Gearing up for the football season, opening new doors with Linux — Weekend Reading: August 26 edition

| Thomas Kohnstamm

Microsoft never stops. But we do rest. And as summer winds down, things have been a bit slower than usual while many of us enjoy vacations and recharge for the productive fall season ahead.

This week we still managed to pick up a couple of neat Windows 10 tips like using Cortana to access certain apps without having to unlock your phone and using Continuum to connect your phone to a monitor. We announced a “Madden NFL 17” custom Xbox One S console sweepstakes, that PowerShell is now available on Linux and the first in a series of Microsoft-sponsored studies to raise awareness for “digital civility” around the globe.

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In order to use Cortana above your lock screen, start by saying “Hey Cortana,” and ask her what the weather will be like this week, to remind you to do something or to play your favorite songs. The GIF above visually takes you through the steps. And check out Cortana’s Tips and Tricks menu in your taskbar to learn more.

Continuum for Phones, available on select Windows 10 Mobile devices, allows you to connect your phone to a monitor, projector or TV for a full-sized desktop experience, powered by your phone. Because Microsoft Edge is built on the Universal Windows Platform, Microsoft Edge in Continuum is able to provide a full desktop browser experience.

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To celebrate the launch of “Madden NFL 17” and the upcoming start of the NFL regular season on Sept. 8, we’re excited to announce the Xbox One S “Madden NFL 17” Custom Console Sweepstakes.

We’ve designed 32 custom Xbox One S (1TB) consoles – one for each NFL team – and are giving fans a chance to win one. There are three ways to enter the sweepstakes: head to http://www.xboxpromotions.com/MaddenNFL17 and vote for your favorite console, click to enter through your Xbox 360 or Xbox One dashboard, or follow @Xbox and RT the Madden NFL 17#XboxSweepstakes Tweets.

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Wim Coekaerts, the CVP of Microsoft’s Enterprise Open Source reported from LinuxCon in Toronto sharing the latest news and learnings on the company’s open source journey.

Microsoft announced that we’re open sourcing PowerShell and making it available on Linux. PowerShell users across Windows and Linux can use our popular command-line shell and scripting language to manage almost everything from almost anywhere. For more information read Microsoft Enterprise Cloud Group Technical Fellow Jeffrey Snover’s story about how customer-centricity brought Microsoft to open source PowerShell.

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Results of a new Microsoft study show that nearly four in 10 American teens report that someone bullied them in the digital world in the last year.

The study, “Keeping Up with Generation App,” is the first in a series sponsored by Microsoft and focused on raising awareness for “digital civility” across the globe. It was conducted by the Washington, D.C.-based National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA), and polled 804 teens, ages 13 to 17 in the U.S., as well as 810 American parents of teens in the same age group.

The results clearly point to the need to help young people in this environment. To learn more about online safety, visit our website and check out our resources.

Thanks for sharing a bit of your summer with us. Keep your eyes open for upcoming Weekend Readings and we’ll have a lot of exciting news to share in the coming weeks.

Thomas Kohnstamm
Microsoft News Center Staff