Author: Richard Hay

Observed.Tech PODCAST Episode 223 #OTP

Welcome to Episode 223 of Observed.Tech. This is show is an abridged version of the podcast because I have been away from my podcasting studio this week while taking a small vacation with my wife as we celebrate 33 years of marriage. However, since it has been a working vacation that means I have kept an eye on things so we could talk about them and this week, just like the last three shows, a lot of Windows 10 news for PC and Mobile devices plus the Xbox One. All three of these platforms are in the home stretch heading towards the release of the Creators Update which is now looking like it will be come available, at least for PCs, on 11 April 2017. The official release date for the console and mobile devices is not yet known but I expect them to be within a couple of weeks of the PC release date. For those without a calendar the 11th of April is next month’s Patch Tuesday and will be the first time a feature update has been shipped on the same day as other Windows updates. As always I have a few interesting tidbits at the end of the show including information about FedEx paying customers to use Adobe Flash in their website, Amazon collecting sales tax in more states, NFL replays now moving to Surface tablets on the sidelines, and Twitter going to a subscription based service for power users. Enjoy the show and thanks again for listening!

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Observed.Tech PODCAST Episode 222 #OTP

Welcome to Episode 222 of Observed.Tech. For the third week in a row it was Build Central for members of the Windows Insider Program with four PC builds released in a four day period plus the movement of two former Fast Ring builds into the Slow Ring. We even saw builds released on back to back days for the first time in the Redstone 2 development process. It is all just more proof that we are approaching that final build that will eventually become what everyone will see on their Windows 10 Anniversary Update systems in a few weeks. The Creators Update is one more week closer to reality as the third major feature update for Windows 10. This week we also heard a couple of interesting rumors with one related to the possible release date for the Creators Update next month and then another about what Surface Book 2 might look like and the fact it is currently in mass production already. Another thing that popped up this week in one of the Windows 10 Creators Update builds was the addition of verbage concerning metered connections and how some Windows Updates could be delivered on these restricted connections. Many of you know that metered connections have been a widely used method to keep updates from installing so this got picked up by a lot of sites across the tech blog world. There are plenty of other items intermingled throughout the show such as the GA of Microsoft Teams, some smart home testing, a great example of an app on Windows 10 that came from iOS and the Desktop Bridge for iOS, progress with the Xbox Preview program including new UWP apps that are now on the console, and the world of cloud computing. Enjoy the show and thanks again for listening!

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Observed.Tech PODCAST Episode 221 #OTP

Welcome to Episode 221 of Observed.Tech. A crazy 14 day period for the Windows 10 Creators Update has just wrapped up after another busy week of builds as we get even closer to the release of this third major update for Windows 10. We saw a total of nine builds over this two week period including two mobile builds released just three days apart. No worries though as I will get you caught up on where we stand and what clues we have that might let us know when the Creators Update will be released. This week was the Google Cloud Next ’17 conference so there was a lot of news items that came out of that including new enterprise collaboration services and a renewed security focus across their offerings. There are plenty of other items sprinkled in the show including a pre-order page for Xbox Scorpio, HP’s big acquisition for storage, Surface hardware driver updates, and another Mac vs Windows discussion. Enjoy the show and thanks again for listening!

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Observed.Tech PODCAST Episode 220 #OTP

Welcome to Episode 220 of Observed.Tech. It has been a busy build week for the Windows 10 Creators Update as we enter the final stages of that feature update reaching General Availability for all Windows 10 users. I bring you up to speed on where everything is and the five different builds we saw released to testers over the last seven days. I also spend some time talking about the changes that are coming to Creators Update that will have a direct impact on end users including the Unified Update Platform (UUP), privacy choices during install/setup, and controlling the installation of desktop software. As always there are other tidbits scattered throughout the show including Windows Mixed Reality which used to be known as Windows Holographic, Xbox Game Pass, Amazon S3’s big outage, Google Pixel laptop flip-flop, and YouTube TV. There is also some solid space junkie news at the tail end of the show. Enjoy the show and thanks again for listening!

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Observed.Tech PODCAST Episode 219 #OTP

Welcome to Episode 219 of Observed.Tech. In this week’s show we start off by talking about an out of band security update for Flash on Windows after the normal Patch Tuesday updates were delayed last week however, we also discuss whether another vulnerability will also be patched before next months updates are issued on 14 March 2017. I share with you my experience in signing up friends to use my Outlook.com premium service for their own unique email address on my custom domain which was a lot easier than getting everything setup in the first place. We also talk about the slow trickle of Microsoft Edge extensions, a new email search utility for Outlook and Gmail accounts, and how HoloLens is helping a medical technology company design operating rooms for hospitals. There is plenty to discuss about Windows 10 as well including confirmation of Redstone 3, a lack of new builds over the last two weeks, and concerns about privacy in the EU getting some attention despite the efforts Microsoft has made to be more transparent in this area. As always there are other tidbits scattered throughout the show including Gmail and Blizzard dropping support for Windows XP and Vista, a new Windows 10 bug tracker for developers, using an Outlook calendar with Alexa, Microsoft’s call for a Digital Geneva Convention, and whether Windows Phone/Mobile is dead. Enjoy the show and thanks again for listening!

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