Facebook tests Snapchat Stories clone for Messenger

Facebook is mimicking one of Snapchat's most popular features, Snapchat Stories, in its Messenger chat app. The new feature, called Messenger Day, launched exclusively in Poland today.

Snapchat Stories, for the unfamiliar, is a feature that lets users share photos, videos and drawings in a timeline that disappears after 24 hours. Messenger Day works almost exactly like Snapchat Stories, according to TechCrunch.

Where Messenger Day differs from Snapchat Stories and, for that matter, Instagram Stories, is how it prompts users to use the feature. At the top of the chat list are options to quickly share how you're feeling, what you're doing and more. This makes it easier to share something quickly with all of your friends instead of managing a curated friends list.

"We know that people come to Messenger to share everyday moments with friends and family," said a Facebook spokesperson speaking with TechCrunch. "In Poland we are running a small test of new ways for people to share those updates visually."

It's unclear whether Messenger Day will be available in other countries, though success in Poland may mean the feature could be released more widely.

This isn't the first time Facebook has copied Snapchat. The social network's photo sharing app, Instagram, aped Snapchat Stories by releasing Instagram Stories in August.

A smart strategy

According to TechCrunch, Facebook may have introduced Messenger Day to get users hooked on its Messenger app in hopes of preventing them from leaving to use Snapchat Stories. Facebook also has another chat app with 1 billion active users: WhatsApp. In order to keep people using its apps, Facebook has to bring popular features from competing platforms into its own.

It's also smart of Facebook to put a story feature in Messenger because its chat app is more intimate than its social network. By having Messenger Day inside a chat app, users don't have to worry about sharing the highest quality photos or videos on their Facebook wall.

Over the years, the social network has evolved into a place where users only share curated highlights about their lives instead of casually sharing thoughts and activities, something Snapchat excels at.

Facebook Messenger currently has over 1 billion active users, compared to Snapchat's 150 million. Using Messenger's immense reach, Messenger Day could prove to be a popular feature.

• Should you give Facebook the boot?

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Mac Week: The 'macOS' of 2016 vs the 'Mac OS' of 1984

September 20, 2016 marked the glorious return of Mac OS – err, sorry, "macOS" – at least by name, and with it a host of new features and capabilities for Apple's various Mac desktops and MacBooks.

This return to a name that Apple hasn't uttered much since 2012 has made us a bit nostalgic here at TechRadar for the "Mac OS" of old. (Because that's what aging tech nerds do.) This has made us wonder what the first Mac OS, then known simply as "System Software," would look like next to the macOS of today.

From the Mac hardware needed to run them to the innovative, new features they touted as must haves, let's look at the macOS of 2016 versus the Mac OS of 1984.

Hot hardware

Since Apple doesn't release its software to other hardware makers, figuring out the exact hardware requirements for each version of Apple's operating system (OS) is a tad difficult (read: really hard). So, let's look at the original, 1984 Macintosh – today known commonly as the Macintosh 128K – to get an idea of what it took to run the firm's first crack at Mac OS.

The first-ever Mac OS (shown below) was comprised of 216 kilobytes (KB) of data (!), just over half of the original Macintosh's 400KB disk drive capacity (!!). In fact, the limited storage and memory saw users swapping floppy disks to access new content with the core OS runtime sitting on the 128KB of RAM (!!!).

And, powering the whole Mac OS platform, from handling data requests to pushing the monochrome, 512 x 342-pixel graphics, was an 8MHz Motorola 68000 processor. Yes, the same chip used to power the Sega Genesis.

Flash forward to today, and macOS Sierra requires a little more oomph to get your Mac going – just a smidge. The latest successor to what Mac OS started 32 years ago requires 2GB of RAM and at least 8.8GB of storage to run.

Let's put that into perspective. In terms of storage space, the size of macOS Sierra in gigabytes (GB) could fit roughly over 42,720 instances of Mac OS System 1 inside of it. If RAM behaved this way, you could fit thousands of instances of System 1 in the memory required by Sierra alone.

From founding Finder to a feature frenzy

The first Mac OS brought forth features and concepts in computing that the users of today's macOS have long taken for granted. For instance, System 1 introduced Finder, one of the first visual representations of a computer's stored files and programs since the DOS age.

Keep in mind, too, that the first version of Finder didn't even have a directory-based file system. All files were stored in the same root folder, regardless of how users organized them visually using the graphical interface.

In fact, it wasn't until the fifth version of Mac OS, or System 5, that Macs could run more than one application simultaneously – through a tool known then as "MultiFinder". At the time, it was all but a breakthrough.

Today, macOS Sierra not only represents files within tabs of a single Finder window – something likely not even a thought back in 1984 – but also summons forth those files with your voice, using Siri.

The latest Finder even automatically backs up your entire desktop and Documents folder to a remote server, iCloud Drive. It can even optimize your disk space based on how often and when you last accessed a collection of files, with your choice of either trashing them or sending them to iCloud Drive.

And, obviously, running more than one app at once hasn't required a specific tool devised to handle such multitasking for decades.

Where the Mac OS of yesteryear introduced woefully basic but absolutely fundamental concepts for computing (e.g. what if Sierra shipped without the Calculator app?), the macOS of today has more features than you can even remember to use, like Apple Watch proximity login.

While we look back and chuckle a bit at what Mac OS was compared to what it is today, the roots of Apple's more than 30-year-old breakthrough into visual computing are more than visible – they're integral to how we work on Macs. Just look at your Finder.

This article is part of TechRadar's Mac Week. This year marks not only the 10th anniversary of Apple's MacBook, but the triumphant return of macOS. So, TechRadar looks to celebrate with a week's worth of original features delving back into the Mac's past, predicting the Mac's future and exploring the Mac as it is today.

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Downloads: Download of the day: Ashampoo Photo Commander FREE

Download of the day: Ashampoo Photo Commander FREE

If you have a collection of photos gathering dust on your PC, or on an external hard drive tucked away in a drawer, you need Ashampoo Photo Commander FREE.

This powerful image management tool makes it incredibly easy to organize your snaps, make enhancements and corrections, and share them online or in print.

Why you need it

Digital cameras give your photos impenetrable filenames, and it's all too easy for them to end up in a jumbled mess on your hard drive. With Ashampoo Photo Commander FREE you can view them all with customizable previews and accelerated browsing, rename them and add tags in just a few clicks.

Ashampoo Photo Commander FREE also includes a suite of great Quick Fix tools, including a superb one-click optimizer that adjusts color and contrast, removes noise and eliminates JPG compression artefacts instantly. You can also take your pick from a menu of creative effects (including some stylish Instagram-style filters), flip or rotate your images, remove scratches (ideal for scanned prints), and resize them. You can apply these changes to a single photo, or to several in a batch.

Once your pictures look great, you can export them as PDFs, create HTML photo albums, make collages ready for printing to canvas via a service like PhotoBox, burn them to disc, or make slideshows without the need for separate presentation software.

Key features

• Easy photo management and tagging
• Batch editing
• One-click optimization
• Online and offline photo sharing

Works on

Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, 8.1, 10

Price

• Ashampoo Photo Commander FREE – Free
• Ashampoo Photo Commander – US$59.99 (about £45, AU$80)

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Game of Thrones: Enhanced Edition is an iPad book you might actually buy

This year marks the 20th anniversary of George R.R Martin's much-loved fantasy series, A Song of Ice and Fire. To celebrate, Apple is releasing a special enhanced edition of the first book in the series, A Game of Thrones, exclusively on iBooks.

This interactive digital edition of the book will apparently offer entirely new ways for readers to experience the Game of Thrones universe, bringing it to life "in new and enriching ways" through a host of secondary materials.

In A Game of Thrones: Enhanced Edition, readers will be able to explore the histories of the great houses of Westeros, as well as keep track of the sprawling storylines through interactive character maps, annotations, and useful glossary terms.

Swearing fealty to iBooks

The enhanced editions won't stop at the first book in the series, either, with books two through five planned for release in the coming months. As more of the enhanced editions are released, Apple says the glossary content available will grow alongside the storylines, detailing the evolving character connections.

There's also an appendix section which includes all 92 house sigils in the Game of Thrones universe, giving insight into the symbolism behind each sigil as well as information on the family's region and allegiances.

As a treat for those who are already up to date on the stories, there's also a sneak peek of the upcoming sixth book, Winds of Winter.

A Game of Thrones: Enhanced Edition is available for $8.99 on iBooks, while the rest of the books are available to pre-order for $11.99 each.

• How to download and read books with the iBooks app

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Google wants to better challenge Microsoft Office with these new features

Google has been beavering away with its online apps, and has just pushed out some fresh tweaks for Google Drive, as well as Docs, Sheets and Slides.

The biggest change is to the latter productivity apps which have witnessed the introduction of a new Explore feature – essentially an intelligent assistant to help you better craft your documents in various different ways.

With Google Docs, if you're writing on a certain topic, Explore will surface related content in a side panel which might be online articles pertaining to the subject in question, relevant images and so on – all of which you can simply drag over to use. It'll also automatically highlight any relevant files you have stored in your Google Drive.

With Sheets, click the Explore button (the green one in the bottom-right corner, incidentally) and you'll be able to type in straightforward questions phrased in natural language, with the software then producing an answer.

So for example you can ask 'how many units of laptops did we sell in September?' Or perhaps inquire about sales for multiple months, and Sheets will list the relevant figures.

Shortcuts for various formatting suggestions are also highlighted, which is pretty neat, too.

As for the Slides app, Explore is all about making your presentations look better, and it will help you find relevant images, and offer suggestions of rather nifty-looking layouts for a slide which can be applied with one click.

Clearly, Google doesn't want to be left behind compared to Microsoft's productivity progress of late, and all of these Explore options run along similar lines to what its rival is doing in making its Office 365 suite more intelligent with features like Tap for Word and Outlook, and QuickStarter in PowerPoint.

Driving forward

So what's new with Google Drive? Something called Quick Access, which is powered by machine learning and attempts to predict the files you'll need next. Essentially, the feature monitors how you use Drive, looking for patterns and things like, for example, regular reviews of a forecasting spreadsheet. It'll spot these patterns and then automatically produce that spreadsheet at the relevant time going forward.

Google reckons that Quick Access will reduce the average time it takes to find the right file by some 50%, because you simply won't have to search for files sometimes – they'll be presented right in front of you when needed.

The company has also tweaked Calendar with another feature which is driven by machine intelligence: Find a time. This makes suggestions of meeting times and rooms which are available.

The Explore updates for Google's productivity apps are live now, and Quick Access is also out and available to G Suite customers on Android. Find a time is already out on Android, too, and will soon also be on iOS, then later this year it will arrive on the web.

• Google also recently updated Translate to make it almost as good as a human translator

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Microsoft just made a massive move in AI that will impact Windows users

How serious is Microsoft about AI? Serious enough to form a major new Microsoft AI and Research Group in an effort to drive its products and services like Windows, Office and Cortana forward using artificial intelligence.

As the name suggests, the new division will incorporate Microsoft Research – which has been going for 25 years now – along with the Bing and Cortana product groups, the Ambient Computing and Robotics teams, plus Microsoft's Information Platform Group.

In total, all these groups combined make for over 5,000 computer scientists and engineers who will be part of the new AI and research division, which will be headed up by Harry Shum, who Microsoft refers to as a 'computer vision luminary'.

The key phrase for this new department appears to be 'democratising AI', which simply means making artificial intelligence accessible and available to everyone – and every business – in various different forms to make their lives easier.

This will mean, broadly, bringing new intelligent features to Microsoft's Windows OS and its various apps, as seen recently when the company revealed the likes of Tap for Word and Outlook in Office 365, which will automatically surface content from other files that it thinks might be relevant to the document (or email) you're currently working on.

And another arena we've seen a lot of movement in recently is bots and intelligent agents, and the likes of Skype bots and Cortana (which is becoming an increasingly pushed part of Windows 10, and now serves some 113 million customers according to Microsoft) are obviously a big part of the AI puzzle for Microsoft.

Importance of developers

The company also intends to push forward with making services such as machine analytics and computer vision available to app developers across the globe, to integrate into their products.

The final prong of Microsoft's artificial intelligence strategy is to build the "world's most powerful AI supercomputer with Azure", a cloud-based processing monster, the power of which will be accessible to anyone, the company notes. And beyond that, Microsoft is looking to quantum computing…

Shum, whose new title is executive vice president of the Microsoft AI and Research Group, commented: "Microsoft has been working in artificial intelligence since the beginning of Microsoft Research, and yet we've only begun to scratch the surface of what's possible. Today's move signifies Microsoft's commitment to deploying intelligent technology and democratising AI in a way that changes our lives and the world around us for the better.

"We will significantly expand our efforts to empower people and organisations to achieve more with our tools, our software and services, and our powerful, global-scale cloud computing capabilities."

Hopefully, then, progress across all these fronts will be made more swiftly when the new division is up and running, and firing on all cylinders. Microsoft says that the AI and Research Group is currently hiring on a worldwide basis.

Furthermore, earlier this week, Microsoft became part of an AI alliance of tech giants which aims to help the public understand artificial intelligence better, and to ensure that the technology doesn't ever get out of hand.

• Microsoft also recently said it was nailing speech recognition, so Cortana's future looks bright

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Updated: Windows 10 Home vs Windows 10 Pro: the key differences explained

Introduction

When you count all the different ways Windows 10 will be available, there are actually seven different editions: Windows 10 Home, Pro, Enterprise, Education, Mobile and Mobile Enterprise, plus several versions designed for Internet of Things devices and embedded systems.

The list of SKUs makes most sense when you divide it up by screen size, because that is what controls the user interface you see, as well as the features you get. Windows 10 Mobile and Windows 10 Mobile Enterprise are for smartphones and tablets that have screens smaller than 8-inch; they have the Windows Phone-style screen, the Edge browser without Internet Explorer, and come with the Office for Windows 10 apps pre-installed.

• 20 smart new and improved features in Windows 10

Windows 10 Home, Pro, Enteprise and Education are for desktop PCs, laptops, 2-in-1s, convertibles and larger tablets. Mostly, they're the equivalent of the similarly named Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 editions. In this article, we'll go through the exact details of each version…

• Read more about Windows 10 migration on our sister website, ITProPortal.com

Windows 10 Home

The version of Windows 10 that you're most likely to get if you buy a new PC, Windows 10 Home, has the key features of Windows 10, from the new Start menu to the Edge browser, to the Windows Hello biometric login feature that uses your face or fingerprint instead of a password, to a now-mandatory Cortana – the voice-controlled assistant deriving from Windows Phone.

Windows 10 Home includes game streaming from Xbox One, which lets you play games from your Xbox One on your PC instead. To keep home users more secure, updates like the massive Anniversary Update overhaul from Windows Update, and you don't get the option not to install critical and security updates.

• How to download and install the Windows 10 Anniversary Update

Windows 10 Home includes the Continuum feature for tablets. This is the tablet mode that simplifies the taskbar and the Start menu, and makes your apps full screen – you can split your screen between two apps, but this is much simpler than the way Windows 8.1 let you arrange windows on-screen.

If you have the Home version of Windows 7 or 8.1, Windows 10 Home is what the free upgrade will get you.

Windows 10 Pro

If you use your PC for business, Windows 10 Pro has extra features over Windows 10 Home – the most important of which is being able to join a domain, including Azure Active Directory for single sign-on to cloud services (and have group policy applied as part of that).

You also get Hyper-V for virtualisation, BitLocker whole disk encryption, enterprise mode Internet Explorer, Remote Desktop, a version of the Windows Store for your own business, Enterprise Data Protection containers (a feature that comes later in the year) and assigned access (which locks a PC to running only one modern application, to use like a kiosk). Pro users can get updates from Windows Update for Business, which includes options for scheduling updates so they don't reboot PCs at important business times.

There are ways of connecting Windows Home PCs to a server, but if you want the familiar business PC experience, Windows 10 Pro is what you need. It will be a free upgrade from the Pro versions of Windows 7 and 8.1 (which includes Windows 7 Ultimate as well as Professional, and Windows 8.1 Pro and Pro for Students), you'll be able to upgrade to it from Windows 10 Home, and some desktops and notebooks designed for business will come with Windows 10 Pro.

Windows 10 Enterprise

Windows 10 Enterprise has all the business features of Pro, and adds a number of more powerful features designed for larger companies: Direct Access for connecting without a VPN, AppLocker for whitelisting apps, BranchCache for sharing downloads and updates with other PCs using a peer-to-peer connection, and group policy for controlling the Start Screen.

There's also Credential Guard and Device Guard features for protecting Windows logon credentials and locking down which applications a PC can run, and the option of keeping a PC on the Long Term Servicing Branch where it gets only security updates (ideal for systems you need to have working reliably for years without being affected by new and changing Windows features).

The free Windows 10 upgrade doesn't apply to Windows Enterprise; that's because you can only get it with a volume licence (and you have to already have a Windows Pro licence for each PC), and if you have a volume licence you already have the option of Software Assurance, which includes upgrades.

Windows 10 Education

Windows 10 Education is a new SKU, designed for large academic organisations like universities that want the security, management and connectivity features of Windows 10 Enterprise (it's common for students to need to join the domain to use official printers, for example).

The feature list is almost identical to Windows 10 Enterprise but it doesn't have the Long Term Servicing Branch and instead of having to upgrade from Windows Pro, you can upgrade directly to Windows 10 Education from Windows 10 Home. That means educational establishments can easily make Windows 10 Education available to students bringing in their own PCs.

Windows 10 Mobile

If you use Windows Phone or a small (8-inch or smaller) tablet with Windows 8.1, when you upgrade what you get is Windows 10 Mobile (a confusing name, given that Windows Mobile was the smartphone OS that Windows Phone replaced). It's also what will come on new devices. The idea is that a 5-inch or 6-inch phone and a 7-inch tablet aren't really very different devices, so having the same interface and – crucially – the same universal apps on both makes more sense (and gives Microsoft a better chance of getting apps for its platform).

Windows Mobile has the key parts of Windows 10, including the Edge browser and the new touch-friendly version of Office – but it doesn't include IE. If you have the right hardware, you'll be able to plug your phone or tablet into a display and get the Continuum interface, with a bigger Start menu and the same interface you'd see for universal apps on a PC.

Windows 10 Mobile Enterprise

The version of Windows Mobile for larger businesses who have volume licences includes similar tools for managing updates to Windows 10 Enterprise, although we don't know if they're exactly the same as Windows Update for Business and the Long Term Servicing branch.

Windows 10 IoT

If you have a Raspberry Pi 2 or an Intel Galileo or a range of other 'maker boards' you can get a free version of Windows 10 for them that can run universal apps. There are also Industry and Mobile versions of Windows 10 that OEMs can put on more traditional embedded devices like point of sale systems, cash tills, ATMs and other machinery.

The Industry version is for x86 systems only and it can run a wide range of software; the Mobile version is for tablets and handhelds that might have x86 or ARM CPUs and they can run universal apps. This is the embedded version of Windows Mobile – it's for the kind of device you might use for entertainment on a plane or for checking stock in a warehouse.

• For a load of neat tips and tricks on Windows 10, buy: Windows 10 Beyond the Manual

Gabe Carey has also contributed to this article

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Round up: The best free PC software 2016

The best free PC software

The best free software for Windows

Superb software doesn't have to cost a fortune - thanks to open source, shareware and ad-supported projects, you can equip your Windows PC with a complete set of essential everyday programs completely free.

We've put the best free Windows software to the test and hand-picked the very best programs for your PC. These are the programs we use ourselves at home, and we hope you enjoy them as much as we do. Don't see your favorites listed? Share your recommendations in the comments below.

Avira Free Antivirus

Fast, reliable protection from viruses and other online threats

Great protection from the latest virus and malware threats, Avira Free Antivirus has a minimal impact on your system performance and offers a range of well-designed presets – just set and forget.

The best free antivirus 2016

LibreOffice

More productivity programs than Microsoft Office, all completely free

A complete office suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, vector graphics, mathematical formulae and databases, LibreOffice is in constant active development and is fully compatible with Microsoft Office formats.

The best free office software 2016

Google Chrome

Google's browser is fast, flexible and almost infinitely extendable

The browser wars are as fierce as ever, but Chrome takes our top spot thanks to its flexibility, stability and cross-platform support. Its integration with your Google account makes it incredibly easy to carry your favorites and bookmarks between devices, and it supports a huge archive of extensions.

The best web browser 2016

MusicBee

The ultimate player, streamer and organizer for music lovers

Everything you need for managing a music collection of any size, MusicBee offers smart tagging and hardware optimization for the best possible playback quality. It's also a great choice for streaming internet radio and enjoying podcasts.

The best free music player 2016

GIMP

Make your photos look their best with the best Photoshop alternative

The best free alternative to Adobe Photoshop, GIMP is packed with smart tools like a clone stamp, healing brush, transformations, smart selections and a host of filters – from the subtle to the creative. There are also dozens of superb user-created plugins to add even more features, and GIMP receives regular updates from its team of volunteer developers.

The best free photo editor 2016

Foxit Reader

Read, create and convert PDFs, with superb format compatibility

View, edit and create PDFs, and convert Microsoft Office files and scanned documents. Foxit Reader's superb feature set is rounded out with annotations, cloud-sharing and security options to protect you from potential security vulnerabilitites.

The best free PDF reader 2016

qBittorrent

Packed with all the tools music, TV and movie fans could want

Fast and efficient, with a built-in search engine and media player, qBittorrent has everything you need for quick, secure downloads. There's automatic prioritization of torrents, torrent creation and IP filtering too, and it's easy to master.

The best free torrent client 2016

Any Video Converter

Download, convert and burn clips from all the biggest video-sharing sites

Download videos from YouTube, Vimeo, Dailymotion and many more, then convert them to any audio or video format you like. Any Video Converter can also burn converted files to disc, and rip content from your own DVDs and CDs.

The best free YouTube downloader 2016

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