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1s LD: Microsoft to update Windows operating system, enabling 3-D features

Xinhua, October 27, 2016 Adjust font size:

Microsoft Corporation announced a plan on Wednesday to update its Windows 10 operating system, enabling 3-D features on personal computers (PC).

The update, called Creators Update, to the Windows 10, which is Microsoft's latest software platform for applications to operate, is expected to be available to more than 400 million devices early next year.

Microsoft, a technology company based in Redmond, Washington state, of the U.S. Pacific Northwest, said the update will help create, share and experience in 3-D and mixed reality and make Microsoft Edge the first web browser to fully embrace 3-D. In addition, it said Microsoft Office suite, a set of productivity applications including PowerPoint presentation tool, will support 3-D features.

A parade of Microsoft executives took the stage at the event in New York on the U.S. east coast to talk about the company's planned product rollout, including a series of hardware such as a new Surface Book laptop computer that comes with a so-called Performance Base to extend battery life to up to 16 hours per charge, a desktop computer called Surface Studio, and a new peripheral input device called Surface Dial.

Noting that the desktop machine, Microsoft's first of the kind, is intended to expand its Surface family, the company said Surface Studio comes with a thin 28-inch LCD monitor offering a ultra-HD 4.5K touch screen, is a new class of device that "transforms from a workstation into a powerful digital canvas." The high-end PC, priced at 2,999 U.S. dollars and up, has a Studio Mode that allows the screen to sit at a 20-degree angle.

"With Windows 10, Microsoft Surface and the medium of Mixed Reality," claimed chief executive officer Satya Nadella, "we aim to empower the builders, the makers and the creators with the tools to create, collaborate and express themselves in new ways."

Co-founded by Paul Allen and Bill Gates in 1975, Microsoft, still the world's largest PC software publisher, has tried for years to find a foothold in hardware business, as its flagship Windows operating system loses market share to Android, which works on mobile devices. With the rise of smartphone and tablet computer, the volume of worldwide PC market has been down at an annual rate of about 3 to 4 percent in recent years. Endit