Microsoft shows off new visual features in Windows 10, new Windows Store options

Joe Belfiore on stage at Microsoft Build 2015.

Aero Glass is back.

At its annual Build conference, Microsoft showed off some new features ofWindows 10, including a more transparent look and feel.

Microsoft's Joe Belfiore, corporate vice-president of the operating system group, unveiled updates to Cortana and the company's new web browser, Microsoft Edge (originally called Project Spartan).

One of the big visual changes to Windows 10 is the re-addition of the transparent Aero Glass look from Windows Vista and Windows 7. "We're trying to bring back some of that feel," Belfiore said.

And it's a good decision, as Aero Glass has aged far better than other UI paradigms. In fact, Apple embraced Aero Glass-ness with its latest desktop operating system, OS X Yosemite.

In addition to its Start menu, Microsoft is bringing back Jump Lists. Windows 10 will also use a new Spotlight feature to show users interesting images on their desktop's lock screen and various Windows 10 apps. Users can then choose to install an app directly from the lock screen (this feature can be turned off).

More ways to get into the Windows Store

Microsoft announced new ways for developers to get apps to its platform and inside the Windows Store.

Until now, developers have had to package their apps as Windows Universal apps for the Windows Store.While that's fine for new apps written with more modern design language, traditional applications written in Win32 or .NET are unable to be added to the Windows Store.

That changes with Windows 10. Now, Microsoft is allowing developers to package their Win32 and .NET apps to sell in the Windows Store.

To ensure security, those apps will be run sandboxed, so they don't harm other parts of the system.

This is big news for traditional app makers. Adobe has already said it will be bringing Adobe Photoshop Elements and Adobe Premiere Elements to the Windows Store.

Finally, Microsoft is going to make it easy for developers to bring their iOS and Android code to Windows.

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Microsoft's age-guessing site says it doesn't keep your photos — sort of

The viral Microsoft site designed to guess your age, How Old Do I Look, may have a down side: keeping your photos in the company's product ecosystem.

Some users have noticed that despite the site's front-page message saying, "We don't keep the photo [uploaded to the site]," its terms of service suggest something different.

Following a sentence declaring that "Microsoft does not claim ownership of any materials you provide," a subsequent passage in the site's terms of service reveals an important caveat:

However, by posting, uploading, inputting, providing, or submitting your Submission, you are granting Microsoft, its affiliated companies, and necessary sublicensees permission to use your Submission in connection with the operation of their Internet businesses (including, without limitation, all Microsoft services), including, without limitation, the license rights to: copy, distribute, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, reproduce, edit, translate, and reformat your Submission.

But that's not all. Its terms of service also includes the right for Microsoft to "publish your name in connection with your Submission; and to sublicense such rights to any supplier of the Website Services."

IMAGE: MICROSOFT

The messages appear to directly conflict with each other: One promises that Microsoft won't keep your photos, while the other states quite clearly that you are giving Microsoft permission to use them.

When contacted by Mashable, a Microsoft spokesperson explained the apparent discrepancy.

"How-old.net does not store or share the pictures," the spokesperson said. "The terms of service are accurate.Developers get to choose how their apps work. The developers of How-old.net chose not to store or share photos for this app. These terms of services are like those of other companies."

In other words, How Old Do I Look doesn't intend to store your photos, but its terms of service give Microsoft the right to handle anything uploaded to the site should it see fit.

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How to delete all your embarrassing tweets before you become famous

Oh, Internet. As newly-minted The Daily Show host Trevor Noah is learning, hell hath no fury like old tweets discovered to embarrass those new to the public spotlight.

Within hours of the announcement that Noah would replace Jon Stewart as host of Comedy Central's The Daily Show, old tweets by Noah surfaced.

Whether the tweets are offensive or merely poor attempts at humor (a different kind of offense altogether), the Internet shame machine is out in full force.

Noah, like so many other individuals thrust from obscurity and into the limelight, forgot the first rule of social media: Delete that embarrassing social media paper trail!

Look, we've all done it. We've said something online, tweeted an off-color remark, or posted those photos from Sorority Formal 2005 to Facebook that, in hindsight, we wish we could take back.

And although it would be nice to think that people would understand that sometimes, stuff we tweet in 2010 doesn't represent who we are in 2015, that's just not how the world works. Despite the fact that a whole generation is growing up online, more connected than ever, the Internet hasn't yet decided on a set statute of limitations for Social Media Dumbassery™.

But don't worry. Mashable is here for you. Here are some ways to delete your own embarrassing Twitter past.

Advanced search is your friend

Twitter recently improved its advanced search features. The bad news is that means it's easier than ever for other people to search for embarrassing tweets you may have sent back in the day.

The good news it that you can use this tool to find your own tweets that might cross the line.

Go to https://twitter.com/search-advanced and enter in keywords and phrases, along with your own user account name.

This will help isolate tweets that might be deemed as intolerant, cruel or just plain unprofessional.

As an example, I searched "drunk" on my own account. Shockingly, the results weren't as bad (or as numerous) as I thought.

Twitter advanced search

IMAGE: MASHABLE SCREENSHOT

Still, I managed to find this gem from my second week of Twitter. The 25th birthday quarter-life crisis tweet.

Once you find offending tweets, you can delete them manually.

Getting nerdy about it

If you're a Windows user and you want to delete a lot of tweets but don't necessarily want to rely on the manual process of advanced search, there is a free tool called Twitter Archive Eraserthat works really well.

The tool works with your downloadable Twitter archive. The tool can then use regular expressions, search parameters and other information to selectively or bulk erase tweets.

The tool also includes the ability to bulk delete favorites and direct messages. Because remember, what you tweet isn't just visible. Stuff you favorite is visible too.

If you're really squeamish, the tool also works to delete everything you've ever sent.

Go nuclear, delete everything

OK, but what if you don't know what you are looking for? In that case, the best decision might just be to delete everything.

There are third-party tools such asTweetDeleter and TweetDelete that let you delete your Twitter histories either in bulk or with more selective options.

Twitter's API typically has a limit of 3200 tweets that it can access, so if you have tons of tweets, you might have to take a few passes with certain tools to remove everything.

There are even mobile apps, such asTweeticide for iOS, which can bulk delete tweets.

Other things to keep in mind

Deleting tweets doesn't necessarily mean they will totally disappear. Certain archives and aggregators might have retained copies of your tweets, so it may take some time before tweets totally "disappear."

Share your Twitter deletion strategies with us in the comments.

Google Search Gets a Cool, Useful Calculator

Before today, when you typed an equation into Google — say, "15 x 7" — the answer (105, if you must know) would appear in bold above you actual search results. Now Google has gone one step further, giving you your answer on a virtual calculator.

The blue-hued calculator appears above your results, as before, and has 34 buttons, including standard trigonometric functions, exponents and buttons for the transcendental numbers, pi and e.

Bonus: It also works on mobile. In our quick test, it appeared in both Safari and Chrome on iOS and of course on Android as  well. Although the scientific functions aren't visible in portrait mode, they appear when you flip your phone to landscape — a trick Google's borrowing from the iOS-standard calculator.

Punching buttons is a little unwieldy in the desktop browser, but it's natural as can be on a phone. Plus, on both versions, you can do calculations via voice search. The voice interface can even discern such phrasing as "cosine of 60 degrees."

It's not the first time Google has experimented with interactive calculators in its search tool. A Google Doodle late last year that celebrated the a robot whose chest featured a calculator, although it was very limited and somewhat unreliable.

It may be a minor addition to the Google search toolbox, but this calculator has the inner math nerds inside all of us here at Mashable excited. We think these fine fellows from Saturday Night 

Liveaccurately sum up our feelings — share yours in the comments.