In just mere days, Destiny 2: Forsaken will arrive, ushering in a host of new experiences and major upgrades aimed at transforming nearly every aspect of the game. We’ve already spoken a lot about Forsaken’s key features and updates, but we wanted to take a moment prior to launch to provide you with some additional details about what you can expect beyond day one. To tee up that conversation, we’ve recruited a handful of developers to take you through our plans, from the 2.0 update that went live today, through our current plans for seasons and the annual pass. 

Seasons of Change

Destiny 2: Forsaken kicks off the Season of the Outlaw. Once you’ve completed the campaign, hunted down the Barons, secured some of your favorite new weapons, and explored the new worlds and the challenges that await, you can expect to see us continue updating the game with new activities and rewards. We’ve also hidden away many surprises for you to discover, and the information and roadmap below aren’t intended to spoil them, but rather to give you a broad sense of what’s to come.

After Season of the Outlaw concludes, each subsequent three-month Season will usher in a month-over-month roll out of new experiences, events, rewards, and activities, most of which will be available for free to every Destiny 2 player.

Annual Pass

The Forsaken Annual Pass is different than the traditional post-launch Destiny expansions we’ve delivered in years past. Black Armory, Joker’s Wild and Penumbra will offer a range of different experiences that consist of new endgame activities and modes, discovery, and challenges that escalate, ebb, and flow over time, with each offering prestigious rewards. 

Annual Pass content will release throughout the year, working in concert with our free Seasons to help keep the world alive and fresh. Black Armory, Joker’s Wild, and Penumbra each deliver multiple beats that span the length of a given Season. We believe the overall experience will feel markedly different to Destiny players, in a really good way.

Below is our first Forsaken-era post launch roadmap. It includes a short hit list of what you can expect in the coming weeks, and a look at what’s on tap in the months beyond. Once again, it’s not intended to spoil the surprises, but it should give you a good idea of our commitment to supporting Destiny 2 in Year 2.

Like our previous roadmaps, we’ll continue to update you with additional details and changes as these experiences continue to shape up and come together.

Keep an eye out for more detailed scheduling and information covering the Season of the Outlaw soon, and more information about the follow-on seasons and Annual Pass in the months ahead. As always, we’ll be listening intently to your feedback, updating the game with an eye toward continuous improvement, and playing and experience the game as part of this remarkable community.

America has a literacy crisis.

More than 36 million adults in the United States cannot read, write, or do basic math above a third grade level. And children whose parents have low literacy levels have a 72 percent chance of being at the lowest reading levels themselves. These kids are more likely to get poor grades, display behavioral problems, have high absentee rates, repeat school years, or drop out¹.

In a majority of classrooms today, teachers have students reading at up to four different grade levels, trying to keep the same pace on curriculum².

That’s why Microsoft Store and Microsoft Education are teaming up to offer free workshops this fall, using Microsoft Learning Tools to create dedicated curriculum for those with literacy challenges.

Workshops will be offered at different times throughout the year at all Microsoft Stores in the US, Canada and Puerto Rico, so be sure to check out the local Store programming near you to find the right workshop for your needs. Workshops will be catered to students’ age range, including:

Empowering students affected by Dyslexia

Educators and parents/caregivers working with students of any age; and children in 8^th grade or above who are accompanied by an adult, will get hands-on experience with Microsoft applications and tools – including Learning Tools, the Ease of Access menu and accessibility and productivity features of Office 365. Teachers will be empowered to create inclusive classrooms that support students of all abilities, while parents/caregivers will gain skills to support learners outside of the classroom.

The workshop covers why it’s important to create an inclusive classroom, tools to empower different learning styles and abilities, and tools to support students with disabilities.

Boost your reading confidence and literacy skills ages 8-12

This workshop introduces students, with foundational literacy skills, to the Immersive Reader in the OneNote app. Participants will build confidence and improve their reading comprehension through grade-level–appropriate activities with Immersive Reader features. Activities include demonstrations, playing “Mad-Lib” style games, and building and reading stories in pairs to gain hands-on experience using the tools.

Literacy skills for emerging readers ages 6-8

This workshop introduces emerging readers to Learning Tools for OneNote via age–appropriate activities with Immersive Reader features. Activities include discussions, demonstrations, and playing word and story games to gain hands-on experience using the tools. At the end, participants will share what they learned with their parent or caregiver. Throughout the workshop, participants will learn how to build confidence and improve their reading comprehension, and should leave prepared to continue using Learning Tools to further develop reading skills at home and at school.

With free software like Microsoft Learning Tools and heroic educators like Merlyne Graves, we are encouraged by the progress that’s happening every day. More than 13 million teachers and students are already using Microsoft Learning Tools for free as part of Office 365 Education, including tools like Immersive Reader, Picture Dictionary and Dictation. These are proving to increase reading and writing skill successfully, as evidenced by the recent 3^rd party study from RTI International, Leveling the Playing Field with Microsoft Learning Tools.

Through these workshops, we hope to give anyone who may have challenges with reading and writing skills the tools they need to feel empowered and to personalize their learning experience, especially those in underserved communities, or with learning differences like ADHD, Dyslexia, Dysgraphia or Autism.

Decoding Dyslexia, a parent-led movement to raise awareness around Dyslexia, is partnering with Microsoft on these workshops. “We need to get technology like Learning Tools into the hands of more students with Dyslexia and other learning differences before they fall behind,” said Rachel Berger, CEO of Decoding Dyslexia, “so I’m excited about the reach Microsoft Stores will have this fall. It’s truly empowering software that can make any classroom more inclusive.”

To kick off the program, Microsoft recently hosted more than 400 students, parents and teachers from across Washington and Oregon to be the first to try the new workshops. The event also included a keynote from former NFL cornerback Robert Tate, who shared his experience with dyslexia at a young age. “My friends didn’t know I had dyslexia,” Robert said. “I would hide within myself and make sure I wasn’t the one putting my hand up to ask questions or the one reading in class. You just have to keep moving forward and never go backwards.”

Ales Holecek, corporate vice president at Microsoft who helped spark discussions that led to Learning Tools, also spoke to the group, telling the audience of parents, teachers and students about his reading comprehension issues that started at a young age and continue today. “I take a long time to read anything and hate emails. I tell my team to send short emails; or better still, come speak to me in person,” said Holecek. For Ales, the turning point came in coding, which he felt operated on a simpler vocabulary.

To learn more and find the right workshop for you or your student, check out your local Store programming.

¹ National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

² https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED562664.pdf

Being an informed consumer of the news is more challenging today than it used to be. We live in a busy world where dozens of headlines compete for our attention every day. On top of that, it’s difficult to know if you’re getting all sides of a story or just leaning into an echo chamber, and it can feel like a full-time job to seek out various points of view.

At Bing, we want to empower users to get an overview of the news in less time. That’s why we built the Bing spotlight that provides overviews of news topics that you can see right in the Bing search results when you search for major developing news stories.

Spotlight shows users the latest headlines, a rundown of how the story has developed over time, and relevant social media posts from people around the web. Spotlight also shows diverse perspectives on a given topic so users can quickly get a well-rounded view on the topic before deciding what they want to go deeper on and read by clicking on any of the articles.

Spotlight is currently available on Bing desktop and mobile web in the US.

By Joe Robinson 28 Aug 2018