An IT blogger claims to have uncovered a high-impact security vulnerability in Microsoft Outlook, which was reportedly found to have been silently downgrading secure SSL/TLS connections to unencrypted plaintext without telling anyone. This appears to affect at least Outlook 2007 through 2016, and possibly even later versions, though that's as of yet unconfirmed if this behavior is present from Outlook 2019 onwards.

The report came by way of a blog post at Marius World, where the writer describes how they came across the issue after upgrading their mail servers from Fedora 42 to Fedora Server 43 (released in October 2025). Marius started getting complaints from customers unable to receive emails. All got the same error message from the mail server: "Cleartext authentication disallowed on non-secure (SSL/TLS) connections". This meant the user's mail client was trying to use an unencrypted connection, something that's been deprecated by systems administrators for decades.

Marius realized that all the affected people were using Outlook, from versions 2007 through 2016 at least. Worst of all, seemingly everyone actually had the "Use TLS/SSL" checkbox enabled, meaning that protocol security had been downgraded silently all along. The bug can be triggered by having port 110 selected and using the POP3 protocol. Having TLS forced on should have prompted the client to move to port 995 automatically, or at least attempt a TLS connection at 110 anyway. Yet Outlook just happily proceeds without encryption. "Customers have likely been retrieving their emails in plaintext for over a decade, mistakenly believing encryption was enabled," Marius states.

The reason why Fedora server administrators only recently started seeing this behavior is that version 43 upgraded the Dovecot SMTP/IMAP mail server to 2.4.3, a version that got a backend disabling unencrypted authentication altogether. Likely reasons why the issue wasn't found sooner are that nowadays the default mail account type is IMAP, and that Outlook's default configuration sets port 995 for POP3 as the default. Even still, there's a bet that a significant number of users are affected, particularly in environments that have to support many configurations, like web hosting.

The mitigation is fairly simple: check your Outlook account settings, and if you're using POP3, ensure that the connection port is 995. Having your email go through an unencrypted connection means anyone in your network or in the path to your server can happily read it, exposing not only your communications, but also those of other people. Marius also notes that this situation is technically a EU GDPR violation, since the law implicitly mandates that any customer data is sent via encrypted connections.

The UK National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) on Tuesday published an advisory warning that Russian state hacking group APT28 has been exploiting vulnerable small office and home office (SOHO) routers since 2024 to overwrite their DHCP and DNS settings, redirecting downstream traffic through attacker-controlled DNS servers to harvest passwords and authentication tokens for web and email services. The NCSC assesses that APT28 is "almost certainly" the Russian Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU)'s 85th Main Special Service Centre, Military Intelligence Unit 26165.

According to the advisory, the actor has been configuring virtual private servers to act as malicious DNS resolvers, then pointing compromised SOHO routers at them by rewriting the routers' DHCP DNS settings. Laptops, phones, and other downstream devices on the network inherit those settings automatically and begin sending lookups to the attacker-controlled infrastructure.

Lookups for domains tied to targeted services, such as login pages, get pointed to further attacker-owned IPs that host adversary-in-the-middle infrastructure. Meanwhile, requests outside the targeting criteria are resolved to the legitimate addresses to avoid breaking the connection.

Once a victim connects through the attacker's infrastructure, APT28 attempts to capture passwords and OAuth or similar authentication tokens from both browser sessions and desktop applications. Targeted domains listed in the advisory include autodiscover-s.outlook.com, imap-mail.outlook.com, outlook.live.com, outlook.office.com, and outlook.office365.com.

The TP-Link WR841N router is named by the NCSC as one of the models APT28 has been exploiting, likely using CVE-2023-50224, an unauthenticated information disclosure flaw that allows an attacker to retrieve credentials through an HTTP GET request. When the threat actor has the router’s credentials, a second GET request rewrites the DHCP DNS settings, setting the primary DNS to a malicious IP and the secondary to the original primary.

The advisory lists more than 20 additional TP-Link models targeted in the campaign, including the Archer C5 and C7, the WDR3500, WDR3600, and WDR4300, the WR1043ND, the MR3420 and MR6400 LTE routers, and several variants of the WR740N, WR840N, WR841N, WR842N, WR845N, and WR941ND. A second cluster of attacker infrastructure received DNS requests forwarded from compromised MikroTik routers as well as TP-Link gear, and was also used in interactive operations against a smaller set of MikroTik routers "often located in Ukraine" that the NCSC said were likely of intelligence value.

The NCSC describes the campaign as opportunistic, with APT28 casting a wide net across exposed routers and then filtering the resulting victim pool for targets of intelligence interest at each stage. In terms of mitigation, the NCSC recommends the usual advice of keeping router firmware updated, never exposing management interfaces to the internet, and enabling multi-factor authentication on accounts that could be vulnerable to credential theft.

APT28, also tracked as Fancy Bear, Forest Blizzard, and Sofacy, has previously been linked by the NCSC to the 2015 hack of the German Bundestag and the 2018 attempted intrusion at the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.

Space watchers enthralled by the live stream from NASA’s Artemis II Orion spacecraft have noticed that even astronauts can have trouble with Microsoft software. BlueSkyer Niki Grayson clipped an amusing segment of the live stream, where a puzzled astronaut asks for support from Mission Control because they “have two Microsoft Outlooks, and neither one of those are working.”

right now the astronauts are calling houston because the computer on the spaceship is running two instances of microsoft outlook and they can't figure out why. nasa is about to remote into the computer

— @nikigrayson.com (@nikigrayson.com.bsky.social) 2026-04-02T19:03:37.132Z

Grayson was agog at NASA inflicting Outlook on astronauts. “I'm so sorry we've sent these souls to the moon and they're using Outlook?” they quipped.

The clipped NASA Artemis II stream shared above is currently still live, and you can watch it in full here. As it is live, there is no transcript provided on the video page. So I asked Google's Gemini to find the portion of the livestream where Outlook bugs were discussed.

Google confirmed the quote from Grayson’s clip. It credited Commander Reid Wiseman talking to Mission Control in Houston at this time. “I also see that I have two Microsoft Outlooks, and neither one of those are working if you want to remote in,” said Wiseman at around 13 and a quarter hours into the livestream. Houston agreed to remote in to take a look at the issue.

About an hour later, the astronauts received the welcome news that Outlook was back online. However, it would appear offline... Nice piece of software. “For Outlook, we were able to get it open. It will show 'offline,' which is expected,” said the Capsule Communicator at Mission Control, at around 14 hours 20 minutes into the stream.

Microsoft Outlook anomaly in space

To some readers, even choosing Outlook as a part of a spacecraft’s communications portfolio would seem to be an anomaly. However, it is a standard part of the "Commercial Off-The-Shelf" (COTS) software astronauts use for their day-to-day operations.

To be clear, the spacecraft and primary flight systems will run on specialized radiation-hardened hardware and rigorously maintained software. COTS just complements this with a friendly layer, like Windows and Outlook, so astronauts can check schedules, indulge in personal communications, and so on, in a familiar way.

Toilet troubles in space

While skipping through the live stream to locate the Outlook conversations, I also heard a discussion between Artemis II Orion and Mission Control about the spacecraft's toilets.

Reports suggest that a blinking fault light on the toilet signaled that a mechanical failure occurred about two hours into the mission. Specifically, we understand that a urine extraction fan jammed.

The fan’s purpose is to pull the urine away into a collection container, avoiding urine microgravity issues. Thankfully, one of the astronauts managed to clear the jam and get the fan spinning. NASA has confirmed the toilet is back online, although we’d like to know what brand of fans the space agency uses…

Microsoft's Build developer conference is all about AI. The 2023 show, which is taking place both online and in person, is being headlined by AI, Bing Chat, and new tools for developers using Windows, GitHub, and the Windows Terminal. Every change, big or small, is being touched by artificial intelligence.

There's plenty of developments for the cloud, like AI in Azure, as well as a new analytics system that Microsoft is calling Fabric. But here are the AI announcements Microsoft is making at Build that you're most likely to see coming to tools you use soon:

AI Plugins

At Build, Microsoft said that it will use the same plugin standard as its partners at OpenAI use for ChatGPT. This should allow developers to make plugins that are interoperable between ChatGPT, Bing Chat, Dynamics 365 Copilot, and Microsoft 365 Copilot.

Microsoft is also announcing support for new plugins for Bing Chat. Newly announced add-ons include those for Instacart, Kayak, Redfin, Zillow, Klarna, and many others, alongside OpenTable and WolframAlpha. Communications head Frank Shaw told the press that as part of Microsoft 365 Copilot, there will be more than 50 plugins announced at Build, including from Atlassian, Adobe, Thomas Reuters and Mural, with "thousands" of plugins by time Copilot it hits general availability.

Copilot coming to Edge, Windows 11

Microsoft is bringing some of its Copilot features (which are currently in a private preview in MIcrosoft 365) to the Edge browser.

Microsoft 365 Copilot already uses large language models to answer requests from Microsoft 365 apps such as Excel, Word, Teams, Outlook, and PowerPoint. Now, the Copilot will also work with Edge, so people will be able to use the AI in conjunction with their web browser. Perhaps they'll get a PDF that opens in the browser, and users can ask Edge to summarize it.

Windows 11 will use Bing Chat along with third-party plugins and Microsoft's own. Windows Copilot will let people change settings, open apps or perform other actions with AI, while also mixing in Bing Chat to answer questions from the web. It will be able to be parked aside in a panel for easy access.

Media Provenance

At Google I/O, Google discussed features that would secretly mark images and videos made by AI so they could be identified as such. At Build, Microsoft is following suit with "media provenance" abilities being added to Bing Image Creator and Microsoft Designer.

Microsoft's tech will use cryptographic techniques to "mark and sign AI-generated content with metadata about its origin." The company says that this signifier will be in accordance with  standards set by the Coalition for content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA), of which Microsoft is a co-founder. Microsoft says it will start by supporting "major images and video formats" when the initiative ramps up in the "coming months."

Microsoft Store Gets an AI Hub

The Microsoft Store will be filled to the brim with AI. The Microsoft Store will get a section specifically for AI apps and experiences. Developers can submit their AI-focused apps to be featured.

 AI is also coming to review summaries. Reviews in the app store will be scanned by AI, which will compile them and recapitulate. Additionally, developers will be able to fill their listings with AI-generated keyword suggestions to improve search engine optimization.

Dev Home

Beyond its AI tools, Microsoft also doubled down on Windows as a tool for developers with a new feature called Dev Home. Available in preview, it lets users set up a machine, connect to GitHub and build dashboards and other extensions, as well as use GitHub widgets and track CPU and GPU performance.

Microsoft is also adding WinGet configuration to the Windows Package Manager, taking care of setup and, according to Microsoft, dropping setup time from days to just hours. WinGet's configuration file will ensure you get the right version of software packages and frameworks.

There's also a new storage volume, Dev Drive, which Mifcrosoft says is based on the Resilient File System (ReFS) and offers a 30% improvement in build times, partially due to a "performance mode" in Windows Defender. Microsoft hasn't said much about this new mode, other than that  this "new performance mode is more secure for developer workloads than folder or process exclusions, providing a solution that balances security with performance.  

But of course, dev tools are also getting the AI treatment. Windows Terminal is gaining support for GitHub Copilot X, and will be able to use an "experimental chat experience" to use language both inline and in chat to learn more about errors, get recommendations and to perform actions throughout Terminal. Microsoft says it also wants to add GitHub Copilot-style AI in other developer tools, such as WinDBG.

We'll likely learn more about all of these features during the Microsoft Build keynotes. CEO Satya Nadella will start the show today at 9:00 a.m. PT / 12 p.m. ET. 

Microsoft is again drawing users' ire with new changes coming to Microsoft 365 Outlook and Teams apps. Previously with these apps, clicking on a link would open the default browser that a user set within Windows. So, if you clicked a link in Outlook and your default browser was Google Chrome, it would only open in Chrome.

However, Microsoft explains that these links will now open in Microsoft Edge by default. Edge is, of course, the successor to Internet Explorer, and Microsoft has tried all kinds of tricks over the years to boost the browser's market share. Nevertheless, Microsoft says that this change is for the benefit of its users.

"If you have a Microsoft 365 Personal or Family subscription, browser links from the Outlook app will open in Microsoft Edge by default, right alongside the email they're from in the Microsoft Edge sidebar pane," Microsoft writes in a support post. "This allows you to easily access, read, and respond to the message using your matching authenticated profile. No more disruptive switching—just your email and the web content you need to reference, in a single, side-by-side view."

According to Microsoft, this change will first come to Outlook but later arrive for Teams to "help you stay engaged in conversations as you browse the web."

Not surprisingly, many users aren't thrilled about Microsoft's latest change of heart to "help" its users. A quick trip to the sysadmin Reddit shows that IT administrators are livid about the change. "In all seriousness, forcing their browser on users through unscrupulous OS choices and vendor negotiations was the prime reason for the original anti-trust suit. I fail to see how this is any different at all," wrote ripvannwinkler. Another user, unixuser011, added, "This isn't the 90's anymore, you can't act like Edge is the only game in town, you have to respect people's browser choice. You aren't Google, stop acting like it." 

Redditor hume_reddit provided further context on how the change affects organizations:

• Only links set to open via a web browser are affected. Links that are set to open in a client app or within Outlook itself will continue to do so.
• User experiences will vary by policy configuration; please see the next section.
• Web links from all accounts in the Outlook for Windows app will open in Microsoft Edge, but the side-by-side experience is not available for non-AAD or non-MSA accounts at this time.

As if sensing that this change wouldn't be well-received by all users, Microsoft concludes its support post by stating, "Ultimately though, if this experience isn't right for you, you can turn off this feature the first time it launches in Microsoft Edge, and then in Outlook settings at any time after that."

Interestingly, this latest pro-Edge move comes as StatCounter reports that Apple's Safari overtook Edge for second place in global desktop browser market share for April 2023. StatCounter reports that Safari captured 11.89 percent of the desktop browser market, while Edge slipped to 10.95 percent.

Microsoft is stepping up its investment in the artificial intelligence realm, and today announced it is expanding its partnership with OpenAI. According to Microsoft, this will be the third phase in its tie-up with OpenAI, representing a "multi-billion dollar investment" in its effort to be at the forefront of all things AI.

"We formed our partnership with OpenAI around a shared ambition to responsibly advance cutting-edge AI research and democratize AI as a new technology platform," said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. "In this next phase of our partnership, developers and organizations across industries will have access to the best AI infrastructure, models, and toolchain with Azure to build and run their applications."

From now on, Microsoft's Azure cloud infrastructure will be used exclusively to power OpenAI workloads, API services, research, and backend systems. Microsoft will also use OpenAI to enhance its products to create "new categories of digital experiences." Those experiences will leverage OpenAI's ChatGPT, a conversational AI routine that can be used to write articles, poetry, and even debug code. 

The Information reported earlier this month that Microsoft planned to fuse ChatGPT with its Bing search engine to become more competitive with Google (or, more specifically, the Google Knowledge Graph). Perhaps even more interesting is the rumor that claims Microsoft intends to bring the GPT text-generation model to Microsoft Word and Outlook. This would potentially let AI write emails for you based on input commands, or flesh out an article you're writing using information siphoned from the web. 

On that note, we used ChatGPT (using the GPT-3 language model) last week to inquire about how to build a PC. Unfortunately, despite ChatGPT's impressive capabilities, its advice on building a PC turned out to be pretty bad. Its instructions were grammatically correct, but would have likely resulted in the destruction of the CPU if followed by a tech neophyte. 

Microsoft's investment in AI should not come as a surprise to anyone. When Nadella announced that the company would lay off 10,000 employees this year, he noted that "the next major wave of computing is being born with advances in AI, as we're turning the world's most advanced models into a new computing platform." 

OpenAI was co-founded in 2015 by a group of tech luminaries, including Sam Altman, Peter Thiel, and Elon Musk. Its mission is to "ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity," and the company's continued partnership with Microsoft will hopefully advance those efforts. 

"The past three years of our partnership have been great," said Altman, who serves as OpenAI's CEO. "Microsoft shares our values and we are excited to continue our independent research and work toward creating advanced AI that benefits everyone."

Apple launched the current-generation MacBook Air in June 2022 with a new M2 SoC. It was expected that Apple would launch M2 Pro and M2 Max equipped 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros during Fall 2022. Unfortunately, the refresh never came, and MacBook Pros continue to be sold with M1 Pro and M1 Max SoCs

DigiTimes is now reporting that the M2 Pro/M2 Max MacBook Pro refresh has been "delayed once again" and will no longer "hit the market in early 2023." The publication didn't provide guidance on when the launch will occur, but Bloomberg's Mark Gurman stated over the weekend that the new laptops could arrive during the first half of 2023. 

With this in mind, it's possible that Apple could announce the new MacBook Pros at WWDC 2023, which will likely occur in early June. Apple announced the M2-based MacBook Air at the same event last year.

Performance junkies will want to temper their expectations with the MacBook Pro refresh, as Gurman suggests that the M2 and M2 Max will only offer "marginal leaps" over their predecessors. In addition, Apple won't make any design changes to the new MacBook Pros, given that the current chassis has only been around since late 2021.

There is also speculation that overall MacBook sales could drop as much as 50 percent sequentially during Q1 2023. The first quarter is traditionally a slower period for PC OEMs, but DigiTimes alleges that Apple is "adjusting its shipment ratios" due to weaker Q4 demand. In addition, MacBook inventory levels are higher than Apple would like, hence its calls to Quanta and Foxconn to reduce shipments. Also compounding matters is that many Apple customers are waiting for the MacBook Pro refresh, which further erodes demand for existing inventory.

As we reported yesterday, global PC shipments plummeted by 28 percent during Q4 2022 compared to Q4 2021. IDC noted that "the pandemic boom is over for the PC market," while Canalys added, "rising costs for energy and basic goods in key markets like the US and Europe, expenditure on big-ticket items like PCs has taken a back seat as consumers are prepared to delay refreshes."

Despite the doom and gloom over declining PC sales during Q4 2022, Apple fared better than most in the industry. Lenovo, Hewlett-Packard and Dell experienced worldwide PC shipment declines of 28.5 percent, 29 percent and 37.2 percent year-over-year, according to IDC. Apple, on the other hand, experienced just a 2.1 percent drop. The company also gained global PC market share, rising from 8.2 percent in Q4 2021 to 11.2 percent in Q4 2022.

Microsoft rebranded Office 365 to Microsoft 365 in Oct. 2022, part of its effort to slowly take the long-running "Office" brand out of the limelight. At the time, the company didn't make any significant changes to the subscription tiers or features offered. But that will change later this month with the addition of a new Microsoft 365 Basic tier, which will cost $1.99/month ($19.99/year).

Microsoft 365 Basic slots between Microsoft 365 (free) and Microsoft 365 Personal ($6.99/month). It replaces the previous 100GB OneDrive storage subscription and adds some perks. Microsoft says customers can expect these features with the new tier:

• 100GB cloud storage
• Works on Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android
• Web and mobile versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, OneDrive, and more
• Ad-free Outlook web and mobile email and calendar with advanced security (data encryption, suspicious link cheer, malware scanning for attachments)
• Microsoft technical support

The extra functionality seems like a nice upgrade for users currently getting by with just the 100GB OneDrive storage tier. In addition, Microsoft says it will add "even better advanced security features" later this year, including shared links that are password-protected, and ransomware recovery.

While the inclusion of Office is welcome, we should note that this tier only includes the basic, web-based versions of Microsoft's popular productivity apps, which are available for free. To access the "premium" desktop versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote, you'll have to step up to Microsoft 365 Personal.

Microsoft was quick to point out that Jan. 29, 2023 marks the 10th anniversary of Office 365. The high-end Office 365 Home Premium subscription initially included only 20GB of cloud storage. Today, the Microsoft 365 Personal tier offers 1TB of OneDrive storage. In addition, the flagship Microsoft 365 Family tier for consumers ($9.99/month) supports up to six people, each with their own 1TB allotment of OneDrive storage.

Microsoft 365 Basic will be available starting Jan. 30. Current 100GB OneDrive subscribers will automatically be shifted to the newer, more feature-packed tier.

Microsoft is preparing to retire or at least deemphasize its decades old Office brand in favor of Microsoft 365 branded cloud productivity tools. Users should expect to see the changes permeate throughout the Microsoft cloud ecosystem in the next few weeks. Meanwhile, PC stalwarts using offline standalone Office suites and applications will probably not notice any difference.

The news was secreted within Microsoft’s announcement of a new Microsoft 365 app on Wednesday. On that page you will find a FAQ which helpfully spells out what is changing with regards to Microsoft 365 and Office brands, when changes will be pushed through and what it means to users of either branded products / suites. It also explains that “over the last couple years, Microsoft 365 has evolved into our flagship productivity suite,” and this is seemingly behind the decision to transition Office.com, the Office mobile app, and the Office app for Windows into Microsoft 365 branded products.

The key thing for many users of Microsoft's flagship office productivity tools, is that they are not going away. Microsoft says that “as part of Microsoft 365 you will continue to get access to apps like Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook.” Also, Office 365 subscribers in business / enterprises will not be moved to Microsoft 365 plans. Importantly to many readers, those seeking the most recent offline / perpetual Office editions will still have the opportunity to buy apps as one-time purchases via Microsoft’s Office 2021 and Office LTSC plans, too.

While the branding change is a pretty big deal, once you read all the small print, it isn’t very impactful. However, the same could be said of any branding or naming change. The most affected will be personal consumers, students, and small home offices which currently use the Microsoft 365 cloud-powered productivity platform via mobile and web-apps. Existing users of these cloud office tools won’t have to do anything; existing accounts, profiles, subscriptions, and files won’t be disrupted, even if you are accessing them from the new app with new branding and icon. In a way, the naming changes help emphasize the difference between the cloud-powered and the perpetual Office releases; with the online version highlighting collaborative tools like Teams and OneDrive being used alongside more traditional office productivity apps in the new hybrid working world.

Expect to see many of the above changes arrive with the rebranding of the unified Office app to Microsoft 365 in November, with the whole rebranding effort expected to be completed by January 2023.

Nvidia stock took a beating in after-hours trading on Thursday, after the company shared [PDF] its Q1 results and guidance for Q2 expectations. Investors were seemingly not happy with 4% lower than expected revenue for 2Q ($8.1 billion); $500 million of which Nvidia attributed to the Russian-Ukranian conflict and COVID-19 lockdowns in China.

Perhaps more telling, however, is the reduction in Nvidia's CMP (Cryptocurrency Mining Processor) cards' revenue, which the company introduced into the market as a way to lure cryptocurrency miners away from gaming-oriented GeForce cards.

Following the downturn in the cryptocurrency market and macroeconomic / geopolitical events, alongside increasing odds of Ethereum's Merge event, revenue from CMP cards has been declining at a breakneck pace, showcasing the fickleness of blockchain-related demand. From $266 million in Q2 2021, CMP revenues declined to $105 million in Q3, ending in a comparatively measly $24 million for Q4 2021, further falling in Q1 2022 towards an unspecified, "nominal" value, according to Nvidia. As per usual, Nvidia states that it can't accurately forecast how much of its gaming GPU revenue comes from cryptomining. 

The stock fall happened despite strong QoQ (quarter-over-quarter) results for the green giant. Buoyed by its bread and butter markets, Nvidia posted an 8% increase in quarterly growth for 1Q2022 alongside a 3% increase in earnings per share to $1.36 compared to Q4 2021.

Nvidia's gaming segment registered an impressive 31% growth YoY - which the company even gloated about, claiming gamers were spending $300 more on new GPU technology, on average. But considering the ongoing back and fort between Nvidia's Lite Hash Rate limiter and several circumventions developed by mining-focused software providers, investors must be cautious - there's no way to know exactly what percentage of Nvidia's gaming growth is still attributable to cryptocurrency mining.

Investors apparently weren't swayed by the company's ongoing, $15 billion share buyback program, which will run through 2023.

Nvidia shares are down an incredible 50% YoY from their ATH of $326 in November 2021, following the worldwide economic turmoil following the COVID-19 pandemic, Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and rising inflation rates across the world prompting fears of an economic recession. They're not the only company in this state - most tech stocks have taken a beating as investors look more towards operating profits rather than speculative bets on companies' future value.

At the BUILD developer conference, Microsoft announced that third party widgets will be enabled in Windows 11 beginning "later this year." Widgets are a handy way to present bite-sized bits of information without hogging screen real estate. They're easy to summon and dismiss, letting you quickly check some news or other real-time information and get back to your main task(s).

At present, Microsoft is the sole provider and publisher of Windows 11 widgets. This obviously limits the scope of the offerings, but there are still some useful widgets designed to show snippets of news, to do lists, weather, traffic, your Outlook calendar, and stock prices, as well as providing a mini slideshow of photos from your OneDrive cloud storage. However, most if not all of the existing widgets won't work if you use a local account to sign into Windows 11, rather than a Microsoft account.

Later this year, Microsoft is going to open up the widget building experience for third party developers. Widgets in Windows 11 are powered by Microsoft's Adaptive Cards platform. Due to this, developers will be able to easily create widgets with actionable buttons, texts, graphics. The new third party widgets will be companions to installed Win32 and PWA apps.

One attraction of the Adaptive Cards platform is that it can leverage the "capabilities of touch, pen, voice, and AI, to create features that increase engagement and differentiate your apps with more natural interactions for your customers," explains Microsoft. Windows 11 widgets are resizable and repositionable, but in this newest OS they live on a quick popup overlay with a vertically scrollable menu summoned by a taskbar button, and they can't be placed randomly and stick to your desktop.

What third party widgets would readers like to see arrive? We'd appreciate a local media / music player widget, a streaming audio / radio widget, a sticky note widget, and a system info widget (CPU utilization, temperature, etc.) Other welcome additions would be some of Google's apps in a compact widgetized UI, and perhaps a Twitter feed.

Microsoft Widgets: Some History

Microsoft's history of implementing widgets in Explorer began in the days of Windows Vista with the appearance of the Windows Sidebar, which evolved into Windows Desktop Gadgets with the advent of Windows 7. As noted by Wikipedia, Windows Vista would ship with eleven gadgets for its sidebar, while Windows 7 broke the gadgets out of the sidebar for positioning anywhere on the desktop and introduced some widget favorites like the Media Player and Stocks ticker. Third party developers could share widgets online via Microsoft's Windows Live Gallery until Oct 2011. Widgets were dumped by Microsoft in July 2012 due to inherent security vulnerabilities.

In Windows 8, Live Tiles were a pretty adequate widget functionality surrogate. With the Metro UI you basically got quick access to all the widgety information you might desire at the press of the Windows key, thanks to that full screen 'Metro' style Start Menu.

With the demise of live tiles, moving from Windows 10 to 11, Microsoft introduced widgets in the newer OS as a way to facilitate the convenient streaming of little nuggets of info to appropriately-sized portions of our screens. Now we are seeing the Windows 11 widgets embrace the wider world with third party app companionship being telegraphed at BUILD.

Update 3/2/2022 7:20pm PT: Intel reached out and provided Tom's Hardware with the following statement:

 "We continue to work closely with customers and partners on memory and storage technologies, including enabling our 3rd generation Optane Products with Sapphire Rapids. In addition we are enabling the ecosystem to be ready for key technologies such as memory tiering over CXL.” — Intel Spokesperson

Notably, the statement doesn't answer many of our outstanding questions, such as where and when Intel will begin producing Optane in volume. Additionally, mentions of Optane memory products have been notably absent in recent communications, such as the company's Investor Day, roadmaps, and other announcements. 

Original story:

The lack of any announcements concerning the future of Intel's Optane products does not add confidence about their prospects in particular and 3D XPoint memory in general. But a recent comment made by Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger may shed some light on his view on the memory business. As it turns out, Gelsinger does not see it as a priority, as he does not want to compete against the influx of Chinese memory makers in a few years.  

"China is pouring extraordinary capital into their semiconductor business," said the Intel chief in an interview with Stratechery. "They can't be below 10 [because they can't get EUV], and the specialty nodes are hard for them to replicate. Where does it go? It goes into memories or it goes into mature nodes. […] So, if I can get [foundry] DNA from Tower and make sure I keep it alive and healthy and prepare for the complement that I have Intel and specialty, I never want to be in memory, you see I am doing everything I can to exit our memory businesses in that regard." 

While the comment was made regarding Intel's acquisition of Tower Semiconductor, it refers to China's retrofitting of logic fabs for 3D NAND memory production (see XMC – YMTC collaboration) and what it could mean for the industry. 

Intel recently sold its Non-Volatile Memory Solutions Group to SK Hynix, essentially exiting the 3D NAND-based SSD business. So while Optane-branded 3D XPoint-powered SSDs and persistent memory modules are still available, we do not know anything about their future. 

When Intel was founded in 1968, it originally produced memory and introduced its first microprocessor — the Intel 4004 — in 1971. Unfortunately, the company abandoned its memory business in the 1980s after it could not compete against Japanese rivals. However, it has tried to return to the memory business in one form or another over the years.  

In the late 1990s, it tried to capitalize on Rambus stock options by exclusively supporting Rambus-designed RDRAM with its first-generation Pentium 4 platforms. Eventually, it became a leading supplier of enterprise-grade and 2D/3D NAND-based SSDs and even co-developed 3D XPoint storage class memory (SCM) with Micron to address markets that required higher performance as well as higher endurance.  

But while Intel's storage business was performing relatively well, its 3D XPoint business has been bleeding money. By selling its 3D NAND fab in China; letting Micron sell its 3D XPoint production facility in Lehi, Utah (by not acquiring it itself); and moving 3D XPoint development and production equipment from its fab in New Mexico, Intel is clearly showing that storage and memory businesses are no longer its focus. Companies like Samsung, SK Hynix, Kioxia, and Western Digital can produce more memory, and their volumes of scale almost guarantee that their operations will be profitable in the long term, even when Chinese fabs come online. 

But despite the comments made by Intel's CEO and its recent actions, we cannot say that Intel's memory saga is completely over. For example, the company's upcoming Ponte Vecchio compute GPU for supercomputers will use Intel's proprietary Rambo cache. Meanwhile, Intel's hybrid supercomputer processor Falcon Shores with both x86 and Xe cores will use a "new extreme bandwidth shared memory being developed by Intel," allegedly specifically for its high-performance computing (HPC) products.

A trio of unannounced Windows 11 settings and features pages has been unearthed by one of Twitter's premier software sleuths. Over the weekend, Albacore found new/improved system settings pages showing the following: Sustainability, Focus (was Focus Assist) and Notifications.

Perhaps the most interesting from the trio of update revelations is the new System > Sustainability settings page. There aren't many settings here right now, which is understandable given that it's a completely new addition.

Near the top of the screenshot (see how to take screenshots in Windows) you can see that there are five outlined leaves subtitled "Conserve energy." Albacore asserts that these glyphs get filled to indicate your device's Eco Score, and the feature will become active at a later date. We would expect the leaves to fill with green, to give you a rough idea of this score, if no percentage or numerical value is given (we made a mock-up showing this mechanic as the topmost feature image). One can even imagine PC makers advertising a device's Eco score on the product packaging or on one of those irritating stickers on the PC case / laptop keyboard deck.

Beneath the Eco Score section, there is a toggle to allow Microsoft to apply default Eco recommendations. Control freaks and independent thinkers can delve into the Advanced Eco recommendations area, which currently only consists of sleep and screen settings. Lastly, you can learn about how to recycle the PC you are using if you don't want to put something like Linux Lite on it to extend its working life, or post it on an auction site.

Another screenshot from Albacore shows that Microsoft is pondering, or perhaps has already decided to rename Focus Assist. Going forward it may simply be known as Focus. That isn't all though. Focus is going to become a setting in the Clock app, and you will be able to schedule your Focus times via Outlook.

Notifications looks like it has come forward in system settings, so it is easier to find and tweak. There is a new Set priority notifications setting in there too, which sounds good.

Wallpaper Stickers

Albacore also recently unearthed an interesting change set to arrive in the Personalization > Background settings of Windows 11. From this screenshot, it looks like Microsoft is planning a wallpaper customization feature using Stickers.

We don't get to see any example stickers, but anyone with a modern smartphone and with experience of social media / rich messaging apps will probably have a good idea of the easily positioned image overlay possibilities which will become available for your desktop wallpaper. According to the source Tweet, the stickers persist as you change wallpapers, in most setups.

As a reminder, the first big Windows 11 Update is due to be released later this month. Expect redesigns of the Media Player, an updated Notepad app, and various Taskbar improvements, as well as various tweaks and fixes.

Microsoft recently announced that Office 2021 will release alongside Windows 11 on October 5th. The latest version of Microsoft's Office series will be the successor to Office 2019, and brings new features to the office suite while retaining price parity with Office 2019.

Office 2021 will be a rather minor upgrade over Office 2019, but, for some people there will be enough features to make the upgrade worthwhile.

Excel is getting the most attention with the latest update, Microsoft has added several new functions including XMatch, LET, Dynamic Arrays, and XLookup. XLookup for instance, allows you to find any data within a table by using a search bar-like function, and LET will allow you to assign names to calculation results.

Outlook has also received a couple of updates. There's a new translator in Outlook that will translate messages on the fly, and there's a new global search that allows you to find emails across all your folders and email accounts with several search parameters.

Other features include new performance improvements for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook, as well as a newly refreshed UI with refreshed tabs in the ribbon.

Check out the rest of Office 2021's new features here, including new features for Word (like ODF support) and PowerPoint.

Pricing will remain the same as Office 2019, with Office Home and Student going for $149.99, Home and Business going for $249.99. Office 365 users will get the free upgrade to Office 2021 once it releases on October 5th.

Office 2021 will be fully compatible with Windows 11, Windows 10, and the three most recent versions of MacOS.

With the release of Office 2021, Microsoft will also be discontinuing support for Office 2013 and it will not be supported on Windows 11.

For the past few years, Microsoft has been predicting a future where you don't need a password, thanks to the use of verification codes, biometric identifiers or authentication apps. Today, the company is putting its money where its mouth is and allowing you to take the password off your Microsoft account.

Those who opt out of passwords will be able to use Microsoft's Authenticator app for Android or iOS, Windows Hello facial recognition or fingerprint sensing, security keys or verification codes sent to phones or emails to sign into Micorsoft's apps and services.

In a blog post, corporate vice president of Microsoft security, Vasu Jakkal, wrote that these services include Outlook, OneDrive and Microsoft Family Safety, and that this option will come out over "the coming weeks"

To remove the password, you'll need to have Microsoft Authenticator on your iOS or Android device and connect it to your Microsoft account. Then, you'll have to go to account.microsoft.com, log in and go to "Advanced Security Options." In the "Additional Security" menu, there will be an option called "Passwordless Account" that you can turn on.

This will result in a series of on-screen prompts, which will ultimately leave you sans password. You can add one back to your account — this isn't a mandate just yet.

Microsoft's reasoning here is that passwords aren't user friendly and that they're security risks on their own.

"Updates are often required on a regular basis, yet to create passwords that are both secure enough and memorable enough is a challenge," Jakkal wrote. "Passwords are incredibly inconvenient to create, remember, and manage across all of the accounts in our lives." Microsoft's studies suggest that one in 10 people reuse passwords across different services, while 40% use a formula that changes predictably. The company also says that it has become easier for hackers to guess passwords, and points out that once a password hits the dark web, it can be used to easily compromise accounts.

This could, of course, potentially cause some confusion. If you use a key, for instance, you need to ensure you always have it. If you use a message sent to a smartphone, you have to make sure you have a backup method if you ever change SIMs, like while travelling. So if you're not prepared, you could still potentially get locked out.

Microsoft's approach runs counter to the other leading idea for increasing security: a mix of password managers with two-factor authentication. Instead of something you know, it's focusing on something you have (a security key) or even something you are (facial recognition).

Microsoft's services and accounts are a start, but we'll see going forward if it is able to lead a charge that causes others to remove passwords from their services.

Valve has today published its monthly update for Steam Hardware Survey, with an update for July. Besides the regular fluctuations in the market share of CPU and GPU vendors, there is another interesting change slowly happening. According to the newest data from the survey, gaming on Linux has climbed to 1.0% for the first time in years.

Back in 2018, Valve introduced Proton, a technology that translates Windows-specific API calls to Linux equivalents, enabling thousands of Linux gamers to play the games that they wanted to, but were unable because they weren't using Windows OS.

At the same time, many Linux gamers were trying out the Proton software and the market share of Linux gamers managed to climb to around 2% of a much smaller Steam customer base. However, after this testing period ended, only 0.8-0.9% of gamers were still using Linux distros, and the percentages stayed within that range for some time.

In the latest Steam Hardware Survey published for July, Valve has noted that Linux gaming market share managed to climb to 1.0% of all gaming systems questioned in the survey. And this is quite a bit of achievement, given that Valve has access to millions of PCs and gamers across the world.

What are the possible reasons for such growth you might wonder? For starters, Valve has recently announced its Steam Deck portable gaming console, which runs a  Linux-based Arch OS. As many people heard that the new console runs Linux OS, it is possible that many decided to try the experience and prepare for what is to come, once the new console launches.

It is important to note that once Valve begins shipping Steam Deck consoles to the many eager early adopters, the Linux gaming market share will continue to grow. All of the people using the console will contribute to the growth of Linux gaming, helping it to a much higher level adoption. The growth of the Linux gaming ecosystem and community is still going to take baby steps to increase, however, given that a major software and hardware developer like Valve is supporting it, there are chances that it could reach a double-digit percentage sometime in the future.

Though there are free alternatives available, for many, there’s nothing quite like the familiar, comfortable workings of Microsoft Office, from Word’s superior spell and grammar check to the ease and sense of security of storing files locally on your own PC and not online.

Before you can get Office for free, cheap or any price, you should know there are two main variants. Microsoft 365 (formerly Office 365) gives you constant updates but requires a monthly or annual subscription fee. Office 2019 is a fixed package of software, but you only have to pay for it once. Microsoft really wants you to use the subscription-based Microsoft 365 service, of course.

The Office 2019 package is slightly different than Microsoft 365. On top of that, there are companies besides Microsoft selling Office for free (both Microsoft 365 subscriptions and Office 2019 keys) or cheaper than Microsoft. And you can even run Office apps for free online. So what’s the best and cheapest way to get your productivity on?

From Office for free to paying $150 or subscriptions, here’s a breakdown of the best and cheapest ways to get Office (we focus on personal versions, rather than business ones).

Office 2019 vs. Office Online vs. Microsoft 365

Download Office 2019 From Microsoft: $149.99

Despite shifting focus to Microsoft 365, which used to be called Office 365, Microsoft still sells Office Home & Student 2019 for a one-time charge of $149.99. This includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote but lacks some solutions Microsoft 365 has. These missing solutions may or may not be relevant to you: Outlook, Publisher (PC only), Access (PC only) and the OneDrive and Skype cloud services.

You can buy some pieces of the Office suite individually, but considering Word 2019 is $139.99, if you plan on using even 1 more Office app, it’s a better deal to buy the whole platform.

No matter where you get Office 2019, it won't be updated monthly like Microsoft 365 is. That means you’ll never see new features added. What you buy is what you get. However, you will get security patch updates “as required,”  Daniel Vargas, Microsoft director of product marketing, told Tom’s Hardware.

It's very possible that you don’t care if your Office software is updated regularly. Heck, you may even be okay with an older version of Office, say Office 2016, which you can still find keys for from third-party sellers for cheaper than Office 2019. However, Office 2016 has reached end of life (EoL), meaning Microsoft no longer provides security updates for it. If you can settle for the 2016 version of Office, you can, as of this writing, get it from Kinguin for PCDestination for about $50. But customer service may be lacking (more on that later). 

Remember, to use Office 2019, you need to be running Windows 10. Luckily, we’ve already detailed how to get Windows 10 for free or cheap.

If Office 2019 is your preferred choice, you can get it for significantly cheaper than the $149.99 Microsoft charges by buying it from a third-party retailer.

Download Office 2019 Key From a Third-Party: ~$45

Microsoft charges $149.99 to download Microsoft Office Home & Student 2019, but you can save a lot of money if you’re willing to buy it from a different store.

Newegg sometimes sells the same download key for $123.99, so it's worth checking. If you can wait for a physical key, Walmart currently sells the key card for $124, Amazon occasionally has it for $125 and Kinguin has it for a shockingly low $36 (and even lower with a Kinguin discount code). 

But before you take out credit card, let's talk about the reasons you might want to avoid these retailers. 

The Downsides

Saving over $100 on Office 2019 sounds like a no-brainer. However, since you’re not buying from Microsoft, you’ll have to exert some caution. You’re probably comfortable shopping at a well-known retailer like Newegg or Amazon; however, you’ll want to check their return policy on software.

You may be more hesitant to buy from key reseller website like Kinguin. Many question their legitimacy or morality behind such deals. To learn more about its Office 2019, we spoke with Kinguin directly.

“Only the original developer or publisher of a digital product can generate keys, so all of the Office 2019 keys come from this source. From there, either a seller buys them directly from the publisher or from the wholesaler, who also got them directly from a publisher, and sells them on Kinguin for a fair market price,” Michał Puczyński, PR Manager at Kinguin, told Tom’s Hardware in September 2019.

Puczyński admitted there are “a few bad apples” in its marketplace but said this is inevitable since there are “tens of thousands of Office 2019 keys sold by thousands of sellers on Kinguin.” However, he claimed that only one out of 700 postings aren’t legitimate, and an even smaller percentage of shoppers actually get scammed.

“Our fraud prevention team manages to stop nearly 100% of these attempts before they take place. When a scammer is detected through our custom fraud technology, that person is banned for a lifetime from selling on Kinguin,” Puczyński explained.

Kinguin also offers a $5.69 “Buyer Protection, ”which guarantees you a refund if you get a bum key.” However, even if you don't buy this protection, Kinguin is willing to work with you for a potential refund if your key doesn’t work.

“We always put the customer first and work to find a solution for any problem the customer has encountered, which may include issuing a refund,” Puczyński said. “The Kinguin Buyer Protection is an optional feature designed to provide added protection while purchasing in our store, as well as additional services, but that doesn’t mean the customer will get inadequate treatment without it. Kinguin does reserve its right not to accept any returns of already delivered items or game keys to protect itself from scams.”

Regardless, we've heard of customer complaints regarding slow customer service or the company offering refunds rather than dealing with individual complaints. We haven't been able to get in touch with Kinguin for a response. 

Get Microsoft Office Free: Online and Mobile Apps and More

As its name implies, Microsoft Office Online doesn’t live on your PC. Instead, you can only access these services with an internet connection. You also have to have a Microsoft account. You can get to Office Online by signing in with your Microsoft account here. Once you do so, you have access to free Office tools. 

The service is a good alternative to G Suite, especially if you don't like some of that platform’s limitations. Your files will still be at the mercy of the web, but you’ll be able to use Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, OneDrive, Skype, Flow, Forms and Sway without paying any money. Plus, since everything is internet-based, you can access it from any computer connected to the web.

As of November, Microsoft consolidated Word, Excel and PowerPoint into a single mobile app on both Android and iOS smartphones. The app is available on the Google Play Store and Apple App Store.

Free Office Online may not be a good fit for your largest or most complex projects, since features are more limited than what's offered in Microsoft 365. It has less menu options. For example tabs like Draw and Design are missing from Word online. 

The free Office Online does come with 5GB of OneDrive storage, but that’s actually skimpy compared to the 15GB of free storage you get with Google Drive.

Similarly, there are free iOS (varies from iPhone to iPad) and Android (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneDrive, Outlook, OneNote and SharePoint) versions of Office software that are also available for free but with fewer features.

Note that you may also end up getting Microsoft 365 for free through a sale. For example, from now until April 18, LG is offering a 12-month subscription of Microsoft 365 Personal for free if you buy a 2021 LG Gram laptop. 

Buy Microsoft 365 From Microsoft: $69.99 or $99.99/year

On April 21, Microsoft renamed Office 365 to Microsoft 365. In addition to a new name, Microsoft 365 brings new features, including artificial intelligence, new templates and content and "cloud-powered experiences," according to Yusuf Mehdi, Corporate Vice President, Modern Life, Search & Devices at Microsoft. 

Microsoft 365 Personal, which is for one person across multiple devices, is $6.99 a month or $69.99 a year. You can use Microsoft 365 Home for free through a one-month trial. Microsoft 365 Family, for up to six people, is $9.99 a month or $99.99 a year. 

Microsoft 365 is a great option if you don’t mind paying for your productivity suite on an annual or monthly basis. It won’t be long until you’ve paid more for Office 365 than you would have for Office 2019, but it does come with more apps than Office 2019. In addition to Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote, Office 365 includes Outlook, Publisher, OneDrive and Skype. PC users also get Publisher and Access. 

Perhaps the best part is you can install Microsoft 365 on an unlimited number of devices and log into your subscription on up to 5 of those devices simultaneously. Additionally, Office 365 Personal subscribers get 1TB of OneDrive storage for up to 1 user, and Office 365 Home users can share their cloud storage with 6 users. You also get 60 minutes of Skype calls to real phone numbers for 1 or 6 users, depending if you get Office 365 Home or Personal. 

Another advantage Microsoft 365 has over traditional Office 2019 is its monthly updates, which vary but can include new features, functionally and security updates, “ and often it is all of those each month,” Microsoft’s Vargas told us in September 2019. 

“Most importantly, Microsoft 365 is connected to the cloud, so you can access your content from any device, co-author with anyone in real-time (regardless of whether or not they’ve purchased a copy of Office) and use the power of artificial intelligence to create more impactful content with less effort,” he added.

You can get a free trial for Office 365 Home (only), but it’ll last a mere month.

Buy Microsoft 365 From a Third-Party: $49.99 or $79.99/year

You can also buy or renew your Microsoft 365 subscription from a third-party retailer in one-year packages that are cheaper than what Microsoft charges for its one-year subscriptions.

At the time of writing, Newegg has a 15-month Microsoft 365 Personal subscription for $69.99 if bought with another product or $60 for a 12-month Office 365 subscription, (note that you won't get the features of the current Microsoft 365), which will have to be delivered. 

Amazon has Microsoft 365 Personal for $40 but is charging the same price as Microsoft for Microsoft 365 Family. It doesn't offer the older Office 365. 

Note that you still get free Microsoft technical support for the duration of your subscription, even if you buy your subscription outside of Microsoft. But Microsoft won’t handle subscription or billing issues, such as cancellations or refunds. This is because “Microsoft has limited access and visibility over subscription purchased through a third-party retailer,” according to Vargas.

Get Office Free: Microsoft 365 Education for Students, Teachers

If you’re a student or teacher, you can actually get an Microsoft 365 subscription for free, if your school qualifies. The subscription includes SharePoint, Sway, Forms, Stream, Flow, PowerApps, School Data Sync, Yammer, which aren't included in regular Office 365 subscriptions. However, you miss out on Outlook, Publisher and Access.

To see if you’re eligible for free Microsoft 365 Education, head to Microsoft’s website.

Bottom Line

Microsoft Office is a productivity staple. If you insist on the traditional procurement method of buying and owning the software for life and don’t need the software to be updated monthly, you should stick with Office 2019, just know that EoL will eventually come. You can also buy a legitimate key from a key reseller for as low as about $45, saving you around $105 from Microsoft’s pricing.

If you’re not doing big projects but instead just basic documents, spreadsheets, presentations etc., you may be able to get away with free Office Online or mobile apps. Just be sure you have an Internet connection.

But for heavy-duty productivity, the world is moving toward subscription-based software. Microsoft 365 comes with more offerings than Office 2019, monthly updates, the ability to share among multiple devices, plus a heaping 1TB of free cloud storage. You can get it for cheaper if you buy it outside of Microsoft, for as little as $50 for a year. But make sure it’s a retailer you trust, in case of billing or subscription questions. If you’re okay with making monthly or annual payments to continue creating and editing files, Microsoft 365 -- is tomorrow’s productivity suite.

Do you remember the Mac vs PC commercials from the mid-2000s? While Microsoft and Apple may have become increasingly buddy-buddy since then, with Windows working on Mac and Mac ceding basic productivity app dominance to Microsoft Office, that doesn’t mean the war between Mac and PC isn’t still raging. The fighters are just different.

Intel's new ad campaign is taking aim at Apple by promoting PC heavily, a continuation of the company’s recent claims that Intel performs better than Apple’s own M1 chip. While Intel has historically been happy to provide Apple chips in the past, Apple’s decision to move to its own, Arm-based chips seems to have changed Intel’s tune about the company’s entire product lineup.

Intel’s attack campaign has been running on Twitter and across various websites since early February under #GoPC, and makes such biting remarks as “If you can power a rocket launch and launch Rocket League, you’re not on a Mac.” Rocket League was delisted for Mac early last year.
 

Of course, Mac’s substandard gaming ecosystem has been known pretty much since the first Macintosh, and that hasn’t stopped Intel from supporting Apple before. Perhaps more harsh is Intel’s snipe at Apple’s refusal to put a touchscreen on its Macbooks, an oft-requested feature that’s become commonplace on similar PC laptops.

You could read this as Intel standing behind its new mobile-first Evo certification program, which doesn’t require a touchscreen but is built on mobile-first convenience features that touchscreen laptops frequently pass. By comparison, Intel claims that Macs do not.

Not everyone’s sold on Evo, though, as tests like “Switching to Calendar in Outlook” are pretty specific and generally not taxing for most systems. And again, Intel happily supplies chips to PCs that don’t pass Evo spec as well.

Intel's also commissioned video for the Go PC campaign, including Tech reviewer Jon Rettinger, whose Intel-sponsored video points out that PC laptops have standard USB ports, touchscreens, and eGPU support, and can easily run with multiple external displays.

Of course, Mac fans are having their own fun with this campaign, including this series of rebuttal images from graphic designer Alex.

And, of course, a reference to the KFConsole that pokes fun at the heat generated by Intel CPUs.

The PC and Mac war is unlikely to come to an end in our time (I’m a proud dual-citizen), although it’s an interesting look at the marketplace to see a formerly neutral party take a side. With Apple moving to its own silicon, Intel is now synonymous with PC.

The first usable instances of Microsoft’s Fluid Framework were announced at Microsoft Build, the company’s developer conference being hosted online this year. We’ll first see it on Office.com and Outlook. We first learned about the Framework just before Build 2019 and heard more about it at Ignite.

Components of documents should stay up to date and connected across apps. Here’s how Microsoft describes it:

“For example, tables, charts, and task lists can be inserted in Outlook for the web, so your sales numbers, project tasks, and research reports are always up to date. Within Office.com, Fluid Framework workspaces can be created and managed, including within your document activity feed, Recommended list, @mentions, or search for them across Office.com. And, because Fluid Framework components are lightweight, edits are instantaneous.”

A public preview of the features will start “soon,” beginning with Microsoft 365 Enterpsise and education subscribers using the Targeted Release ring before it goes out to everyone. 

Additionally, Microsoft announced at Build that Fluid Framework will be made open source, and that more documentation and tooling will be available next month. It will be available in a repository on GitHub.

Microsoft released an app called Indexer Diagnostics on January 3 to let people find issues with Windows 10's search tool.

Windows 10's search tool suffered from numerous issues in 2019. Things started with SearchUI.exe having abnormally high CPU usage. Microsoft tried to fix that issue, but in the process it caused Windows Desktop Search to stop working entirely, and the builds it released afterwards didn't appear to make things much better.

As discovered by Ghacks yesterday, Indexer Diagnostics might be able to help Microsoft avoid those same issues in 2020. The app's description on the Microsoft Store reads: "Beta release of the Indexer Diagnostics tool, which helps you identify problems and issues with the Windows Search Indexer." 

The app seems fairly simple. The "Service status" page lists the indexed files on local drives, Outlook and the Edge browser, as well as the Windows Search service status. "Search is not working" offers a "Restart" button, a "Reset" button to use if restarting search didn't help and a "File Bug" button meant to be used as a last resort.

The "Is my file indexed?" and "What is being indexed?" pages make it easy to see if a given file has been indexed and see a running list of indexed files, respectively. Meanwhile, "Performance" offers details about how the indexer's working, (along with options to enable various "Tracing" tools if search is using too many resources or not working).

We doubt many people will ever need to learn about Indexer Diagnostics, but for people who rely on Windows 10's search tools, it could be a handy way to help Microsoft find problems with its software. 

Hopefully the company will reveal more information about the app's purpose and scope as it starts to attract attention.

Microsoft unveiled its second audio offering, the Surface Earbuds, here at its Surface Event in New York City today. They'll release for $249 sometime later this year.

The devices support Windows, Android and iOS with hand gestures that you make upon the hardware for each operating system. I saw the earbuds in Glacier White, but there's a gray color coming later this year.

I got to try the Surface Earbuds on at the event, and let me tell you this: they're surprisingly comfortable. There are three potential tip sizes: small, medium and large, and each of those inserts comes in the box. Medium worked well for me. You just put it in with the tip facing down and twist it towards your ear canal. Control gestures were simple; one example is swiping up and down to increase or decrease the volume.

Microsoft claims 24 hours of battery: 8 hours of charge and two additional charges in the case.

The sound, in my limited test, was surprisingly good for an earbud. Rock anthems, acoustic strings and even a live Coldplay concert stood out with details and ambience.

Microsoft Surface Earbuds Specs

Office Support

The cool part for big Windows users will be Office 365 support. I was walked through how this works with PowerPoint specifically. Microsoft showed off live subtitling, which has about a 1 second delay. When I did it and turned the language to Spanish, it took an additional second to translate my speech. It was accurate, and I could totally see using this while giving a presentation. You can also use the earbuds to switch slides.

I was not shown how the Surface Earbuds work with Word, Excel or Outlook, but I'm told there will be details on those later. Functionality with the productivity suite should come with an update to Office 365 later this year, I was told.

On iOS and Android, there will be a mobile app, mostly for tuning, but you can also use it to access Cortana.

Let there be light? Microsoft isn't having any of that: the company announced on Wednesday that it's bringing dark mode to Microsoft 365's web and mobile apps in the coming weeks.

Microsoft isn't any stranger to making its apps more friendly to night owls; the company added dark modes to its desktop apps with the introduction of Office 2010. But the shift to a services model--and the accompanying launch of web and mobile apps--led the company to refocus on early birds. Now it's finally making dark mode available to every Microsoft 365 product on the web, desktop, Android and iOS with a few updates at a time..

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These updates will serve multiple functions. The obvious is making it more comfortable to use Microsoft's web and mobile apps in the dark without being blinded. Microsoft said the introduction of dark mode in its apps could help save battery life, too, although we aren't sure how big a difference it will make. Some people also prefer to use dark mode just because it looks cool. (We blame George Lucas for making the dark side seem so badass.).

The new dark mode is available now in Office.com as well as Outlook for iOS and Android. This update will be followed with a much larger one in a few weeks: Microsoft said the "upcoming launch of iOS 13 will then extend this rollout to Word, Excel, OneNote, PowerPoint, SharePoint, OneDrive, Planner,and To-Do on mobile." The project will continue with updates "for all Outlook clients, Planner and OneDrive on web" later on.

Dark mode wasn't the only Microsoft 365 update to arrive yesterday. The company also introduced new features to Office, OneNote and Yammer, as well as IT-focused changes. More information about those updates--plus another look at dark mode in action--can be found in the announcement.

Microsoft has confirmed that hackers were able to read email from Microsoft's Outlook, MSN and Hotmail email services, Motherboard reported this week.

This is on the heels of a report from TechCrunch on Saturday evening that there was a breach on Microsoft's email services, which the company said let attackers access email addresses, folder names, subject lines and other email addresses users have written to, but not the content. But now Microsoft has admitted that wasn't the case.

Motherboard's source suggested that hackers could access accounts for six months, though Microsoft is standing by an email it sent to affected users between January 1 and March 28.

“We addressed this scheme, which affected a limited subset of consumer accounts, by disabling the compromised credentials and blocking the perpetrators’ access,” a Microsoft spokesperson told Motherboard.

It is unclear exactly how many accounts were affected. Users should change their passwords out of an abundance of caution.

“Our notification to the majority of those impacted noted that bad actors would not have had unauthorized access to the content of e-mails or attachments," a Microsoft spokesperson told The Verge. "A small group (~6 percent of the original, already limited subset of consumers) was notified that the bad actors could have had unauthorized access to the content of their email accounts, and was provided with additional guidance and support."

AMD appears to have largely sidestepped the pitfalls that its larger competitors, namely Intel and Nvidia, have suffered at the hands of the slowing China economy and the trade war.

Despite falling short on revenue projections, AMD still managed to meet earnings projections of 8% per share, all while predicting a stronger-than-expected 2019 in its guidance. That news sent investors to the "buy" button in after-hours trading, where AMD's stock rose ~10%. The company also announced that it had restructured its Wafer Supply Agreement (WSA) with Global Foundries to more favorable terms.

AMD's full-year 2018 revenue weighed in at $6.475 billion, which represents a 23% year-over-year (YoY) increase. AMD paired that stellar growth story with something much more amenable to investors: profit. AMD's 2018 results represent the company's highest profitability since 2011. That was accompanied by a significant reduction to the company's debt load.

AMD's fourth quarter 2018 results, which increased 6% YoY to $1.42 billion, was a key contributor to its 2018 success. Much of those gains came on the back of explosive 50% YoY growth of its Ryzen product line, with unit shipments of its desktop processors now making up 80% of its client compute sales. AMD CEO Lisa Su said the company expects Ryzen sales to improve by 30% next year along with a 50% increase in notebook sales, with the latter addressing a key pain point in the largest segment of the PC market.

AMD also doubled its EPYC sales over the previous quarter, particularly to cloud compute bastions like Amazon, Azure and AWS, as it climbed to record revenue growth in its data center business. The improved EPYC sales, paired with the growth of Ryzen, contributed to a richer mix of products with high average selling prices.

AMD CEO Lisa Su remarked that the company had gained desktop PC market share in the fourth quarter of 2018 but didn't elaborate with a specific figure. Su also stated that the company had achieved its goal to claim "mid-single-digit" data center share in 2018.

The global GPU oversupply impacted AMD's quarterly earnings, and the company expects the shortages to persist through the second quarter of 2019. The oversupply comes as a side effect of the collapse of the blockchain (i.e., cryptocurrency mining) market, which AMD reported made a 'negligible' impact on its revenue for the fourth quarter of 2018. The company also isn't projecting any meaningful blockchain-derived revenue in the near future.

Nvidia is suffering at the hands of the oversupply, it recently slashed $500 million from its Q4 revenue guidance, but that company is more subject to the whims of the graphics market because GPUs are its primary revenue generator. AMD's diversified portfolio of both CPUs and GPUs has insulated it from such sharp drops, and it also noted that its 7nm Radeon Instinct GPUs are already enjoying brisk uptake.

Su also announced that the company had restructured its Wafer Supply Agreement (WSA) with Global Foundries. In exchange for lower pricing, the WSA compels AMD to buy a certain number of wafers from Global Foundries each year, or face penalties. Those penalties also apply if the company purchases wafers from another foundry.

Global Foundries' sudden exit from 7nm production earlier this year threw the relationship into question, as AMD had no choice but to source 7nm wafers from TSMC for its third-gen Ryzen and 7nm Radeon Instinct GPUs. The new seventh amendment to the agreement guarantees that AMD will continue to purchase a pre-determined number of wafers from Global Foundries until 2021, but the agreement now only applies to 12nm and larger nodes. Meanwhile, AMD is free to source 7nm wafers from TSMC without penalty.

Intel released its full-year and fourth quarter 2018 financial results today. Overall, the company posted yet another full-year revenue record of $70.8 billion, but its fourth-quarter performance fell short of analyst projections. The company also presented lower-than-expected guidance for 2019.

Intel's CEO search was top-of-mind as rampant speculation led many to believe that company would appoint its next leader during the earnings call. Unfortunately, Intel's interim-CEO Bob Swan dashed those hopes by saying the company is still searching for the right candidate, saying "I am convinced the board will close on a new CEO in the near future. In the meantime, we will not be distracted by the void."

Many of Intel's revenue challenges are due to its own recent success: Building atop a string of record-setting quarters is difficult, and the company's commanding market share in several key segments, like desktop PCs and data centers, means there isn't much low-hanging fruit in terms of share growth. Whip in the challenges borne of the US-China trade war, a slowing China economy, nagging production constraints with 14nm processors and slumping NAND prices, and Intel has a tough hill to climb.

Intel says its 10nm processors are on-track for a volume retail launch in 2019, and also that it expects the shortage to last through the end of the second quarter. In the meantime, the company will continue to focus its production efforts on high margin products, meaning the shortages of low-end desktop processors will continue.

In spite of missing its revenue targets, Intel still delivered impressive numbers given the environment. Estimates had pegged Intel's overall revenue at ~$19 billion, leading to a slump in after-hours trading, but the firm's Q4 revenue of $18.7 billion represents a 9% year-over-year (YoY) increase, much of that coming on the back of its data-centric businesses (data center, etc.) that notched a solid 9% YoY gain. The company also reported a 10% YoY revenue increase in the PC-centric business, but much of those gains came from modem sales. Overall, PC volumes declined 2% on the year, which isn't surprising given the ongoing processor shortages.

Compared to the previous quarter, Intel's notebook volumes dropped 10% and desktop volume also fell 7%, though the company has increased notebook volume by 4% overall compared to 2017. Desktops didn't fare as well, with a 6% decline in volume YoY, largely offset by an 11% increase in the average selling price (ASP). The Data Center Group (DCG) also did well with a 13% increase in unit volumes paired with a 7% increase in ASP, but the unit missed revenue targets.

Notably, Intel's margins fell from 63% to 60%, largely due to increased investments in ramping production. 

Intel's growth in the data center segments cooled off, which the company attributed to large orders that were processed earlier in the year finally being deployed. Industry analysts reported large orders earlier in the year as Chinese data centers built up stockpiles amid the looming threat of a trade war, so it's logical to assume that much of the new deployments come from that existing stock.

Slumping NAND prices hurt the Nonvolatile Storage Group's (NSG) profitability, so its 25% revenue growth on the year merely brought the unit to the break-even point. Intel CEO Bob Swan acknowledged that Micron had formally moved to purchase Intel's share in the IM Flash Technologies joint venture. Intel and Micron jointly produce NAND and 3D XPoint (Optane) memory through this venture, but Swan noted Intel has its own production facilities and long-term supply agreements with Micron that extend beyond the termination of the partnership.

Intel's projections for $16 billion in revenue for Q1 2019 is essentially flat year over year, and it projects a 1% gain in revenue to $71.58 billion in 2019.

Overall the company's record results and 2019 outlook are viewed as somewhat tepid in the investor community. Intel cited increased competition in several of its segments, along with the other factors listed above, as headwinds going into 2019. Intel didn't specifically mention AMD as the source of increased competition, but with its 7nm EPYC Rome and 7nm third-gen Ryzen processors coming to market soon, it's logical to expect the company factors into the equation.

Fall is almost here. That means that soon leaves are going to change color, apples will be picked and social media shall once again be dominated by people with very strong opinions about pumpkin spice lattes (which are delicious). It also means that Microsoft is preparing to roll out the next major update to Windows 10, which is why it released Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 18234 this week to Skip Ahead members of its Windows Insider Program.

The last few builds sent to Windows Insider Program members have primarily focused on performance improvements, bug fixes and other refinements. This indicates that Microsoft is largely content with the additions it has prepared for the fall update to Windows 10 and is worried more about stability than whiz-bang features. Preview Build 18234 is different, however, because it finally brings some new features along for the ride.

Several of the updates in Preview Build 18234 are basically quality-of-life improvements. Microsoft To-Do now offers Ink support, for example, to let you write down your tasks and complete them by drawing a line through them or putting a check mark in their adjacent circle. An updated version of Snip & Sketch also lets you decide to "Snip Now," "Snip in 3 seconds," or "Snip in 10 seconds" to make it easier to capture exactly what you want.

The biggest change arrives via the Sticky Notes 3.0 update. The utility will now sync your notes across devices, offer a new "home" for your notes so they don't clutter your desktop and let you use a new formatting bar and "Charcoal Note" background. Microsoft said it also improved Sticky Notes' performance, "applied so much polish that the app is starting to look like a shiny pony" and enabled more assistive technologies and input methods.

Skype and Outlook Updates Too

Microsoft hasn't only been working on getting new features to Windows Insider Program members. The company also recently updated Skype and Outlook with some big changes, and unlike Preview Build 18234, you don't have to futz around with a pre-release OS to see them yourself.

Skype's update finally introduces native call recording for both voice and video conversations for its mobile app. Now you won't have to use third-party software to record your calls; all you have to do is hit the "start recording" button. A banner will then let everyone in the call know it's being recorded. The recording is saved to the relevant chat when it's done, at which point everyone has 30 days to download it.

The addition of native call recording to Skype should make life much easier for podcasters, journalists and anyone else who needs to keep records of some of their conversations. Microsoft said it will roll out to the desktop version of Skype "in the coming weeks."

Outlook's update is far more comprehensive. Microsoft overhauled many aspects of the email tool, from its basic design to support for third-party utilities, and it's soon going to start rolling out to Targeted Release customers. Those who opt-in to using this update will notice improved search tools, a new file directory and other features that are supposed to make it much easier to get things done with Outlook.

Many of the changes appear to be motivated by a desire to better compete with Gmail. The new Outlook will use AI to suggest responses to an email, for example, which is something Google's service has done for a while now. It also makes it easier to add events to your calendar, manage groups and "find the best room for your meetings based on the attendees, time, availability and your preferences." Outlook's getting prettier and smarter.

All of these changes, from those arriving with Preview Build 18234 to those in Skype and Outlook, show that Microsoft has a lot planned for this fall. So if you use any of these services, you can add these refinements to your list of things to look forward to during the annual transition between summer and winter. Maybe that'll be enough to distract from the early arrival of Halloween decorations and the vitriol surrounding a coffee flavoring.

Getting Light Text on a Dark Background

By default, most software shows dark text on a white background, much like old-fashioned ink on paper. However, many prefer the exact opposite, light-colored text on a dark screen, and find it easier on the eyes. Who wants to stare at a bright white screen in a room with the lights off?

From Windows' setup menu to all three major web browsers to social media sites like Twitter, many programs and web tools offer ways to change into what they call either Dark Mode, Dark Theme or Night Mode. Here's how to get light text on a black background in over a dozen popular PC and web-based apps.

Turning on Dark Mode in Windows 10

To enable dark mode in Windows 10, right click on the desktop and select Personalize. Click Colors in the left pane. Then scroll down and select Dark under Choose your default app mode.

Settings Menus

Entering Windows 10's dark mode makes all of the operating system's setting menus have light text on a dark background. You can control the color of the icons by choosing an accent color in Settings->Personalization->Colors.

File Explorer

In current Windows 10 Insider builds, enabling dark mode in the settings menu also turns it on for File Explorer. However, if you don't want to run an Insider Build of the operating system, you'll have to wait for the next major update.

Microsoft Office Menus

If you want all of your Microsoft Office apps to turn dark, all you need to do is open one of them (ex: Word), navigate to the File tab, click Account and then select Black from the Office Theme menu. These settings will affect the menus in Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and more.

Word Documents

Even if you change the Office theme to black, the actual documents will still show black text on a white background. If you want to change the editing area for all new documents, first open the Normal.dotm file, which is likely located in C:Users[YOURID]AppDataRoamingMicrosoftTemplates.

Navigate to the Design tab and select black from the Page Color pulldown. The text will automatically be white. Save the file. Then navigate to File->Options->Advanced and check "Show background colors and images in Print Layout view."

Existing documents that other people send you will still be black on white, unless you head over to the Design tab and select black from the Page Color menu each time.

High-Contrast Mode for Windows

Windows 10's dark mode changes the menus on the settings menu, File Explorer (in Insider builds) and a few other places, but it doesn't affect the vast majority of traditional apps people use. When you really, really want all of your programs to have light text and dark backgrounds in their menus, you can enable Windows' high-contrast mode.

Keep in mind, though, that high-contrast mode is a blunt instrument and makes a lot of things in UI look very ugly. For example, the live tiles in the Start menu look just awful. However, if you decide you want high-contrast mode, navigate to Settings-> Ease of Access -> High-Contrast and switch it to on.

Skype

Skype has a built-in dark theme. To activate it, navigate to Settings->General->Themes. Then choose Dark. It's that simple.

Twitter Night Mode

Twitter's dark mode is called Night Mode. To activate Night Mode, click on your profile picture and select it from the menu.

Dark Mode for Web Pages in Chrome / Firefox

No matter how dark the rest of your apps appear, most web pages will still have dark text on a black background, unless you use a browser extension to solve the problem.

Download Dark Mode for Chrome or for Firefox. It puts a switch into your browser toolbar and, if you toggle it to on, all web pages change to white on black. It also offers a variety of custom dark modes or modes that are made just for popular sites such as Google, Amazon and Reddit.

Dark Themes in Your Browser

To make the tabs, address bar and toolbars in your browser turn to the dark side, you need a new theme, and there are many options. Chrome's store has a huge listing of dark themes. The Morpheon Dark theme is my favorite. 

Firefox users have a built-in dark theme they can active by navigating to Customize from the settings menu and then selecting Dark from the theme pulldown on the bottom of the screen.

In Edge, navigate to Settings and select Dark from the Choose a theme menu.

Gmail Dark Theme

It's easy to change the color scheme in Gmail so that your inbox listing has light text on a dark background. However, the individual emails you open or write will still be black on white.

To change the theme in Gmail, navigate to settings by hitting the gear icon in the upper right area of the screen. Then select Themes, scroll down and pick the onewith the black background.

YouTube Dark Theme

When you go to the movie theater, they turn the lights off to help you see the movie better, so why would you want a white background surrounding your video player? To turn the lights down in YouTube, click on your picture, select Dark Theme and toggle the switch to on.

Visual Studio Dark Color Theme

If you're writing an app for Windows, chances are that you're using Microsoft Visual Studio. The development environment makes it easy to go into dark mode. Just navigate to Tools->Options->General and select Dark from the Color Theme pulldown.

You can also choose custom background and foreground colors by navigating to Tools->Options->Fonts and Colors.

Notepad++ Dark Themes

My favorite development tool, Notepad++ is a text editor on steroids. This must-have piece of freeware lets you view files side-by-side, do advanced search/replaces and get all kinds of visual cues to help with your coding. 

By default, Notepad++ has light text on a dark background, but the software comes with a ton of preinstalled themes, including many different dark ones. Navigate to Settings->Style Configurator and then choose a theme from the list. I recommend Bespin or Blackboard.

Reddit Night Mode

When you're sitting in a dark room, combing through the posts on Reddit, you don't necessarily want a bright white screen staring back at you. Fortunately, the social network makes it very easy to change to a dark theme. Just click on your username (or a down arrow if the screen is too narrow) in the upper right corner of the screen and then select Night Mode.

Microsoft released Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 17677 to Fast ring and Skip Ahead members of the Windows Insider Program. This release includes numerous updates to the Microsoft Edge browser, changes how Task Manager reports memory usage, and offers the usual grab bag of bug fixes. This being pre-release software, the build also includes several issues, the most frustrating of which affects Windows Mixed Reality.

Many of the new features in Preview Build 17677 affect Microsoft Edge. The browser has been given a new "Settings and more" menu, which is supposed to make it easier to find all of Edge's options, as well as expanded right-click menus in the "Downloads" pane. Tabs which have been "set aside" can now be organized, too. Microsoft also added your top sites to the Jump List in the Windows taskbar and Start menu.

One of Preview Build 17677's other notable additions is a change to how Task Manager reports memory usage. Microsoft said the monitoring tool's main memory column will no longer include memory used by suspended UWP processes. That's because Windows 10 can automatically reclaim the memory used by these processes and devote it to something else, so Microsoft won't count that memory as being unavailable.

Preview Build 17677 also brings kernel debugging improvements; a Narrator update that lets you select content in Edge, Word, Outlook, Mail, and "most text surfaces"; and a new networking framework that "introduces a new, more reliable, network driver model that inherits the goodness of the Windows driver framework while bringing an accelerated data path." Microsoft said more details on the framework will be revealed soon.

The build also has some known issues. Most are minor, but Microsoft warned that one will be particularly vexing for Windows Mixed Reality users:

After update, Mixed Reality Portal will reinstall the Mixed Reality Software and as a result environment setting will not be preserved. If you need your Mixed Reality home experience to persist it is advised you not take this build until these issues are fixed.

Microsoft also announced that its next Bug Bash, which tasks members of the Windows Insider Program with helping the company find problems in its software, will take place between June 22 and July 1. A Bug Bash Webcast will also be hosted on June 27 at a yet-to-be-determined time on the program's Mixer channel. So if you want to help squash a bunch of bugs in Microsoft's products, well, next month will be your best chance.

SEATTLE – At its annual Build developer conference, Microsoft showed off a few new features that will enhance Windows 10. Joe Belfiore, corporate vice president for Windows, detailed updates to Sets and Outlook.

Sets, which will likely be a major part of the next update to Windows 10, is a way to organize windows with tabs, like how you already manage web browsing. For example, you might keep a few browser tabs, a PowerPoint presentation and an image editor open in one window if you were putting together a presentation. Additionally, entire Sets will be stored in the Windows Timeline so that you can pull up every app involved in a project. You can see our hands-on with Sets from the Build showfloor here. 

Microsoft is trying to entice developers into building Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps for the Microsoft Store, and we now know that those apps will work with Sets from the start. However, the company is also promising that your favorite Win32 programs and web apps will also be supported in Sets. Belfiore said on stage that Sets will be available "when we think that it is great," stating that it needs developer support to make sure that programs work with it.

Additionally, Microsoft 365 will support Adaptive Cards, a feature that allows for interactions within conversations. The big focus is on Outlook, where Microsoft is using these cards to introduce payments. With Microsoft Pay, users will be able to quickly pay their bills directly from their inbox. Program manager Charles Morris paid a bill in Outlook in just a few clicks, but it required the developer to create an adaptive card for it. Invoice partners supporting Adaptive Cards include Sage, Intuit, Stripe and Wave.

Morris also showed an example were a form sent in an email from Github could be filled out in an email, without navigating to the actual site. 

Belfiore also suggested that the next Insider Build will put web pages in the Alt+Tab menu, making it easier to access specific web tabs you had open.

Microsoft also took some time to announce new Windows 10’s phone-syncing features, including a “Your Phone” app that will let you connect your smartphone to read text messages, view photos and check notifications.

This article originally appeared on Laptop Mag. Image Credit: Microsoft

Secure email service ProtonMail announced a safer way to send end-to-end encrypted emails from desktop clients such as Outlook, Apple Mail, and Thunderbird via the new "Bridge" application.

“Native” Encryption

Some email users prefer to use desktop applications over web services because of the higher performance, while others believe that email web apps have gotten good enough that there’s no reason to use a native desktop application anymore. However, for those who are serious about securing their communications, desktop clients may still be the best (or safest) choice.

Browser encryption has long been criticized by cryptography experts because it’s easier for attackers to hack a server or intercept the communications and then change the code the user receives in the background, breaking or bypassing their encryption in the process. The user wouldn’t know because typically changes to a web app happen silently in the background.

Desktop apps, on the other hand, may require manual action from users when they receive an update. Desktop apps can receive malicious updates, too, but the general consensus is that it’s much easier for an attacker to exploit a web app.

ProtonMail Bridge

ProtonMail Bridge is an application that you run in the background on your PC. Its purpose is to encrypt and decrypt ProtonMail emails as they are sent from or received in the desktop email clients.

The Bridge connects to ProtonMail’s servers via an application programming interface (API) that supports end-to-end encryption. The Bridge communicates with the desktop clients via the standard IMAP and SMTP protocols.

The search functions of the desktop clients will work as expected, because the emails are decrypted and stored locally on the machine as they are being received. ProtonMail’s integration with desktop clients will also allow users to easily drag and drop emails from one account to another, as a simpler way to import and export email data.

To use the Bridge app, ProtonMail’s paid users only need to add their accounts to it as well as to the email client they intend to use, and then configure the email settings (password, ports, etc) on those clients. The company said that for now only Outlook, Apple Mail, Thunderbird are supported, but in theory any IMAP client should work.

New builds are ready for members of the Windows Insider Program's Fast ring: Preview Build 16184 for PC and Preview Build 15208 for mobile.

Preview Build 16184 features two main updates: My People, a taskbar app that's supposed to make it easier to communicate with the people in your life, and the expansion of some Windows 10 Mail and Calendar features to Gmail users. The former is all about introducing new features to Microsoft's communications tools, whereas the latter makes other features available to people who don't use Outlook and Office 365 to handle all of their email.

Here's what Microsoft said in its blog post about My People:

Technology is all about making it easier for you to connect with your most important people. Whether you want to share a photo, make plans for dinner, or get an answer from a friend or coworker – My People is here to take it to the next level and bring the people you care about most to the center of your experience.

My People is supposed to achieve that lofty goal by letting you pin up to three people in your taskbar, allowing you to view multiple communications services right next to each other, and remembering your app of choice for the next time you want to chat with that person. Enabling the feature requires you to install Preview Build 16184; make sure you have the latest versions of Skype, Mail, and People; and click the People icon in the taskbar.

This build also kicks off the expansion of some Mail and Calendar features to Gmail users. Microsoft said earlier this month that the apps will now let non-Outlook and Office 365 users to do things "such as easily tracking travel and shipping deliveries, making emails more actionable, helping you easily track your favorite sports events, faster search, and more." Windows Insiders will, naturally, be the first to use the expanded features.

Preview Build 16184 also brought some improvements to the Start menu, squashed a few bugs, and "fixed an issue resulting in Counter Strike Global Offensive hanging or freezing during game play." You can find a full list of bug fixes and known issues in Microsoft's blog post about the build.

The company also released Preview Build 15208 for mobile. It fixed two issues--one pertaining to the Bluetooth Settings page and the other creating a 20-second delay if you try to shut down a phone after switching from one network to another--and has its own batch of known problems. The most important of those bugs is a "small percentage of devices" that "may experience text message backup loss" and "random shutdowns on some devices."

These updates seem downright bursting with new features (moreso on PC than mobile) when compared to their predecessors. That's because most of the recent preview builds have focused on improving Windows 10's core instead of adding new features so close to the Creators Update's debut. Or, you know, revealing that the Creators Update for mobile devices would be restricted to just a handful of smartphones.

Security researchers from Zscaler’s Threatlabz discovered that a commercial keylogger called “AgentTesla” was being delivered through cybersquatted domains (purchased domains that include names belonging to known companies). The keylogger is used to steal sensitive information such as passwords from the operating system’s clipboard or from browsers’ local storage.

The cybersquatted domain was “diodetechs.com,” and it was trying to imitate diodetech.com, which is the website of a consulting firm offering services to enterprise customers. Zscaler said it already notified Diodetech earlier this month, and the cybersquatted domain has been suspended.

The AgentTesla keylogger, which can extract information from clipboards, browsers, and by screen capturing, was written in .NET, and it works on all versions of Windows. The attackers would send an infected Word document over email to the potential victims. Then, when the targets would enable macros in the document “so they can view it” (a trick often used by phishers), the script would download and install the keylogger.

The AgentTesla keylogger is downloaded from "diodetechs.com/bless/cc.exe" and then executed from the “%temp%\cc.exe” location on users' PCs. It also makes a copy of itself as “JavaUpdtr.exe” in the “%Application Data%\Java\” directory. This way it can pretend to be a Java updater. A registry entry is created as well, so it can remain persistent after a reboot at the following location: HKEY_USERS\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run @ Java Updtr.

After all of that, the keylogger injects itself in an MSBuild.exe process where it can start its keylogging activities. The attackers would also use legitimate password recovery tools such as IEPasswordDump and MailPassView to steal user credentials from Internet Explorer and Microsoft Outlook.

The information collected by the keylogger is saved at “%temp%\log.tmp” in plain-text, and the screenshots are saved in folder “%appdata%\ScreenShot\”. Then all of it is sent to the command-and-control server every 20 minutes.

Zscaler said that it first learned about the keylogger when it landed in a customer’s cloud sandbox and was flagged for review. Upon further analysis, the company learned about the attackers’ cybersquatting tactics that were used to deliver the malware. Zscaler said that it will continue to look out for this malware and ensure protection against it with the company’s own cloud security products.

Micron's CFO, Ernie Maddock, spoke at the NASDAQ 34th Investor Program in London to outline the company's progress on several fronts, and in the process, he revealed new details about the next generation of the jointly manufactured Intel and Micron IMFT 3D NAND and provided a 3D XPoint update.

Intel/Micron Gen 2 3D NAND - Here Comes Capacity, There Goes Cost

Micron engineers outlined their R&D efforts on a future 3D NAND with increased density at a conference earlier this year, but did not indicate if it would come to market. Maddock confirmed at the NASDAQ conference that its Gen 2 3D NAND will double the density of the current products, confirming that Micron engineers were likely referring to the next-gen NAND.

The current generation of IMFT 3D NAND sports 32 layers, and a single MLC die weighs in at 32 GB (256 Gb), while the TLC die provides 48 GB (384 Gb). 

Gen 2 3D NAND will offer up to 64 GB per MLC die and 96 GB per TLC die. Micron did not reveal the number of layers it will employ with the Gen 2 product, but it is a reasonable assumption that it will increase from 32 layers to 64 layers to double the density.

To put this in perspective, NAND vendors can stack up to 16 NAND die in a single package (two-die MX300 package pictured above), so Gen 2 IMFT 3D NAND can cram in 1 TB of MLC NAND per package and up to 1,563 GB (1.5 TB) per TLC package. This increased density will enable beefy storage in mobile applications, such as phones and tablets, and unlock 10 TB 2.5" 7mm SSDs (or 6 TB M.2 SSDs).

Such radical density increases can hamper performance, as SSDs require plenty of parallelism to offer speedy performance. Micron and Intel designed their 3D NAND die with four planes to increase performance in comparison to competing dual-plane designs.

Surprisingly, this amazing amount of storage is right around the corner. First, Maddock revealed that Micron is substantially ahead of schedule with its Gen 1 3D NAND. Micron previously predicted that it would achieve "bit crossover" (the point at which it will ship more 3D NAND bits than 2D NAND) at the end of the year. Micron altered that forecast and indicated that it will achieve crossover ahead of schedule in "the fall of this year."

Micron projected its Gen 1 3D NAND to reduce cost by 25 percent (in comparison to 16nm planar NAND), but it has yet to reach mass production, so the cost advantages have not trickled down to the market yet. Samsung is the only NAND fab shipping 3D NAND in volume, so when more 3D NAND comes to market it will increase competition, thus pushing the current $0.20-per-GB prices even lower. 

Micron has Gen 2 wafers coming already, and it will ramp up production as it moves into 2017. The "leading-edge bit crossover" section of the graphic above indicates that the early stages will ramp in Q1, then increase dramatically in Q2 2017. Maddock also noted that Gen 2 IMFT 3D NAND would reduce cost by 30 percent (relative to Gen 1 3D NAND).

IMFT Gen 2 3D NAND could help to reduce the cost of SSDs into the sub-$0.15-per-GB region when it comes to market, which makes insanely capacious SSDs even more attractive.

3D XPoint Murmurs

Maddock also made broad statements about 3D XPoint, but as per the usual routine, details were slight. Micron expects the new technology to penetrate into the client, datacenter and mobile segments, as illustrated in the graphic below.

Surprisingly, Micron said that it would focus on technology enablement, component sampling and ecosystem development in 2016, which does not engender much faith that we will see Micron 3D XPoint products on the market this year. A "leaked" roadmap is circulating that indicates Intel will ship 3D XPoint-infused Optane SSDs in late Q4 of this year, but the roadmap is either inaccurate or Micron is taking a much more conservative approach.

Maddock commented that the process of building out the ecosystem, controllers and firmware to create a 3D XPoint memory solution is not a rapid process. The specific mention of 3D XPoint as a memory device is important, as it possibly indicates that Micron sees that as the primary vehicle to drive the product to market.

Maddock also commented during the question and answer session that the company expects 3D XPoint to cannibalize a portion of the DRAM market, as opposed to the NAND market. He even went so far as to estimate that 3D XPoint could displace up to 10 percent of DRAM output by the 2019-2020 time frame, but indicated that it is still too early to make accurate predictions. He also mentioned that 3D XPoint is not a ubiquitous replacement for DRAM.

Bring It, Already

Sometimes what isn't said is just as important as what is. 3D XPoint is definitely a hot topic, but Micron's muted non-projections are far more conservative than Intel's publicly stated agenda. Time will tell which company brings the products to market first, but Intel has flaunted its Optane products several times already, which might indicate it has the lead. However, Micron beat Intel to market with their jointly produced 3D NAND, so there may be a surprise in the works.

3D XPoint is going to be more expensive than NAND-based SSDs and will require significant time and support to utilize as memory.

3D NAND, on the other hand, is plug and play at this point. The rapidly shrinking cost and massive density increases will power far more devices in the near term. It will also create more competition between the NAND fabs, which is always a good thing for consumers.

Paul Alcorn is a Contributing Editor for Tom's Hardware, covering Storage. Follow him on Twitter and Google+.

Among the many announcements here at Microsoft’s Build developer conference in San Francisco, the company spent a significant amount of time with a concept it called “conversation as platform,” which it believes will introduce human language and machine intelligence as the next computing interface. Cortana lies at the heart of this expansive initiative, but it will require artificial intelligence and machine learning, and the use of bots that can appear in your everyday computing experiences, especially where your conversations happen.

To enable this, Microsoft is introducing a variety of tools, including the Microsoft Bot Framework and Skype Bot tools for developers, as well as Cognitive Services APIs. These are new additions to Microsoft's Cortana Intelligence Suite, which is a big data and machine learning initiative built on Microsoft's Azure cloud.

Partially, and in more tangible terms, Microsoft is enhancing Cortana and making the digital assistant available in more places, including in Skype (available starting today). Microsoft also announced Skype for HoloLens. All of this, including the developer tools and client apps, are available starting today as previews, Microsoft said, although the Skype clients for all platforms are available now.

There’s much to digest here, and most of it is futuristic and depends heavily on the ecosystem of developers here at Build. We’ll try to break down just a few of the key facets and some examples. Also, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, who spoke frequently and at length about this concept, stressed the need for security and transparency in a world where personal digital assistants are interacting with bots and application processes (he speculated that bots would become the “new applications”) on your behalf. This context-aware assistance is based on deeper and deeper understanding of your behaviors and preferences, as well as context, both of the real world and of your specific conversations.

Nadella proclaimed that this didn’t have to be man versus machine, but rather instead man with machine.

Cortana Everywhere

First, Cortana. Microsoft wants to infuse the personal assistant into all devices (it runs not just on Windows of course) and be part of many applications. For example, Cortana will now be a part of Outlook, able to look at your email and calendar (with your permission) and understand situational context in messages. Talk about a meeting, and Cortana can potentially schedule it for you. Talk about a flight, and Cortana can put it on the calendar. Talk about a task you promised to accomplish, and Cortana can get involved, finding and sending documents on your behalf. Get a taxi receipt via email, and Cortana can put it in your Microsoft Expense app.

And so on, including accomplishing some of these tasks on, or in conjunction with, Android and iOS running Cortana. As other apps also get Cortana integration, Cortana can begin to broker the interactions. Microsoft showed a couple of examples, one of which was Just Eat, a food pick up/delivery app that populated as an option in conjunction with a calendar appointment at lunch time. (That is, Cortana can see that you're planning to lunch with a friend in a specific area and will offer up a suggestion for a restaurant to try.) These functions are called Proactive Actions, and developers are getting an invitation for a preview. 

The Conversation Canvas

Microsoft sees many of these digital assistant and bot entities finding their way into our normal communication tools, like Skype, SMS, WeChat, Slack and email. Because Skype belongs to Microsoft, most of its demonstrations focused here. For example, in one Skype interaction, Microsoft demonstrated a video message (with transcript of the video underneath it, created automatically using Skype Translate). As part of the dialog--a boss' congratulatory message--a bot kicked in from a local cupcake merchant asking for permission to extract the user's location and make a delivery. It even offered an estimated delivery time.

There were more impressive examples, including interacting with bots to book a hotel room at a Westin in Ireland, but the point is that Microsoft envisions Skype and similar tools as a “conversation canvas,” and it envisions developers working with the Skype Bot SDK to make it happen.

As part of the Bot Framework tools, Microsoft also demonstrated how developers can use a built in semantic dictionary to begin enabling natural language rules into their apps (er, bots). There will be a host of tools that allow developers to make their bots smarter through machine learning over time.

Cognitive Services

Microsoft also announced a series of APIs (22 of them) as part of its Cognitive Services. These APIs are built around more general intelligence services (vision, speech, search, contextual knowledge and so on) that developers can build into their applications. Microsoft demonstrated some incredible early applications of this, such as the ability to take a picture and have it recognize the objects in it, but also to build information about the image using what it called CaptionBot.

In one demonstration, Microsoft showed off what it called CRIS, or custom recognition intelligence service, and compared a speech-to-text translation of a child speaking. Naturally, its analysis showed a much higher precision of interpretation based on its knowledge of child speech patterns.

Microsoft said that Cortana is involved in a million conversations each day. It's hard to know how many Cortana iOS or Android installs there have been, or how people are using it, but its growth, along with services like Google Now and Apple's Siri, show some semblance of customer interest. Microsoft demonstrated today that it is trying to move beyond the neat parlor tricks of a voice-based search engine.

Fritz Nelson is the Editor-In-Chief of Tom's Hardware. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and Google+. Follow us on Facebook, Google+, RSS, Twitter and YouTube.

Tutanota, one of the few email services with a focus on end-to-end (client to client) encryption that have appeared after the Snowden revelations, said that as many as 37 percent of its users take advantage of its end-to-end encryption feature. This shows that when end-to-end encryption is easy to use and given as an option, at least a third of the users want to take advantage of it.

According to the company, the rise in end-to-end encryption on its service is due to the fact that its system isn't actually powered by PGP, the traditional protocol used to encrypt emails end-to-end, which many consider too difficult to use.

Cryptography professor Matthew Green, Open Whisper Systems' Moxie Marlinspike, and others have come out and said that we need better alternatives if we're going to try to make end-to-end encryption mainstream.

Tutanota can also be used as a "regular" email service, just like Gmail or Outlook, with the added bonus that you can also encrypt your emails with a password that you must share with the recipient. The encryption is symmetrical rather than asymmetrical, as is the case with PGP, where you must share a long public key with the recipient, and other people have to share theirs with you as well.

The jury is out on whether Tutanota actually uses a "better" end-to-end encryption protocol than PGP, but because users only must know a password they can just remember or change at any time, that makes the whole PGP key management issue a non-issue for Tutanota users.

However, the main hurdle with Tutanota's system is that the password will need to be shared securely as well, before exchanging these end-to-end encrypted emails. One way you could do that is by meeting in person, but the people you're emailing are often going to be far away from you, so it's not exactly feasible.

Another way they could share their passwords is through an end-to-end encrypted messenger such as anything based on the OTR protocol (Pidgin, Cryptocat, Chatsecure, Adium, etc.) or Signal/Textsecure. However, this requires Tutanota users to use other apps to take full advantage of the Tutanota system.

This is why it would probably be best that if Tutanota maintains this system in the future, it could at least integrate a secure end-to-end chat application into it that would allow users to safely share their email passwords.

For those who want to continue using PGP in the meantime, there's Whiteout, MailPile, as well as the Mailvelope browser extension, all of which are trying to make PGP a little easier to use in the browser.

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In an office environment, you might be more familiar with a colleague's email address than their phone number or Skype name. This means that if you need to get in touch with them, you're more likely to send an email instead of walking over to their office or calling their phone extension.

Gmail found a way to solve the problem by putting chat services in its email client. Not only could you send a quick message, but you could have a video chat through Gmail, as well. Microsoft is trying to catch up with a new Send app, which works with Outlook.

Send works just like an instant messaging client such as Skype, where you simply type in your contact's user name and then send them a message. However, Send requires you to write down the recipient's email address before sending the message. From there, the app works just like any other simple messaging app. You can send short messages and even pictures to your co-workers.

Even though these appear as brief chats on your smartphone, they are viewed as a stream of emails when you look at the conversation via Outlook. This allows you to continue the conversation on Send through your Outlook email because of its continuous connection to Office 365.

For now, Send is only available on iOS devices in the U.S. and Canada, with further expansion to Android and Windows Phone soon. In addition, only Office 365 business and school emails are allowed in Send. Microsoft plans to expand the user coverage in the future, though. (There's perhaps a certain irony that Send is being released first on a non-Microsoft platform. Poor Windows Phone.)

Every message in Send complies with a company's email policies and is treated like a work email, so for IT pros, Microsoft is also working on implementing more controls to ensure that Send is being used for the right purposes in the workplace.

Send is a product of Microsoft's Garage team, which creates various apps for iOS, Windows, and Android devices. However, all of the created apps, including Send, are considered to be test balloons of sorts, so feedback is a must for the developers with each new app. Depending on its effect in the workplace, Send could be just another experiment, or it could be refined into a better app that not only can cater to office workers and students, but also to the general consumer.

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Lenovo had a roster of new products to show during Lenovo Tech World in China, and one of them is the result of a partnership with Microsoft, specifically with Cortana. In January, Microsoft revealed that its digital assistant, which was only available on Windows 8.1 phones, would be available on all Windows 10 devices. However, Lenovo took the idea even further and combined Cortana with REACHit, a program that allows users to easily manage and search for specific files across multiple Lenovo PCs, tablets, and third-party services.

The result is a more expansive search from any Lenovo device running Windows 10. With Cortana now on any Windows 10 device, you can easily pair it up with REACHit to find files from your home computer, and access that content on any of your other Lenovo devices.

REACHit works by searching through your device's storage files and Windows apps such as Outlook, OneDrive and Microsoft Exchange. Part of the magic is possible through GPS locations and constant time stamps on your files. You can take a picture at a certain park on a Tuesday, and by using Cortana and REACHit, you can specifically ask the program to find that picture based on certain characteristics, such as where the photo was taken, when it was shot, the name of the photo file or even which device you used to store the photo.

The same method would also work for finding certain emails or documents so you can find the document you downloaded at a certain time or located the email sent from your local coffee shop. Either way, the software will find it and show it to you on the Lenovo device that you are currently using.

The functionality is not just limited to the device's storage and apps. You can also add other third-party programs such as Google Docs, Gmail, Dropbox and Box to the search parameters for an even more comprehensive search. At present there's a small number of third-party services that work with REACHit and Cortana, but considering that those three services already have a massive customer base, it's only a matter of time until Lenovo and Microsoft attract similar services to work with the new feature.

Cortana and REACHit will make their collaborative debut in a beta version when Windows 10 launches later this summer, with full public access starting in the fall. Interested users can sign up on Lenovo's website.

The software sounds promising because it can find any file across your suite of Lenovo devices running Windows 10. Not only that, but it can look through third-party services, as well. The one downside is that it's exclusive to Lenovo products. Hopefully, Microsoft improves Cortana to the point where this feature will be available on any device that runs Windows 10.

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Cyanogen's Cyanogen OS is a hit among Android users. The open source mobile operating system gives users a variety of features and functions that are otherwise unavailable on the Android operating system, such as adding slow motion video capabilities and making apps private by hiding them in a locked and protected folder. Today, the OS is getting new services thanks to a partnership with Microsoft.

The deal involves the addition of Microsoft apps and services into the Cyanogen OS, specifically Skype, OneDrive, OneNote, Outlook, Microsoft Office and Bing. However, Microsoft doesn't just want these implemented on the system; the company is working on "native integrations" for the apps on Cyanogen OS, which will make them seem like native apps within the operating system.

Cyanogen hasn't provided an exact date for the integration; the statement only said that it's coming later this year. However, this partnership is crucial, especially for those who are using Cyanogen OS for business.

Many office workers already use the same Windows apps and services on their desktop computers. By having a native version of important Windows apps on Cyanogen OS, users can get that Windows experience in their pockets without having to switch to Windows Phone.

If anything, this development is bound to create competition in the mobile office space by giving users an alternative to both the Android operating system and Windows Phone.

Update (4/16, 12:20 PDT): The partnership with Microsoft only extends Cyanogen OS, the commercial operating system, and not CyanogenMod, the open source distribution. The story has been updated for clarification.

Update (4/16, 1:40pm PDT): We reached out to Cyanogen for comment on this story, and here is the reply (note that the Microsoft services are opt-in):

"Users are ultimately in control of what apps and services they want to opt-in to. Additionally, users can always delete apps and services they no longer want. Cyanogen is predicated on user choice as an operating system, and we want to offer best-in-class apps and services on our platform, and Microsoft services will be one of those great choices for consumers."

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The EU Parliament as well as the Delft University in Netherlands and the University of Wisconsin have been warned about security risks with the new Microsoft Outlook app for mobile by their IT departments, who have recommended that they uninstall the app and change the passwords.

Many in the EU Parliament, as well as in universities throughout the world, use Outlook, whether on the desktop or mobile. The security concerns exist only for the mobile app so far. This appears to be because it's not a Microsoft-built app; it was Accompli, which Microsoft acquired back in December. Microsoft then renamed the Acompli app to "Outlook for iOS and Android" but kept all of its functionality (including the intrusive privacy policies) intact.

Soon after Microsoft relaunched Acompli as Outlook for mobile, a developer from IBM found three major security issues with it.

The main issue is that even if a company has its own email servers, the email data first goes through Acompli's (now Microsoft's) servers, where it's copied, indexed and saved for later use. This was described as a "feature" in Acompli's privacy policy that allows email to be delivered slightly faster the next time it is accessed. Microsoft currently doesn't have such a service for its desktop Outlook, so this only happens when the mobile app is used.

Another security issue is that both the username and password would also be saved and accessed by Acompli, which is why the IT departments of the EU Parliament asked for a password change. Acompli and Microsoft now know the login credentials of the people who have been using the mobile Outlook app. The app also collects other sensitive information, such as contacts and calendar data.

The third security issue is that the Oulook app also allows users to bypass a company's or organization's default security policies, which include limiting access to certain types of files or prohibiting employees from sharing confidential data with others outside of the organization. Employees can bypass the default restrictions by using the mobile Outlook's built-in connectors to OneDrive, Dropbox, Google drive and other cloud services.

Microsoft hasn't reacted so far to the uncovering of these security issues, but now that the European Union Parliament can't safely use its Outlook app, and more universities are starting to block it as well, the company is likely to respond soon.

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Microsoft launched the "Outlook for iOS and Android" app yesterday, which was in fact a rebranding of an existing app called Acompli that Microsoft purchased in early December 2014. However, according to IBM developer René Winkelmeyer, the app presents some major security issues for the companies that intend to use it, and access should be immediately denied to enterprise users.

By far the biggest security issue that the developer found is that Microsoft itself has access to the users' email credentials, including both the username and the password:

“What I saw was breathtaking. A frequent scanning from an AWS IP to my mail account. Means Microsoft stores my personal credentials and server data (luckily I've used my private test account and not my company account) somewhere in the cloud! They haven't asked me. They just scan. So they have in theory full access to my PIM data," said Winkelmeyer in a blog post.

Only Gmail emails, which require OAuth authorization, don't give Microsoft your credentials, according to Acompli's own current Privacy Policy. However, Exchange emails do:

"Some email accounts (ones that use Microsoft Exchange, for example) also require that you provide your email login credentials, including your username, password, server URL, and server domain. Other accounts (Google Gmail accounts, for example) use the OAuth authorization mechanism which does not require us to access or store your password."

The second major security issue concerns Microsoft's servers acting as some sort of "man-in-the-middle" servers by intercepting a company's private emails as they pass from one user to another.

“Those messages, calendar events, and contacts, along with their associated metadata, may be temporarily stored and indexed securely both in our servers and locally on the app on your device. If your emails have attachments and you request to open them in our app, the service retrieves them from the mail server, securely stores them temporarily on our servers, and delivers them to the app."

Microsoft and Acompli promote this indexing service as making email delivery slightly faster, but that comes with a rather significant privacy and security cost for the companies utilizing Microsoft's new app. This email interception could be especially worrisome for companies that don't want their data easily shared with certain U.S. government agencies. Those agencies may not have proper jurisdiction over that data when it's held by Microsoft's enterprise customers in other countries. However, they could get access more easily to Microsoft's copies of the data. The Outlook for iOS and Android app also collects all calendar and contact data.

The third security issue, which Winkelmeyer described as a "data security nightmare," is that Microsoft has built-in connectors to OneDrive, Dropbox and Google Drive, which allow an enterprise user to easily share confidential company data with others, or worse, to access files that could be infected with malware, for example. Winkelmeyer's point is that this feature can easily bypass a company's security policies, such as app containerization.

Some of these security issues seem to be older Acompli issues, and given that Microsoft has merely rebranded the app as Outlook, it's possible the company didn't take a hard enough look at the app before re-launching it.

At the same time, Microsoft may have already been aware of the issues but decided to keep the service as is, because indexing of other companies' private email is something Microsoft may want to do. It remains to be seen how Microsoft will react to this discovery, and that reaction should tell us more about the company's intentions regarding these security issues.

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Origins Of The OnePlus One

OnePlus made waves in 2014 by offering a smartphone with flagship specs at a mid-range price. The OnePlus One, which we reviewed, is the company’s first and only product to date. Before its launch last year, we spoke with Carl Pei, Director of OnePlus Global, about the One’s hardware and software development in a three part interview, which you can read here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.

On the last day of CES 2015, we sat down with Carl Pei once again to discuss the challenges of bringing the OnePlus One to market, how the company is coping with its success, and where OnePlus is going next.

Tom’s Hardware: Tell us a little about the history of OnePlus. What were the factors that led to its creation?

Carl Pei: The original idea of OnePlus kind of formed back in August, 2013. We were in a cafe, and a few of the cofounders sat there and put our phones on the table, and we realized that a lot of people were actually using iPhones. Back then all of us were working with other Android manufacturers. So we started asking ourselves, ‘Why do we all use iPhones?’. We came to the conclusion that Apple is one of the only companies that really focuses on the product. A lot of the Android manufacturers back then were focusing a lot on the marketing or gimmicky features that might sound good when you read the ad but aren’t really useful in day-to-day use. So we thought, ‘Why not create a product that’s just as good the first time you use it as the one-hundredth time you use it?’ We don’t want to create a feature that you’re only going to be happy about the first week and then forget about. We saw an opportunity because no one else was doing this in the Android space. At the same time, there’s also two other trends. The first trend is that more and more of the smartphone sales are moving from offline to online. The second is that, especially in North America, a lot of it is moving from locked to contract free. So basically, we saw three big opportunities and we wanted to create a company focused around this.

TH: When you first started, and probably even now, there was a lot of confusion about your relationship with Oppo. Could you explain the relationship between OnePlus and Oppo?

CP: So every company, every startup will need investors. Just because a company has investors doesn’t mean that it’s a wholly owned company or a sister company or a daughter company. Because of the fact that the investors of Oppo invested in us, that caused some confusion in the beginning. But we’ve been pretty clear when we’ve been communicating saying, ‘Hey, it’s not the same company.’ Soon we’ll close our series A round of investment, and this investment will come from a Silicon Valley VC. Going forward, as we differentiate more and more in terms of investors, I think this relationship should be more clear. No matter how we try and explain it there’s always some skeptical users online that will never believe what you say—conspiracy theorists. But I think as we become bigger, and as we diversify our investors, this will eventually pass.

TH: I noted in our review of the One that it was rather ambitious for OnePlus to compete head-to-head with Apple and Samsung in the high-end market with its first phone. Why did you choose that strategy rather than shooting for a mid-level or low-end phone for your first device?

CP: So we never actually had a strategy saying ‘Hey, let’s make a cheap device first and see what happens.’ The reason why the OnePlus One is reasonably priced is not because it’s cheaper to make. I think it’s actually more expensive to make due to our smaller scale and because we use a little bit better components then the competing flagships. It’s just due to the marketing. We spend very little money on marketing. I think the entire year of 2014 we spent around $10,000 in marketing. And we have very low distribution costs because we sell direct to the consumer. So that’s the reason why it’s reasonably priced. And in terms of marketing, our users are also very important in this because they have to invite their friends to buy the phone, which means that if they like the product they’ll become an evangelist for the product. At the same time, it also forces us to create a good product because you’re not going to recommend a poor product to a friend. So I think it’s a win-win in terms of users and also for OnePlus. The only one who loses out is the traditional middle man. Why didn’t we create a cheap phone to begin with? To be honest, our team doesn’t really have experience in creating cheap products. So if you told us to create a $100 phone or a $150 phone, we have no experience in that and we’re not that good with shaving cost off the device. I think this is what we can do for now. This year we might look into another price range but it’s not going to be very cheap. It’s still going to be $200 or more.

TH: You just started off building the phone you wanted?

CP: Yes, and then we looked at, 'How much does it cost for us to build this phone?', and 'How much can we sell it for?' basically.

Producing The OnePlus One

TH: So the OnePlus One has been pretty popular. Has production been able to keep up with demand?

CP: Production is ramping up a lot. I think it’s near parity with demand, but it’s always really hard to tell. For us, we still have to always keep it in the back of our mind that if we have a little bit more inventory than what we can sell, then that will become a direct loss for us because we don’t have a lot of margin on the product itself. So if we have to discount the product, then we’re going to lose money on each product we sell. We still have to be conservative and make sure that our supply never exceeds the demand.

TH: Did you, as a startup, experience any manufacturing issues as you began to ramp up production?

CP: We had some issues. For one, we had issues with our StyleSwap back covers that we announced before we launched the phone. We said users would be able to choose from bamboo wood and kevlar [and denim], but in the end we only released bamboo and only very limited quantities. It was really hard to produce the back covers with an acceptable yield rate. Our yield rate is only around 30%, so that means that for every one hundred we make we can only sell around thirty. The main problem is that our antennae design is inside the back covers, and our NFC antennae is actually there, so it’s been pretty hard to manufacture this. What else? On the Silk White version we released it in larger quantities recently, but in the very beginning we had a small batch of these units available. The first batch we had was kind of like this but white [points to black version of OnePlus One], but the batch we’re selling now has a dot that sticks out of the phone. This means that if you put it on a flat surface, this dot will actually tilt the phone upwards a little bit so you won't scratch the back. So we’re always making small adjustments to manufacturing. In addition, we also include a nanoSIM adapter in the package now, whereas we didn’t before. This is based on user feedback. We also noticed that a lot of people had problems with figuring out what’s the right way to put in the SIM card because it almost fits both ways. So now we’ve redesigned our sticker that’s on the phone with clear instructions on how to put the SIM card in.

TH: So, a lot of people have had issues with touchscreen sensitivity, and I know there’s been several software updates to address this. Has this finally been solved and what was the root cause?

CP: The root cause I think was that we weren’t agile enough. We didn’t see this as a big problem in the beginning. It took us a few weeks before we started noticing more and more people having this problem. Back then, it happened to all phones. As soon as you started typing quick enough there would sometimes be ghost swipes. So when we escalated this to be a high priority issue, we started communicating with our touchscreen driver provider Synaptics, and we started working on revisions. There’s been a few revisions. The latest one is pretty good, but in some edge cases it can still happen, so we’re actually still in communication with them. But after the latest update, we noticed that most of the users—the vast majority—have no problems. People experience it to be much more responsive.

TH: A lot of phones use Synaptics. Why do you think you had more trouble? Was it because you didn’t have the experience, this being your first phone?

CP: I think it’s because our engineers are based in China and we actually had no feedback about this from China [users]. It’s because, when you type in Chinese you don’t need to type that fast, because it’s a 3x3 [grid]. There’s only nine buttons when you type. It’s not like English where you have to type 26 characters. So I think that’s the reason we received no feedback from our users in China about this, and in the beginning, China had much more momentum than our global markets. So I think this is the main reason.

Marketing The OnePlus One

TH: Why did you choose the invite system for selling the OnePlus One?

CP: In the beginning, we thought, ‘Wow, we’re going to release hardware, and we’re going to release hardware globally—many countries around the world.’ And then we thought back to different software companies, for instance Facebook. When Facebook started, they launched very limited in Ivy league universities in the US, eventually expanding to all universities around the world, and then eventually to the mainstream. It’s a step-by-step approach. As your company becomes more mature and your product becomes more mature you release it to more people. But then hardware also has another major difference and another major challenge compared to software, and that’s the capital risk. If you make one hundred phones, you have to have a hundred times whatever it costs to make the phone in capital just lying there, without interest and without a loan. So capital risk was very, very important for us, and for our first year the number one priority was to survive. We had no clue how many people would want to buy this phone. So when we announced the phone in April [2014], we saw this huge buzz online and we were like, ‘Ok, I think we miscalculated the demand.’ It took three and a half months to basically catch-up to the demand, because our lead time for the display, which is a bottleneck for the entire production, is over three months. Once we were in April and had figured out that a lot of people wanted this phone, we put in more orders. We had to wait more than three months to get production close to demand. Looking back, we’re actually quite happy that we did an invite system, or else it would just have been out of stock anyway for three months. We figured, if we did an invite system, you don’t have to come back and check all the time. You’re one hundred percent sure when you can actually buy the phone. You don’t have to all come at one specific time and have the server crash, and so that was our solution basically to this risk.

TH: Are you planning on using the invite system again for future devices?

CP: As this product matures and we understand better the demand for this product, we’re going to find other ways of making it more available. For instance, in December—before Christmas and during our one-year anniversary—and then one time before as well, we had pre-orders where you could come and buy the phone. If the phone became out-of-stock, it became a pre-order. So we’re going to continue experimenting with this phone on how to make it more available while still kind of controlling the risk for us. I think in the beginning for our next devices, it’s going to be invite only for a much shorter period than it was for this phone—maybe one-fourth. Then eventually it becomes a pre-order model, once we have the data from the invites to see what the demand is like.

TH: Do you still plan to do direct sales to the customer then at that point?

CP: It depends on the market. For instance, when we entered India in December, we realized that we had major challenges. Payments in India are very complicated. A lot of people actually prefer to pay cash when the courier delivers the products. Logistics are also very, very complicated because there are so many states and it’s such a big country. So we didn’t have a good grasp on the market, which is why we chose to partner with Amazon exclusively in India. So depending on the market, we’ll have a different distribution strategy. But for the US, we’re going to continue with the direct sales to consumers.

TH: You mentioned China. Has that been the biggest market for the OnePlus One?

CP: Actually, at the end of last year the US and China were on the same level, and India in Q4 quickly rose to become number two. But if you look at the overall year, I think it’s US and China first and then UK, Canada, and Western Europe because India was only launched in December. We expect India to be actually number one this year because the traction has been super positive.

TH: Something I’ve noticed here at the show [CES 2015] is the growth in importance of the Chinese and Asian market. As I’ve been meeting with all the different vendors and seeing their new devices, other than the LG G Flex 2, all of the devices launched here for North America have been mid-level or low-end phones, whereas the flagship devices have been Asia only. I think that’s a shift. Usually all the flagships have been North America and the low-end devices have been for China. Now it seems that it’s almost flipping.

CP: That’s pretty interesting. It should be the other way around right, because consumers here have more money to buy more expensive products.

TH: Yeah, I don’t know. Maybe the North American market is saturated, or maybe consumers are holding on to their phones longer.

CP: Maybe they already have established brand preferences in North America, whereas in emerging markets you can still be one of the first companies to enter.

Software For The OnePlus One

TH: Another interesting feature of the OnePlus One was using CyanogenMod for the operating system. Why did you choose to partner with another company for the OS rather than just doing your own skin like most other OEMs, and what led you to CyanogenMod?

CP: A lot of companies—when they start a mobile phone company—will start by making their own OEM skin or own ROM. They might spend eight months or a year on this and then start developing the hardware. Then one-and-a-half or two years later, they release the first phone. We thought about this, and we thought, ‘Why did people do this?’ Back in the day when we were still on Gingerbread or on Donut, it made sense, because the Android experience wasn’t that polished and OEMs needed to polish up the experience for the end consumer. Nowadays, since KitKat, Android is already pretty mature and a lot more users actually prefer stock Android to something more customized. So we thought, ‘What are we good at?’ Well, our experience is all in hardware, so let’s just make really good hardware first. And because the differentiation between OEM ROMs and stock Android is slowly disappearing anyway, why not do something very close to stock? Instead of waiting an extra year to release a phone, let’s release a phone in six months instead while working with the best people in the industry who can do this. At that time, Cyanogen had just formed a company. We were friends, so we said, ‘Hey, let’s try this out. You’re a new company. We’re a new company. Let’s just try this and see what happens.’ And so we started working together. We actually had a lot of feedback on the software, and they had feedback on the hardware, so it’s kind of a co-developed product. Looking back, it was a pretty good idea to work with Cyanogen, because I think a lot of our success comes from the fact that we actually worked with them. They already had this pretty good product, and they had this core community of users who really trusted them as a new brand. It really meant a lot to us—this trust.

TH: Are you planning to upgrade the One to Lollipop?

CP: We’re actually still working with CM on the Lollipop build. There are three stages of QC for software for us: one is Cyanogen’s own QC, one is our own QC, and then we have to pass the Google tests. It’s in this process now, and it can take some time, especially if one of these finds a bug or a problem.

TH: So you don’t have a hard release date yet?

CP: It’s really hard to commit to release dates within software. I think Steve [Kondik, Cyanogen Inc. CTO] has commented on Google+ saying it’s going to be released in early February, but I’m not sure when it’s going to be exactly.

Looking Beyond The OnePlus One

TH: What do you see as the defining feature or need in a flagship phone today? Is there one thing that stands above all others?

CP: I think in terms of specs, phones are becoming very fast. It’s sort of like the PC industry where specs kind of don’t really matter anymore. I think smartphones are also reaching something close to this. I remember many years ago when I was super young, and I saved a lot of money. I finally bought a MacBook Pro, and the entire experience of opening the device and turning it on for the first time was very memorable. And I remember on the first boot it would show this welcome animation with welcome in many different languages. It was such a delightful experience, and I was just smiling the entire time. I think that’s what’s important when creating a product, including a smartphone. It’s important to create a really solid day-to-day product and an experience that can kind of give your customer a smirk on their faces when they first are subject to your product. So we put a lot of effort into the box for the OnePlus One. We’ve seen a lot of users comment, ‘Wow, the box is really nice. The SIM tray ejector is really nice. The USB charging cable looks really good.’ So I think this element of surprise in a positive way, plus a really solid day-to-day product, that’s where the industry needs to be headed. It should be focused less on marketing stuff like bloatware or something that’s very new and cutting edge but doesn’t really provide any value to the user.

TH: Do you think there’s a sweet spot for screen size? Do you see any advantage in offering phones in multiple sizes?

CP: We were a bit conflicted with this for this phone, because a lot of users were telling us, ‘Hey, we don’t want a phone that’s larger than five inches because it becomes really hard to hold in your hand.’ But at the same time, we saw that the large screen smartphone market was booming. These needs were kind of non-compatible. So we thought that if we could make a phone that had a 5.5-inch screen but also felt smaller in your hand, then perhaps users would accept it. The way we tried to accomplish this was by having relatively small bezels and also having this tapered edge on the sides. We thought that this would help users accept this [size] better. We also saw that some of the 5-inch smartphones from a year ago—or one-and-a-half years ago—were actually very similar width to this phone. So we thought, ‘Ok, you said 5-inches, but if we make it 5.5-inches, that’s just a little bit wider and maybe will be good enough.’ I don’t know if you recall this, but we discussed all the specs with our users on the forums before we actually announced the product. When we announced the screen size it was really polarizing in the community. I think the majority of the voices were actually negative saying, ‘Hey, why is it so big? I don’t need a tablet in my pocket. I just want a smartphone.’ But once we started seeing the reviews, and we started seeing the users get the phone into their hands, only then did they actually start to understand and then say, ‘I got used to it after a few hours and it feels pretty good. Now I prefer this size.’ So in the end, we think that we made the right choice for the user.

TH: Can you comment on the roadmap for this year? Where do you see OnePlus going?

CP: We had very few resources in our first year. There weren’t that many people. But now that we've seen some early signs of success, we’ve decided to invest more in the company and be more ambitious in what we’re trying to do. Last year we only had one global model of the phone. If you were in the US, or if you were in Europe, or if you were in India you would have received the exact same phone. But different regions actually have slight differences in frequencies and bands. So, this time we’ll have a lot more SKUs for the global market. People in different countries will have products that actually fit them much better. For instance, in Europe there were some early complaints about the lack of band 20, which means that people in some lower frequency areas wouldn’t be able to receive LTE signals. But now we’re going to fix this for future products. There’s going to be a flagship successor to the One called the ‘2’, but the number '2' and not t-w-o that everyone is writing. It’s gonna be a product that can compete with the flagships of 2015, and I think it’s going to be the focal point for us in this year.

We’re also exploring perhaps another device. We’re still thinking of how we can differentiate this. We don’t want to make a device that’s cheap; cheap can never be a selling point. We have to find another customer need and satisfy that need, but we haven’t really figured out exactly what that would mean. We started this company and we made a smartphone, but that’s not our goal. Our goal is actually to eventually become a software ecosystem company. We just think that the smartphone is the product that everyone is interested in today. If you look at the ecommerce platforms around the world, the best selling category is smartphone. All the gadget blogs and all the gadget magazines are talking about smartphones as their main focus. So if we started this company and we released a smartwatch, we would have never received as much users or interest as we did with a smartphone; the smartphone is still the center of a digital lifestyle. We figured if we start with a smartphone, capture the interest with the smartphone, capture the users, then we can easily expand into other categories and not the other way around. If you start with a smartwatch, you cannot expand into a smartphone very easily. So, we’ve actually been experimenting with a lot of different form factors and different smart products. We have some different prototypes in our office. We still haven’t decided on which one we’re going to release. A lot of the smartwatches today are tech demos basically, because, at least for me, they provide no additional value. I’m already very busy. I get a lot of notifications—a lot of emails—on my smartphone, so I don’t need another product to tell me that I have to check something. If we’re going to make a smart device, it has to be a lot more thoughtful and useful than what’s currently available. That’s our biggest challenge as well, because the smartest people in the world are also making these, and they still haven’t figured out a great product here.

TH: I think the best use for a smartwatch I’ve seen so far is the map feature for the Apple Watch. After putting in your destination, you can walk down the street with the screen off and the watch will vibrate a certain way to let you know you need to turn left now. That’s really the only additional feature I’ve seen that a smartphone can’t already do.

CP: As this platform matures, more and more developers will invent new ways of using it. But for now, I don’t see a lot of use for it.

TH: The technology isn’t there either to give you that experience you need. All the first smartwatches were just rushed to market, and they basically tried to stuff a smartphone into a watch. Screen and battery technology needs to improve, and companies need to develop SoCs specifically for a watch.

CP: Yeah. This is a place where we really appreciate how Apple does things. They don’t rush into new technologies. They think hard about an implementation that makes sense and actually adds value for users rather than just making something to be first.

TH: Here at CES we’ve seen several devices from Chinese manufacturers that look exactly like products from other companies. For example, we saw two Apple Watch clones—one from Hyperdon and another called the Aiwatch A8.

CP: It’s a problem with Chinese companies I think. In China, as long as you can make money you will be celebrated, but actually in the rest of the world, you need original ideas and you need to contribute to the industry. So I think Chinese companies will have a very hard time being accepted and respected in global markets in the near future at least.

TH: What do you see as OnePlus’ biggest challenge this year?

CP: Our problems have been changing depending on the stage of our company. Our first biggest worry was that we’re going to make this company, but no one is going to care about us. Second worry is now that people care about us, we don’t have any phones to sell. Then after we started selling phones the third worry became, now we’ve sold this many phones but we don’t have any support infrastructure to help these people who are our users. Now that we’ve been ramping up support, and we’ve kind of caught up with the backlog of support tickets, the issue we have on hand now is that our company has become pretty big—a lot of people. How do we manage these people? Being so young and inexperienced, what kind of leaders do we need to add to the company to help us grow faster or better or become more professional? So it’s step-by-step. I think our biggest problem now is to really define a good culture and let this culture guide us in everything we do. When you’re a small company it’s easy since you’re just a few people. But as you add more people you need to make sure they fit to your culture, and they have to be able to refer to something. They can’t always come to our early staff to ask them questions. So setting everything up and getting the right people in place—the culture and operations to run smoothly—is our biggest challenge. I think I wrote in the blog that a stronger OnePlus awaits in 2015, and what I mean by that is just overall more professional, more grown-up, and eventually becoming a serious player.

Matt Humrick is a Staff Editor covering Smartphones and Tablets at Tom's Hardware. Follow him on Twitter @digitalOut_net. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.

Microsoft's Steve Chew, a senior product marketing manager in the Exchange group, said in an Office blog on Monday that Outlook Web App (OWA) is coming to Google's Android platform later this year. This app will provide the latest features, unlike the default email app on most smartphones that also works with Exchange.

"We're really excited to deliver these enhanced email and collaboration experiences in Outlook Web App and across mobile devices," he said in the blog. "We're bringing an entirely new way to think about email as a continued enabler to how people get work done whether in the office or on the go. Email is becoming more collaborative, more efficient, easier to manage and, yes, more social."

News of the Android client was part of a larger preview of what's to come in OWA for Office 365 later this year: "Clutter," enhanced document collaboration, and groups. The former "clutter" feature addresses the need for a simple, accurate way to manage the high volume of email messages customers typically receive. There should be a way to filter email without having to manage a huge number of inbox rules. Clutter addresses this issue.

"At its heart, it intends to remove as much unimportant mail, or clutter, from a user's inbox as possible so that a user's inbox can, well, become their inbox again," Chew writes. "At a high level, clutter is pretty simple. We know that in most businesses, people spend a great deal of time just trying to keep up with the volume of email coming into their inboxes throughout the day. How they manage that email can then serve as a blueprint for what is important to them."

Enhanced Document Collaboration, another upcoming feature, allows users to easily share files stored in the cloud as attachments in an email. When sending an attachment from a device or computer, users can automatically upload the file to the OneDrive cloud and send it as a link. Users can also easily attach a file directly from OneDrive when sending an email in OWA.

As for Groups, this idea was taken from Yammer and extended across Office 365.

"Starting things off in Yammer, you'll notice a list of Public Groups here pinned to the left," he writes."These are Groups that have either been created or joined. Clicking on a particular group will show the conversation feed for that group. This is where you share information and collaborate with others. A new group can be created from here – in fact, anyone in the organization can create a group from anywhere in Office 365, which empowers everyone to be more productive."

To read the full blog, head here. OWA is already available for the iPhone and iPad.

Bloomberg reports that the next Surface RT tablet produced by Microsoft will use Qualcomm as the SoC supplier in addition to Nvidia. The news arrives by way of unnamed sources who said the Qualcomm chips will provide fast wireless data connections while Nvidia will supply its new Tegra chip for some versions.

Based on that info, Microsoft likely chose Qualcomm's Snapdragon 800, 600 or 400 at the very least, all three of which provide integrated 4G LTE and Wireless N connectivity. Nvidia's Tegra 4i, which also sports the same connectivity, likely wasn't ready in time to fit within Microsoft's next-gen Surface RT plans – phones based on this chip aren't even expected to arrive until early 2014. It's also not designed for tablet use.

That said, it's believed that one version of the next-gen Surface RT tablet will sport a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 SoC for 4G LTE connectivity while Wi-Fi only models will have Nvidia's Tegra 4. We already know the Tegra 4 is ready for mass consumption, as it's packed in the Shield handheld slated to launch next week and inside a number of tablets arriving this summer.

To be honest, this may be one of the reasons why Microsoft is selling the current Surface RT tablet at a "fire sale" discount to schools and colleges: to flush out the current stock of first-gen units. There's likely a stockpile of unsold units, as Windows RT on a whole commanded less than one percent of the market share in the first quarter compared to 40 percent owned by Apple.

Microsoft hasn't officially announced plans for a new Surface RT device, but has talked up the details surrounding the "blue" update arriving on Windows 8 and Windows RT later this year. For the latter, Outlook RT 2013 will finally make its debut, joining current Office apps Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote.

Just recently, sources in the supply chain said that most big-brand vendors have placed their Windows RT plans on hold, and that Microsoft's own Surface RT sequel is the only device in the works. Perhaps then that ODMS are waiting to see how consumers take to a new Surface RT product with Windows RT 8.1 installed, offering a more unified experience than the first-generation model.

Adding Qualcomm's Snapdragon 800, 600 or 400 would be a crucial move for Microsoft, as it would enable consumers and businesses to take the device on the road without the need for tethering. It still doesn't solve the inability to run x86 software on an ARM-based platform, but it does provide a cheaper alternative with 4G LTE connectivity compared to the x86-based Surface Pro model.