Microsoft news recap is a weekly feature highlighting the top Microsoft news stories of the past week. Sit back, grab some coffee, and enjoy the read!
Microsoft continues education push with TakeLessons acquisition
TakeLessons has been acquired by Microsoft. TakeLessons is a company that connects students with tutors offering private and group lessons on a variety of subjects, from music, through to languages, computing, crafts and hobbies, and more. It further emboldens Microsoft’s push into education.
Microsoft axes plan to reopen its US offices on October 4 due to COVID-19 Delta variant
Microsoft’s plan to reopen its US offices on October 4 has been axed as a result of the COVID-19 Delta variant. As a result of the ever-changing situation, Microsoft has now decided not to set a new date for reopening its offices.
Microsoft News apps update on iOS and Android to become Microsoft Start
The Microsoft News apps on iOS and Android have become Microsoft Start, as Microsoft aims to create a hub of not just news, but other features and content as well, similar to Google’s Discover. The latest update adjusts the app name, as well as brings a new logo and colour scheme.
Xbox owners will soon be able to control their console with their TV remote
It will soon be possible for Xbox owners to control their console using their TV remote. Once testing has complete and the feature begins rolling out, the new feature will apply to both Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S consoles. Aside from this, it will also become possible to switch the input on the TV by pressing the Xbox button on an Xbox controller.
1/2 Xbox Insiders in Alpha Skip Ahead and Alpha we just enabled some new HDMI-CEC features for the builds today.
* Use your TV remote to control your Xbox –
– You can now use your TV remote to navigate the Xbox dashboard and control streaming apps like Netflix!— Brad Rossetti (@WorkWombatman) September 8, 2021
This week in Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams Meetings are getting push-to-talk capabilities
To make it easier to unmute during meetings, Microsoft Teams will be adding a push-to-talk feature to meetings, aimed at solving the problem of forgetting to mute or unmute.
Microsoft Teams and Outlook are getting big updates to help you adapt to hybrid work
Aimed at making adapting to hybrid work easier, new features have been announced for Microsoft Teams, including adding support for Apple CarPlay to allow users to join meetings whilst driving, new intelligent cameras that can recognise people and detect the active speaker. You can read about all of the new features Microsoft announced here.
Microsoft Teams for Education gets new illustrated character to help students express their emotions
A new illustrated character is to be added into the Reflect feature of Microsoft Teams for Education. Microsoft is adding the illustrated character within the Reflect app in Teams for Education in an effort to improve student’s emotional vocabulary, following studies which showed the pandemic has had a negative impact on students’ mental and emotional wellbeing.
Microsoft Teams will let chat supervisors delete irrelevant chat messages
Irrelevant or inappropriate chat messages will soon be able to be deleted by chat supervisors. Whilst people can currently delete their own messages, there isn’t an option for people to delete others’ messages, this is set to change.
That’s it for this week. We will be back next week with more Microsoft news.
