XAMI

It’s almost a given that anytime a new AAA game for the PC arrives, AMD and Nvidia are going to have a fresh batch of optimized drivers ready to go. Such is the case with Forza Horizon 3, the upcoming racing game from developer Playground Games and publisher Microsoft Studios. AMD’s Radeon Software Crimson Edition 16.9.2 officially adds support for Forza Horizon 3. There’s also a new DirectX 11 CrossFire profile for Dreadnought as well as close to a dozen various bug fixes. The changelog further reveals that AMD is still working on a handful of known issues involving games like Rise of the Tomb Raider and Overwatch. Meanwhile, team Nvidia has published GeForce 372.90 WHQL drivers that are optimized for Forza Horizon 3. The update also delivers an SLI profile for ARK: Survival Evolved and “security updates” for driver components while issues in some older games like Mirror’s Edge Catalyst, Star War: The Old Republic and Rise of the Tomb Raider are addressed. As you’ve no doubt heard, Forza Horizon 3 for Xbox One and PC races onto the scene tomorrow (September 23) for those that bought the Ultimate Edition and September 27 for everyone else. Early reviews have been overwhelming positive meaning if you love open world racers, Forza Horizon 3 is sure to please. If you don’t have automatic updates enabled, you can manually grab AMD’s latest drivers here and Nvidia’s 372.90 drivers by clicking here.

Microsoft has released an update for Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 that will please users who've decided to stick with an older operating system. KB3184143, as spotted by ZDNet, removes the Get Windows 10 app and all other software related to Windows 10 upgrades. The primary purpose of the Get Windows 10 app was to promote the Windows 10 free upgrade offer and try to convince as many users as possible to upgrade. However, the app's tactics were controversial: it not only advertised Windows 10 through pop-ups, but it would also sometimes install Windows 10 in the background, even if you clicked to dismiss the pop-up windows. While most advertising for Windows 10 inside older versions of Windows disappeared when the free upgrade offer ended on July 29th, the Get Windows 10 app was still deployed on most Windows 7 and 8.1 systems. KB3184143 "removes the Get Windows 10 app and other software related to the Windows 10 free upgrade offer." Despite Microsoft's occasionally annoying advertising tactics, the Windows 10 free upgrade offer and the Get Windows 10 app seem to have been a successful venture for the company. More than 350 million people are now using the operating system, which points to faster-than-usual uptake for a new version of Windows. The free Windows 10 upgrade offer has ended, but if you want to install Windows 10 on your Windows 7 or 8.1 machine without buying a full Windows 10 license, Microsoft is still offering free upgrades for people who claim they are using assistive technologies.

Welcome duckhin I can't understand nothing of what you say

A new report from VideoCardz has detailed AMD's upcoming Vega GPUs, with information allegedly originating from a leaked internal server roadmap, While reports like this should always be taken with a grain of salt, VideoCardz do have a decent track record with publishing early information. The leaked roadmap suggests that Vega 10, AMD's performance GPU set to compete with the likes of the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080, is scheduled for launch in the first quarter of 2017. It will allegedly bring 64 compute units, which should total around 4,096 shader cores: the same amount as AMD's high-end Fiji GPU as seen in the Radeon R9 Fury X. The report also states that Vega 10 will come with a whopping 16 GB of HBM2 providing bandwidth of 512 GB/s, and will feature 24 TFLOPs of half-precision (16-bit) compute performance. Listing 16-bit performance is interesting considering we normally see standard 32-bit performance metrics, however the figures provided by VideoCardz do point to decent gains on the R9 Fury X. As for total board power, we're looking at around 225W from this 14nm part. The R9 Fury X had a rated TDP of 275W, so it looks like Vega 10 will provide a reduction in power consumption for an improvement in performance. However, depending on performance the card may still fall short of the GTX 1080's supreme power efficiency and 180W TDP. VideoCardz has also detailed Vega 20, which appears to be a 7nm die shrink of Vega 10. This GPU supposedly includes the same 64 compute units, however memory has been increased to 32 GB of HBM2 with 1 TB/s of bandwidth, along with a total board power rating of just 150W. Cards that use Vega 20 will support PCI Express 4.0. And finally, the report has briefly detailed three further GPUs: Vega 11, Navi 10, and Navi 11. Scheduled for release next year, Vega 11 will replace Polaris 10 in AMD's mid-range GPU line up. Navi 10 and 11 are future GPUs planned for release in 2019.

The transition from standard definition televisions to high-definition sets seems like it happened in the blink of an eye yet in reality, it was a drawn-out process that carried on for many years. The shift from HD to 4K, as it turns out, isn’t taking near as long. During a recent press event in San Francisco, Consumer Technology Association CEO Gary Shapiro said that at year four of the transition to HD, they only sold 2.9 million units. Now, four years into the jump to 4K, that figure has climbed to just over 15 million units. What’s more, Shapiro said that four out of every 10 units shipped this year – and nearly ever set over 50 inches – will be of the 4K variety. The rapid adoption of 4K technology is largely a result of lower prices. In 2015, the average 4K television sold for $1,048 but this year, it has dropped to just $861. The availability of 4K content also shouldn’t be overlooked. When 4K sets first arrived in 2012, there was hardly any native content to speak of. While live broadcasts are still airing in HD, all of Netflix’s original content has made the jump to 4K. Rival Amazon is doing the same, making sure its new original content is also filmed in 4K quality. All things considered, this holiday season is likely to be a big one for 4K televisions.

Apple’s macOS on Tuesday graduated from beta status and is now available to all. Among the many changes is a new naming convention which brings the desktop operating system in line with Apple’s other products (watchOS, iOS, tvOS). macOS Sierra brings Apple’s personal assistant, Siri, to the desktop for the first time via an app on the menu bar and dock. Functionality is virtually identical to what you get on mobile devices meaning you’ll be able to check the weather, set reminders and reply to messages using just your voice. Siri can even read your e-mails to you if you’re feeling especially lazy. Other nifty features include universal copy and paste across various platforms (copy something on your iPhone and paste it on your Mac, for example) and the ability to log into a password-protected Mac simply by having an authenticated iPhone or Apple Watch nearby. There’s also a new storage feature that’ll automatically move less frequently used files to iCloud in the event you start to run low on local storage. What’s more, the update adds Apple Pay to the Mac which should make it much more convenient to make an online purchase. Apple introduced macOS Sierra at its annual developer conference back in June before rolling out a public beta of it and iOS 10 a month later. As always, the update is absolutely free so be sure to grab it if you want it.

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After a few months in the developer and beta channels, Opera’s built-in VPN feature has finally graduated to the stable version of the desktop browser, allowing users to bypass geo-restrictions for online content and browse the web more securely by providing a secure, encrypted tunnel between your computer and a website or remote server. The new app is based on the SurfEasy VPN service acquired by Opera last year. It's free to use with unlimited data, no ads (for now) and 256-bit AES encryption. Opera claims that the VPN should be fast and reliable enough to stream video in 720p HD. To enable the new feature go to “Settings” (or “Preferences” on Mac), choose “Privacy & Security” and then toggle the free VPN. An icon labeled “VPN” will appear in the browser, from which you can toggle VPN on and off, and choose a location. One important caveat: while bypassing Netflix’s geoblocking technology is one of the most common uses for VPN services, The Next Web reports that the video streaming giant has already blocked the VPN from accessing its library. Bummer. Users are able to choose from five different server locations -- Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Singapore and the US -- or let the Opera select the optimal server location based on factors such as network speed, latency, location and server capacity. Opera has added some new VPN features since the initial developer release. You can choose whether to turn VPN on for everything, or only use it when browsing using private windows. Other new features as part of version 40 include automatic battery saving whenever your laptop is unplugged, Chromecast support, the browser’s video pop-out feature now supports more sites and players, RSS support and an updated browser engine.

EA’s DICE has revealed the minimum and recommended system requirements for the next entry in the Battlefield series. Although it utilizes the most optimized version of the Frostbite game engine to date, you’ll still need a reasonably stout machine to play Battlefield 1 as the developers intended. Minimum hardware specifications are as follows: OS: 64-bit Windows 7, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 Processor (AMD): AMD FX-6350 Processor (Intel): Core i5 6600K Memory: 8GB RAM Graphics card (AMD): AMD Radeon™ HD 7850 2GB Graphics card (NVIDIA): nVidia GeForce® GTX 660 2GB DirectX: 11.0 Compatible video card or equivalent Online Connection Requirements: 512 KBPS or faster Internet connection Hard-drive space: 50GB The recommended hardware, naturally, will need to be a bit more powerful: OS: 64-bit Windows 10 or later Processor (AMD): AMD FX 8350 Wraith Processor (Intel): Intel Core i7 4790 or equivalent Memory: 16GB RAM Graphics card (AMD): AMD Radeon™ RX 480 4GB Graphics card (NVIDIA): NVIDIA GeForce® GTX 1060 3GB DirectX: 11.1 Compatible video card or equivalent Online Connection Requirements: 512 KBPS or faster Internet connection Available Disk Space: 50GB In a blog post accompanying the specs reveal, the game’s lead world designer, Daniel Berlin, outlined some of the adjustments and changes being made based on feedback from beta participants. Of note is a change to the Conquest game mode ticket system, balancing of various weapons and vehicles, multiple tweaks to the Rush game mode and more tools to deal with vehicles earlier. Battlefield 1 launches on October 21 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Windows PC with pricing ranging from $59.99 for the standard edition all the way up to $209.99 for an exclusive Amazon collector’s edition.

Western Digital's solid state division, SanDisk, has unveiled a prototype SDXC card that packs an enormous one terabyte capacity, which the company claims is the first of its kind in the world. Cramming 1TB of storage into the footprint of an SD card is an impressive feat, although considering the fast-paced NAND flash industry, it's not overly surprising that storage density has increased to such amazing levels. This new card comes two years after SanDisk announced a 512 GB SDXC card back in 2014, which at the time was the largest capacity SD card in the world. SanDisk hasn't released much information about their 1TB SDXC card; we don't know for sure how many chips it uses, how fast it is, or when it will be released. However,AnandTech is reporting that the card uses 32 chips, each with a capacity of 256 Gb, which they assume are 48-layer 3D NAND chips developed in partnership with Toshiba. The card is being positioned as the perfect companion for 4K and 8K video recording, which capture massive amounts of data per minute that must be stored on fast, high-capacity cards. SanDisk hasn't said when the 1TB SDXC card will become available or at what price, but it expect it to debut at a price higher than current 512 GB cards, which can currently be found for around $300.

With Google, Uber, Tesla, Apple and a host of other major players all working on autonomous driving technology in some shape, form or fashion, self-driving vehicles are likely going to arrive en masse sooner rather than later and manufacturers are going to need some sort of unified guidelines to go by. That’s exactly what the U.S. Department of Transportation has delivered (no pun intended) with the Federal Automated Vehicles Policy. In it, the DOT outlines a 15-point assessment for the safe design, development, testing and deployment of automated vehicles. Specifically, the guidelines hit on what happens in the event of an autonomous driving system failure, how a vehicle should perform after a crash and approaches to protect against vehicle hacking, just to name a few. The agency also reserves the right to recall autonomous vehicle systems that are deemed unsafe or aren’t in compliance with regulations. Bryan Thomas, a spokesman for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, toldThe New York Times that they intentionally left some areas vague as they wanted to outline key areas and leave the rest to innovators. Indeed, this frees up manufacturers to come up with crafty autonomous driving technology without the fear of running afoul with regulators (assuming a solution meets safety guidelines, of course). What some may find most surprising is the admission by the government that self-driving vehicles hold enormous potential benefits for safety, mobility and sustainability. Accompanying the guidelines was an op-ed piece from President Barack Obama published in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that delves deeper into the potential of self-driving vehicles.

Searching for documents in Google Drive just got easier thanks to the addition of Natural Language Processing, a new feature that will allow you to type things like “find my budget spreadsheet from last December” and get the corresponding results. As Google explains, the search bar will interpret your query and translate it to the proper format (for example: "budget Type:Spreadsheet”). It won’t search right away but rather present you with “Did you mean” options that you can click on to do the actual search. According to Google Drive Product Manager Josh Smith, the natural language processing in Drive lets you “search like you talk” and it will only get smarter the more you search. Drive is also adding autocorrect that suggests corrections to misspelled searches -- something that was surprisingly lacking before. Another often requested feature that is being added is the ability split a document into multiple columns by choosing the new “Columns” option from the “Format” menu. And lastly, whenever you convert and edit non-Google files in Docs, Sheets and Slides, Drive will now save a copy for you. This will be available from “Revision History” menu. The new features will begin rolling out gradually today to all users worldwide.

Nvidia has launched a new game bundle today that gives buyers of either the GeForce GTX 1070 or GTX 1080 a free copy of Gears of War 4, the upcoming third-person shooter from Microsoft Studios and The Coalition. Gears of War 4 will be bundled in the box of not only GTX 1070 and GTX 1080 graphics cards, but also in laptops that use the notebook GTX 1070 and GTX 1080 variants. As with all GPU game bundles, not every product in every retailer is eligible, so make sure your favorite store supports this deal before going ahead with a purchase. The Gears of War 4 code that will be included with these graphics cards falls under Microsoft's Xbox Play Anywhere program, so gamers can activate the code on their Windows 10 desktop and play it on an Xbox One without having to purchase the game twice. It's a nice bonus for people who own a gaming PC and an Xbox One. Microsoft suggests that the GeForce GTX 1080 will be suitable for playing Gears of War 4 at 4K resolution, while the GTX 1060 will suffice for 1440p, and the GTX 750 Ti is enough for 1080p. Nvidia has a handy webpage that details which retailers across the globe are participating in the Gears of War 4 bundle. Across North America, all the biggest retailers such as Newegg, Amazon and NCIX are participating, along with a wide variety of board partners and system builders.

Motherboards featuring AMD's new AM4 socket have been spotted in the wild, giving us a first look at the socket that supports both seventh-generation Bristol Ridge APUs, and AMD's long-awaited Zen CPUs. The AM4 socket looks reasonably similar to AMD's previous processor sockets, featuring 1331 pin holes arranged in a plastic mount. It appears as though AMD will continue to put the pins themselves on the CPU, which does increase the risk of accidentally bending a pin during the installation process, but shouldn't be an issue outside of that. New coolers will be required for AM4 systems as AMD has changed the cooler mounting layout, rendering AM3 coolers useless without an update to the mounting hardware. Considering AM4 is a major update to AMD's motherboard platform, this isn't too surprising. While AM4 motherboards from partners haven't hit the shelves yet, an OEM AM4 motherboard from HP has been spotted inside a new Pavilion desktop. Enthusiasts who want to mess around with AMD APUs and DDR4 memory can purchase the HP 510-P127C, where a micro-ATX HP 'Willow' motherboard can be found inside. The board itself is fairly limited in its expansion support, with just a single PCIe x16 slot, two DDR4 slots, and a serious lack of SATA ports. This board does support the new features of the AM4 platform, like PCIe 3.0, however there's no USB 3.1 ports to be found. Announced way back at CES 2016, AM4 is AMD's new socket that supports both seventh-generation 'Bristol Ridge' APUs along with upcoming 'Summit Ridge' Zen CPUs. Previously, sockets for APUs (FM2+) and CPUs (AM3+) were different and incompatible with each other, however AM4 allows users to purchase a single motherboard today for a 7th-gen APU and then upgrade it to a Zen CPU when they become available.

HTC has today announced two new mid-range smartphones that may not set any new hardware records, but, in typical HTC fashion, do pack quite attractive designs for the product segment. The phones are known as the Desire 10 Pro and Desire 10 Lifestyle, which look similar on the outside, but differ on key aspects of the hardware. The Desire 10 Pro is the higher-end model, which features a 5.5-inch 1080p display and a 20-megapixel rear camera, while the Desire 10 Lifestyle suits budget users with a 5.5-inch 720p screen and a 13-megapixel shooter. Perhaps the most interesting aspect to the Desire 10 line is the choice of SoC. The Desire 10 Lifestyle is seriously lacking in power, with HTC bizarrely opting for an outdated Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 SoC. The Desire 10 Pro is more powerful, thanks to the use of a MediaTek Helio P10, however it too will struggle to keep up with other mid-range phones in its price bracket. Aside from the SoC, the hardware found in the Desire 10 Pro is fair respectable. There's up to 4 GB of RAM, up to 64 GB of storage with microSD expansion, a 13-megapixel front camera, a fingerprint sensor, Category 6 LTE support, and a 3,000 mAh battery. The Desire 10 Lifestyle includes up to 3 GB of RAM and 32 GB of expandable storage, plus Category 4 LTE and a 2,700 mAh battery. The Desire 10 Lifestyle will be the first to go on sale, hitting store shelves on September 20 priced at £249 (around US$270 before tax). The Desire 10 Pro is slated for an October launch at an undisclosed, but presumably more expensive price point.

Google has essentially confirmed this week that the company's new Pixel phones will be announced at an event on October 4th. But before Google can officially reveal what they've been working on in conjunction with HTC, a set of leaked images have allegedly revealed their entire design. Judging by the images from Android Police, the 5.0-inch Pixel and 5.5-inch Pixel XL pack rather uninspiring designs. On the front, both look remarkably similar to Apple's iPhones, with huge bezels above and below the display. The back isn't quite like an iPhone, with a large glass area surrounded by metal housing the camera and rear fingerprint sensor. Whoever has taken these photos has masked significant sections of the design, notably the area below the display, and a large section on the back. Some areas likely include identifying barcodes, however some branding and other elements could remain a mystery until Google finally announces them. Speaking of announcements, late last night Google released a teaser for an event they're hosting on October 4th where the company will almost certainly announce the Pixel and Pixel XL. The 30-second video doesn't reveal much: it features a search bar outline transforming into a phone shape, flanked by "Oct. 4" and a modern Google logo. This means we'll only have to wait two weeks before Google properly announces their Pixel handsets, which have been the subject of a huge number of leaks over the past few months. Hopefully Google has a few surprises left to reveal come October 4th.

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Microsoft and Sony are breaking precedent with plans to release mid-generation console refreshes in the near future. Whether or not gamers buy them in droves remains to be seen but you can rest assured that both sides will do their best to hype the new machines (sometimes at the expense of the other). Sony at this point has revealed a great deal about its PlayStation 4 Pro. Microsoft, meanwhile, is playing its cards close to its chest, instead electing to reveal details aboutProject Scorpio in small batches. The latest tidbit comes courtesy of Microsoft Studios Publishing general manager Shannon Loftis who recently revealed to USA Today that all games they are launching in the Scorpio time frame will run natively at 4K. The wording here is important – games they are making, meaning first-party titles. What third-party studios do is seemingly up to them. The admission comes in the wake of the PlayStation 4 Pro's unveiling a couple of weeks ago and Sony’s interpretation of 4K gaming – specifically, the fact that most games won’t be rendered natively in 4K but rather, upscaled. In terms of raw processing power, we already know that Microsoft’s upcoming console will be faster than Sony’s. Some may argue that the original PlayStation 4 and Xbox One should have had support for 4K resolution from the get-go but that would have required delaying their launch by a couple of years as the hardware available at the time simply wasn’t capable of delivering the processing power to drive that many pixels. Sony’s PlayStation 4 Pro is slated to arrive on November 10 priced at $399. Critically, Microsoft’s Project Scorpio – we don’t even know what it’ll actually be called – won’t hit retail until the 2017 holiday season.

Last week, on September 13, thousands of HP printer owners were suddenly greeted by an error message when attempting to print, telling them that their ink cartridges were "damaged" and needed to be replaced. The reason has now been confirmed by HP itself: the company is locking out third party ink cartridges so that only its own will work going forward. The change was apparently introduced as part of a firmware update back in March but it was timed to go into effect last week, though some of their printers prior to that already shipped with the timer. HP is calling it a move to "protect [its] innovations and intellectual property.” Printers are often sold for little margin in order to earn profits over the life of it through the sale of consumables. This all about protecting one of the company's biggest profit centers, and while the move would have been unpo[CENSORED]r one way or another, HP could have at least been forthcoming rather than sneaking in a 'self-destruct' timer and only disclosing it after the fact. The HP OfficeJet, OfficeJet Pro and OfficeJet Pro X printers are affected. HP says these printers will continue to work with refilled or remanufactured cartridges with an original HP security chip. Curiously, there are some reports from owners with original cartridges claiming they also got the error message, and that they weren't able to get the printer to respond in order to remove the supposedly damaged ink cartridge.

For many, the search for a new smartphone begins and ends with its display. As the gateway to the device, it’s one of the few components utilized on an almost constant basis. Most high-end handset makers have made the jump to OLED panels with the one major holdout being Apple. The Cupertino-based company has been criticized for sticking with dated LCD screens in theiPhone 7 instead of adopting newer OLED technology. That’s a fair argument although as DisplayMate President Dr. Raymond M. Soneira points out in his recent evaluation, Apple hasn’t phoned it in (no pun intended) with the iPhone 7. Soneira, a well-respected professional in the display industry, says Apple’s use of two standard color gamuts in the iPhone 7 – the new DCI-P3 wide color gamut (which only three manufacturers currently have) and the traditional sRGB / Rec.709 color gamut – have been implemented with absolute color accuracy that is visually indistinguishable from perfect. Elsewhere, Soneira found that the iPhone 7 produces 602 nits of brightness, slightly under Apple’s claimed 625 nits. That’s with manual brightness enabled and the slider set to max – when the phone is set to automatic brightness, Soneira measured up to 705 nits of peak brightness – no doubt useful in short stints when outdoors under direct sunlight. It's not nearly as high as the 1,048 nits of brightness theGalaxy Note 7 puts out but impressive for an LCD. The display guru also found the iPhone 7 to have a record low reflectance for smartphones and a record high contrast ratio for IPS LCD displays. Oh, and their samples came from a retail Verizon store meaning they weren't "hand-picked" units. In conclusion, Soneira says the display on the iPhone 7 is a truly impressive and top-performing display and a major upgrade to the display on the iPhone 6. It is by far the best performing mobile LCD screen they’ve ever tested (note: not the best mobile display ever as that honor belongs to Samsung's Galaxy Note 7). All things considered and regardless of whether or not Apple jumps to OLED screens next year (my vote is they will), Soneira says that future panels of either type need to improve image and picture quality and screen readability under real world ambient light by reducing screen reflectance, expanding the native display color gamut as much as possible and implementing dynamic color management. If detailed display technology jargon is your cup of tea, I'd highly recommend checking out DisplayMate as they do an absolute bang-up job of evaluating displays of all shapes and sizes.

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Much like magazines and newspapers, streaming music outfits largely measure success by the number of paying subscribers on the roster. It is why, when a major player like Spotify announces it now has more than 40 million paid subscribers, people take notice. Spotify co-founder and CEO Daniel Ek disclosed the milestone on Twitter Tuesday morning. At last check (this past March), Spotify had 30 million paying subscribers which means it added 10 million premium users in less than six months. A month later, the company said it had more than 100 million active monthly users, a significant figure considering Spotify is one of just a handful of streaming music services that still offers a free, ad-supported tier. How does that compare to the competition? During its iPhone 7 media event last week, Apple said it now has 17 million paying Apple Music subscribers – up from just 13 million in April (Apple Music doesn’t offer a free tier). The Tidal ship, captained by music mogul Jay Z, continues to take on water as the company lost nearly twice as much money in 2015 as it did the year before. Jay Z back in April sued Tidal's former owners over claims that it lied about how many subscribers it had during the negotiation process. After the sale, new management realized that the true subscriber count was well below the 540,000 the previous owners claimed. As of this past March, Tidal had three million subscribers. Rhapsody, which acquired online music pioneer Napster in 2011, recently decided to revert back to the controversial name. As of late last year, the company had nearly 3.5 million paying subscribers; it's unclear how many premium members it has added in 2016. Internet radio pioneer Pandora, which is expected to launch an on-demand subscription service any day now, could work its way onto the podium after acquiring Rdio last November for $75 million. In related news, Spotify’s chief revenue officer Jeff Levick announced on Medium that he isleaving the company after five years on the job. Levick had nothing but good things to say about Spotify in his farewell speech, citing his love for the company, the product, the teams and the hyper growth they’ve experienced over the past several years. All of the hard work has certainly paid off but as Levick noted, working hard is hard work. When questioning whether or not he was up for another grueling five years of global travel in which he would miss more of his kids’ various activities and continue to put the burden of raising them on his wife, it started to become clear that maybe a change was in order. Spotify told Re/code that the ad sales team that used to report to Levick will now answer to chief financial officer Barry McCarthy while the team that manages Spotify’s subscriber business will now report directly to Ek.

Microsoft is letting Windows Insiders send and respond to text messages on their PC without having to reach for their phone. Those testing preview builds of Windows 10 will be able to achieve this using Skype Preview – providing it's the default messaging app on their Windows 10 Mobile device – with this 'SMS relay' feature rolling out to users over the next couple of months. Those of you suffering a bout of déjà vu at this point are probably remembering the similar 'Messaging Everywhere' feature which was deployed to preview builds earlier this year, and was supposedly set to arrive with the Anniversary Update. However, that didn't happen (and it was subsequently ditched from Windows 10 previews, as well, as Engadget observes), with Microsoft instead deciding to tack this functionality onto the Skype app. Seamless sending The updated Skype Preview app for PC and Windows 10 Mobile allows you to send SMS and MMS messages direct from your computer seamlessly alongside your usual Skype chats. As mentioned, you need to ensure that your smartphone running Windows has Skype Preview set as the default messaging app (under Settings), and on your PC, you need to head to Skype Preview settings and make sure that you select 'Enable Skype on this device to sync my SMS messages.' Then you should be good to go. Microsoft notes that Skype Preview has a number of fresh features aside from text messaging on PCs, including the ability to hide conversations, and to fire up Skype calls or chats directly from websites or apps (using Skype URIs). Further additions planned include improved messaging with elements like keyboard shortcuts and the ability to drag-and-drop URLs straight from your browser window. In the bigger picture, Microsoft's major plans include the introduction of Skype Teams, its own messaging service which is a rival to the highly successful Slack.

With iOS 10 apparently serving as Apple's flagship operating system, it's easy to overlook Apple's latest software offering for desktops. However, macOS Sierra ought not to be ignored, as it's evidently jam-packed with new features and improvements. The highly-anticipated OS X 10.12 was officially revealed with a new name, macOS Sierra, at the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in June 2016. As we experienced in the move from OS X 10.10 Yosemite to 10.11 El Capitan, Sierra isn't just a compilation of bug fixes and performance updates—it's a full-fledged follow-up to last year's update. So then, what can you expect from macOS Sierra? Fasten your seatbelts and follow along to find out! Cut to the chase What is it? The next version of Apple's desktop operating system When is it out? September 20, or right now if you're in the Apple Beta Software Program What will it cost? Like the previous several versions, it will be a free update When it comes to releasing new software, Apple has gotten into an annual release cycle. To no surprise, we saw the reveal of macOS Sierra in June at the WWDC, the Worldwide Developers Conference, with a private beta issued to developers that same day. A public beta, released on July 7, 2016, brought Siri, picture-in-picture mode and more to a broad audience of Mac users for the first time in Apple history. Since then, the macOS Sierra public beta received a number of different updates, with the first having been seeded on July 20. Of course, in order to take advantage of the new Continuity features like Universal Clipboard, you'll also need the iOS 10 beta installed on a compatible iPhone or iPad. Apple Pay, however, is available to use on the web right now, ahead of the macOS Sierra hard launch. Siri finally makes an appearance The biggest new feature slated for macOS Sierra is the inclusion of the Siri virtual personal assistant. Siri was launched on iOS back in 2011 and, surprisingly, Macs are the last in a long list of platforms that support it. Just as with the virtual assistant on iPhones, users will be able to simply command Siri and ask it questions with their voice. However, being on the Mac opens up a greater swath of options such as file searching, storage inquiries and even the ability to toggle settings on and off. At WWDC, SVP of software engineering Craig Federighi showed audiences how Siri could prove beneficial on Mac while remaining distinct from other Apple platforms. The personal assistant software can respond to complex requests such as, "Show the files I worked on last week about the off-site." From there, users can narrow down their search based on tags. Siri can even access other parts of macOS including applications like iTunes, effectively making her your personal DJ. Moreover, the AI is compatible with Safari as well, allowing it to act on web searches. And, with Apple having issued as SDK for developers to make their own apps work with Siri, it will be interesting to see where that goes. Maybe we'll see the day when Siri can access your Spotify library, upload files to Google Drive or help you organize spreadsheets in Excel. A long overdue file system upgrade Since 1985, Apple has remained complacent with its Hierarchal File System, or HFS. With macOS, however, that all changes thanks to the new APFS, or simply Apple File System. Starting with the company's 2017 MacBook lineup, all of Apple's computers will support the new filesystem on its bootup drive. Unfortunately, the new filesystem is limited to transferring files back and forth on a non-startup drive in its present beta state. Once Apple's hardware begins to support the new standard, it won't be long before we start to reap the benefits. These include improved flash memory optimization, faster Time Machine backups and improved space allocation letting two APFS-formatted disks act as one combined storage drive. Unfortunately, for legacy Mac users this means HFS support will be ousted in the next 25 years, though it would be a miracle if your computer could still boot up by then. Continuity gets even better Continuity between Mac and iOS is a big deal for those engulfed in Apple's hardy ecosystem. Ever since its introduction, users have been able to pick up calls and text conversations from their phones and conveniently pull them up on their Mac computers. With macOS Sierra, not only will you be able to access your computer from outside devices including your iPhone, but if you need to quickly move something from one device to another, this is made even easier than AirDrop thanks to the Universal Clipboard function. Fortunately, if the public beta is anything to go by, it's as seamless as Command-C, Command-V. And, while TouchID may come to Mac at some point, a similar feature called Auto Unlock will arrive later this year. As the title implies, this new feature will let you unlock your Mac from other Apple devices merely by being in close proximity to an Apple Watch or iOS device. Better multimedia functionality Finally we have the Photos app getting an overhaul in iOS 10, and because of the way Continuity works, the incoming features also apply to Mac. These include a new "Memories" tab for a more magazine-like viewing mode as well as an AI that automatically sorts photos either by people or topics. Likewise, if you're a skilled multi-tasker interested in watching videos while you work, you'll be delighted to know that macOS Sierra's picture-in-picture mode allows users to take their video windows with them even as they rotate between desktop screens. What's next for macOS? Though we can assume that most of macOS Sierra's features were revealed at WWDC, there are still a handful of discoveries being made hinting at what we can expect from the operating system's official launch in September. One such discovery, as reported by 9to5mac, was made by a developer on Twitter who somehow managed to activate a more ubiquitous Dark Mode color scheme on his Mac. Although you can already enable a dark menu bar and Dock in the macOS Sierra public beta, this newly proposed feature would ostensibly extend across a catalog of applications, like Safari. While it's yet to be confirmed by Apple, the prospect of a true Dark Mode is undeniably an exciting one. Nevertheless, there's bound to be an assortment of rumors, true or otherwise, leading into macOS Sierra's September release.