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Microsoft has announced the new versions of its devices from the Surface series. It also told us about the improvements have been made and other updates. You will be able to order a new Surface Studio 2, Surface Laptop 2, and Surface Pro 6 very soon.

Surface Pro 6

It will be available for buying from October 16. The new version of the device contains the Intel CPU of the 8th generation and the touch display with 12.3 inches. Users will be able to use the fast SSD storage up to 1TB, and the battery will work up to 13.5 hours. It also offers the updated thermal system and other features.

Surface Laptop 2

It will also be available on October 16. The laptop will contain the CPU of the 8th generation from Intel and the 13.5-inch touch display. Microsoft states that the speed of this laptop performance is almost twice higher than the performance of the previous version. It also includes the Alcantara palm rests from the previous version.

Surface Studio 2

It will have a big display of 28 inches. Users will be able to store their data on the 2TB SSD drive. The CPU is the Intel processor of the 7th generation, and this device also contains Nvidia GTX 1070. As in the previous version, you get DCI-P3 when buying this device.

Google announced the WebP image format about 8 years ago. This format is much smaller than other traditional image formats, but preserves the good quality of images and helps to download them quickly. It is used in Google Chrome for many years, but not all browsers were able to use it too.

Google tried to convince Mozilla to use WebP as well, but Mozilla rejected this offer and insisted on working with more widely used formats. Now, Mozilla representatives change their opinion and they are ready to integrate WebP support into the Firefox.

The WebP format will be used in all Firefox versions built on the Gecko engine, the version for the PCs, and the Android devices. However, the iOS version will still not support this format.

The transfer will not be fast, it may take many months. It may cause some bug and security issues, so to make the stable version of the Firefox that will work with WebP, developers need to spend hours or coding and fixing errors. They are going to obtain this technology in the first half of 2019.

For most of the users, the changes may be not clearly seen. After the WebP support will be implemented, they may notice the fast loading images and the better performance of Firefox when loading pages with a big number of pictures.

The VR technologies are becoming even more popular and developers work on adapting all the modern platforms to it. Mozilla is also going to extend the WebVR capabilities by using the updated version of the WebXR API.

The purpose of WebVR is to let users experience the virtual reality just in their browsers. The goal of the new version of this API to extend the capabilities and give even more interesting features to users.

The first version of this API was released more than 2 years ago; it was also available for the Google Chrome browser. Not is also supported in Microsoft Edge, Chromium, and other popular programs. Now Mozilla works on building the new version called WebXR.

With the help of this version, users will be able to experience not only VR but also the AR elements. As the developers say, it will not be difficult to move from WebVR to WebXR, and the apps will get much more functionality for reproducing the mixed reality content.

The WebXR will support many different types of input devices. It will work with voice and gestures that would help the user to navigate in the virtual environment more easily. All the platforms that support WebVR will also support the WebXR API as well.

The Microsoft company is going to extend the functionality of its Cortana helper and provide more opportunities to enterprise developers. Now business companies will be able to use some custom AI experiences with the Cortana feature.

The Cortana Skills Kit lets you build consumer experiences and many developers have already used it. The updated version of this kit will also contain the functionality for building enterprise solutions.

The kit can be used for building custom agents and skills. To use them in the enterprise solutions, developers just need to deploy them in their organization.

For example, you will be able to create chatbots by using the Azure Bot Service, and to work with machine learning and understand the natural language speakers, you can use the Azure Cognitive Services. It helps businesses not to create these solutions but just use the platform from Microsoft and configure is as needed.

If you want to try working with the Cortana Skills Set, you need to be invited by another developer who already has an access to it. However, within a few weeks, it will be open and any developer will be able to get the access to this feature.

The MS-DOS is used for more than 30 years. During this period, the Windows operating system grew much and become a convenient platform with the graphic interface, but we still know MS-DOS and some people even use it. All these years, the source code of MS-DOS was not shown to the public but Microsoft is going to make this system open source for now.

The Microsoft company is publishing the source code of MS-DOS under the MIT license. Developers can download its code, modify it and use as they want. It is a great opportunity for developers who worked with this system in the 80’s and now want to read its code or experiment with it.

In the package, developers get the access to the all source code of 1.25 and 2.0 versions, the December 1980 release, and other versions. It also contains the documentation in txt and doc files. People who are already familiar with this code say that it is very interesting to read the documentation of source files, object files, and comments in the source code.

The code is published on GitHub so any developer can read it there. However, you will not be able to pull the repository because pull requests will be blocked and the Microsoft company decided not to make changes into this code.

Although the software for Mac platforms is usually stable, secure, and protected from viruses, Mac users may become the victims of malware. That is why you should always install the antivirus even if you are using a MacBook or other devices from the Mac series.

The Bitdefender Antivirus, version for Mac OS

Despite it has the version for many other platforms, it works well with Mac OS. It can also recognize Windows malware if your device has been attacked by it. However, it doesn’t have many features that its analogs have.

Intego Mac Premium Bundle X9

This tool is recommended by the Mac specialists. It provides very accurate virus scanning so you get the best quality of scanning with it. It also offers the Firewall protection that helps you to block requests to malware websites, but this app also doesn’t have a big number of features.

Kaspersky Internet Security, Mac version

It has good detection rates, it means that it recognizes and catches more viruses than other software do. It also contains a lot of interesting features to help you to increase the security of your device. However, its interface is not very convenient for most of the users.

Norton Security Deluxe

It also has high detection rates and works with many modern devices, so you can catch a lot of viruses on different Mac platforms you have. However, it may cause your device to work slower and its price is higher than with many other popular programs.

The purpose of Windows Updates is to provide users with updated versions of system features and fix problems that they experienced in previous versions. However, the latest update from Microsoft can cause other issues, even more critical.

As many users state, their updated Windows started deleting system folders, like Documents or Pictures, with no permission of the user. After the system was updated, other media files and folders could also be deleted from the drive.

Other users report that all the data was deleted from their Desktop and Download folders. Some customers also notice that some files created by apps were also removed from the PC.

Even if users try to roll back to the previous version of Windows used before updating, it doesn’t help them to restore data. They can’t find the deleted files in any folder even if they have the old copy of the operating system.

Specialists suggest that this issue may be connected with the Microsoft cloud storage. So, if your files were also deleted, you can try looking for them in the cloud drive connected to your Microsoft account. It is not clear if deleted files will be restored even if Microsoft will release the fix for this issue.

The Adobe company is known for its popular tools for photo and video editing, Photoshop and Premiere. The company recently launched the new versions of its middle range apps, Adobe Photoshop Elements and Adobe Premier Elements.

Both of them now have a new improved interface that helps you start quickly and make your work more convenient than earlier. The performance is also increased so you will be able to edit your photos and videos fast. Users will also be able to run Guided Edits that help you to apply a specific effect with the guidance of the application.

In Photoshop Elements, you can use the improved creation of collages and updated templates. The Guided Edits feature provides you with more than 50 guides. They are similar to wizards that help you to apply an effect and guide you on every step.

The multi photo feature lets you set a different picture behind each letter. The selective tool would help you to make a sketch of any part of the image.

The updated version of Adobe Premiere Elements offers you the Quick Edit mode that you can use for trimming and other usual tasks. It can also remix backing audio so it will be compatible with the length of your clips. To know more about improvements, go to the official Adobe website.

Windows updates are usually released to improve the quality of software, get rid of vulnerabilities, bugs, and glitches. However, these updates don’t always work this way. With the October 2018 release, some users got the problems with using the Microsoft Edge browser.

After installing the update, many users started complying on the problems with the Microsoft Apps. These programs just stopped connecting to the Internet, including the main Windows browser, Microsoft Edge. When trying to navigate to any website, it doesn’t open it and says “can’t reach this page”. Other browsers work well so the problem is only about the Edge and other Microsoft Store apps.

It is not yet confirmed how many users have this issue after installing October updates. Specialists suggest that these problems are connected with IPv6 settings of Windows. So if you are a customer that also has this problem, try to enable IPv6 and check the connectivity again.

The representatives of Microsoft say that they are aware of this issue and are working on the way to fix it. So, any user will be able to fix it by installing another update from Microsoft that would completely repair this issue.

If you are going to create your website and have a very small budget but don’t know HTML and other technologies to build its code, you can use website builders. You are able to use these tools for simple and convenient creating web pages, even if you are a newbie in web programming. Here is the list of the most notable website builders that provide you with the best quality of results.

Wix

The powerful tool for those who need to create their websites. It includes the ADI editor that is very user-friendly so you can be a complete beginner when using this builder. If you are an expert, you can customize the settings as you want. It also contains many features that might be very helpful.

Weebly

If also gives you a WYSIWYG editor, it means that you edit the website content like a text document. You don’t need to understand the code or even see it to create a good website. If you are a beginner in this field, you can use the automatic building or other features. You should also know about a big amount of ready stylish templates that this website offers to you.

WordPress

This platform is a good solution for small website, blogs, portfolios, and not very big online shops. It contains a simple online editor that even a newbie will understand. There is also a lot of themes. However, this engine contains many vulnerabilities so you will need to work on its protection. The number of plugins is not very big.