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Microsoft has made it pretty easy to connect your mobile phone with Windows 10 PC through a nifty app, Windows 10's Your Phone app, which serves to bridge the gap between PC and a smartphone, allowing access right within the PC and the ability to read, send and receive messages.

It is a gateway of some sorts for Microsoft apps to your phone, while the idea is self-explanatory as possible, but the app still present some quirks worth explaining, as you’ll find in the sidebar links to download apps like Microsoft News, and other apps like Microsoft Hyperlapse Mobile and Wordament.

The app connects to your phone as a Windows Continuum, which Microsoft apparently assign the connectivity role via the Your Phone app, as removing your phone from pocket is seen as a rather unnecessary distraction by Microsoft's standard.

Steps to set up Windows 10 Your Phone app

Firstly, you’ll need the Windows 10 October Update, which comes bundled with the Your Phone app, though it is actually two apps: the Your Phone app on Windows, and the Companion app for Android.

Then make sure that your phone and PC are connected via Bluetooth, and on the same Wi-Fi network. Now, the Your Phone app will appear on your PC’s desktop, which should be immediately apparent via a shortcut on your PC.

The Companion app for Android can be downloaded via the Play Store, or you can simply enter your mobile number into the Your Phone app and Microsoft will send the download link to your phone.

Albeit, the Your Phone app offers little as far as the full functionality of the smartphone itself is concerned, but it sure does establish a link between your phone and your PC, with the option of getting additional apps.

It satisfactorily performs two very simple functions: bringing a repository for your messages, as well as photos. And you can write and respond to a given message using your PC’s keyboard.

Also, if you've recently taken a picture, Your Phone app will enable you to access the photo for use or edit right from your PC.

But unfortunately, there isn't a Your Phone Companion app for iOS, and the Your Phone Companion app is quite distinct from the defunct Phone Companion app that originally launched with Windows 10. Though, there is a Companion app for iOS, also authored by Microsoft, that allows you to send photos from iPhone to Windows.

How to link your Smartphone with Windows 10 PC for better experience



The discussions about early stages of 5G seems to hold a whole new level of possibilities for the Internet, and there's poised to be a revolution in areas like Cloud computing, virtualization and the huge impact will leave many businesses in limbo within a few months.

But those are mere predictions, as 5G full deployment is pretty far off, though closer than in the distance future. The 5G technology isn't just about faster data connections and internet services, it portends endless possibilities for digital transformation in the area of Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI), among other technologies.

Albeit, the actual rollout of 5G will be more of a whisper, but certainly some markets will see 5G coverage beginning in 2019, though availability issue and inconsistency in coverage will be the norm.

While the volume of data is expected to increase exponentially as Gartner had predicted that the number of connected devices will grow from 23 billion to 31 billion by 2020. And as IoT devices continue to become more commonplace, data will be processed at much higher speed thanks to the deployment of 5G.

The 5G rollout will take quite longer to upgrade mobile infrastructure because many microcell towers and base stations will be required, as it is not just a matter of updating radio technologies on existing towers.

The first 5G-enabled handsets, however is already hitting the market, and this will greatly improve by the mid 2019. According to reports by CCS Insights, about 60 million 5G connections are expected by 2020. And it will be more about devices that can work with the 5G technology when it becomes more widely available, with the early adopters likely to be seen from the United States, China, Japan and South Korea.

Indeed 5G will be a revolutionary force in transforming the technology landscape; including how we live and play, and how businesses operate in 2019 and beyond.

Predictions for 2019: Will IoT hit the mainstream; What will 5G early stages be like?



Google’s Santa tracker offers a peek on Santa Claus with its own version of an Advent Calendar, which leads up to the official commencement of tracking on Monday, December 24, which is Christmas Eve.

It combines educational stuff with holiday fun, and Google also opened up its online Santa’s Village since December 4, with offerings including an array of games for kids of all ages, plus holiday Gboard stickers.

Starting around 10:00 a.m. UTC on Monday, December 24, which is 5:00 a.m. Eastern time, you can track Santa Claus on Google Maps, where you will find a countdown leading up to it.

The company is also offering its annual Google Santa Tracker Android app, with some Android app-exclusive games that you won’t find on the main website, and you can make fun, Mad Libs-style phone calls from Santa to friends in the U.S. and Canada, which calls are deliberately meant to be ridiculous — and serve as a pleasant surprise to the recipients.

You can also ask Google Assistant “Where’s Santa?” or “Track Santa,” or “tell me a holiday story” - as Google Assistant has got some builtin Santa-flavored jokes. For instance, if you ask the assistant to “Tell me a Santa joke,” the Jolly Old Elf will make a cameo appearance to tell some real groaners.

The Santa tracker can be accessed either by visiting the official Google Santa Tracker website or searching for "Santa Claus" on the Google App.

Google Santa Tracker: How to track Santa Claus on Christmas Eve



The leading social network, Facebook is sure digging into deep waters, as a new report ties it to developing a cryptocurrency to allow users on its messaging service, WhatsApp to transfer money.

According to Bloomberg, Facebook is developing stablecoin - a digital currency that will be pegged to the U.S. dollar - to minimize volatility, but the company is still far from releasing the coin, as the strategy, including a plan for custody assets, or currencies that would be held to protect the value, are still in the works.

The cryptocurrency when launched will let users transfer money on the WhatsApp messaging app, and will be initially targeted at the remittances market in India, according to those familiar with the report.

And the kick off with India, is perhaps because it's messaging service, WhatsApp is hugely popular in India, with over 200 million users, also the country leads in world remittances, with $69 billion sent home to India in 2017, according to the World Bank.

While facebook had earlier chirped at looking into applications for blockchain - the encryption technology behind cryptocurrencies - but didn't offer any specifics about future works in that direction.

The company hopes to leverage on the power of blockchain technology to create a digital coin that would be far more easier to use for daily purchases as it will be stable than other currencies such as Bitcoin.

Facebook developing a Cryptocurrency to allow users on WhatsApp to transfer money



Microsoft has introduced an isolated desktop environment, called Windows Sandbox, whereby you can temporarily run untrusted software without the fear of having impact on your PC, and once done, the software with all its files will be permanently deleted.

The Windows Sandbox builds on the technologies used within Windows Containers, which are designed to run in the cloud, with added Windows 10 integration, and features that make it more suitable to run on devices and laptops without requiring the full power of Windows Server.

It offers a lightweight virtual machine, so if you've ever been in a situation in which you wanted a clean installation of Windows, but didn’t want to set up a virtual machine, this feature is meant for you.

Since Windows Sandbox is basically running the same operating system image as the host, the same physical memory pages are used as the host for operating system binaries via a technology referred to as “direct map”.

And the key enhancements to Windows Sandbox is the ability to use a copy of the Windows 10 installed on your PC, instead of downloading a new VHD image as you would have to do with an ordinary virtual machine.

The same executable pages of ntdll, are mapped into the sandbox as that on the host, to ensure this is done in a secure manner and no secrets are shared.

The Windows Sandbox feature is set to debut in 19H1(1903), the next version of Windows 10 expected in spring of 2019, and will come as part of Windows 10 Pro and Enterprise Editions.

Windows Sandbox: Microsoft's desktop environment for running applications in isolation



Facebook has been grappling with incessant privacy issues, and now, the company has announced working on a feature called "clear history" which would allow users to check apps and websites that they've interacted with and clear all history from their account.

While other previous measures taken by the social network to ensure users privacy include bringing the privacy settings to the top of News Feed with the apps granted permissions to data by the user and an easy way to revoke the permissions.

Facebook has seemingly ran into some challenges with the new privacy tool, as it tries to organize web browsing data by date, which instead the "clear history" tool organizes by user profile, making it a bit difficult to find an individual user's browsing data.

The director of product management and leader of Facebook's privacy and data use team, David Baser, stated that they want to build something that's truly helpful for everyone and they'd rather take the time to get it right than rushing something out.

"To do this instantaneously for people so they can control it, has meant we've needed to build a new way for our systems to process information," said Baser.

The privacy tool will help users have more controls over their data and be able to choose which specific parts of their data they no longer want Facebook to share with advertisers and which specific posts, reactions, comments and profile details to delete.

Facebook hopes to commence the testing of the tool in Spring 2019, while the privacy tool is still very much in the works but isn't expected to launch anytime soon.

Facebook prepping a Privacy tool to allow Clearing of History on the Network



Microsoft has launched an analytics product, Clarity that aims to empower website owners by the visualizing at scale, the user behavior to make data driven decisions on improvements to optimize conversion, engagement and retention.

The Clarity A/B experimentation will allow web developers to see exactly when their key metrics are improving, thus eliminating the possible drawback with other such analytics product, which is the lack of visibility on what caused the metrics to move in any instance.

While Google's A/B testing tool, Optimize 360 which made debut in 2017, includes a free version, Google Optimize; but Optimizely, the other popular web analytics service, had discontinued same on its own offerings earlier in the year.

The Clarity service is perhaps a good alternative to Google Optimize, albeit the pricing is what will eventually determine if it will be worth the trying, but for now, the company has not provided a timeline for when it will be out of beta.

It works with any HTML webpage (desktop or mobile), but you are required to add a small piece of JavaScript to the website, after which you've created a project, you will then be added to the waitlist. Once you are approved, you can then get the JavaScript code to use the Clarity dashboard to replay user sessions.

Clarity is currently compatible with the most common two and three letter top level domains (such as .com, .edu, .au, .uk, etc); but Microsoft is working on adding support for more general top level domains.

The team has also open sourced the JavaScript library, with the instructions to help understand user behavior from websites on GitHub, which makes the project a continuous development.

How Clarity Analytics visualize user behavior to make data driven decisions



Google has pledged to keep its facial recognition products free until there are enough policies to prevent abuse of the technology, which is inline with its commitments to responsible development of AI (artificial intelligence).

The same principles will guide what types of features they build, as the facial recognition technology can be beneficial in areas like helping to find a missing person, for instance it could allow to compare photo of a person to a database for identification, Google is exploring ways to identify even more capabilities around the technology.

But like related technologies, facial recognition offer functions which deserves careful evaluation to ensure its use aligns with these principles and values, to avoid harmful outcomes.

Google's resolve to desist from the commercialization of its facial recognition technology may be as a result of backlash on how other vendors of the technology such as Microsoft is engaging in relationship with government agencies which employees are concerned it could involve the use of the technology.

The company promises to work with other organizations to identify and address these challenges, and unlike Microsoft, Google has chosen not to create facial recognition APIs on its Cloud until it works out some important policy questions.

It also hope to bring leading academics from the Association of Pacific Rim Universities together to research on application of AI for social good, with governance frameworks to guide responsible development of AI, and the network will serve as a forum for researchers to discuss issues with government, and the private sector.

Google pledges to keep its Facial Recognition technology free until policies can prevent abuse



The Raw String literals, new form of literal supposed to ease Java development with multiple lines of source code and doesn't interpret escape sequences, may be axed from the Java Development Kit (JDK) 12.

While the programming capability was to make it pretty easier to express sequences of characters, by supplying strings targeted for grammars that span several lines of code, but the team has expressed doubt that the feature would be fully ready by 19, March 2019, when Java 12 will be released.

Brian Goetz, Java language architect for Oracle, wrote in a email that it preview in its current state would be to the detriment of the language. And they’re of course disappointed that it will take slightly longer for the feature to make it into the language, but that’s the best choice.

Therefore, a proposal has been launched to remove the raw string literals from the planned Java 12 upgrade, with the review period slated for December 18, 2018.

The feedback from the proposal comprise the two-backquote sequence which could be confused for an empty string; with no direct way to start or end a raw string literal with backquote; and unnecessary asymmetry on raw string literals and traditional string literals.

The JDK Enhancement Proposals (JEP) team's decision to drop raw string literals from version 12 of the Java programming language, may perhaps give developers the opportunity to better work out the design and redefine the options.

Java 12 launching without the much anticipated Raw String Literals



Instagram is reportedly working on "creator accounts" which is targeted at connecting brands with high-profile users, often referred to as social influencers as they command a pool of large audience through their great number of followers. While brands would be able to work directly with the influencers to push their social campaigns, including trending tags or ad promotions.

The Creator accounts will afford the influencers daily and weekly data insights on changes in their follower counts, and also make it possible for them to get a recap of their contents to know what may have resulted the increase or decrease in number of followers.

Among the tools that will be available to the creators, are testing and sorting tools to allow them filter read from unread and flagged messages, with ranking requests so as to not to miss any important thing.

While Instagram already offer Businesses special accounts to represent them on the platform, the new feature will fully open them up to collaborate with the influencers whom they often turn to for their marketing campaigns. And just like the business-focused profiles on Instagram, it is meant for the conventionally talented, digital influencers and celebrities with unbeatable reach.

The feature which is currently in testing with a small group of high-profile Instagram users will offer tools tailored to make working with influencers easier for the brands, as the creator-specific accounts will give the social media's high-profile users specialized tools to engage with the various businesses on the platform.

Instagram Creator Accounts to target high-profile Social Influencers on the platform

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