Wayne Williams

Microsoft releases new Windows 10 20H1 builds -- from the May 2020 Update -- to the Fast ring on a weekly basis, but it seems like something of an event when new builds arrive on the Slow ring these days.

Today the software giant pushes Build 19013.1122 out to Slow ring Insiders with a fix for the issue where the Settings app would hang or crash when accessing the System or Ease of Access sections. This build also comes with more kaomoji and a welcome update to Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) 2.

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The latest version of macOS  -- 10.15 Catalina -- was released just a month ago, and introduced some big changes, including the break-up of iTunes, and dropping support for 32-bit apps, which unfortunately meant some popular third-party software stopped working.

It might not happen any time soon, but if Apple does eventually make the jump to macOS 11, it’s fair to say the operating system will get a fairly major overhaul at that point. If you’d like to see how it should look, we’ve got this stunning video to wow you.

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When the Raspberry Pi Foundation announced the Raspberry Pi 4, it described it as a complete desktop computer for (from) just $35. It turns out that claim was a bit of an exaggeration. While the new Pi is the most powerful yet, we’ve found it struggles to run a lot of the sort of software we’d want to use it with (most 3D games and video editing tools are a no-no).

Not only that, but if the Pi is working too hard, it gets very hot, very quickly, and reduces performance to protect itself because it doesn’t have a fan to cool it down.

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In a bid to simplify the Windows Insider program, Microsoft has killed off the Skip Ahead ring that allowed users to try the version of Windows 10 beyond the one being tested by other Insiders. A smart move I think.

Insiders are now just testing builds on the 20H1 branch, due out next year, and Microsoft has rolled out another new flight for that.

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With system breaches coming thick and fast these days, it makes sense to take additional steps to protect your online accounts. One of the best ways to do this is with a YubiKey, a USB device which provides hardware-based two-factor authentication.

It’s a great -- and affordable -- way to protect your online accounts, and while you can also use it to log into a local account in Windows with the right software, you can’t use a Yubikey to log you into a Microsoft account (although the key can boost its security). That’s about to change. Today, at Microsoft Ignite, Yubico previewed its first ever security key with fingerprint recognition -- YubiKey Bio.

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Microsoft rolls out two feature updates a year for Windows 10, although this year the second of the updates -- the November 2019 Update -- is actually more of a service pack.

The trouble with this twice-yearly update schedule is most people don’t upgrade to the new version right away. In fact, due to compatibility issues, most people don’t even get offered it for months after its initial rollout. As a result, the majority end up running an older version of Windows 10.

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With October coming to a close it won’t be long until the Windows 10 November 2019 Update -- 19H2 -- starts to roll out to users. That’s more of a service pack than a feature update however.

If you want new features, it’s builds on the 20H1 branch that you’ll likely be more interested in. This week’s new flight, Build 19013, comes with more kaomoji and a welcome update to Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) 2.

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Wikipedia is an incredibly useful resource, even if not every entry is as accurate as it could be. If you’re using it for research, it’s best to perhaps view what you read there as a jumping off point.

Today, diving deeper into a subject just got easier, as when you find a citation to a book in a Wikipedia entry, you might now be able to go straight to the page of that actual volume with a single mouse click thanks to the Internet Archive.

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50 years ago, on October 29 1969, a packet was sent between two computers -- one at UCLA and the other at Stanford Research Institute -- on the ARPANET. This doesn’t sound hugely exciting, but it was first step in the creation of the Internet.

In the half century since then, the world has transformed beyond recognition. The arrival of the World Wide Web in 1991 showed what the Internet could be and ultimately changed everything, bringing us online shopping, up to the minute news, social networking, and more.

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LibreELEC is a lightweight Linux distro that is designed to run Kodi, the hugely popular open source home theater software. It is ideal for installing and using on a Raspberry Pi, although it runs on other hardware too.

LibreELEC (Leia) 9.2 Beta 2 is now available to download, with a complete overhaul of the underlying OS core to improve stability, as well as a number of refinements to the user experience.

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Microsoft launched Windows XP 18 years ago today. Despite support ending for it back in 2014, the OS is still to be found on just under 3 percent of the world's PCs, according to NetMarketShare. Many people still look back fondly on it, and for good reason. It was a huge step up from the gray, bland Windows versions that proceeded it.

Although Microsoft does issue the very occasional update for XP, in the main it's now viewed as a relic from days gone by, and lacking many of the modern features we take for granted in Windows 10. But what if Microsoft updated it? To celebrate the operating system's big 18th birthday, we thought it would be fun to repost this story from a couple of months ago.

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If you have private files that you want to be able to access when on the go, you could consider uploading them to the cloud, or carrying them around on a USB flash drive. The trouble with the former option is you’re entrusting your content to a third party, and in the case of the latter, you run the risk of losing the drive, allowing anyone who finds it to view your data. You could protect your files using software encryption, but it’s not 100 percent secure.

A much better, and far safer solution is to store your data on a hardware encrypted USB drive like the Aegis Fortress L3.

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Earlier today, Google made a huge announcement, stating that it had achieved 'quantum supremacy', by building a quantum computer that "can perform a task no classical computer can".

Scientific journal Nature published the results of Google’s endeavors, in which the search giant explains that its Sycamore chip performed a computation in 200 seconds that would take the world’s fastest supercomputer 10,000 years, marking the start of a new computing era.

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Microsoft is currently expected to begin rolling out the Windows 10 19H2 release -- the November 2019 Update -- on November 12.

In the meantime however, it’s busy working on the follow up, due out next May. The latest flight from the 20H1 branch doesn’t have any new features, but Build 19008 does include a number of useful fixes and improvements. These are:

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The Internet Archive is a massive and incredibly useful resource that offers access to millions of books, games, software, audio and video files, and cached versions of websites via the recently updated Wayback Machine.

To use it, you need an internet connection, but that’s changing thanks to the creation of the new Offline Archive project.

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