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Today we shared our vision for a new era of personal productivity; unveiled Surface Pro 6, Surface Laptop 2, Surface Studio 2 and Surface Headphones, and announced availability of the Windows 10 October 2018 Update and new Office 365 experiences.

As we work to deliver on our company mission of empowering every person and organization on the planet to achieve more, we have increased our focus on helping people across their work and personal lives. Offering tools for whole life experiences has never been more important as many of us are living a digital lifestyle that presents more opportunities, yet more demands on our time, than ever before.

Whether you are juggling a career and family; running a family as head of household; or growing your career or education, you tell us your greatest need is simply more time and the tools to do what matters most to you.

Our Digital Lifestyle

The explosion of innovation over the last decade has fundamentally changed the way we live our lives. More than ever before we move fluidly between our work and personal lives as technology is always with us. This shift in lifestyle is centered around three key dynamics:

• There is a blurring of work and life leading to a feeling of being “always on.” Technology has enabled us to be constantly performing work or personal tasks anytime, anywhere, and with all of the benefits that brings, many of us are unable to find the right balance.
• The constant battle for our attention is making it hard to focus and is challenging our ability to be productive. Many of us check our phones between 150-1,000 times – each day, spending 3-6 hours daily on screens. And some of the apps and services we use are designed to capture our attention and mine our personal data – ultimately taking our time, versus giving us time back.
• Finally, there is an increasing desire for meaning and purpose in our work and lives. All around us we are seeing a redefinition of success. Many of us are viewing our careers less as a ladder and more as a lattice, where we can grow from new experiences, and pursue multiple passions. We see these today in the rise of the side hustle, the gig economy, and the success of companies that focus on giving back.

Empowering a New Era of Personal Productivity

We believe Microsoft can uniquely help you manage this digital lifestyle by delivering technology that empowers you rather than overwhelms. We are centering on our area of strength and passion to empower a new era of personal productivity in every aspect of your lives. Not just at work, but also in how you live, learn, and play. We will help you make the most of your time, with experiences that help you across your whole life and across all of your devices. This journey begins today with announcements across five areas.

1. Surface is the purest expression of our entire Microsoft experience and is designed to work across your whole life, keeping you in the flow so you can be productive. Today we announced new Surface devices that continue to push the boundaries on technology that fades into the background, enabling you to focus on what’s important. New additions to the Surface portfolio include: Surface Pro 6, Surface Laptop 2, Surface Studio 2, Surface Headphones, and a new way to purchase Surface devices with Surface All Access.
2. In today’s multi-device world, you should be able to pick the phone you want, the laptop you want and have best of breed. With features like the Your Phone App and Windows Timeline, we will help you move seamlessly across all your devices and bridge the gap between your iOS and Android devices and your PC. No matter where you are, what device you are using, or where your content lives, you should always be ready to be productive.
3. Because nothing is more valuable than your time, we will help you organize your whole life using our unique strength with Outlook and calendar, and our understanding of your time spent at work. For example, today, we are integrating To-Do’s with Skype and Outlook.com to help you manage your time better than ever before.

4. Peace of mind can be as simple as the security of your data and identity, to being fully present at the dinner table with your family, free of distraction. We will leverage our enterprise-class Intelligent Security Graph and machine learning to help ensure the security of your identity, your data, and the people that matter most with features like Family Safety in Microsoft Launcher.

5. Finally, we will enable you to unlock your creativity. Life is not a solo act, and our best moments are when we create and collaborate with others. In a world dominated by consumption, we will utilize the power of everyday AI, the innovations in our devices such as the Surface Pen and Dial, and Office 365 features like Inking in PowerPoint and Word, Embedded 3D Animations, as well as our collaboration tools to unlock your creativity in completely new ways.

These experiences are enabled by new innovations in Office 365 and the Windows 10 October 2018 Update which is available today.

With the new Surface devices, Windows 10 and Office 365, we are beginning our journey to empower you in this new era of personal productivity. We recognize our incredible opportunity and responsibility as a technology company to help you make the most of your digital lifestyle. We’re just getting started, but you can expect to see more as we focus on meeting your needs across your whole life and engaging in responsible product making that has inclusivity and empowerment at the core.

For more information on the story behind how we make great products, please read this blog from the Chief Product Officer, Panos Panay.

Yusuf

Surface Product Announcements:
Surface Pro 6
The iconic form factor that established the 2 in 1 category, is now 67 percent faster with Intel 8th Gen Quad Core processors and available in an elegant Black color option. Offering the ultimate in portable mobility for today’s digital lifestyle, Surface Pro 6 offers hassle-free connectivity, uncompromising mobility, and exceptional power and performance. Surface Pro 6 offers all-day battery for up to 13.5 hours [1] of work, fun or both. The full friction hinge enables seamless transitions between Laptop Mode, Studio Mode, and Tablet Mode for the versatility you need to create and be productive from anywhere. The 12.3” PixelSense Display and multi-screen docking present content beautifully and Surface Pro 6 now includes a 8.0 MP auto-focus camera. You can pre-order your Surface Pro 6 beginning on Oct. 2, starting at $899[2].

Surface Laptop 2
Surface Laptop offers style and speed in a slim, elegant, ultra-light, fast-charging laptop that fits easily in your bag. Beautifully designed and crafted, Surface Laptop offers the blend of texture, subtle details, and clean, elegant lines—plus the luxurious touch of our Signature Alcantara material-covered keyboard. Announced today, Black joins the rich tone-on-tone color combinations of Platinum, Burgundy and Cobalt Blue. And Surface Laptop 2 gets supercharged with Intel 8^th Gen Quad Core Processor, while offering up to 14.5 hours of battery life [3] and faster and quieter typing. The 13.5” PixelSense Display screen offers an immersive touchscreen for faster, more natural navigation, with an edge-to-edge display and ultra-thin bezels. Surface Laptop 2 includes OmniSonic speakers for premium sound.

Surface Laptop 2 will be available to pre-order beginning on Oct. 2, starting at $999[4].

Surface Studio 2
Surface Studio was widely regarded as an innovator and category creating device. Designed for creativity, Surface Studio lets you turn your desk into the ultimate creative studio. With 50% more graphics performance, Surface Studio 2 is the fastest Surface ever made offering professional grade power and performance. The 28” Brilliant PixelSense Display is stunning and adjustable offering a brilliant screen, or huge canvas, for your ideas. Now offering USB-C support and Xbox Wireless built in gaming-class performance, Surface Studio 2 includes the latest Surface Pen with tilt sensibility and 4096 levels of pressure. Of course, Surface Studio 2 offers Surface Dial [5]  integration and rich Ink experiences with a wide variety of software, including Office[6]. Surface Studio 2 will be available to pre-order beginning on Oct. 2nd, starting at $3,499[7].

Surface Headphones
Microsoft’s first premium and smart headphone experience offer the attributes you have come to expect from Surface: premium design, expert craftmanship, and integration with the services and experiences you love. Surface Headphones offer a smarter way to listen, with spectacular rich audio and hands-free calling. Surface Headphones make it easy to block out the world to get more done with adjustable noise cancellation, so you can focus on your task or just relax with your favorite music. With automatic pause and play, they will even pause the movie or video you are watching when you remove them from your ears. Cortana, a hands-free digital assistant, is built in to offer you proactive guidance, read you emails, or kick off your conference call. Surface Headphones are $349[8] and will be available later this year.

Surface All Access
One way we can support the digital lifestyle is by making it easier to purchase and use the best of Microsoft across work and life. Surface All Access offers the option of paying monthly for the Surface product of your choice, starting at just $24.99 per month for 24 months^, complete with an Office 365 subscription, access to in-store training and top-tier support. Surface All Access is available at Microsoft retail stores in the U.S.

Windows 10 & Office 365 Announcements:
Your Phone App
Pausing a task on your PC to respond to a text or notification on your phone can instantly break focus and take you out of your flow. The Your Phone App brings instant access to your texts and photos from your Android phone right on your PC, enabling you to stay productive and maintain your focus.
Windows Timeline on Phone
As we move fluidly throughout our day switching between work and personal tasks on our PCs and phones, it has become more challenging to find files and documents or web pages across our devices. Windows Timeline has been available on your Windows 10 PC since April, and we have now brought it to your iPhone or Android phone, enabling you to scroll back in time and find the files and websites you were using across your devices.

To-Do Integration with Outlook.com & Skype
It’s simple to make a long list of To-Do’s, but much more challenging to actually make time to complete each task. With To-Do integrated with Outlook.com, you can easily drag a task into an open slot on your calendar and block time to complete it. If you receive an email that has a task associated with it, you can even drag that into To-Do to automatically create a new task, keeping you organized and in flow.

In Skype, just select the message and tap “Create a task” to open the tasks pane. From here, you can add, edit, and check off tasks. Tasks will be saved and available in Skype, or in the To-Do app.
Family Safety for Microsoft Launcher
With Microsoft Launcher installed on your family’s Android devices and a Microsoft family group of accounts set up, parents can stay up to date on their kids’ location and rest easier knowing they are safely where they should be. Parents can also check in on kids’ app activity on their Android device, including which apps are accessed and time spent on each app. With Xbox One or a Windows 10 PC set up in your family portal, you can also view their activities on those devices through Microsoft Launcher.
Inking in PowerPoint
We’ve been infusing Microsoft Office[9] with AI with two goals in mind: to make everyday tasks easier and your content more beautiful. With today’s updates we’re making it easy to create and ideate using just your digital pen and your touch enabled device:

• An inked bulleted list will transform into perfectly formatted text.
• If you’re inking a flow chart or diagram, you can draw both words and shapes, and PowerPoint will convert them into text and snapped shapes in one fell swoop.
• Or, you can let our intelligent design engine do the work for you. Simply start with a blank canvas, design your slide using ink, and Designer will use AI to recommend slides for you to choose from.

Inking in Word

With new intelligent functionality in Ink Editor, you can add a word, split words or add new lines to your document without touching a keyboard. Now, you can edit a Word document from start to finish using your digital pen and your touch enabled device.
Embedded 3D Animations
In PowerPoint and Word, dynamically animated movements are now built into 3D objects, making it effortless to use 3D and animation to bring your projects to life.

[1] Up to 13.5 hours of video playback. Battery life varies significantly with settings, usage and other factors.

[2] Estimated retail price; actual retail prices may vary.

[3] Up to 14.5 hours of video playback. Battery life varies significantly with settings, usage and other factors.

[4] Estimated retail price; actual retail prices may vary.

[5] Sold separately.

[6] Sold separately.

[7] Estimated retail price; actual retail prices may vary.

[8] Estimated retail price; actual retail prices may vary.

[9] Sold separately.

Updated October 2, 2018 3:08 pm

Facebook has learned of a security vulnerability that has opened up millions of its users to account theft over the past year, though the company notes it is still investigating any impact the exploit has had to date.

While the exploit wasn’t related to Facebook’s game platform itself, the issue potentially affects 50 million Facebook accounts, making it an issue developers using the platform should be well aware of.

The issue itself is detailed in a blog post shared by Facebook and has since been fixed and reported to law enforcement. While the cause for the vulnerability seems to, by Facebook’s reports, be the result of several different small issues in the platform’s code, the core issue itself involved the “view as” feature that is intended to let a user see what information they’re showing other Facebook users. 

However, an issue with “View As” instead let attackers take access tokens from Facebook accounts and allow them to hijack those accounts themselves by using the tokens to log in as an exploited user. 

Facebook says that it has now reset the access tokens of the nearly 50 million accounts it knows to be affected, and has reset the access tokens for an additional 40 million accounts that aren’t known victims but had “View As” activity in the past year. Any affected users will have to log back into Facebook, both on the site and any third-party apps or locations using Facebook login, and have been sent a notice about the issue.

“Since we’ve only just started our investigation, we have yet to determine whether these accounts were misused or any information accessed,” reports Facebook. “We also don’t know who’s behind these attacks or where they’re based. We’re working hard to better understand these details — and we will update this post when we have more information, or if the facts change. In addition, if we find more affected accounts, we will immediately reset their access tokens.”

“If some number of people are playing Fortnite for some massive amount of time, well, that’s a lot of people who aren’t even opening their Steam client. “

– Devolver Digital’s Nigel Lowrie points out another factor devs deal with when competing for player attention

A recent story on Polygon seeks to chart the struggles and changes that have occurred as game platforms continue to become more and more saturated with new releases by talking with devs and members of the game industry that have experienced that shift first hand.

While discoverability issues are already a huge struggle for developers, Devolver Digital’s Nigel Lowrie points out that the changing way players interact with games has made time a significant commodity as well. 

Concerns that potential players only have the budget to pick up a set number of games per month have been replaced by the fact that there just aren’t enough hours in the day for players to invest into new titles. 

“Even if the most hardcore gamer plays 14 hours a day, that’s still a finite amount of time. And if you’re spending 10 of those in a PUBG, or a Fortnite, what does that leave for the rest of us?” says Lowrie. “It’s true that timing of release is critical, sure, and I don’t think that single-player, smaller-scope games are going to go away; there’s always going to be room for that. But time is something that you really can’t move, and you have to account for that when people move into these long-term relationships with games.”

“If some number of people are playing Fortnite for some massive amount of time, well, that’s a lot of people who aren’t even opening their Steam client,” he continues “If you’re a developer out there complaining that you can’t get your game on the front page of Steam, well, this is a whole new thing you have to worry about.”

Lowrie elaborates on his sentiments in the full story on Polygon alongside comments from developers like former id Software CEO Todd Hollenshead, Housemarque’s publishing head Mikael Haveri, and more. 

Welcome to Next Week on Xbox, where we cover all the new games coming soon to Xbox One! Every week the team at Xbox aims to deliver quality gaming content for you to enjoy on your favorite gaming console. To find out what’s coming soon to Xbox One, read on below and click on each of the game profiles for pre-order details (dates are subject to change).

Games

September 25, 2018

Descend into the world of Hollow Knight on Xbox One! The award-winning action adventure of insects and heroes will have you exploring twisting caverns, ancient cities, and deadly wastes. Battle tainted creatures and befriend bizarre bugs. Uncover ancient history and solve the mysteries buried at the kingdom’s heart.

Games

September 25, 2018

Xbox One X Enhanced – Commander Claude Wallace and his childhood friends set out to fight for freedom in this desperate war, but bone-chilling blizzards, waves of imperial soldiers, and the godlike powers of the Valkyria stand between them and victory. With turn-based tactical battles, memorable characters, and a moving story, Valkyria Chronicles 4 has all the markings of a fantastic new entry in this epic franchise.

Games

September 25, 2018

A modern first-person shooter with millions of fans around the world. With four unique classes with special skills, teamwork, exciting PVE missions and raids, various PVP modes, hundreds of realistic weapons, modules, equipment, and camo items, it’s time to lock and load and take the battle online.

Games

September 26, 2018

In Jack N’ Jill DX, players must assume the role of Jack and overcome many hazards in a bid to reach Jill who awaits him at the end of 140 levels in true, one-button platformer fashion. Roles can also be reversed if you feel that Jack is the one who needs saving as you can traverse the game world as Jill as well.

Games

September 26, 2018

Lost in an intimate snowy town, a group of individuals is searching for a mysterious artifact that’s said to bring great knowledge and understanding. Lead each character through their quest in this collection of mini-games, each with unique personalities and challenges.

Games

September 26, 2018

Pizza Titan Ultra is a fast paced 3rd-person action platformer focused on fighting and smashing through a futuristic city in a giant mech to deliver pizza. Experience arcade action with fast attacks and dodging, while attempting to control the massive weight of a 10-story mobile pizzeria.

Games

September 26, 2018

Little Bobby’s dead, the BBQ is on fire, Jen’s eating poisonous berries and the birthday cake still needs icing. A frantic parenting simulator featuring 1-4 player couch co-op, Twitch and Mixer integration for streamers, a wide range of levels, and the ability to customize and save characters as families, Think of the Children is a fast-paced task management game with a colorful comedic twist.

Games

September 27, 2018

Xbox One X Enhanced – Two brothers Sean and Daniel Diaz are forced to run away from home after a tragic incident. In fear of the police, Sean & Daniel head to Mexico while attempting to conceal a sudden and mysterious supernatural power. Now totally responsible for his much younger brother, Sean begins to realize that his decisions will impact their lives forever. Experience the first episode of this highly-anticipated sequel.

Games

September 28, 2018

The collection contains three Amnesia titles: The Dark Descent, A Machine For Pigs, and Justine. Experience the horror that kickstarted the Let’s Play revolution and be immersed in three living nightmares that will chill you to the core.

Games

September 28, 2018

Captain the ship alone or with friends as a team of up to four players and become the crew of a spaceship that must hold together in the face of enemy fire. Can you deal with unrelenting disaster and hold your ship together long enough to destroy the enemy invaders? Repair systems, extinguish fires, arm the torpedoes, avoid deadly solar flares, destroy your friends and clone them back again; it’s all in the life of a Catastronaut!

Games

September 28, 2018

Battle your friends across multiple game modes like Free for All and Capture the Flag, or take on the game’s single-player challenge. The rules are simple — each player controls a line on the playfield and has a certain number of shots and clears available for use in combat to create obstacles for your opponent’s line. Get your friends together to find out who’s best!

Games

September 28, 2018

Xbox One X Enhanced – FIFA 19 delivers a champion-caliber experience on and off the pitch. Led by the prestigious UEFA Champions League, FIFA 19 offers enhanced gameplay features that allow you to control the pitch in every moment, and provides new and unrivaled ways to play, including a dramatic finale to the story of Alex Hunter in The Journey: Champions, a new mode in the ever-popular FIFA Ultimate Team, and more. EA Access members can start playing today.

Games

September 28, 2018

Xbox One X Enhanced / Xbox Play Anywhere – Dynamic seasons change everything at the world’s greatest automotive festival. Go it alone or team up with others to explore beautiful and historic Britain in a shared open world. Collect, modify and drive over 450 cars. Race, stunt, create, and explore – choose your own path to become a Horizon Superstar. The Forza Horizon 4 Ultimate Edition digital bundle includes early access, allowing you to play four days early beginning September 28, Car Pass, VIP Membership, Best of Bond Car Pack, Formula Drift Car Pack, and two game expansions when they become available.

Games

September 28, 2018

Rules are simple: race to reach the end of the Vegas strip before anyone else. Manage your token account, avoid the hazards, take advantage of your gaming skills (and your insolent luck) with 10 unique mini-games including Roulette, Black Jack, Texas Holdem, Baccarat, and Bingo taking place across a variety of environments and casinos.

Total War: THREE KINGDOMS is Now Available for Pre-Purchase on Steam!

Three heroes, sworn to brotherhood in the face of tyranny, rally support for the trials ahead. Scenting opportunity, warlords from China’s great families follow suit, forming a fragile coalition in a bid to challenge Dong Zhuo’s remorseless rule. Will they triumph against the tyrant, or will personal ambition shatter their already crumbling alliance and drive them to supremacy?