PCWorld March 2017

MICROSOFT IS PLANNING a sleek visual refresh for Windows 10, and the company quietly teased its first official glimpse of what’s coming in the future during the Windows Developer Day keynote (go.pcworld.com/winkynt) in February. There aren’t many details being shared about “Project Neon” right now—as the refresh was called in earlier leaks (go.pcworld.com/ neonlk)—but the new visual look will focus on animations and transitions. The basic concept is “to add fluidity, animation, and blur to apps and the operating system,” as first reported by Windows Central (go.pcworld.com/neonpeek). The new design language also hopes to make it easier for developers to create attractive apps. The design refresh should extend to all Windows 10 devices including PCs and tablets, HoloLens, Xbox, and the few surviving Windows Phones (go.pcworld.com/winphn), according to Windows Central. Twitter user Tom…

ON FEBRUARY 3, Microsoft announced the launch of its “bug bash” for the Windows 10 Creators Update, a sign that it’s beginning to slowly wind down its development process before it finally releases the next major version of Windows. Historically, Microsoft begins each iteration of its milestone Windows 10 releases by fixing a few last-minute bugs from the previous version. It then begins rolling out and testing all the new features (go.pcworld. com/win10up16) of the upcoming milestone to Windows Insiders in the preview program (go. pcworld.com/w10pre). At some point, though, Microsoft moves into the last phase of its development process, fixing all of the bugs that Microsoft employees and its Windows Insider beta testers discover in the imminent release. That phase typically begins with a huge bug-fixing exercise, known as the “bug…

MICROSOFT HASN’T OFFICIALLY committed to a ship date for Windows 10’s Creators Update, but evidence suggests it could reach Insiders as soon as the end of March. Given how the last major Windows 10 update went, however, we’re feeling equal parts eagerness—and caution. So far, all Microsoft has promised for the Creators Update is that it will ship in “early 2017.” Two tantalizing clues suggest a more specific date: Both Microsoft’s Surface Studio PC and Dell’s Canvas monitor offer features closely tied to the Creators Update, and both now list shipping dates at the end of March. It’s no stretch to suppose that both companies would align those releases with the Creators Update, and Dell has said as much already. Our caution stems from what happened when Windows 10’s Anniversary Update launched…

MICROSOFT’S MYSTERIOUS WINDOWS Cloud (go.pcworld.com/wincloud) is supposedly a stripped-down version of Microsoft’s operating system that runs only Windows Store apps. Microsoft’s not commenting, but an early build that leaked in early February appears to be authentic and gives further tantalizing hints of what the company may have in mind. It only runs Windows Store apps, but… The idea behind running Windows Store apps only is that a Windows Cloud machine can be more easily managed, like a Chromebook. If you remove Win32 (traditional desktop) apps, you get greater security and control because users can only turn to web apps or the Windows Store. But this might not be the whole truth behind Windows Cloud. Brad Sams at Thurrott.com ran the leaked build of Cloud on an x86-based virtual machine. (You’d be crazy to…

WITH INTEL’S FORECASTS projecting the PC could be the smallest moneymaker five years from now, the company has gone “data center first”—giving Intel’s server business first crack at new manufacturing technologies. It’s another sign of massive change within Intel, as the traditional PC business is shoved to the side. In a slide presented during Intel’s investor day, the company showed off how the total available market (TAM) for its PC CPU business was just $30 billion or so, less than half that of the data center. The TAM, as its known, projects the maximum available revenue Intel could pull in if it owned the entire market—which won’t happen. It’s an excellent guide to which segments Intel is prioritizing, however: the data center, non-volatile memory like flash and its new Optane, plus mobile…

CORSAIR’S WELL KNOWN for its wide array of enthusiast-focused PC cases, memory, liquid CPU coolers, and even liquid-cooled graphics cards. The company’s hardware powers many parts of PCWorld’s own graphics card test system. But now, after finding its footing with the bare-bones Bulldog PC, Corsair is combining its vast array of knowledge into its first-ever full-blown PC, dubbed Corsair One. Corsair isn’t shedding much light on the One just yet, unfortunately. There’s a minimalistic webpage where you can sign up for more info, and an advertisement in Maximum PC’s March issue that describes it like this: “Meet Corsair One, the category-defying new PC from the designers and builders at Corsair. The most trusted name in precision-engineered PC components brings you a machine built from the ground up to power anything and everything…