists can take courses in R and Python programming, as well as principles of machine learning. The virtual classes culminate in a Data Science Challenge, in which students compete with…

Microsoft Pushes Business Use of HoloLens at Worldwide Partner Conference

Despite past demonstrations of holographic phone calls and fanciful worlds of toadstools and flowers, Microsoft’s augmented reality platform, HoloLens, is about more than fun and games, CEO Satya Nadella told the audience Monday at the company’s Worldwide Partner Conference in Toronto. “I would encourage everyone to look at the applicability of this new medium in…

Windows 10 Build 14383 Arrives With Bug Fixes Galore

The moment of truth nears as Microsoft prepares to release its Windows 10 Anniversary Update to the public on August 2. In the meantime, the software giant is rolling out a few final, trouble-shooting previews for Windows Insiders. Rather than debuting new features, Windows 10 Preview Build 14383, released for PC and mobile Thursday, simply…

FamilyNotes App Demos Windows 10’s Speech, Facial Recognition Capabilities

Microsoft wants to lead its customers into a bold future where interacting with computers and other devices is less reliant on keyboards and typing and more like conversing with an actual human. Or, as a recent post on the company’s Windows developer blog puts it, “Speech rules, text drools.” To demonstrate Windows 10’s speech, facial…

.NET Core 1.0 Released, Visual Studio 2015 Updated

.NET Core 1.0—the open-sourced, cross-platform version of Microsoft’s web development framework—is now generally available. The release Monday caps two years of effort, in which nearly 10,000 developers participated, according to Microsoft. .NET Core 1.0 will allow developers to create web apps, micro-services and libraries that work on OS X and Linux as well as Windows.…

Buildbox Now Supports UWP Game Building

Codeless game-building tool Buildbox has added support for the Universal Windows Platform, making it easy to create games and export them to the Windows Store, Windows mobile devices and XBox One, Microsoft announced Thursday. For those not familiar with Buildbox, its drag-and-drop interface allows users to build games without writing a single line of code,…

Choose Your Own Visual Studio Adventure

Microsoft is expanding its Visual Studio installation options, making it even easier for developers to quickly install just the features they need. The company already previewed a new ‘light install’ option as part of Visual Studio 15, the latest version of the IDE that’s rumored to be shipping later this year. The new installer shaves…