Because of the accidental internal build leak earlier last week, Microsoft’s Insider development team had to skip on the release of a fresh build the previous week. And now, as expected, Redmond is back on track with their weekly preview build releases. Microsoft has today released build #16215 for Fast Ring Insiders on Windows 10 PC and it brings along a slew of major feature upgrades and improvements — expected to debut in the Fall Creators Update coming in September.
One of the significant changes coming to the platform, Windows 10, is the brand new Fluent Design aesthetics — which can be seen as being synonymous to Google’s Material Design language. Microsoft is debuting a combo of transparent and acrylic themes to the operating system, which is steadily making its way across all default apps and the desktop.
With regards to the same, Fast Ring Insiders will now notice that the Start Menu and Action Center have been updated to introduce the said design. While the former has only received the acrylic uplift, the Action Center has been redesigned to allow users a cleaner view of their notifications. It brings along separators and hierarchy among the apps and it definitely looks cleaner than the previous clubbed notification system. Check out the new design right here:
Next up are the improvements that have been introduced to Microsoft’s default Edge browser. With this Windows 10 Insider build, you’re once again being extended the functionality to pin your favorite websites to the taskbar. Much like how you can now pin the websites on mobile, Edge will now enable you to instantly click on these website icons to access the said websites. You’re also being provided a new control to enable the full-screen mode, smoother animations, and the ability to annotating your e-books within the browser itself.
In addition, Microsoft’s uber-quirky voice assistant, Cortana has also bagged some major improvements — since it is now prepping to be made available across homely hardware devices as well. Cortana has now been upgraded with the capability to add reminders by simply scanning images — with your permission, from the camera gallery.
When the AI assistant spots an event poster or may be an event bookmark for any website then it will prompt you to add the same event to your calender. You will no longer have to worry about missing out on important events, if you’ve clicked a picture of any of the posters. It is using Microsoft’s computer vision to tech, similar to Google Lens but on a smaller scale, to make this a possibility.
You can make this happen even more easily if you own and regularly make use of the Surface Pen. You will just have to use the new lasso tool ‘to circle the relevant information’ and Cortana will recognize the time and data of the event. This makes keeping track of upcoming events even simpler — well, it’s automated now.
But, based on the feedback from Windows 10 Insiders, the biggest improvement has been made to stylus support — for the Surface Pen. The handwriting panel available in previous builds has today been updated with fresh new gestures, editing features and new emoji panel. It is now easier to transcribe using the handwriting panel, which is now more intuitive and responsive than ever. The blog post talks about the same as under:
As you write, you’ll now see your previous words convert to typed text within the handwriting panel. When you fill the handwriting panel and lift your pen off the screen, the text will shift so you have room to continue writing.
You can now edit errors in your text simply by overwriting the incorrect character in the converted text using ink gestures. Once you have made all necessary changes to your text, which can even include strikethrough, scratch, join, or split using certain new gestures then you’ll need to press the commit button to finalize the changes.
The highlight feature for the Surface Pen will, however, have to be the ‘find my pen’ option that has introduced with today’s build. It is well-known to everyone that the stylus doesn’t have GPS, so Microsoft has decided to bake a location-based feature into the latest Windows 10 preview build. This will tell you when and where you last activated the stylus for sketching or writing on your Windows 10 PC. The said update is rolling out immediately to Windows 10 Fast Ring Insiders.
