BUILD 2021: WSL now supports GUI apps, Project Reunion and Windows Terminal receive updates, Visual Studio and .NET 6 get new previews

Microsoft has used the first day of its annual BUILD conference to announce a swathe of updates to its Windows development products.

The first announcement is that support for GUI apps when using Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) is rolling out as of this week.

A preview of the functionality has been available since last month and is designed to allow developers to run their favourite Linux tools, utilities, and apps directly in Windows 10. Last week, Google announced...

26 May 2021 | Development Tools

Microsoft debuts .NET 5.0 after year and a half in preview

Microsoft has debuted .NET 5.0 a year and a half after it was first unveiled, alongside some other important developer products.

.NET 5 was first unveiled back in May 2019 and promised to be the first with a single runtime and framework which can be used to target Windows, Linux, macOS, iOS, Android, tvOS, watchOS, WebAssembly, and more.

Multiple previews have come and gone since .NET 5’s unveiling, but Microsoft took the opportunity to use this week’s .NET Conf 2020...

12 November 2020 | Languages

New developer tools boost Google Assistant’s capabilities

Google has launched new tools for developers which are designed to boost Assistant's capabilities when responding to user requests.

The virtual assistant is regularly found to handle general queries better than its closest competitors, but too often you can think it would just be quicker to do a task yourself. We're still far off from the sci-fi visions of AI assistants like HAL and JARVIS.

Google Assistant, and its rivals, have made large strides in improving areas such...

18 June 2020 | Android