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Play Pass is coming to Android devices in the U.S. this week, and we’ll be bringing it to additional countries soon. You can get started with a 10-day free trial and subscribe for just $4.99/month. And for a limited time, you can get Play Pass for only $1.99/month for your first twelve months, then $4.99/month (see full terms).

"Alexa, what am I holding?"

Show and Tell is an Alexa feature designed to help blind and low vision customers identify grocery items.

Alexa-enabled devices are already a big help around the house for Grijalva, from changing the channel on her Fire TV to using her voice to turn off lights and appliances. Now, an Echo Show feature mak easier to identify household pantry items.

With Show and Tell, blind and low vision customers can hold up an item to the Echo Show camera and ask, “Alexa, what am I holding,” and Alexa helps identify the item through advanced computer vision and machine learning technologies for object recognition.

“It’s a tremendous help and a huge time saver because the Echo Show just sits on my counter, and I don’t have to go and find another tool or person to help me identify something. I can do it on my own by just asking Alexa,” Grijalva said.

Amazon believes in starting from the customer and working backward, a philosophy also applied to invent and using our technology resources for good. That means paying attention to what all of our customers are telling us.

“The whole idea for Show and Tell came about from feedback from the blind and low vision customers,” said Sarah Caplener, head of Amazon’s Alexa for Everyone team. “We heard that product identification can be a challenge and something customers wanted Alexa’s help with. Whether a customer is sorting through a bag of groceries or trying to determine what item was left out on the counter, we want to make those moments simpler by helping identify these items and giving customers the information they need in that moment.”

From early research and exploration through product development and testing, Caplener’s team collaborated with the Vista Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired in Santa Cruz, California, where Grijalva is the assistive technology manager. For Show and Tell, Grijalva enlisted other blind and low vision customers for user studies, providing feedback to the Alexa for Everyone team. “By working together, we create an amazing product for everyone,” said Grijalva.

• Windows containers require matched host and container version. This restricts customers and limits Windows containers from supporting mixed-version container pod scenarios This update includes 5 fixes to address this and allow the host to run down-level containers on up-level for process (Argon) isolation.
• A fix to allow OEMs to reduce the inking latency based on the hardware capabilities of their devices rather than being stuck with latency selected on typical hardware configuration by the OS.
• Key-rolling or Key-rotation feature enables secure rolling of Recovery passwords on MDM managed AAD devices upon on demand request from Microsoft Intune/MDM tools or upon every time recovery password is used to unlock the BitLocker protected drive. This feature will help prevent accidental recovery password disclosure as part of manual BitLocker drive unlock by users.
• A change to enable third-party digital assistants to voice activate above the Lock screen.
• You can now quickly create an event straight from the Calendar flyout on the Taskbar. Just click on the date and time at the lower right corner of the Taskbar to open the Calendar flyout and pick your desired date and start typing in the text box – you’ll now see inline options to set a time and location.
  
  
• The navigation pane on the Start menu now expands when you hover over it with your mouse to better inform where clicking goes.
• We have added friendly images to show what is meant by “banner” and “Action Center” when adjusting the notifications on apps in order to make these settings more approachable and understandable. 
• Notifications settings under Settings > System > Notifications will now default to sorting notification senders by most recently shown notification, rather than sender name. This makes it easier to find and configure frequent and recent senders. We have also added a setting to turn off playing sound when notifications appear.
• We now show the options to configure and turn off notifications from an app/website right on the notification, both as a banner and in Action Center.
• We have added a “Manage notifications” button to the top of Action Center that launches the main “Notifications & actions” Settings page.
• We have added additional debugging capabilities for newer Intel processors. This is only relevant for hardware manufacturers.
• We have made general battery life and power efficiency improvements for PCs with certain processors.
• A CPU may have multiple “favored” cores (logical processors of the highest available scheduling class). To provide better performance and reliability, we have implemented a rotation policy that distributes work more fairly among these favored cores.
• We have enabled Windows Defender Credential Guard for ARM64 devices for additional protection against credential theft for enterprises deploying ARM64 devices in their organizations.
• We have enabled the ability for enterprises to supplement the Windows 10 in S Mode policy to allow traditional Win32 (desktop) apps from Microsoft Intune.
• We’re updating the search box in File Explorer to now be powered by Windows Search. This change will help integrate your OneDrive content online with the traditional indexed results. More details here.
• We have added the ability for Narrator and other assistive technologies to read and learn where the FN key is located on keyboards and what state it is in (locked versus unlocked).

Additionally, this update will now be offered if you use Windows Defender Application Guard (WDAG) or containers.

“While consumers love Roku TV’s simplicity and advanced features, TV manufacturers benefit from the low cost of manufacturing, a variety of technology options, and support from Roku. The ability to quickly bring to market a leading smart TV experience that is regularly updated by Roku and is packed with entertainment gives TV manufacturers an edge in the competitive TV business. We are pleased to bring the Roku TV licensing program to Europe and look forward to the first Hisense Roku TVs in market this year.”

• conversation window sizes and positions remembered in Split View
• ability to move and resize your video preview during a video call in Split View
• focus in composer after opening the conversation in Split View
• indication of new messages in the individual conversation windows in Split View
• minimized windows are restored when a conversation is activated from recent chats or the call monitor window in Split View
• grouped notifications on Android