Microsoft users have not heard the last from MS Paint as the software, which was scheduled to be removed following the next Windows 10 Update, will live on in a new form.

Microsoft Paint has a longer than might be expected history, as the software was first released with the first-ever version of Windows, version 1.0, in 1985. Many users have used it as an initial editing tool and watched it pass through various changes and updates. Paint also came to be considered a core element of Windows.

Back in April, Microsoft released its Windows 10 Creators Update, which introduced their newest editing software, Paint 3D. Initially coming alongside the traditional MS Paint, this comes as a new version and not an update to the original.

Then, the company also announced its decision to phase out the original Paint, which sparked a wave of outrage among its users.

MS Paint, Back From Technical Death

Initially, Microsoft announced that Paint is on the list of features that will be deprecated or removed in its Windows 10 Fall (or Autumn) Creators Update. It would have joined others such as Outlook Express, the Reading list or Reader app.

However, on July 24, Microsoft turned the page and revealed that MS Paint would not be completely removed. Instead, it will be changing forms and become available as an app in the to be released Windows 10 Fall Creators Update.

In a blog post, Microsoft declared that “Today, we’ve seen an incredible outpouring of support and nostalgia around MS Paint. It’s been amazing to see so much love for our trusty old app.”

Then, it went to “set the record straight” and clearing up “some confusions”, which should come as ‘good news’. Namely, the post pointed out that MS Paint will transition to an app.

This will start being available in the Windows Store and for free. It will also be featured alongside the Paint 3D app, which will continue getting new features and updates.

Microsoft is also asking users to keep returning feedback about the Paint 3D app.

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In 2016, Google released a new app specially designed for iOS and called Motion Stills. Its purpose was to help users achieve more control and further advance their feature Live Photos. Motion Stills could assist them in stabilizing photos, cropping out blurry faces, even turn the Live Photos into more easily shareable GIFs.

Starting with July 20, Android users will be getting a Motion Stills app of their own. This will be specially adapted to suit this other platform and will come with a set of unique features of its own.

Motion Stills App for Android to come With Fast Forward, Among Others

According to a company statement accompanying the release, the Motion Stills Android app will be including a new “recording experience”. Thanks to this, all images shot will be immediately transformed into short clips. Ones which can be easily shared across other platforms. After recording a clip, users will be able to adjust its playback speed on a scale of 1x to 8x.

Capturing a Motion Still will also be just as simple as taking a photo, all thanks to a single tap. One interesting feature of available on the Android app version will is Fast Forward. This will help users reduce longer recordings and transform them into shorter clips.

Processing will take place straight on the phone, but the feature will only work with recordings up to one minute long.

Google also points out that “In addition to stabilizing your recordings, Motion Stills on Android comes with an improved trimming algorithm that guards against pocket shots and accidental camera shakes.”

In its post, the company also explains some of the technological changes brought to the iOS version. The ones that made it possible to introduce a new Motion Stills app for Android. It also offers further details about the base technology itself, and what helps encode videos, among others.

According to Google, this new app will be a place where it can continue experimenting with the short-form video technology. Some of the improvements brought to this technology could reportedly be used in other of the company’s products as well.

The Motion Still app for Android is now available for download, for free, on Google Play. It works on Android 5.1 or higher.

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On July 12, Microsoft released a new app called Seeing AI and which was specially designed to help those visually impaired navigate through the city. This makes use of the smartphone’s camera to narrate and describe the surroundings to the user.

It can do so thanks to computer vision. This identifies the objects and persons in the vicinity of the visually disabled owner. By doing so, it can then provide them with a context and a description of their environment and surroundings.

Seeing AI, a Step Forward Towards a Mobile Health Ecosystem

Microsoft describes its newest tool as “A free app that narrates the world around you. Designed for the low vision community, this research project harnesses the power of AI to describe people, text, and objects”.

As pointed out in its report, Seeing AI will try to be a universal tool. Namely, it will be able to read aloud text messages, email, or documents, among others. It will also be using the smartphone’s camera to scan barcodes. In doing so, it will be able to identify household products and maybe even provide instructions to the user.

Seeing AI’s system will also help it recognize currency values, which might make it a useful tool while paying bills or traveling.

As pointed out, the app will also be using the phone’s camera to take photos of and then describe surroundings, people. It can even try and describe their emotions, a feature already being tested and used by other apps as well.

By offering this and various other options, Microsoft seems to be ramping up its efforts to integrate artificial intelligence and make it useful to its users.

All of the features of the new app are looking to make visually impaired people as independent as possible. Being able to read aloud texts, besides those received on the phone, means being able to read anything from street signs to restaurant menus, among others.

This can help increase the user’s mobility and confidence. Ultimately, it could assist them in navigating easier through the usual or less routine daily tasks. Seeing  AI is currently available on iOS.

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Facebook just revealed the winners of its “FbStart Apps of the Year” competition on Monday, July 10, during the Rise conference held in Hong Kong.

The FbStart Apps of the Year awards the most successful applications and innovative startups created through its FbStart program. This helps users build native mobile applications for Android and iOS. In 2017, SoloLearn, a free app for anyone that wants to learn how to code, won the Grand Prize.

SoloLearn, the Mobile-First Coding App, Deemed Most Successful

Davit Kocharyan, SoloLearn’s Co-Founder and CEO, reportedly came up with the idea of creating that can teach anyone how to code in Armenia. Both him and most of the team are native Armenians. Initially, the plan was to teach the local population how to code.

The app can help educate its users in coding through user-generated content, peer-to-peer sharing, and game mechanics. SoloLearn offers 12 free courses, which include C++, HTML/CSS, JavaScript, Python, and Swift.

Community members can also compete in head-to-head challenges. In doing so, they can also unlock new lessons. The community in itself can reportedly give a very helping hand.

“You get an answer from your peers in our Q&A forum within minutes; we have over half a million public codes on SoloLearn today that are used as a great peer-to-peer learning tool; tens of thousands interactive peer-to-peer challenges are completed daily,” Yeva Hyusyan was reported as stating.

She is also a CEO and Co-Founder of SoloLearn. Hyusyan also pointed out that the users themselves are generating significant amounts of content every day.

Statistics show that 1.5 million quizzes get completed on a daily basis and that more than 1,000 answers are published daily. Some three codes are reportedly compiled every second, and the app now has over 5 million profiled learners.

Reports show that some 25 percent of SoloLearn’s users are based in the United States. Another 40 percent come from India, and the remaining percentages are spread across Europe.

Besides SoloLearn, Facebook also named four other “Apps of the Year”. These are Mondly, a language learning platform, and Maya, targeted at women and their health.  The other two are ReservaTurno, which can help “book beauty appointments on the go” and Golden, a global platform which helps find local volunteering opportunities.

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The European Space Agency (ESA) recently confirmed that its Mercury mission, called BepiColombo is well on its track towards taking off and studying the least explored planet in the Solar System.

This is a joint project between ESA, JAXA or the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency, and Airbus. Earlier this week, these laid out the plans and offered details on their mission to Mercury.

ESA introduced the final view of its BepiColombo spacecraft before its take off. The aerospace agency also presented the scientific goals of its missions and offered information on its four element orbiter.

The BepiColombo Mercury Orbiters Scheduled for Launch in 2018

According to reports, the BepiColombo spacecraft is getting close to ending its testing campaign. The orbiter is a 4 ton, 6.4 meters high stack. In March 2018, it will be shipped to French Guiana, to the European spaceport Kourou.

The mission received its name after Giuseppe “Bepi” Colombo, an Italian professor considered instrumental in the success of the Mariner 10 mission to Mercury. Until now, there have been only two NASA missions on the planet. One of them is the already mentioned Mariner 10, back in the 1970’s, and the other is the Messenger, that orbited the world up until April 2015.

For this new mission, ESA is preparing two BepiColombo Mercury orbiters. One is the Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) which will be supplied by the European aerospace agency. The other is the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO) which will come from JAXA.

This new Mercury mission will be looking to analyze the peculiarities of the internal structure of the planet. It will also be studying its magnetic field generation. The orbiters will also be monitoring the way in which Mercury interacts with solar winds and the Sun itself.

The BepiColombo Mercury orbiters, through their study of the planet, should help further our understanding of the formation and also the evolution of planets and the Solar System.

The orbiters are scheduled for launch in October 2018 and will embark on a seven-year cruise. They should reach Mercury by December 2025, if all goes according to plan.

“We will have more than 7 years cruise duration to Mercury, mainly supported by electric propulsion and the gravity assists — one Earth, two Venus and six times Mercury,” stated the mission team.

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Earlier this week, Sony announced its intention of once again taking up the production of vinyl records, a retro technology that is reportedly once again on the rise.

This decision is allegedly based on the fact that the demand for such records has increased significantly in recent years. Some analysts even predict that 2017’s results will return a double-digit growth for the seventh year in a row.

Sony, Once Among the First to Give Up On Vinyl Records, Is Now at Them Again

Vinyl reported its peak periods in the 1970’s and 1980’s. At the time, over half a billion such records were sold each year in the United States alone. However, the development and appearance of the then modern cassettes and later CDs contributed to their downfall. Now, this retro technology is making sort of a comeback.

Sony Music Entertainment announced that it will once again start pressing vinyl records. This decision comes almost thirty years after the company ended their production, back in 1989. The company is looking to restart production by March 2018.

According to the first details on the matter, these will be pressed in a factory in the southwest of Tokyo, Japan. This facility is run by one of Sony’s subsidiaries. A company spokeswoman stated that Sony has yet to decide what genres of music it will store on the vinyl.

The same statement revealed that the facility already installed an analog record-cutting machine. Placed back in February 2017, this helps make master copies of vinyl records for mass production. Now, the firm will also be introducing a pressing machine.

An issue with the reintroduction of vinyl is the current lack of experienced engineers in the domain. According to the Sony spokesperson, former specialists will be returning to the company as advisors. Ones that will be passing down their expertise to the younger generations.

The consulting firm Deloitte estimates that the vinyl market will sell around 40 million new discs in 2017 alone and that it could generate about $900 million in revenue. According to the same report, this could account for almost 18 percent of this year’s physical music revenue.

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Fred Chesnais, the CEO of Atari, revealed that the company is currently working on a new video game console. This is big news since it would be the first Atari console to hit the markets in the last 20 years. The company released a teaser video which doesn’t reveal much. But it at least helps us get an image on what they are preparing.

Scarce Information on the Ataribox

The teaser presents the Ataribox, the new console Atari has been working on for several years now. Some claimed the teaser was fake and the company was preparing no new hardware. However, the CEO confirmed the new gaming system.

Unfortunately, the video doesn’t bring much information on the console. Even so, it revealed it would be based on PC technology, but the design is still unknown. According to Chesnais, they are still working on it, but they want something more retro, with the capabilities of such a gaming system.

Ataribox has serious competition on the market

Given this, gamers hope Atari will keep the prices of the Ataribox lower, and maintain the ‘retro’ atmosphere. Also, they expect all Atari games to come to the console. In all these years, the company must have found a way to fit all the necessary technology into the device, and the strategy needed to compete with the current gaming systems on the market.

Even so, it might be tough to overpass those who own the supremacy on the video game market, but Atari knows how to deal with it. Rumors suggest that the company will work on games which will be available exclusively for the Ataribox. This comes as a great chance for developers, who can combine retro and modern features.

Atari didn’t reveal the date of the release of Ataribox, but it might soon hit the markets. Supposedly, the device will come out similar to Nintendo’s popular NES Classic Editions. Since they were short-lived, Atari might speak to those fans who wanted to enjoy classic games on modern consoles.

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On June 21, Netflix released its newest experiment, the so-called branching narrative episodes which come as a first attempt at interactive storytelling. The first standalone animated episode is named “Puss in Book: Trapped in an Epic Tale”. This will be followed by a new episode in a months time.

In the style of interactive storytelling, users will be able to choose the way the story goes as they will be asked to take decisions for their characters. This will have an effect on both the story line and the duration of the show.

Branching Narrative Episodes Let Users Chose The Plot

According to estimates, this first episode of the new experiment can last anywhere in between 18 to 39 minutes. Prompts for a decision will come, on estimate, every 2 up to 4 minutes. Users, especially the younger audience, will be asked to choose the desired path some dozens of times across an episode.

In “Puss in Boots” they can choose, for example, to become friends with bears, or see them as foes. They can also decide on kissing a queen or going for a simple handshake.

“The children’s programming space was a natural place for us to start since kids are eager to ‘play’ with their favorite characters and already inclined to tap, touch and swipe at screens,” states Carla Engelbrecht Fisher.

She is the Netflix Director of Innovation. Engelbrecht Fisher then continued by pointing out that children already ‘talk’ to the screen. But from now on, this will “answer” them, as the conservation will go “two-ways”.

The multiple choice variants is also a good reason for rewatching the story. Each new decision will take the little viewers on a new path, so many adventures lie ahead in the same experiment.

At least for now, the interactive episode will only work on smart TVs, game consoles, streaming media players, and iOS devices. Presently, the interactive gameplay will not be available on the Netflix website, on Android-powered devices, Apple TV, or Chromecast. On them, the episode will have a linear, 23-minutes long play.

For the moment, only two other branching narrative episodes have been announced. They are “Buddy Thunderstruck: The Maybe Pile” which should be out on July 14. Also, “Stretch Armstrong: The Breakout”, set to become available next year.

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The Solar Eclipse that will be taking place on August 21, 2017, generated and is likely to continue generating a lot of hype and excitement. As it will be the first such event in almost 100 years, a number of technologies have already sprung up to ensure the best possible view.

Now, a new tool, developed by Google in collaboration with UC Berkeley, will help anyone determine what the total solar eclipse will appear like from their location or any given one in the world. This new software is named the Eclipse Megamovie Simulator and is part of the large-scale Eclipse Megamovie Project.

This New Tool, the Simulator, Will Come Join A Variety of Others

The Project is looking to create a “megamovie” of the solar eclipse event. This will offer a view of the event from all over the world, in as many positions as possible. To do so, the project team is asking for help from volunteers. These will be collecting photos of the natural phenomenon, which will then be used in making the Eclipse movie.

The Eclipse Megamovie Simulator could prove to be a very useful addition for all those interested in giving a helping hand to the project. Or those just looking to make the most of the phenomenon. The Simulator will offer results based on the user’s zip code. Then, the program will produce a simulation of what you can expect to see in the respective location. It will also determine the best time in which the user can take a look.

Besides this new tool, the Solar Megamovie Project is also offering the Solar Eclipse Timer. This app can talk the user through the natural phenomenon so that they will know the exact location of the Sun throughout the event.

When combined, the Timer and Simulator should offer the best chance of making the most out of this event. The August 21 solar phenomenon will be the first total eclipse to be seen in the U.S. since 1918.

Still, specialists warn people not to look directly at the sun while this happens. They should protect their eyes by wearing special glasses or similar other variants.

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After several years of waiting, Studio MDHR revealed what will be the official launching date of “Cuphead”, its side-scroller video game inspired by 1930s cartoons and movies.

The game was initially unveiled back in 2014, and over the last three years, an official announcement as to its launch date was postponed several times. Fan posts also show that some believed that the project was still possibly stuck in development or even axed.

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But now, Studio MDHR released an official launch date for its quite expected game. This is set for September 29 and will be available on Windows 10 PCs, Xbox One, and also Steam. Reports seem to indicate that Cuphead will be exclusive to the Xbox One.

Some consider that this could explain as the developers did not mention an availability date on other consoles, for example on the Nintendo Switch or PS4. It remains to be seen if this potential exclusivity will be a timed or permanent one.

Cuphead Also Came With A Brief New Trailer

Cuphead is developed by Studio MDHR and will be a platformer/shooter game. It is already considered very attractive from an art perspective as the game boast with a 1930s look. Its animations are seemingly hand-drawn and not few have pointed out their resemblance to Walt Disney’s classic 1930s creations.

The stylistic game was first announced at the E3 2014 but has since then suffered a number of delays. Now, besides announcing a release date, Cuphead’s developers also released a brief new trailer of their creation. This offers a few more details on its gameplay and also highlights some of the game’s combat and platforming.

Cuphead also became available for pre-order on Steam starting on June 11. A price range for the game has yet to be announced.

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