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Microsoft’s big bet on embedding generative AI into Windows 11 has collided with the lived reality of millions of users: instead of clear productivity gains, many report slower machines, flaky features, and invasive telemetry-like behaviors that have turned excitement into exasperation for both consumers and enterprise admins. The backlash centers on performance regressions tied to Copilot integrations, privacy alarms around features such as Recall, and growing concerns that rapid, AI-driven...

Microsoft’s Edge Canary for Android has quietly absorbed two of the browser’s more ambitious AI features — Copilot Vision and Journeys — bringing visual understanding and project-style session memory to mobile testers and signaling a clear push to make Edge a productivity-first, context-aware browser on Android devices. Background Microsoft has been steadily folding its Copilot assistant deeper into Edge across platforms, evolving the browser from a passive navigator into a permissioned...

Microsoft’s deepening tie-up with Wayve marks a turning point: a British-born startup that has insisted on a camera‑first, deep‑learning approach to autonomy is moving from lab demonstrations toward constrained commercial deployment on London’s chaotic streets, backed by Azure supercomputing, a Wall of capital and partnerships with major mobility players. Background Wayve, founded in Cambridge in 2017, built its reputation by rejecting the conventional modular, map‑heavy AV stack in favor of...

Households across the UK have been urged to open windows for 10 minutes during Thursday and Friday even as Storm Goretti brings snow, ice and bitter cold — advice framed as a simple defence against condensation, damp and mould but one that needs careful, situational judgement when severe weather and poor outdoor air are factors. Background / Overview Storm Goretti has been described by the Met Office as a “multi‑hazard” system bringing heavy snow, very strong winds and heavy rain across...

Lenovo’s CES 2026 salvo wasn’t a cautious refresh cycle — it was a deliberate, high‑visibility argument that the Windows PC world still has room for weird, wonderful, and experimental hardware, from rollable laptops to floating all‑in‑one displays and palm‑sized mini‑PCs. What stood out at Lenovo’s Tech World at CES was not only the breadth of devices but the company’s confidence in shipping both pragmatic Copilot+ PCs and attention‑grabbing concept products, a dual strategy that positions...

Windows accessibility features are no longer niche options tucked away for a small group of users — used smartly, they can reduce friction, speed routine tasks, and make your day-to-day Windows experience measurably more efficient. Background Windows 11 consolidated the old Ease of Access settings under a clearer Accessibility umbrella, and Microsoft has been gradually exposing more mouse- and input-related controls in the modern Settings app (while keeping legacy Control Panel paths for...

I started using Windhawk to treat Windows 11’s taskbar like a design element instead of an afterthought, and the result was immediate: a floating, dock-like bar that actually blends with my wallpaper instead of standing out as a solid slab. What began as a small cosmetic experiment—installing the Windows 11 Taskbar Styler and trying the Luminosity (Dock) preset—quickly turned into a short, reliable workflow for producing a premium-looking desktop without replacing the shell or adopting a...

Prairie South School Division’s modest, pragmatic pivot toward classroom AI — framed by superintendent of school operations Dustin Swanson as “AI as a tool, not a threat” — captures the posture many North American districts are taking: cautious pilots, a living policy under development, and a tight focus on protecting student learning and privacy while building staff competence. The division has introduced a draft AI policy to staff, is prioritizing data‑privacy safeguards and professional...

Microsoft has quietly set a firm deadline for one of its long‑running, quietly useful apps: the Sway Windows desktop app (Win32) will be retired on June 1, 2026, and users will be funneled to the web client at sway.cloud.microsoft for all future use. Background Sway arrived as Microsoft’s cloud‑first storytelling canvas — a hybrid between a lightweight presentation tool and an embeddable, scrollable web document designed for newsletters, reports, and interactive “mini‑sites.” It never gained...

Microsoft has confirmed that a recent Current Channel update to Classic Outlook (Version 2511, Build 19426.20218) introduced a regression that prevents recipients from opening messages protected with Encrypt Only permissions, leaving affected users seeing an unreadable rpmsg attachment instead of the message body and attachments. Background Encryption in Microsoft 365 mailflows is presented in several flavors. Encrypt‑Only (also called Encrypt in some UI locations) applies message protection...

SharkTime Software’s new wList 3.0 ships as a lightweight, cache-first file search and directory‑listing tool for Windows, promising “super‑fast” local and network searches, three exportable list styles, Unicode compatibility, and an internal image preview—available starting January 7, 2026 as a Microsoft Store package and downloadable EXE from the developer’s site. Background / Overview SharkTime Software is a small independent developer with a long‑standing history of compact Windows...

Google's decision to cut public Android source code drops from four times a year to just two — published only in Q2 and Q4 starting in 2026 — is a small procedural change on paper and a seismic one for the open-source ecosystem that depends on the Android Open Source Project (AOSP). Background Google has updated the AOSP home page and public documentation to state that, "Effective in 2026, to align with our trunk stable development model and ensure platform stability for the ecosystem, we...

The Command Palette in PowerToys arrives on Windows 11 as a compact, keyboard-first command center that behaves like macOS’s Spotlight or Alfred but is built for Windows power users and developers. It consolidates app launching, settings access, quick calculations, system commands, WinGet installs, and even Registry browsing into a single, lightweight overlay — and it’s designed to be extended with plug-ins so you can tailor the tool to your workflow. This feature-centric guide walks through...

A federal judge has made clear that Elon Musk’s long-running legal attack on OpenAI will reach a jury, setting the stage for a high-stakes courtroom clash over whether the ChatGPT maker betrayed its founding nonprofit mission and enriched executives and partners at donors’ expense. The order to let the case proceed puts disputed facts about OpenAI’s conversion, internal promises, and Microsoft’s commercial deals squarely in the hands of jurors, with a trial scheduled for March 2026...

A federal judge in Oakland has signalled that Elon Musk’s long‑running lawsuit challenging OpenAI’s evolution from a nonprofit research lab into a commercial enterprise will move forward to jury trial — a development that dramatically amplifies legal and commercial uncertainty for enterprise customers, cloud partners and the broader AI ecosystem. The judge, U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, told the courtroom there was “plenty of evidence” for a jury to weigh and that “this case is...

Microsoft says the Office apps themselves — Word, Excel, PowerPoint and the rest — are not being renamed “Copilot,” but a confusing renaming of the Microsoft 365 hub and aggressive Copilot branding across Microsoft’s entry points has left millions of users wondering whether their familiar Office apps have been replaced. Background: how we got here and what Microsoft actually changed Microsoft’s public messaging around Office and Copilot has been evolving for years, but two specific moves set...

Nudge Security’s latest platform expansion brings real‑time governance to the point where employees actually interact with AI—scanning chatbot conversations, enforcing browser‑level policy nudges, mapping OAuth and API grants, and automating playbooks that revoke risky access or log Acceptable Use Policy acknowledgements, all intended to give security teams a practical way to manage the sprawling, shadowy landscape of AI across modern SaaS environments. Background Since 2023, organizations...

Lenovo’s CES keynote didn’t just unveil new laptops and phones — it aimed to redraw the map of personal computing by introducing Qira, a system‑level, cross‑device AI agent designed to follow users from PC to phone to wearable, take authorized actions on their behalf, and preserve context across sessions and hardware. Background / Overview Lenovo presented Qira at Tech World during CES in Las Vegas as the centerpiece of a broader “Smarter AI for All” strategy that ties refreshed AI PCs, new...

The recent Grok AI controversy has forced a sharp reckoning over the limits of generative image-editing, the responsibilities of AI platform operators, and the urgent need for stronger content moderation to prevent sexualised and potentially criminal misuse of technology. Background / Overview Grok is the conversational, multimodal assistant developed by xAI and embedded in X (formerly Twitter). It has been positioned as a faster, more candid alternative to mainstream assistants, and its...

A recent update to the classic Outlook desktop client triggered a high-impact interoperability bug that interrupted the handling of S/MIME-signed messages and Office Message Encryption (OME) protected email, producing confusing prompts and, in some cases, stripping digital signatures when messages were opened — a problem Microsoft has acknowledged and moved to fix while administrators and security-conscious users are left juggling mitigations, compatibility checks, and risk controls...