Page 535 - Windows 10 May 2019 Update The Missing Manual: The Book That Should Have Been in the Box

Microsoft Wi-Fi

This bizarre little app is nothing more than an ad for Microsoft Wi-Fi, the

company’s fledgling network of Wi-Fi hotspots. It lets you know you can
“buy convenient Microsoft pay-as-you-go plans for the time you need.”
Thanks.

Mixed Reality Portal

Mixed reality is Microsoft’s term for what the rest of the world calls

augmented reality (AR). In AR apps, you see graphics and information
overlaid on the camera’s view of the world: arrows that show which way to
walk to get to the nearest subway stop, for example, or info boxes that

identify the prices of apartments in nearby buildings.

Microsoft is big on augmented reality. Its HoloLens headset, for example, is
a pair of goggles that let you enter the mixed-reality world hands-free.

This app, the Mixed Reality Portal, is useless if you don’t own a HoloLens
or another brand of Windows 10–compatible headset. It also requires some
beefy hardware—very fast, very recent graphics processor, and at least 8

GB of memory.

This app is designed to be a sort of mission control: It displays, on the PC
screen, whatever you’re seeing inside the headset. Using the menu, you can

connect to a new headset or other controller (“Set up controllers”), turn the
invisible game boundary on or off, create a new boundary (“Run setup”), or
download more AR apps (“Get mixed reality apps”).

The Settings menu offers controls for uninstalling your AR hardware.

Mobile Plans

This weird little app exists solely to let you sign up for a cellular-data plan
through the Microsoft Store. It’s useful only if you have a tablet or laptop
with a cellular modem and SIM card, like the one in a phone.