The one year anniversary of Windows 10 is coming up on July 29th and Microsoft plans to release an “Anniversary Upgrade” for the operating system. The company has released an insider preview of the update which includes a number of new features and upgrades.

Upgrades include Cortana, Microsoft’s Siri-like digital assistant, informing users of low battery power on their mobile devices through notifications on their Windows 10 desktop. Microsoft is also introducing a feature similar to Google’s Android Device Manager, allowing users to locate their lost phone using geo-location and to remotely force it to ring. 

New features introduced in the update preview include the Skype Universal Windows Platform version which simplifies the look and feel of the popular messaging application by removing duplicate menus and placing the global menus in a new, single Settings menu. Skype UWP currently has the standard Skype functionality but future releases will allow users to “start a chat with anyone using Skype or not using Skype,” improved screen sharing capabilities and group voice and video calling. 

The update preview also showed off Microsoft’s new addition to the well-known blue screen of death, the blue error screen that appears when Windows encounters a critical failure and stops functioning. In the preview, the blue screen now features a QR (Quick Response) Code, a square barcode which users can scan with their smartphones and convert to open a website address.

The QR codes in the preview direct users to the same generic Windows troubleshooting page. Perhaps future versions of this feature will direct users to specific information about the error type and troubleshooting tips through the QR code. Currently, the error codes on the blue screen error messages do not offer much additional information for users.  As there are already phishing and tech support scams using fake blue screens of death to scare users, the inclusion of this code may add a new dimension to this tactic in the future. 

See the full list of features at https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2016/04/06/announcing-windows-10-insider-preview-build-14316/