Wayne Williams

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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Just as sharing floppy disks in the 1990s carried the risk of infecting your PC with a virus, so sharing USB flash drives carries the same risk today. Fortunately you can easily protect against that kind of threat by disabling autorun and also installing a decent anti-virus program.

However, a Russian security expert has created a new, far more dangerous USB stick, which doesn’t carry a virus, but rather a deadly charge of power which can fry any device with a USB port in a matter of seconds.

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I could have reviewed Apple’s new iPhone as soon as it came out, but I preferred to wait until I’d spent a decent amount of time with the device. My initial thoughts weren’t all that favorable, thanks to a bug that affected the mobile data feature, but Apple thankfully corrected this problem fairly swiftly and that’s the only major fault I’ve encountered to date.

Apple says with the iPhone 6s, "the only thing that's changed is everything", but that’s a bit of an exaggeration seeing as the phone looks pretty much identical to its predecessor, and sports the same 4.7-inch 750x1,334 screen (326 ppi).

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If you’re a Windows Insider on the Fast ring, Microsoft has a new Windows 10 preview build for you to try. Build 10565 has quite a lot of changes and new features, including integrated Skype messaging, calling and video, tab preview in Microsoft Edge, some new icons, and Cortana enhancements.

There are also improved context menus on Start, more vibrant title bars, and the ability to sync favorites and reading list items in Edge. A lot of annoying problems have been fixed in this build too.

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Microsoft is rolling out cumulative updates for Windows 10 on what appears to be a weekly basis at the moment. These updates fix some problems, but not all. In some cases, they even cause more trouble, and because updates are mandatory, they get installed whether you like it or not.

The sheer number of system configurations out there mean that there are a lot of potential problems for Microsoft to deal with, but the good news is there are plenty of workarounds available to try in the meantime. So if you’re having problems with the new OS, try these solutions.

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As you may have read, there are two different versions of the A9 processor powering Apple’s new iPhone 6s and 6s Plus. One chip is made by Samsung (fractionally smaller), and the other by TSMC.

Apple says there’s no real difference between the processors (it used two different manufacturers to avoid supply issues), but it’s reported that devices with the TSMC processor run cooler and can give users up to 2 hours of additional battery life. There’s no way of knowing which processor your iPhone has simply by looking at it, but there is a simple trick you can use to find out what’s inside.

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For a company that doesn’t rely on advertising to make its money, Apple was never going to lose anything by allowing adblockers into the App Store unlike, say, Google.

Still, the recent move has certainly proved divisive. On one hand, websites that rely on advertising to survive have been bracing themselves for a loss of revenue, while many iPhone users have welcomed the change. Web pages reportedly load quicker in Safari without adverts, and if you’re on a capped mobile data plan you’ll benefit from the savings created by not downloading ads. The big question was always whether the move would impact advertisers in any meaningful way, and the early indications are that it has certainly made a difference, although it’s far from the "adblockolypse" many predicted.

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Today, at Microsoft's New York City event, the software giant announced the Surface Pro 4. It features Skylake processors, a slightly larger screen, plus options for 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage. It’s a great follow up to Surface Pro 3, and offers everything you could possibly want, including Windows 10 Pro, naturally.

The new device is just 8.4 mm thin, and features an impressive looking 12.3-inch PixelSense display. It’s powered by 6th Generation Intel Core m, Core i5, and Core i7 processors. There’s better battery life and more powerful graphics processing. It should finally be able to output 4K at 60 Hz. But… don’t get too excited. There’s one very, very good reason why you probably won’t want to buy it.

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Microsoft has been releasing regular updates concerning Windows 10 adoption. At the end of August, Yusuf Mehdi, Corporate Vice President of Marketing for Windows and Devices, shared the news on Twitter that Windows 10 was on 75 million devices. At the end of last month, Microsoft By The Numbers said that number had increased to over 100 million.

Today, at its new Microsoft devices event in New York City, Terry Myerson, Microsoft's EVP of Windows and Devices Group, provided the newest update, announcing that the new OS is now on over 110 million devices.

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With Windows 10’s momentum slowing, Microsoft needs to reignite interest in its new operating system, and what better way to do that than by introducing new devices designed to showcase the OS. Today at a special event in New York City the software giant will be taking the wraps off its latest hardware ventures.

We’re expecting to see a refreshed Surface Pro at the event, possibly with a borderless display, new Lumia smartphones -- including the 950 and 950 XL flagships --  and maybe other devices too. A closer look at Surface Hub, HoloLens, and Windows 10 Mobile are all possibilities as well. It definitely promises to be an exciting event.

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If you change the DPI scaling to make text, apps and other items easier to read on your Windows device, you may have encountered the problem of blurry fonts in Windows 10.

The issue is caused by Microsoft using a different scaling method to the one it used in previous versions of Windows (stretching back to Vista), and mostly affects the Windows font and dialog boxes.

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