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Microsoft has implemented lots of changes to Windows 10 in readiness for the big Anniversary Update due for release in July. If you’re a Windows Insider then you’ll likely have already played around with new features such as Windows Ink, Bash on Ubuntu, Extensions on Edge, and so on.
The latest Windows 10 Insider Preview release, Build 14328, introduces some major -- and very welcome -- tweaks to the Windows 10 Start menu. Here’s a detailed guide to the changes.
The first thing you’ll notice when you click the Start button is installed apps have been moved front and center. No more having to click on All Apps to find a particular item (personally I always prefer to search for an app, rather than use the menu, but this might change now).
The list of apps is presented alphabetically, and you can scroll down to find the one you want.
Alternatively, if you have a lot of apps installed, you can just click on any of the menu headings (such as one of the letters or Recently added) and jump straight to a particular section using the A-Z view.
Right-clicking an app you use regularly will let you pin it to the tiled section on the right.
Above the apps list, at the very top, is a Most used section, which to begin with includes Get Started, Sway, Maps, People, Calculator, and Alarms & Clock.
Underneath that is Recently added. This shows the last app you installed, but can now display up to three new items.
The little sidebar to the left of the menu gives you quick access to your account (you can change account settings, Lock and sign out from there), File Explorer (which has been removed from the Taskbar for space reasons) and Settings. The Shutdown button has also been moved to here, and clicking it will let you choose the action you require. This little bar stays visible at all times and you can customize it through Settings > Personalization > Start. Scroll down to the bottom and click Choose which folders appear on Start. You can add Documents, Downloads, Music, Pictures, Videos, HomeGroup, Network, and Personal folder.
The Settings menu also lets you choose to toggle various options on or off, including
- Show more tiles
- Occasionally show suggestions in Start
- Show most used apps
- Show recently added apps
- Use Start full screen
- Show recently opened items in Jump Lists on Start or the taskbar
- Tiles on the right of the Start menu can be reordered, resized and removed as before, and of course you can resize/reshape the menu itself by clicking and dragging. If you prefer a long list of apps, extend the menu downwards.
- Tiles on the right of the Start menu can be reordered, resized and removed as before, and of course you can resize/reshape the menu itself by clicking and dragging. If you prefer a long list of apps, extend the menu downwards.
Are you using Windows 10? Do you find these new updates useful?Let us know what you think in the comments below.
Betanews
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Since the launch of the sale of the Cardiopad in February, Himore Medical, the startup through which Cameroonian IT specialist Arthur Zang developed the first African medical tablet, has sold 43 kits out of the 300 already manufactured, he revealed to Quotidien de l’Economie. 50% of kits were sold in Gabon, and other orders were delivered to India and Nepal.
Thanks to the income generated by these first sales (the Cardiopad kit costs FCfa 2 million), the creator of the Cardiopad indicates, Himore Medical is planning to launch in two months the company Kimore Medical Equipements, a medical equipment assembly unit. The plant which will be based in the Nsam area in Yaoundé, the Cameroonian capital, is looking to recuit 150 employees in the coming days. .
The equipment of this assembly plant, which necessitate an investment of FCfa 100 million, we learned, will be imported from China. But, if the financing necessary to purchase this equipment could be covered by the income generated by the first sales, Arthur Zang admits needing to raise between FCfa 50 and 75 million to train his personnel and secure the first salaries of the employees to be recruited. .
As a reminder, the Cardiopad is a a device which can collect and remotely transmit the cardiac parameters of a patient. This invention which earned international recognition for the young Cameroonian engineer, helps compensate for the deficiency in cardiologists in the hospitals. The founder of Himore Medical announces for the near future the presentation of a simplified version of the device, which enables the patient to collect themselves from their home the most important of these cardiac parameters, without needing a specialist, and to simply remotely send them to a doctor for analysis. .
BIC
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BBC:Privately-owned tech start-ups - or 'unicorns' - are worth more than a billion dollars and Africa has its first one in the shape of the Africa Internet Group.
While many think the next one will emerge from the obvious technology centres in Nairobi, Cape Town or Lagos, it is just possible that it may come from Buea - a small town in south-west Cameroon.
Njorku developed by Cameroonian entrepreneur Churchill Nanje Mambe, a resident of Buea is among the best technology startups in Africa.Njorku is a job search and career platform for Africans worldwide, with a very unique business model and the first mover advantage in Sub Saharan Africa. The service went live in late March 2011, and within months was attracting thousands of users.-- Forbes Magazine
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- Elangwe Pauline
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A young Cameroonian entrepreneur has come up with a way to use plastic waste instead of cement to make 'eco-friendly' paving slabs. His initiative, which makes a point to give jobs to at-risk street children, has been growing, but still faces challenges.
In Cameroon, plastic waste has become a major problem. It blocks drains, pollutes rivers and wreaks havoc on the environment.
"The paving stones are solid and cheaper than typical paving slabs"
Pierre Kasoumloum got the idea for the slabs from childhood memories.
As kids, we would collect plastic cups and melt them in the wood fires used to heat our homes during the winter. We'd mix the melted plastic with water and shape it into small balls. We had a game of rolling them along with sticks.
In Cameroon, huge quantities of plastic bags and packaging are thrown away. One day, about 15 years ago, I was thinking of this childhood memory and I came up with the idea of mixing sand into melted salvaged plastic to make a solid, durable material. I imagined using it to make paving slabs.
With the aid of an investor, I was able to carry out tests in a lab and create a formula that resulted in solid enough slabs.
There are several steps to production. The plastic serves to bind the materials together. But before you can use it, you have to separate out any plastic containing chlorine because it becomes toxic if it's chemically altered. The rest is then melted in a vat over a wood fire. You then add sand and mix it. Then, you pour the mix into a mould and let it dry for 15 minutes.
This is the plastic waste used to make paving stones. Vats in which the plastic is melted. Employees pour the mix of plastic and sand into vats. ... and the final result. (All these photos were taken and sent to the Observers by Benjamin Ambela, who works for the French start-up Djouman. The organisation promotes sustainable innovation in Africa and is now actively supporting the paving stone initiative.) As an added bonus, these 'eco-friendly' paving slabs are cheaper than the classic model. According to Pierre Kamssouloum, one square metre of slabs each around 5 centimetres thick costs 3,500 CFA francs [Editor's note: 5.35 euros], whereas the same quantity of cement slabs costs 5,000 CFA francs. Cameroon's handball federation used the new material to pave the courtyard outside of their headquarters. But the initative also includes a social project.
I got started the business in Yaoundé in 2008. Over the years, I've expanded my initiative to Burkina Faso, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, and Cameroon, with the support of NGOs. Every time I open a new business, I do my utmost to employ and train local street children. We help them find some stability and stop them sleeping rough. Today, we have 15 employees, and we've been training another 20 young people with the help of an NGO set up by former footballer Roger Milla.
We had even more kids in our training programme to begin with, but, unfortunately, many of them lost their enthusiasm. It's not always easy. We get a reasonable number of orders, but often our clients don't pay, and if they do, they often pay late. That creates financial problems. Right now, we are still hand-making these paving stones. I'd like to get the production line semi-mechanised. But for that, I'd need some 7 million CFA francs of investment.
In June 2015, the initiative did get a big help helping hand from 'Coeur d'Afrique', the NGO set up by the legendary Cameroonian footballer Roger Milla. The NGO now takes care of the company's young trainees. It has also launched public awareness campaigns in two schools in Yaoundé, encouraging schoolchildren to collect, sort and recycle plastic in their neighbourhoods. Pierre Masoumloum has used three tons of plastic waste collected by these children. Over time, the NGO hopes to teach some 2,500 young people how to sort and put plastic waste to good use, something that could bode well for any future projects spearheaded by the Cameroonian entrepreneur.
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WhatsApp announced on Tuesday that all messages sent through the most recent version of its app will be fully encrypted.
Encryption is now applied to "every call you make, and every message, photo, video, file, and voice message you send," according to the WhatsApp blog.
The massive security upgrade comes just weeks after Apple was asked by the US government to break the encryption on an iPhone that belonged to a terrorist involved in the San Bernardino shooting.
WhatsApp, which has more than one billion users globally and is owned by Facebook, is using an open-source encryption standard from Open Whisper Systems. The same encryption has been used by whistle blowers like Edward Snowden.
The Justice Department has considered pursing legal action against WhatsApp's encryption efforts in recent months, according to The New York Times. Now that WhatsApp is encrypted, the company won't be technically able to hand over records of its messages to governments.
WhatsApp, which has more than one billion users globally and is owned by Facebook, is using an open-source encryption standard from Open Whisper Systems. The same encryption has been used by whistle blowers like Edward Snowden.
The Justice Department has considered pursing legal action against WhatsApp's encryption efforts in recent months, according to The New York Times. Now that WhatsApp is encrypted, the company won't be technically able to hand over records of its messages to governments.
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Popular messaging app WhatsApp is reportedly in a battle over encryption with the U.S. Government similar to the one involving Apple.
According to The New York Times, a federal judge has approved the monitoring of messages made via the Facebook-owned app in a criminal investigation, but end-to-end encryption makes it difficult.
Some officials want to see the company decrypt information related to the case, but it’s unclear if that is even possible.
Apple has been asked to allow investigators access to the encrypted iPhone that belonged to one of the San Bernardino shooters.
WhatsApp is believed to have nearly one billion monthly active users, but the Times says WhatsApp founder, Jan Koum is strongly against surveillance due to his background in the Soviet-controlled Ukraine.
The specifics of the case are not known, but it has been reported that it is not terrorism-related.
Earlier this month in Brazil, an executive with Facebook was jailed over a similar dispute in which Brazilian authorities wanted access to messages in a drug-trafficking case.
Twitter, Facebook and Google have also said they are standing by Apple and against creating so-called back doors to their devices by authorities.
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