Microsoft Build 2016: Windows 10 updates, new devices, and more

And it's done. No new Lumia, so is it a possibility Microsoft is coming to terms with the fact that people just won't buy into Windows Phone? Time will tell.

Thanks for joining us everyone, and stay tuned for the follow up stories and analyses tonight and tomorrow.

Shaikh is on stage now. He's going to do a couple of sessions at Build as well. 

Nadella on stage again. He's talking about developer accomplishments. A video rolling depicts Saqib Shaikh, a Microsoft developer who lost his sight at age seven. His app takes pictures on your phone and uses image recognition to describe scenes around you, or read out text in a photo.

Today,we have 22 API's for you to get started with." Those are years of experience in machine learning in APIs that devs can use in their apps. Image recognition, speech recognition, search, all of it.

Cornelia Carapcea is now up to talk about cognitive services to make devices more intelligent. 

The Bot Builder also auto suggest synonyms to expand your bot's dictionary. An example they show is "Can you deliver 3 large pepperoni pizzas to my crib." If crib is added in as a word for home, that's a viable order. And the best part is, you don't need to be a coder to add new words to your bot's dictionary. 

The great thing is, these bots you can build can also be defined to work through SMS. That's great, particularly in a country like India.

The Bot framewework includes a free, open source Bot Builder.

Dan Driscoll is up, talking about a new Microsoft Bot Framework.

Introducing Cortana Intelligence Suite. It's a bot framework to build bots into various conversational canvases. Nadella is talking about Cortana Intelligence Suite being as core as .NET.

Nadella back up again. "We want every developer to build experts for Cortana. We want every developer to be able to build bots as the new applications for every business and every service."

"We will also be bringing intelligence into real-time video."

Bots in video chat for Skype on HoloLens.

Context is key, is what Microsoft is saying. After brokering a text conversation with a hotel reservation bot, Cortana pops up a suggestion that Rincon call a friend, who lives in the destination city, that she usually meets when she goes there. Click on the suggestion and Cortana auto-populates the chat with a suggested message telling the friend when Rincon will be there.

Now Cortana sends a private message to Rincon saying a delivery bot is asking for her location for a delivery. Cortana is basically "brokering a conversation between the user and a bot".

Ooh. You can leave Video Notes, and they appear with the transcript below them using a translator.

Lilian Rincon from the Skype team now. She's demonstrating on aWindows Phone

Nadella is talking about animations, videos, and holograms in Skype

"What if we can now bring in your personal digital assistant right to your conversational canvas. What if we brought the world of bots in apps and websites that let you do things like book tickets into Skype."

"We envision a world where there are going to be more and more communications tools. We have Outlook and Skype, and we want to turn these into rich conversational canvases. Imagine if we can open up Skype."

Ok, done with Cortana now and Nadella back on stage. Are we going to hear about a Windows Phone at all?

Cortana even pulls up the Toy Store that Ash went to after Build last year. That is neat, for spaced out folk like me.

Uh...it's a demonstration of Cortana for Windows 10.....on an Android Phone.

Cortana also picks out if you message a time in text messages and offers to add it to your calendar. 

"Cortana, send the Powerpoint I was working on last night to Chuck." Ok, that is honestly amazing. She'll show you the one she picks out, based on your search protocol, before carrying out the action.

Microsoft can look at Outlook with my permission, and she adds meetings and appointments from my mails to my calendar automatically. 

13 countries supported for the Anniversary Update with Cortana. 

Cortana on the lock screen! That's new. Just say "Hey Cortana" and it jumps to full screen. This'll be in the Anniversary Update.

Here's Marcus Ash from the Cortana team with an early preview of plans for Cortana.

Nadella talking about building Cortana so her "expertise is extensible". They want her to not be about one device, but about the user.

We conceptualise a new platform where human language is the new UI, bots are the new applications, and digital assistants are like meta apps or the new browsers.

"Last week, when we launched our bot Tay, we quickly realised it was not up to this mark. So we're back to the drawing board."
More laughter. That entire incident was just a demonstration in the human anarchy and Microsoft's naivete. Honestly, the way it went was exactly as any person familiar with the Internet could expect.

"We want to build technology so it gets the best of humanity, not the worst." Oh that's definitely about Tay.AI.

This is all well and good, but I haven't yet seen any REAL anti-Skynet efforts in action.

"As we infuse intelligence into everything, we need a principled approach......Three core principles: Intelligence should ugment human abilities & experiences, be trustworthy, and inclusive & respectful."

We want to take the power of human language and apply it to computer interface. For that, we need to first infuse machine learning and intelligence into computers."

Nadella back on stage now. Talking about "conversation as a platform." Are we going to see some Tay rambling here?

On to NASA's use of the hardware. Aside from mechanical training for astronauts, which is what Microsoft demoed at the HoloLens reveal, there's more. Destination Mars is an exhibit  that will be open soon, that lets the public tour Mars, alongside a holographic Buzz Aldrin as the guide.

Professors from the Case Western Reserve University on stage, talking about the use of HoloLens in medical education. The Holographic Academy Program has an app that lets students study the human anatomy using holograms projected directly into the classroom.
 

Updates now on votes for what apps Microsoft should build for HoloLens. Galaxy Explorer wins out. 

The Galaxy Explorer source code is available. What will you build on top of what we started? https://t.co/mDO3DeSRG5 pic.twitter.com/PwiVQsBzhO

— Microsoft HoloLens (@HoloLens) March 30, 2016

The #HoloLens Development Edition starts shipping today. #Build2016 https://t.co/3Gx5mvvKUl pic.twitter.com/j5tfoT7to9

— Microsoft HoloLens (@HoloLens) March 30, 2016

Kipman invites Kudo Tsunoda on stage with the HoloLens dev kit that's shipping to developers today.

Phil Spencer leaves the stage saying more announcements for the Xbox One will be revealed at E3 in June. Aex Kipman coming on now for HoloLens.

Cortana is also coming to the Xbox One, as well as background music. I'm honestly not sure which one console gamers will think is more important. My money's on the latter.

"With the upcoming Windows 10 Anniversary Update, we'll be adding a single unified store across devices." That's new.

Oooh, and there's the Witcher III as well, running as a modern app. 

Aside from Live Tiles and Notifications, you also get support for Xbox One controllers with these "converted" games.

Spencer is showing Age of Empires II: HD Edition, on Windows 10. It's one of the new converted desktop apps, and it has it's own Live Tiles!

"We also know many of you have win32 game codebases today, and we want to give you the access the ability to package your games into the universal platform."

That's twice now we've heard Microsoft devs (indirectly) address game developer Tim Sweeney's comments on the closed nature of the Universal App platform.

Phil Spencer is up for gaming, and then Alex Kipman for HoloLens.

Terry Myerson back on stage now. 

"We have experiences that go beyond the PC. Gaming.....or HoloLens." Oh it's on now. Let's see what we've got.

It takes an existing .exe or .msi installer and makes it a modern desktop app, complete with Live Tiles and Toast Notifications. 

Microsoft is adding a "Desktop App Converter". It converts an app to a "centennial" which makes them universal apps, with minimal code changes.

Looks like Bash (Bourne Again Shell) is a Windows system 32 .exe file. That's Linux on Windows guys. Don't pinch yourself, it's happening.

Web apps for Windows now. "Bash shell is coming to Windows. Native Ubuntu Linux binaries running on Windows. We've partnered with Canonical for this."

Visual Studio 2016 Update 2 and Anniversary Update of SDK coming today.

Gallo talking about how it's now easier to add Ink features to your apps. "Just two lines of code."

Blur and depth effects for touch and mouse, for developers to use.

Kevin Gallow on stage now, moving on to code. Brace yourself, this could get a little slow for most of you. 

Myerson is back now discussing the universal apps platform for Windows. New Universal app for Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger coming to Windows 10.

Use the ruler in sideshows to align objects to a line. Or maybe drag and drop a stencil into adobe illustrator. All of this new stylus features are way cool.

you can also open Maps to mark points of interest with your pen to gauge the distance. You can even Ink 3D topographical maps

He just tweeted that note.
 

pic.twitter.com/05yCdNZE0i

— Bryan Roper (@broper00) March 30, 2016

Oh wow. Drop a virtual ruler on your notes to draw straight lines. Drag it with your fingers. That would come in handy.

Handwritten Notes can also be set as reminders, Cortana automatically recognizes terms like "tomorrow" and sets a reminder. Bing is also integrated to find places.

Now Windows Ink, that's a somewhat new thing. "We're going to make sure we solve for the tasks that people are reaching for their pen and paper for."

There's an ink workspace panel that looks like the notification centre.

USAA (United Services Automobile Association) is one of the supported websites. Just click on the sign in and then put your finger on the scanner.

Bryan Roper on stage now, talking about biometric security for websites.

The Anniversary Update is coming to Xbox One too, it'll turn any retail Xbox One into a dev unit, and brings Windows 10 apps to it as well.

"Secure and easy biometric security with apps." Microsoft Edge will support Windows Hello for certain websites. Basically, log into websites by looking at your camera.

Myerson says the Anniversary Update to Windows 10, is coming this summer for free to all Windows 10 customers.

"On behalf of the entire Windows team, we're happy to welcome all of these customers to Windows 10. Whether they have a new PC, a 5-year-old PC, or a brand new Mac."

Oh, little bit of a fumble there from Myerson. I think that's a first.

"Windows 10 has been out for eight months, and it's already being actively used by more than 270 million people."

Nadella giving us a brief preview of what they'll be touching on today. Gaming across the PC and console, as well as the Hololens included. And now it's Terry Myerson on stage for Windows 10

"This morning, Terry and I will talk about more personal computing." Onward to Windows 10 now. 

Nadella says tomorrow's keynote's will talk about Azure and Office 365.

"We live in a mobile-first, cloud-first world......It's not a single destination. It's a new form of computing."

And we're off! Satya Nadella now on stage, delivering the opening statement. "It's great talking to developers. They come here already excited about technology......they walk away ready to build more exciting technology."

The press is inside, and we're waiting for the keynote to begin any minute. Hold on to your hats!

Sneak peak inside #Microsoftbuild keynote room pic.twitter.com/uD8xMfh6Rn

— Theresa Chong (@THERESAscience) March 30, 2016