Windows 10 Creators Update: 6 new features Microsoft didn’t announce
Microsoft’s next major Windows 10 update has a few hidden features.
While at its 26 October event in New York City, the company announced the Creators Update, an update coming to Windows 10 in early 2017. Microsoft also demoed a bunch of features we can expect: the ability to work with, export, and print 3D objects, as well as a new Paint 3D app, support for VR headsets, game broadcasting, and a streamlined way of communicating with friends. But Microsoft didn’t detail everything.
Thurrott.com looked closely at a fast promo video (above) for the Creators Update that Microsoft released earlier this week, and it discovered other additions in the Windows 10 Creators Update.
We’ve listed the biggest changed below.
- Microsoft Windows 10 Creators Update: What’s new?
The People bar
Microsoft
Microsoft demoed how the Creators Update will put your favourite people into the Windows 10 taskbar. In other words, it’s bringing a quick-access-like option for you to quickly contact a friend or loved one. It’s described as a faster way to connect and share with people directly from the taskbar. You can share with someone via mail, messenger, Facebook, Twitter, and of course, Skype.
Although Microsoft demoed its people integration in the Windows 10 taskbar, it didn’t say that the feature would extend to breakout widgets that let you quickly send Skype or emails to your favorite friends. You’ll be able to switch between those apps within the same window. So far, according to Microsoft’s video, it looks like only Microsoft’s apps will be available in this feature.
Groove Music Maker
Microsoft
Microsoft might have a new Groove Music Maker app in the works. In the video, you can see a simple-to-use music creation tool that’s touch-enabled. You’ll be able to select riffs from a library, add sounds from different instruments, adjust the the BPM and length of tracks, etc.
Edge tab browser
Microsoft
Microsoft’s Edge browser will get a tab browser option that lets you navigate open tabs with the page-preview open. A session manager is also coming to Edge, which makes it easier to restore tabs from old browsing sessions.
Custom Accent colour
Microsoft
With the Creators Update, you’ll get access to a colour picker with advanced options. It’ll let you select a custom colour and preview how it’ll look across Windows, so you can better match the look of your system to a specific wallpaper.
Windows 10 themes
Microsoft will soon sell themes for Windows 10 in the Windows Store. To complement custom accent coloure, Microsoft will add a “personalization” hub in the Windows Store. It’ll offers themes that change the look of Windows 10. There will also be franchise themes, like Minecraft and League of Legends, and it’s thought they’ll also extend to the Xbox dashboard.
Microsoft Word full pen support
Microsoft
Microsoft is bringing full pen support to Word, according to its video. You’ll be able to edit and delete text and leave comments.
Zip around Taiwan on the faster Gogoro S electric scooter
Gogoro’s battery-powered scooter left us rather impressed after our test ride in Taiwan back in 2015, and the startup has since sold over 14,000 units locally plus rolled out 240 GoStations nationwide for customers to quickly swap batteries — as opposed to having their electric scooters plugged in for hours. To keep the momentum going, today the company announced the Gogoro S, a high-performance model equipped with the new 7.2 kW G1-S motor which pushes the scooter from zero to 50 km/h or 31 MPH in just 3.7 seconds — a notable improvement from the 4.2 seconds with the original 6.4 kW G1 motor, which is already quite quick. But for the sake of safety, the top speed is still capped at 95 km/h or 59 MPH.
The vehicle has a maximum horsepower of 9.65 hp at 5,000 rpm, and for the first time, Gogoro has also made the front suspensions’ stiffness adjustable to suit one’s preference. In addition to the larger brakes to match this performance jump, the Gogoro S comes with exclusive 12-inch six-spoke wheels coated in glossy black paint, which go well with the matt graphite gray body and the dark titanium gray pedals. Even the seat is stiched with a big “S” and the word “performance” toward the back end, just so passersby know not to mess with you.
The Gogoro S will be available for purchase in Taiwan tomorrow for NT$123,000 (about US$3,890). For those who don’t have the need for speed, they can still opt for the more affordable Gogoro Plus which costs NT$108,000 (about US$3,410), or the original Gogoro for NT$98,000 (about US$3,100), or the Gogoro Lite for just NT$88,000 (about US$2,780). These three models share identical performance, with the main differences being their color choices, bundled add-ons and the lack of certain automated features plus customization on the Lite.
It’s also worth mentioning that in Taiwan, electric motorcycles are subsidized by the government as an attempt to wean off reliance on their air-polluting counterparts. The subsidy varies depending on the municipality, with New Taipei City covering NT$24,000 (about US$760) for new purchases, and an extra NT$3,000 (about US$95) for those who are getting rid of their two-stroke motorcycles, meaning the Gogoro S can be as cheap as NT$96,000 (about US$3,030) for residents in that area.
The vehicle prices go on top of a monthly subscription fee for using the GoStations, and it’s very much like how we pay for our mobile data, except it’s by kilometers instead of gigabytes. For instance, there’s an NT$799 (US$25.25)/month plan that lets you ride 600 km each month, with every extra 1 km costing NT$1.50 (about 5 US cents). To put this into context, this will just about cover weekday commutes between, say, Apple Campus and Googleplex for a month, but the Gogoro scooters are obviously more suited for shorter distances.
While Gogoro has yet to roll out its battery network — either with GoStations or with GoChargers — outside of Taiwan, its scooters are already available as rentals in Berlin by way of Coup. For just €3 ($3.29) you can rent this electric scooter for 30 minutes, and for €20 (about $22) it’s yours for the whole day. Gogoro is also expected to deploy in Amsterdam some time this year.
Via: Engadget Chinese
Source: Gogoro
Lenovo’s Moto M reportedly packs 5,100mAh of power
We don’t have an official release date for Lenovo’s next Moto handset just yet, but we do have a leaked set of specs that hint at what’s to come. According to some grainy renders that made the rounds earlier this week, the Moto M will be the first Motorola smartphone to feature a rear-facing fingerprint sensor and its unibody frame puts it solidly in the mid-tier of current generation handsets. But the big spec surprise here is a huge 5,100mAh battery which Lenovo estimates will give you more than a month of standby time.
Your mileage may vary, of course, but that battery is still about 47 percent larger than the Pixel XL and more than 75 percent larger than the iPhone 7 Plus. And even larger than the last big-battery-packing phone we spotted, the LG X Power. To charge a battery that size, Lenovo is also including a 4.5A rapid charger in the box.
December. pic.twitter.com/WADwsvpQWK
— krispitech (@krispitech) October 27, 2016
As for the rest of the specs: the Moto M will run Android 6.0 Marshmallow with an octa-core 2.0 GHz Snapdragon processor, 4 or 4GB RAM, and 32 or 64GB of storage expandable to 128GB via microSD. According to Krispitech, the Moto M will land in December, although that date is still unconfirmed.
Source: TechDroider, Krispitech
Apple’s MacBook Pro isn’t the touchscreen laptop it ought to be
Ever since Phil Schiller brought up the issue while introducing the second-generation MacBook Air, Apple has made a point of publicly resisting the pressure to introduce touchscreen Macs. Computers need a fundamentally different interface than your smartphone or tablet, Apple argues, and it’s cumbersome to keep raising your hand to the display. However, the new MacBook Pro’s Touch Bar really amounts to a confession — it’s an acknowledgment that touch input can improve your computing experience, and that Apple has been missing out on technology that some PC users take for granted. As big a step forward as the Pro may be, it’s not necessarily the giant stride that you might like.
You only have to look at the Pro’s Touch Bar’s features to imagine what could have been. Some of these elements wouldn’t be practical with a touchscreen (you can only fit so many editing buttons on-screen at a time), but many of them are. Why should you scrub through a video timeline on your keyboard when you could manipulate it directly on the display? Many everyday activities, such as choosing emoji in Messages or playing music in iTunes, practically beg for direct finger input. This isn’t to say that Apple’s Touch Bar implementation is clunky. So far, it appears to be very thoughtful. It’s just a perpetual reminder that there’s a more direct way to meld touch with conventional computing, and Apple is passing up the opportunity.
It’s understandable why the company would implement a navigation strip instead of redesigning macOS for touchscreen support. The Touch Bar is no doubt a challenge (including for developers who want to support it), but reworking an entire operating system is a massive undertaking that can easily run into trouble. Ask Microsoft how hard it was to design a touch-native platform that still appeals to non-touch users — Windows 8’s touch-first interface spooked some PC buyers, and even Windows 10’s more balanced strategy has its problems. Dive deep into Windows’ settings using only a touchscreen and you’ll quickly grow frustrated.
However, Windows also shows that you don’t have to redo an entire operating system for touchscreens to be useful. There’s a good reason why the Surface line and other hybrid laptop/tablet PCs are thriving in an otherwise shrinking market: more often than not, you can use whatever interface makes sense at a given moment. Want to play a touch-oriented game, or navigate a spreadsheet with a trackpad? You can do both. The MacBook Pro’s input will likely be very effective in most cases, but it comes across as inflexible. Apple’s rejection of finger input in macOS may prevent incidents where touch works poorly, but it also denies you situations where touch would work beautifully.
Lately, Apple has had a simple answer to those calls for a proper touchscreen interface: buy an iPad Pro. And for certain users, it has a point. The iPad has one of the better big-screen touch interfaces you can find, and it’s refreshingly easy to use compared to a traditional PC. But it just isn’t going to fit the needs of many Mac buyers, especially customers who can justify premium machines like the MacBook Pro. It doesn’t have many of the things pros need, whether it’s raw performance, an accessible file system or sophisticated multi-app windowing. If anything, the iPad Pro rubs some salt in the wound. It’s a reminder that Apple’s touchscreen experiences stop where the Mac lineup begins, and that other PC makers aren’t asking you to give up touch just because you want to run AutoCAD or Photoshop.
This isn’t to dismiss the MacBook Pro by any means. Based on our initial hands-on time, it’s an impressive system that could satisfy many owners (at least, those that don’t want a built-in SD card reader). You may well enjoy the Pro for years without once wishing that you had a touchscreen. But it’s also a tantalizing glimpse of what could have been, or possibly where Apple will go. And when a large chunk of the industry is welcoming touchscreens with open arms, it’s hard not to wonder whether or not Apple is heading in the right direction. The Touch Bar is a safe choice for now, but it wouldn’t be shocking if Apple had to change course and embrace touch in a bigger way.
Click here to catch all the news from Apple’s “Hello Again” event.
NASA’s New Horizons has sent back its last data from Pluto
The New Horizons probe had just one shot at gathering as much data from Pluto as it could, a process that took more than a day. But it’s taken the past fifteen months to actually receive all 50-plus gigabytes of data that it captured. NASA announced this morning that the probe has finally sent back the last bit of data, a Pluto and Charon infra-red sequence. Next up, NASA plans to double-check the data it’s received before wiping New Horizons’ data recorder. Its next stop: the Kuiper Belt.
“The Pluto system data that New Horizons collected has amazed us over and over again with the beauty and complexity of Pluto and its system of moons,” Alan Stern, New Horizons’ mission head said in a statement. “There’s a great deal of work ahead for us to understand the 400-plus scientific observations that have all been sent to Earth. And that’s exactly what we’re going to do—after all, who knows when the next data from a spacecraft visiting Pluto will be sent?”
Source: NASA
GM’s car-sharing service arrives in Los Angeles
Maven, General Motors’ car-sharing service, is finally coming to the City of Angels. Though Maven has been around in other cities for awhile now — Ann, Arbor, Mich., Boston, New York City and San Francisco to name a few — its move to Los Angeles is a pretty interesting one due to the city’s car-centric culture. Essentially GM’s answer to services like CityCarShare and ZipCar, Maven makes it possible for residents of Los Angeles to live a car-free life, but still have the convenience of a car if they want it.
To start, you’ll need to register and then use the app to reserve a vehicle of your choice. At first, Maven will only have 60 vehicles available at more than 24 locations in the city, but there’s always a chance it’ll roll out more if the service gets popular enough. Those locations include downtown Los Angeles, Little Tokyo, South Park and areas near the University of Southern California.
You can rent cars for $8 an hour — that cost includes both fuel and insurance. As you might expect from a GM service, all of the available cars are part of the GM family. They include the Chevrolet Cruze, Malibu, Tahoe and Volt, the GMC Acadia and Yukon, plus Cadillacs like the ATS, CTS, CT6, XT5 and Escalade. And, of course, they’ll all come with the OnStar service built right in.
‘WALTR 2’ for Mac Lets You Quickly Transfer Any Content to Any iOS Device
Softorino today announced the launch of its next-generation WALTR app, introducing WALTR 2 for Mac. WALTR 2 builds on the features introduced with the original WALTR app, making it easier than ever to transfer any file from a Mac to an iOS device.
With WALTR 2, you can transfer all kinds of media file types to an iPhone or iPad, even if they’re not in a format that’s normally compatible with iOS. It supports music, ringtones, videos, PDFs, ePubs, and more, converting files when necessary. If you transfer an MKV or AVI, for example, WALTR 2 will convert it to a usable format and put it directly in the built-in iOS video app.
The same goes for music — upload any music file and it’ll be transferred to the Music app with no loss of quality. Uploaded music is even properly recognized in Apple Music.
Using WALTR 2 is simple. You open the WALTR 2 app, plug your iPhone or iPad into your Mac (or use the new Wi-Fi feature) and then simply drag and drop the file you want to transfer to an iOS device into WALTR 2. WALTR 2 works with all iPods, iPads, and iPhones, starting with the iPod Classic from 2001.
With Automatic Content Recognition for music, movies, and TV shows, WALTR 2 can fill in metadata information, and a new Wi-Fi detection feature allows WALTR 2 to automatically find nearby iOS devices so transferring content can be done without a USB cable if desired. File transfers go much quicker with a cable though, with Softorino promising average transfer speeds of 2GB per minute.
New to WALTR 2 is support for ePUBs, PDFs, and audiobooks, which are automatically uploaded to the iBooks app. WALTR 2 can also be used to upload full-length ringtones to the iPhone and it supports subtitle files. Supported audio formats include MP3, FLAC, APE, ALAC, AAC, AIFF, WAV, WMA, OGG, OGA, WV, TTA, and DFF, while supported video formats include MKV, AVI, MP4, MOV, MPEG, m2ts, 3GP, WMV, H264, and H265.
WALTR 2 is available for download from the Softorino website for $39.95. Existing WALTR users can upgrade for $19.95. Downloading the app offers users with a 24-hour free trial to try it out.
We’re also giving away 10 copies of WALTR 2 to MacRumors readers. To enter to win, use the Rafflecopter widget below and enter an email address. Email addresses will be used solely for contact purposes to reach the winners and send the prizes. You can earn additional entries by subscribing to our weekly newsletter, subscribing to our YouTube channel, following us on Twitter, or visiting the MacRumors Facebook page.
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a Rafflecopter giveawayThe contest will run from today (October 28) at 3:00 p.m. Pacific Time through 3:00 p.m. Pacific Time on November 4. The winners will be chosen randomly on November 4 and will be contacted by email. The winners will have 48 hours to respond before new winners are chosen.
Tags: giveaway, WALTR, Softorino
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Teardown Reveals New MacBook Pro Without Touch Bar Has Removable SSD
The new entry-level 13-inch MacBook Pro without a Touch Bar has only been available for a day and just made its way into Apple retail stores, but OWC has already managed to take apart one of the machines to get a glimpse inside.
The teardown is still underway, but OWC can confirm that the new MacBook Pro has a removable SSD, meaning it is replaceable and can potentially be upgraded after purchase. Previous MacBook Pro models have also featured a removable SSD, but the MacBook SSD is soldered to the logic board, so it was unclear if the new MacBook Pro would continue to offer a removable SSD due to its thinner body.
OWC has noted a number of other observations about the new MacBook Pro:
– Solid State Drive module is removable
– Bottom was more difficult to remove than previous generations, but it was not glued
– Speaker module needs to be removed to pull SSD back
– SSD had very strong tape covering the interface port
– Laptop automatically turns on when you open it regardless of pressing power button
OWC’s discoveries only apply to the 13-inch MacBook Pro without a Touch Bar. It’s likely models with a Touch Bar have a similar build, but the internal hardware is different because it incorporates a new component. We’ll need to wait a few more weeks to see what’s inside the higher-end 13 and 15-inch MacBook Pro machines, as they won’t be available until mid-November.
Related Roundup: MacBook Pro
Buyer’s Guide: Retina MacBook Pro (Buy Now)
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Developers Now Able to Offer Promo Codes for In-App Purchases
Apple today announced that it is now letting developers create promo codes for in-app purchases, giving developers a way to allow early testers, reviewers, and press to unlock content that would normally only be available through a purchase.
Developers have long been able to offer promo codes to download a paid app, but until today, there was no simple way to offer access to in-app purchases.
Developers are able to give away up to 100 promo codes for each in-app purchase item, up to a maximum of 1,000 codes per app every six months.
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Apple MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2016) review – CNET
The Good A massive touchpad dominates this incredibly skinny, high-powered laptop. The screen really pops, with less bezel and wider color range. Adding space grey as a color option gives it a bold, mod look.
The Bad This version leaves out the amazing new Touch Bar. It’s more expensive than the model it replaces and has only a pair of USB-C ports plus a headphone jack for wired connectivity. The shallow keyboard takes getting used to.
The Bottom Line While it’s missing the buzzworthy Touch Bar, the entry-level MacBook Pro is effectively the redesigned and updated ‘Retina MacBook Air’ that you’ve been waiting for.
Meet the new mainstream MacBook.
Because the MacBook Air is now living in a form of suspended animation, still on sale, but lacking updated components or a tweaked design, it’s no longer the default mainstream choice. And the tiny 12-inch MacBook is a niche speciality system for frequent travelers who favor portability over flexibility.
The new MacBook Pro with Apple’s inventive Touch Bar and Touch ID fingerprint recognition is too expensive to be the go-to MacBook. Yes, the Touch Bar is impressive — it’s a 60-pixel-high OLED touch screen that replaces the traditional function key row with an ever-changing series of buttons and sliders. But right now I’d call it a want, not a need.
View full gallery Josh Miller/CNET
Instead, this most mainstream of the new MacBook Pro models has the same familiar Function key row found on almost every laptop. It sits above the keyboard, with its F1 to F12 keys still labeled for screen brightness, volume controls and other system tasks. It’s a disappointment to miss out on the most headline-grabbing feature of the new MacBook Pro line, but with that one exception, nearly everything else about this system is new.
A new keyboard with shallower keys, modeled after the nearly flat keyboard on the 12-inch MacBook, joins a larger touch pad and a pair of USB-C Thunderbolt 3 ports. Lost in the shuffle is the traditional port collection of a MagSafe power plug, USB-A ports — the familiar rectangular ones that match all your existing accessories — HDMI output and mini-DisplayPort Thunderbolt connections. The old SD card slot is gone, too.
More from Apple’s Mac event
- The new Apple MacBook Pro: Apple’s amazing strip show reinvents the laptop keyboard
- Jonny Ive talks about putting ‘touch’ on the MacBook Pro
- Does the Mac still matter?
- The Mac and iPad aren’t merging. Get over it
- See all our Apple event coverage
Excising those ports and slimming down the keyboard means the new MacBook Pro has a body that’s a few millimeters thinner and about half a pound lighter than the previous MacBook Pro. The new design takes the MacBook Pro down to 14.9mm thick from 18mm and the weight down to three pounds (1.36kg). But it’s still far from the thinnest laptop out there. HP’s Spectre and Acer’s Swift 7, both powered by even newer Intel Core i7 seventh-generation Kaby Lake processors, are both less than 10mm thick. Meanwhile, the classic MacBook Air, once the king of the thin laptops, is still 17mm.
View full gallery
A MacBook Air next to the new MacBook Pro.
Josh Miller/CNET
While you’re saving some money by foregoing the Touch Bar, this is still more expensive than the MacBook Pro it replaces. The entry-level 13-inch MacBook Pro with retina display was previously $1,299. This new 13-inch Pro starts at $1,499, £1,449 and AU$2,199 and includes an updated Intel Core i5 CPU, 8GB of RAM and a 256GB solid state drive.
There are other compromises besides just the loss of the Touch Bar in this entry-level MacBook Pro. The starting CPU, part of Intel’s sixth-gen of Core i-series chips, is slower than in the $1,799 version. There are only two USB-C ports that need to handle all of your connection needs, including power, data and video output, while the higher-end MacBook Pros get four USB-C ports.
But, unlike the new iPhone 7, the headphone jack survives. For now.
View full gallery
This new Force Touch track pad is twice the size of the previous version.
Josh Miller/CNET
No Touch Bar, but a bigger touchpad
It’s not as cool as the Touch Bar on the higher-end Macbook Pro models, but there is one big touch-related upgrade here. The touchpad, which uses Apple’s Force Touch technology, is twice as big as before. It looks and feels massive, completely dominating the front half of the system interior.
Like the touch pads (Apple prefers to call them “trackpads”) found in the previous-generation MacBook Pro and 12-inch MacBook, this one has four corner sensors under the glass pad rather than the more traditional top-mounted hinge. The mechanism takes up less space, so the laptop body can be thinner. It’s now in every laptop Apple makes, with the exception of the MacBook Air.
A keyboard with less click
One of the things people had a hard time getting used to in the 12-inch MacBook back in 2015 was its very flat keyboard. It used a butterfly mechanism, which allows for shallower keys and a thinner body. The same basic design has made its way to the new MacBook Pros, and it’s going to be a learning curve for most.
View full gallery Josh Miller/CNET
The advantage is that you can have a slimmer body, but you lose out on some of the deep, clicky physical feedback of the current MacBooks or most other modern laptops. While the basics are the same, as is the key travel (an industry term for the distance the key moves downward to register an input) as on the 12-inch MacBook, the feel has been tweaked a bit for a better overall experience. The keys have a little more bite to them, and appear to rise up from the keyboard tray just a hair more.
AIVAnet 