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Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020
Engadget / Ei Ito

Microsoft’s latest Flight Simulator entry doesn’t do anything small. It’s a title that comes on 10 DVDs and allows you to explore the world in almost its entirety. It turns out that scale even extends to its accidental inclusions. Flight Simulator users recently found an unusual landmark: a 212-story monolith towering over an otherwise nondescript suburb in Melbourne, Australia. 

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020
Engadget / Ei Ito

After some sleuthing, the title’s community found what had caused the tower to appear in Flight Simulator. When developer Asobo Studio built its detailed recreation of the globe, they pulled data from OpenStreetMap, a free map of the world to which anyone can contribute. About a year ago, a user named “nathanwright120” added a tag that said this one building in Melbourne had 212 floors instead of two. Based on their other contributions, it appears the edit was a simple typo, not them trying to mislead anyone.  The error was later corrected by another OpenStreetMap contributor, but not before it made its way into Flight Simulator

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020
Engadget / Ei Ito

We’ve reached out to Microsoft to find out if the company plans to remove the building from Flight Simulator, and we’ll update this article when we hear back. Based on the title’s dedication to realism, there’s a good chance it’s not long for this world. So if you own a copy of Flight Simulator, board your favorite plane and visit it before it’s gone for good.  

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 We had an inkling that the Surface Duo would be coming soon, and — after letting things slip a little early — Microsoft just confirmed it. The dual-screen Android phone is officially arriving on September 10th, with a starting price of $1,399. Pre-orders begin today. It’s rare to see a long-awaited device released earlier than expected, but it makes sense why Microsoft might be rushing things: It’s aiming to launch right in the middle of peak iPhone season. Last year’s iPhone 11 launch event was also on September 10th, which is also close to previous debuts.

To recap, the Surface Duo features two screens connected by a 360-degree hinge. It's meant to be an adaptable device: You can fold it up to use it like a normal smartphone, hold it open like a booklet (similar to Microsoft's long-lost Courier project), or splay the two screens open like a tablet. And yes, you can even use one screen as a stand to prop it up on a table. Microsoft is taking the same approach with the slightly larger Surface Neo, a portable PC that'll run Windows apps (and is reportedly delayed until next year). But the Duo is the potentially more interesting device, since it marks Microsoft's return to smartphone hardware after Windows Phone fizzled so spectacularly.

The Surface Duo features Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 855 processor, 6GB of RAM and starts with 128GB of storage (you can get a 256GB model for $1,500). Its two 5.6-inch AMOLED screens sport a resolution of 1,800 x 1,350 each -- together they form a 8.1-inch display (with a hinge in the middle, of course). Microsoft says it’s the thinnest Surface device yet, measuring 4.8 millimeters when it's opened. At 0.55 pounds (250 grams), it's a touch heavier than the iPhone 11 Pro Max. But really, what else did you expect from a device that's wrapped in Gorilla Glass around two screens?

As Panos Panay, Microsoft's Chief Product Officer, demonstrated the Surface Duo in a media briefing, it was difficult to tell if the hardware changed much since it's debut last October. The software, on the other hand, seems far more polished for multi-tasking than any dual-screen or folding phone we've seen yet. If you're following a link from a text message or email, it'll pop open in a web browser on the other screen, so you won't be distracted. You can pair apps to open up together from together Android launcher (Panay says Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is regularly using the Kindle app alongside a note-taking program). 

You can also drag over content easily between the screens -- in the demo, Panay pulled over recipe ingredients from a website that instantly transformed into a bullet list in Microsoft's To Do app. That's something that would involve copying text, swapping apps, and pasting on a normal smartphone. Microsoft is clearly banking on the need for better multi-tasking in phones. Who wouldn't want an extra screen to browse the web without leaving a video call? Wouldn't email be easier to deal with if you could view all of your messages in one window, while reading them in another?


Still, as intrigued as I am, I can already see a few potential issues with the Surface Duo. For one, typing might be a bit annoying in certain orientations. If you click a text field on the left screen in booklet mode, you'll get a one-handed keyboard that's aligned to your left thumb. That seems like a good idea, but I can't imagine typing much with a single finger, and it seems too awkward to lean over with your right hand. Instead, you'll have to flip the Duo around into landscape mode to get a large keyboard suitable for both thumbs. You can also use any Surface Pen to jot down notes, but that's something you'll have to buy separately and carry around in your pocket, since there's no way to attach it to the Duo.

Microsoft is also going directly against the multi-camera smartphone trend. The Surface Duo just has a single 11-megapixel shooter located above its right screen. It looks a typical front-facing lens -- to use it as a rear camera, you just have to fold the screen back. While Microsoft says the Duo has a portrait mode and can shoot multi-frame HDR photos, that's all software based. It won't be able to take advantage of different lens lengths like other premium smartphones. There's no mention of any night shooting mode either, so you can likely forget about decent low-light performance. While Microsoft could still end up surprising us with the camera, the specs don't give me much hope.

The Surface Duo might also seem a bit quaint now that Samsung has unveiled the Galaxy Z Fold 2, its third attempt at making flexible phones work. But Panay, ever the company man, thinks there's a very clear reason why Microsoft opted to build devices with two separate, hinge-connected displays. "I do believe in windows," he said. "I believe in windowing." The company has found that users multi-task differently when they can organize their work across two separate displays, instead of a single screen. And of course, it also helps that the Duo is much cheaper than the original Galaxy Z Fold, which cost well over $2,000 (we still don't know the pricing of the Z Fold 2). The $1,380 Galaxy Z Flip is a bit more reasonable, but it's smaller screen isn't nearly as useful as the Surface Duo's.

You can pre-order the Surface Duo at the Microsoft Store, AT&T and Best Buy. It'll also work on T-Mobile and Verizon's networks, if you nab an unlocked model. 

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It looks like Donald Trump is about to make good on his promise to go after TikTok. The Trump administration will soon force ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns TikTok, to sell the app to a U.S. Owner, Bloomberg reports.

And there’s already one tech giant reportedly eyeing the video app: Microsoft. Fox Business reporter Charles Gasparino reports the company “is in talks to buy,” TikTok. The app, which has been downloaded 187 million times in the U.S. According to Sensor Tower, is frequently cited as one of the few credible competitors to Facebook. Facebook-owned Instagram is reportedly set to release its own copy of the app very soon.

It’s unclear exactly what steps Trump plans to take separate the U.S. Version of the app from its Chinese owners. According to Gasparino, Trump could force a sale via the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). The Trump administration used a similar tactic last year when it forced the Chinese owner of Grindr to sell the dating app to a U.S buyer.

In a statement, a spokesperson for TikTok said the company is “confident in the long-term success” of the app. "While we do not comment on rumors or speculation, we are confident in the long-term success of TikTok,” the spokesperson said. “Hundreds of millions of people come to TikTok for entertainment and connection, including our community of creators and artists who are building livelihoods from the platform. We’re motivated by their passion and creativity, and committed to protecting their privacy and safety as we continue working to bring joy to families and meaningful careers to those who create on our platform."

Microsoft didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The news comes after weeks of speculation about TikTok’s future in the U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said earlier this month that the government was “looking at” banning the app, and Congress has recently moved to bar TikTok from federally-issued devices.

TikTok has maintained that the app operates independently from its Chinese parent company, and that it wouldn’t cooperate with requests to hand over user data. The company recently appointed an American CEO, former Disney executive Kevin Mayer, and has taken several steps to increase transparency of its policies and product.

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TikTok may drop its ties to China in very short order. Reuters sources claim TikTok’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, has agreed to sell its stake in the social network’s US operations to avert a possible ban. The agreement would have Microsoft protect American user data, according to the report, but Microsoft wouldn’t necessarily own TikTok itself — it would leave the possibility of another company taking stewardship.

The company told Engadget that it didn’t comment on rumors, but that it was “confident in the long-term success of TikTok.” It pointed to a video response to talk of a ban where US General Manager Vanessa Pappas said TikTok was “not planning on going anywhere.” Microsoft declined to comment. The White house has already declined to comment on whether or not this move would prevent a ban.

There’s no guarantee this would be enough. President Trump said on Air Force One that he would ban TikTok outright and rejected talk of allowing a sell-off. He suggested he would use an executive order or emergency economic powers to block the company. However, he also said this before word of a possible US deal emerged. If TikTok sheds its Chinese links, a ban might not have much effect.

A ban could have serious consequences if it remained intact for a significant period, and not just to TikTok’s bottom line. The company has about 100 million American users, and a sudden shutdown could both make people scramble to alternatives and possibly create resentment. It could affect creator money and TikTok jobs, too. In that regard, the social media giant might not have much choice if it wants to prevent chaos.

Update 8/1 5:08PM: The Wall Street Journal and The Information claim Microsoft has “paused” talks with TikTok following Trump’s suggestion he would ban the app. The tech companies were reportedly hoping to finish a deal by Monday, sources for the news outlets said. This doesn’t mean they’re scrapping the deal, but they apparently want “clarity” on what happens next.

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Google has spent years trying to reduce Chrome’s notorious appetite for memory, and it’ll soon offer a substantial improvement for Windows 10 users. WindowsLatest has learned (via MSPowerUser) that a Google engineer recently revealed that a future Chrome release will use a technique from Microsoft Edge to lower RAM usage and theoretically boost performance. Chrome will switch to “Segment Heap” memory management that, in Microsoft’s experience, cut memory use by 27 percent.

The improvements in Chrome could vary wildly depending on the system, but tests indicated that it could sometimes save “hundreds of MB” in the browser and system processes. “Many-core” systems are most likely to see the largest benefit, the engineer said.

You should see the feature soon after Google can build Chrome using the right Windows 10 developer kit. This won’t necessarily lead to massive improvements in performance, but it could help if you either have limited memory in your system or simply like to keep many browser tabs open.



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