Microsoft just released a huge new update for Windows 10 — here's what's new

• Matt Weinberger
 

• 4h
• 80,194

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.AP

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On Tuesday, Microsoft released a big free upgrade to Windows 10 that brings new features to the operating system.

Officially dubbed the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, the new software won't change your Windows 10 experience very much. Instead, the update brings a whole bunch of smaller and behind-the-scenes tweaks for PCs and tablets that include a few new settings, features, and apps.

Here's a quick rundown of the Fall Creators Update highlights:

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The Fall Creators Update represents Microsoft's first use of its new design theme.

In the update, Microsoft is applying its new design aesthetic, dubbed Fluent Design, to a handful of apps. But this video gives you a taste of what's to come.

The update's headline feature is support for Microsoft-certified virtual-reality headsets.

Microsoft

Tuesday marks the release date not just for the Fall Creators Update, but also for those new headsets. They range from $299 all the way up to Samsung's premium $499 model.

When you plug one of the new headsets into a computer running the update and put it on, you'll be taken to the Cliff House, Microsoft's new VR interface.

Microsoft is also following in Snapchat's and Facebook's footsteps, adding augmented-reality stickers.

I'm not really an artist, but here's my Mr. Smiley monstrosity I whipped up in Paint 3D.Matt Weinberger/Business Insider

With the update, you can now use the Paint 3D app to create AR stickers and place them — virtually — in the real world.

You can now pin the contact information for your favorite people to the task bar.

Matt Weinberger/Business Insider

You can pin your friends to the task bar using Windows 10's new People app. The task bar will display thumbnail versions of their profile pictures.

If you click on a picture, you can quickly send that friend a message using email or Skype. You can also send the person a file by just dragging it to the friend's image.

Another nifty feature frees up space by allowing you to store seldom-used files in Microsoft's cloud.

Microsoft

Called OneDrive Files-on-Demand, the feature essentially gives you more hard-drive space. Through it, you upload files to the cloud and access them as you need them, provided you have internet access. The feature is similar to one offered by Dropbox and another built into Apple's macOS.

The Photos app can now automatically create video slideshows from photo albums.

Matt Weinberger/Business Insider

Microsoft calls the feature Remix. You activate it by pushing the Remix button in the Photos app while selecting an album. The feature allows you to set the mood of the video by choosing matching theme music.

Microsoft has also made it way easier to find emojis.

Matt Weinberger/Business Insider

To access the new emoji menu, you just press the Windows button plus the period key or semicolon key. Microsoft has added new emojis, including zombies and dinosaurs, and given others a face-lift.

Windows 10 can now relay Android phone notifications to your PC.

Hollis Johnson/Business Insider

You have to install Microsoft's Cortana app on your phone to activate the feature, which can also let you know when you have an incoming call.

Windows 10 works better — and has new features for — stylus users.

With the Fall Creators Update, Windows 10 shows you the last known place you used your stylus.Matt Weinberger/Business Insider

Text input is smoother and faster in Windows 10 thanks to the update, and you can now use a stylus to advance slides in a PowerPoint presentation. If you lose your stylus, Windows 10 can help you find it.

The update adds some handy browser updates, including the ability to pin websites to the task bar.

Matt Weinberger/Business Insider

One feature allows you to go to a website from your desktop with one click. Another allows you to annotate e-books you're reading in Microsoft's Edge browser by just drawing right on your screen with a stylus.

Among the other changes in the Fall Creators Update are tweaks for developers and security upgrades.

A "WannaCry" ransomware demand, provided by the cybersecurity firm Symantec.Thomson Reuters

The update offers lots of little changes all over the operating system. Among them are expanded support for Linux and additional protections against ransomware like "WannaCry."

Microsoft also unveiled the Surface Book 2, a premium laptop designed to show off what Windows can do.

Matt Weinberger/Business Insider

Read more about the Surface Book 2, which starts at $1,499 »

Get the latest Microsoft stock price here.

More: Features Microsoft Windows 10 Windows 10 Fall Creators Update

OPINION

Trump’s NAFTA plan is now clear, and Canada has to ride it out

ANDREI SULZENKO

CONTRIBUTED TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL

2 HOURS AGOOCTOBER 17, 2017

Andrei Sulzenko is a former Canadian trade negotiator and is currently executive fellow at the School of Public Policy, University of Calgary.

After the latest round of NAFTA negotiations and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's visit to Washington, the jig is up.

The U.S. administration's game plan is now clear: Make multiple outrageous demands that, even if partially accepted, constitute a huge "America First" victory; or, if rejected outright by Canada and Mexico, set up a failed negotiation and a messy denouement – also a win in terms of U.S. President Donald Trump's public antipathy to the North American free-trade agreement.

What is now apparent about that prospective denouement is the likelihood of the United States promoting separate bilateral negotiations with Canada and Mexico after jettisoning three-way NAFTA talks. Mr. Trump clearly signalled this in his meeting last week with Mr. Trudeau. Not surprising, as the United States has always preferred the greater leverage of bilateral deals to multipartite ones such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

In its current domestic political environment, it is improbable that Mexico will wish to pursue bilateral talks with the United States. Mexico will hold a presidential election next year, with high risk in the meantime of yielding no better – and maybe worse – trading terms with the United States.

Indeed, it would be politically toxic in Mexico to be seen re-engaging with a country that seemed to be negotiating in bad faith.

As for Canada, the original 1989 bilateral free-trade agreement with the United States still underlies NAFTA and there would be no apparent urgency in either country to re-engage bilaterally if Mr. Trump's political base already had its red meat. After all, Mexico has been the far larger source of American angst over its trade imbalance.

Furthermore, it will take some time for the dust to settle in the United States should the NAFTA talks fail, no doubt with recriminations blasting from Congress.

So what is a probable scenario following a U.S.-contrived failure of the current negotiations?

First, for maximum political impact, Mr. Trump will likely invoke the withdrawal clause from NAFTA, starting a six-month countdown.

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Second, even if the United States then proposes to negotiate bilaterally with both Canada and Mexico, the triggering of a withdrawal from NAFTA will provoke a strenuous domestic debate over whether that is within the President's prerogative. Such a debate will likely lead to court challenges that culminate in a Supreme Court review. (This is a wild card because the U.S. Constitution is unclear on whether the executive or legislative branch can abrogate treaties.)

Third, there will be major accompanying push back in Congress against withdrawal from NAFTA, invoking its legislative authority over trade-agreement implementation, aided and abetted by an overwhelmingly pro-NAFTA business community.

Fourth, the ill will generated by the trade debate will likely result in collateral damage to any remaining hopes for co-operation between Congress and the Trump administration on other major issues such as tax reform, thereby increasing policy gridlock.

Fifth, given the unreliability of our U.S. trading partner, Canada and Mexico, participants in the original TPP, will forge ahead with a revival of that agreement among the other parties, including Japan. Ironically, if TPP2 were to come to pass, the United States would have its export market potentially impaired by reciprocal preferential access among TPP2 partners.

Sixth, all this controversy will be rolled into U.S. midterm election campaigning, without much prospect for clarity on U.S. trade policy direction until after November, 2018. In this connection, Canada would be well advised to take a time out from bilateral talks until the United States sorts out the problems it has created and clarifies its real objectives.

A year is a very long time in politics, and the landscape may be quite different at that time. In this regard, there are many possible outcomes on the trade front. For example, it is always possible that NAFTA as we know it will remain intact and that negotiations can be resumed on a more pragmatic basis.

In light of that uncertainty, Canada should keep cool and let the turmoil south of the border play out.

Having said that, the United States will always be our No. 1 trading partner. But if the various elements of the scenario outlined above unfold, we can spend greater time and effort in the intervening months pursuing better access to other important foreign markets.

Justin Trudeau calls for renewed gender-equality efforts in NAFTA(THE CANADIAN PRESS)

An activist hedge fund backed by a former top Credit Suisse executive wants to break up the bank

• Graham Rapier
 

• 17h
• 2,705

Gaël de Boissard YouTube

Swiss hedge fund RBR Capital Advisors will announce this week a plan to split apart Credit Suisse, the Financial Times reported Monday.

The firm is proposing to split Credit Suisse into three parts: an investment bank modeled after First Boston, which Credit Suisse acquired in 1989, a wealth management group, and an asset manager.

It’s being spearheaded by Gaël de Boissard, who joined Credit Suisse in 2001, and eventually served as co-head of investment banking before leaving in December 2015, according to his LinkedIn profile.

His plan is largely a rebuttal to disappointing performance under CEO Tidjane Thiam, who took over in 2015. In the almost two years since, the bank’s stock price has declined by 20%.

Swiss paper Finanz und Wirtschaft first reported the purchase of a stake by RBR Capital.

Activist investors have targeted high-profile companies like GE and ADP recently, but have largely avoided financial institutions, the FT reports.

You can read the full story on the Financial Times here.

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