If you upgraded to Windows 10, you can finally test out the  Windows 10 Phone Companion app  that Microsoft announced back in March. It is installed along with Windows 10 by default. This app, it seems to me, reflects the “new Microsoft” that embraces the non-Microsoft mobile platforms dominating the market — Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS — in addition to Microsoft’s own Windows Phone. The Phone Companion app is, for the most part, simply a tool that identifies Microsoft’s mobile apps and helps you install and configure this apps and services. These services are: OneDrive’s automatic photo backup from mobile devices OneNote Mobile Skype Office Mobile : Word, Excel, and PowerPoint Outlook for mobile devices Two products that will be released in the near future are grayed out and labeled “coming soon.” These are the Cortana personal assistant for Android and iOS, and the ability to stream songs stored in OneDrive. During the Phone Companion photo syncing process, the app chec...

Microsoft and  DataCamp  launched an  exciting new course  on edX.org covering the basics of the statistical programming language R. This four week course is free for everyone, and no prior knowledge in programming or data science is required. Make sure to watch the course promotion video: What sets this  Introduction to R course  apart from the traditional massive open online course is its focus on learning-by-doing. Instead of passively watching videos, you will continuously practice your newly acquired skills through interactive in-browser coding challenges using the DataCamp platform. The learning environment will provide you with instant and personalized feedback, thereby guiding you to the correct solution. Experiment with the different aspects of the R language in real time, and prepare yourself  to undertake your own first data analysis using R. The course has seven sections, spread over four weeks, and the main goal is to make you familiar wit...

The branding gurus are really earning their wages down Redmond way Outlook for the Web's new weather-enabled calendar app 14 5 Aug 2015 at 02:58,  Simon Sharwood Fresh from showing glimpses of the next-generation Outlook Web Access client in a preview of Exchange Server 2016 , Microsoft has now detailed just how the new version of the browser-bound Outlook will work. There's a new name for starters: “Outlook Web Access” is now “Outlook on the web”. Those marketers sure are earning their wage! Microsoft saying all the usual stuff about the revision making you more productive. The feature touted as making the greatest contribution to that cause is the new “Action toolbar” that “provides quick access to the most common commands, whether you are clearing out your inbox, replying to an email, or adding an event to your calendar.” One of the things you'll see on the toolbar, depicted below, is the “Sweep” command. That's come from Outlook.com and “provides a simple set of act...

Rapper Soulja Boy plays Halo 5 during the Xbox One E3 Showcase Party at The Majestic Downtown in this June 15, 2015 file photo in Los Angeles. Mark Davis/Getty Images There's big money to be made in the world of professional gaming and  Microsoft  is upping the ante with the Halo World Championship, a contest announced today at the annual Gamescom show in Cologne,  Germany . Halo 5: Guardians, the latest installment in Microsoft's popular  Xbox  series won't be released until October 27, but the Microsoft-owned studio behind the game, 343 Industries, began building hype today with the announcement of a $1 million prize pool called "the biggest investment in Xbox eSports history." Go Inside the World of Professional Gaming The contest, which will kick off later this year, will focus on the game's frenetic, multi-player arena gameplay experience. An invitational is scheduled for this this Friday at 10am ET with gamers being able to watch the action on the Halo C...

Consumers interested in buying one of Microsoft's Surface tablets will now find it with Windows 10 preinstalled. Microsoft's  online page  for its lower-cost Surface lineup shows that the tablet now comes with Windows 10 Home edition. The page for the pricier and beefier Surface Pro 3  indicates that they're outfitted with Windows 10 Pro edition. Microsoft has been on a tear to push out Windows 10, partly to make up for the poor response to Windows 8 and partly to get as many Windows users as possible all on the same platform. The company has been offering Windows 10 as a free upgrade to Windows 7 and 8.1 users for the first year. Last Thursday, Microsoft announced that the new OS was  running on 14 million devices  since its official launch the previous day. Now the challenge is to get PC and tablet makers to outfit their new devices with Windows 10. Microsoft certainly would want to lead the way, so it's natural for its own Surface tablets to now be sporting W...

When Chris Pratley and his team ask for user feedback on Microsoft Sway, they sometimes have to emphasize that they’re not building PowerPoint all over again. At a glance, you’d be forgiven for thinking otherwise.  Sway  is a new tool that lets users string together images, text, and bullet points in a visually arresting way. In other words, Sway creates presentations, much like PowerPoint. It’s even part of the Microsoft Office suite, having just shed its "Preview" designation after 10 months of private and public testing. But as Pratley points out, Sway isn’t meant for the same exact audience as PowerPoint. It’s a much simpler program, with far fewer controls, and most of its formatting is automatic, so each Sway can adapt to any screen size on a PC, tablet, or phone. The fact that you can’t tweak things down to the individual pixel, as with PowerPoint, is by design. "Anything where you’re building a complicated layout, that’s really a PowerPoint scenario, and not a Sw...

Apple doesn't just beat competitors: eventually, it converts them. Case in point is IBM, the former PC juggernaut with which Apple feuded in the '80s, but which is now considering supplying MacBooks to more than half of its staff.  The Wall Street Journal  reports  that the 104-year-old company's employees currently use more than 110,000 Apple devices including 50,000 MacBooks, but that this latter figure might eventually grow to 200,000 — one MacBook per person for more than half of IBM's 380,000 employees. This figure first surfaced in an internal video  reported by  MacRumors , in which IBM's chief information officer Jeff Smith discusses a conversation with his counterpart at Apple, Niall O'Connor: The news comes as Apple and IBM today announced the latest step in a  year-long partnership  between the two companies, with Big Blue launching  a new enterprise scheme  to help large firms incorporate Macs into their IT systems. IBM described ...

Using the Windows 10 Technical Preview, we show you how to reset or change your account password. The advice contained in this article applies to local and Microsoft accounts only. If you’re using a company-issued computer, contact your IT department about changing or resetting a password as your computer is likely connected to a domain, meaning only your IT department can help you. NotebookReview.com does not take any responsibility for damage caused by following the advice in this article. Changing a Windows 10 Password The advice in this section applies if your account is already password protected and you want to change the Windows 10 password. First access the  Settings  application; do this by moving your mouse to the lower left of your screen, opening the  Start  menu by clicking or touching the Windows icon and then typing  Settings . The Settings application will be the first result; click or touch it to open the Settings application. Once the Sett...