News, reviews, articles on the topic Microsoft

Microsoft Teams is updating its virtual backgrounds collection with new still and animated versions. This is the biggest update since the original collection was released in 2020 and includes options that allow you to replace unpleasant environments with a variety of scenes.

Microsoft has finally made its Bing CPT-4 available to everyone - now you don't have to wait to get access. To use the bot, you need to sign in with your Microsoft account in the new Bing app or Edge browser. Microsoft is also making a major update to Bing Chat with many new features and even plugin support.

Microsoft is launching a new Game Pass recommendation system for friends to invite them to try PC Game Pass. Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass owners can invite five of their friends to try a 14-day trial of PC Game Pass.

Microsoft Edge may be a good replacement for Google's Chrome, but now it's showing some not-so-nice rivalry tricks - for example, it's advertising BingAI while you're using Google's BardAI. This was first reported by Twitter user @vitor_dlucca, who said that in the latest beta version of the browser, when using BardAI in the address bar, Edge offers you to compare answers with BingAI.

Microsoft has once again redesigned the home interface of Xbox consoles, and this time it looks like a slight improvement. The main innovations are a better view of background images and easier access to key parts of the Xbox dashboard.

Microsoft is launching a payment system inside Teams so that small businesses can earn money from meetings, one-on-one sessions, webinars, and more. The feature is currently available to business users in the US and Canada - they can collect payments during a meeting, opening up the service to financial advisors, lawyers, instructors, tutors, and other small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) to collect payments for virtual meetings.

Microsoft has started distributing a new version of Phone Link, which now fully supports iOS devices. iPhone owners will now be able to send and receive messages via iMessage, make and receive calls, and view notifications from their phones on a PC or laptop. The only feature that users may miss is photo sync. But it's already supported in the Windows 11 Photos app, so it's only a matter of time before Phone Link adds it.

In an update to its naming taxonomy, Microsoft has begun naming hacker groups after weather events, such as a storm, typhoon, or blizzard. This means that the Lapsus$ hacker group, which has attacked companies such as Nvidia, Samsung, and Microsoft, will now be called Strawberry Tempest

Microsoft has begun rolling out a new profile feature in Outlook for Mac that will allow you to separate your personal and work accounts using coloured themes. This feature is designed to make it easier to switch between accounts and not send the wrong email to someone or save calendar entries incorrectly.

Microsoft is testing a new Edge feature that will make the sidebar even more useful. With Canary 114.01.1789.0, you can now pin it directly to your desktop, as shown in the video below:

Microsoft continues to embed Bing AI in all parts of its software empire - this time, it is the company's SwiftKey keyboard, or rather its iOS version.

LinkedIn, the social networking site owned by Microsoft, is launching a free verification system (how's that, Elon Musk?) that will allow users to verify their identity and workplace. Verification options include the ability to use CLEAR to verify your identity, verify your workplace using your email address, and the Microsoft Entra verified ID platform to obtain digital workplace identifiers for free.

Last month, Microsoft announced image generation technology built right into Edge and is now slowly making it available to users around the world. Using this tool is simple: type a query into Bing to find the images you want. Bing will then generate a number of relevant images for you to work with. All you have to do is download the ones you like and use them as you see fit.

Microsoft has announced plans to add Copilot to OneNote. Last month, the company announced it for Teams, Excel, Word, and PowerPoint, and now it has decided to expand the scope of its application.

Microsoft has added the ability to block automatic video playback to its Edge browser. The feature is now available for testers on the Canary channel, where it has joined the list of existing resolution settings and playback restrictions