Microsoft Research

The company wants to turn great ideas into great products more quickly

What is it?

Have a guess. In a rare outbreak of jargon-free clarity from the company, Microsoft’s research division is called Microsoft Research (http://research.microsoft.com). Hallelujah!

Wait - Microsoft actually researches its products?

Now, now. Windows may not always work perfectly, but it’s not through a lack of testing. Since Bill Gates set it up in 1991 Microsoft Research has grown to employ more than 1,000 researchers and engineers around the world, in cities including Cambridge, New York, Beijing and Munich. Projects involve all aspects of computing, from artificial intelligence to speech recognition. But things are about to change.

Microsoft Display Dock

Use your Microsoft phone as a PC

Windows 10 Mobile, which replaces Windows Phone, is only available on two smartphones so far – Microsoft’s Lumia 950 and Lumia 950XL. Its main selling point is how close it is to ‘proper’ Windows 10, as opposed to other phones that run mobile-specific software, such as iOS and Android. And the best example of this is a feature called Continuum that lets you use your phone as a PC. It requires a monitor and a little grey gadget called the Display Dock.

Microsoft Band 2

A fitness band that we could live with

One of the best reasons to buy a smartwatch – and let’s be honest, there aren’t many – is to help you keep fit. Some wrist devices concentrate almost entirely on this, including Fitbit, Jawbone and Microsoft’s Band. This new Band offers more comfort and practicality, with just enough smartwatch features to suit people who want both.

NirSoft’s 10 Best programs (and they’re ALL free!)

You’re spoilt for choice on NirSoft’s superb website – it’s packed with dozens of simple but clever free programs

Over the past few years one website has made repeated appearances in our Best Free Software section: NirSoft (www.nirsoft.net). It’s home to an impressive range of Windows programs that carry out the sort of ‘boring but useful’ tasks that make using your PC so much easier. And incredibly, it’s the work of just one man.

We’ve spent some time testing the 100-plus programs on the site and whittled it down to our top 10. Most of these are small (typically less than 100KB) and portable, so they don’t need to be installed. They all work with XP, Vista, 7, 8 and 10 except ProduKey. Best of all, they’re free, contain no junk and require no email registration. Here’s our countdown…

Wacom Intuos Art

The pen is mightier than the mouse

If engineers Doug Engelbart and Bill English hadn’t come up with the computer mouse, we might all be controlling our computers with pens. But styluses ended up confined to graphics tablets, a niche option for professional artists. Meanwhile, the rest of us got to push flat plastic blobs around our desks. There are times when we could all do with a pointier pointer, though. Years after Steve Jobs declared them dead, Apple is just one of the companies resurrecting styluses. So maybe we should look again at graphics tablets too.

Mesh Elite Voyager Mini CS

Everything you want in a desktop PC, but smaller

Why do retailers always knock a penny or a pound off prices? Back in the 1990s, a practical general-purpose desktop PC used to cost about £1,000. But they’d always make it £999.

Some psychologists reckon this works because when we see an awkward number, we estimate the nearest round figure. So we see £999 and think £1,000. Now that we’re thinking about £1,000, £999 sounds a bit less. And a bit less must be better value!

Stop Microsoft Spying On You

Why is Microsoft watching everything you do in Windows 7, 8.1 and 10? And what can you do to prevent it?

If you’re upgrading from Windows 7 or 8, Windows 10 doesn’t cost you any money. But there is a big hidden cost to Microsoft’s free operating system (OS): your privacy. Concealed within Windows 10 are numerous options that give the operating system permission to record a variety of information about you and the way you use your PC – including what you search for online and anything you type on your keyboard. All this is then sent back to Microsoft for analysis. What’s worse is that most of these options are enabled by default. So, unless you take action, you could be unwittingly handing your private data to Microsoft on a plate.

Philips 272S4LPJCB

A big screen with style

Twisted nematic and in-plane switching are types of what? You’d probably only encounter this question on Mastermind if your specialist subject was ‘geeky jargon’. For what it’s worth, they’re types of LCD panels.

It was twisted nematic (TN) displays that, in the 1980s, first made flatscreens viable. A backlight shines towards two polarising glass plates, one at right-angles to the other. Because a polariser cuts out all light waves except those aligned with it, this eliminates half the light and then the other half, leaving darkness.

Huawei Mate 8

A super-sized smartphone

When the iPhone was launched in 2007, it changed mobiles forever. Previously, a phone was mostly buttons. Now it  was mostly screen. In fact, so much of it was screen that there was no obvious reason for the other bits. Surely it might as well go right to the edge?

Manufacturers still haven’t quite figured out how to achieve that, but this extra-large smartphone from Huawei is as close as we’ve seen. There’s a sliver of space at the top for the speaker and selfie camera, and a slightly larger sliver at the bottom for... well, just to write ‘Huawei’ on. The 6in screen fills all the space in between, leaving only the slenderest of borders to the left and right.