Wayne Williams

Cortana was originally only available on Windows Phone, but Microsoft’s personal assistant has since become an integral part of Windows 10, and is currently available in public beta form on Android too.

Cortana is set to arrive on iOS at some point in the future, but don’t expect to be able to download the app any time soon -- there’s still quite a lot of development to go. However, that said, Microsoft is currently looking for testers to try out an early version of the iOS app and you can express your interest by filling in a short survey.

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The internet has turned us all into sharers. If you find something interesting online, be it a photograph, video, or an article, there’s a good chance you might share it with people via Facebook, or Twitter.

Microsoft wants Skype to become another way of easily sharing content, and so has introduced a new Share button which will let you quickly forward content on to people you know. "Effortless sharing that sparks richer conversations", as the Skype team describes it.

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Microsoft’s search engine Bing comes baked into Windows 10 in several ways. It’s the default search choice in Edge and Cortana, and you can even use its image of the day as the wallpaper for your lock screen via the Windows Spotlight feature.

As well as displaying a new image on a regular basis, Windows Spotlight lets you "like" photos which appeal to you. The more pictures you like, the better idea Windows will have of the sort of imagery you want to see, and it will customize the content accordingly.

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It’s that time of the month again when NetMarketShare releases its desktop operating system usage share figures and we get to see how well (or not) the various flavors of Microsoft’s operating system are doing. In October, Windows 10 gained usage share, while all other versions of Windows lost share. That’s to be expected of course.

However, it’s far from great news for Microsoft as Windows 10’s growth once again slowed. Making the new OS free to upgraders, and advertising it heavily still doesn’t seem enough to get people to make the switch. No wonder Microsoft has started using bullyboy tactics.

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Surface Book went on sale yesterday, and today we’re seeing the first reports of a big problem with Microsoft’s MacBook rival. According to numerous reports, the device is blighted with a nasty intermittent flickering screen issue.

It’s not only the new laptop that has the problem either, it’s affecting the new Surface Pro 4 too -- epileptics beware. You can see the flickering in action below.

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When Google announced its first OnHub wireless router, my colleague Brian Fagioli had one question -- why? The answer, according to Joe Wilcox’s excellent review, is it gives great Wi-Fi and is, in a word, "fantastic". High praise indeed.

The TP-LINK-built OnHub was always intended to be the first in a series of easy to use wireless routers from Google, and today the second device arrives, this time coming from ASUS.

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Surface Pro 4, the latest generation of Microsoft’s popular Windows slate, and Surface Book, the company’s brand new high-end laptop, both go on sale today -- provided you live in the US or Canada. If you live elsewhere you’ll have to wait until November.

Pre-orders have reportedly been brisk, with both devices going in and out of stock. Microsoft says the initial reaction to Surface Book and early pre-order activity has exceeded its expectations, so it’s likely to have limited quantities in store today.

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Let’s be honest here, Windows 10 was released a little prematurely. There are inconsistencies throughout, Microsoft Edge is an unfinished mess, and then there are the bugs…

Microsoft has been issuing updates on a fairly regular basis to try and fix various problems with the operating system, but we know from the enduring popularity of troubleshooting articles we’ve published previously, that there are plenty of Windows 10 users who are still having problems with the new OS. With that in mind, here are some more solutions to common problems.

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Bitdefender Internet Security 2016 was only released recently but it’s already received multiple awards, such as Product of the Year (AV-Comparatives), Editor’s Choice (PC Magazine), and Best Protection for four years straight (AV-Test).

The software usually retails for $51.97, but why pay when you can get it for free?

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Service-based businesses, like those in healthcare, insurance, commercial real estate and financial services, among others, need to focus on growth and delivering quality customer service. However, back-end financial processes -- from billing and collections to vendor selection and accounting -- are also critical to business health. Firms face challenges in handling these tasks in an efficient, profitable manner. Too often, firms drain internal resources handling activity that doesn’t generate revenue (and in which they don’t specialize). The Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) market combines domain expertise in various fields with the resources and technology capabilities to assess and improve processes.

Xchanging is a business technology and services provider which focuses on delivering technology-enabled process services across finance and accounting, CRM and customer administration, and analytics. I spoke with Sean Allen, Xchanging's Vice President for Business Process Services, about how the BPO market is changing, and the new technology-based elements that are beginning to be incorporated.

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Today, as you’ll no doubt be aware, is the day that Marty McFly travels to in Back to the Future II. We might not have proper (fully working) hover boards, flying cars or pizza hydrators in this version of 2015, but we do have a lot of technology that would have seemed very futuristic to someone visiting from the 1980s.

Microsoft believes that the future is precisely on schedule and is celebrating Back to the Future day with a cool Easter egg on its website. Here’s how to find it.

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Over the past couple of days I’ve read two interesting iPhone 6s stories from my colleagues. Brian Fagioli says Apple’s Live Photos has a big privacy issue, while Joe Wilcox says the way the Nexus 6P’s fingerprint scanner works is superior to that of the Touch ID scanner on the iPhone 6s.

With respect to both writers, they are wrong. The problems they refer to with the iPhone 6s aren’t problems of Apple’s making, they are user errors, pure and simple.

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The level of accuracy in predictive analytics relies heavily on the quality of data. However, it is often overlooked that the quality of data relies on an organization’s ability to seamlessly integrate with the various systems that collect unique customer data, as well as the ability to analyze the data in context. Predictive analytics can come up short if the data remains in silos across the organization (the web team sees website analytics, loyalty teams see membership levels, marketing team sees email conversions, etc.).

I spoke to Dominik Dahlem, Senior Data Scientist at Boxever -- a customer intelligence and predictive marketing company for airlines and travel retailers -- about the past, present, and future of predictive analytics.

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Microsoft pushed out Build 10565 to Windows Insiders on the Fast ring three days ago. This preview includes Skype integration, Microsoft Edge improvements, Cortana enhancements, some new icons, and support for nested virtualization. It also introduces a change to the way the activation process works -- you can now activate Windows 10 using a Windows 7, Windows 8 or Windows 8.1 product key.

New Fast ring preview builds can usually only be obtained through Windows Update, but Microsoft has today taken the unusual step of making Build 10565 available to download as an ISO to allow Windows Insiders to try out the new activation paths.

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Live Photos is one of the big new features available in Apple’s latest iPhones. As a quick refresher, these are a cross between a photo and a video -- 1.5 seconds of footage is recorded before and after the shot is taken, and when you press down hard on a Live Photo, using 3D Touch, it plays.

There is one big problem with Live Photos though, and that’s while you and other iOS 9 and Mac OS X El Capitan users can enjoy them in all their animated glory, share one with users on other platforms -- Windows or Android, for example -- and all the recipient will see is the standard still image. Where's the fun in that? Thankfully, Live Photos can now be shared as animated GIFs. Here’s how.

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