News, reviews, articles on the topic Microsoft
Microsoft has announced that it is ending support for Cortana on Windows. The company says that it will "no longer support Cortana on Windows as a standalone application" starting at the end of this year.
Almost two years after the announcement, Microsoft has begun testing a dark theme-enabled version of Paint, and it's now available on the Dev and Canary channels for Windows insiders. Like most other apps in Windows 11 that support dark modes, Paint will automatically switch to match your system's theme, or you can manually enable dark mode on the new settings page in Paint.
A recent Bloomberg report sheds light on the circumstances surrounding the failed release of Redfall last month. According to the report, the game's development was hampered by a lack of clear direction, high staff turnover, and insufficient resources for what was described as a AAA game.
Widgets have been around since Windows 11 was launched, but they haven't gained much popularity among users. Well, it looks like Microsoft is going to change that - in the new build of the system for developers, we spotted several new really useful widgets that will allow you to monitor the use of CPU, memory and video card resources or view the speed of your Wi-Fi or Ethernet network. In general, similar data can be monitored through the Task Manager, but the use of widgets makes everything much easier.
It seems that Microsoft has started to advertise its new products more intrusively lately - we've already seen enough Windows 11 test builds that "recommend" you try Office or One Drive. But Windows 10 owners shouldn't worry - the company has reached out there, too.
Microsoft has supported a major plan to capture carbon dioxide emissions from a wood-fired power plant. The Danish energy company Ørsted, with which the corporation entered into an agreement to purchase credits that have captured more than 2.76 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide.
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.
