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More than half of UK adults now turn to AI assistants for product searches, service recommendations and everyday advice — a behavioural shift that is already changing how businesses are discovered, and that will only accelerate as Microsoft, OpenAI and other platforms open paid placements inside conversational interfaces. Background: the tipping point for search behaviour The last three years have seen search move from link lists to synthesised answers. Rather than presenting pages ranked...

Microsoft’s latest PowerToys maintenance release is a lesson in pragmatic stewardship: a small, surgical patch—v0.97.2—addresses a handful of regressions introduced in the 0.97 cycle and, critically for many Windows 10 users, restores Image Resizer after an upgrade path problem tied to legacy sparse app packages. The release does not introduce new features, but it delivers important stability fixes across Advanced Paste, Cursor Wrap, Color Picker, the Command Palette localization, Light...

iToolab’s latest update, RecoverGo Windows Data Recovery V1.3.0, arrives with a bold promise: recover “permanently deleted files” with a success rate of up to 99% — a claim that demands technical unpacking, practical testing, and a dose of healthy skepticism before anyone treats it as a guarantee. Background iToolab positions RecoverGo V1.3.0 as an easy-to-use recovery tool for Windows 11/10/8/7 that supports internal drives, external HDDs/SSDs, SD cards, USB sticks, and cameras. The vendor...

I discovered a simple, under‑the‑radar escape hatch in Windows 11 that can save you from yanking the power cord: press Ctrl+Alt+Del, hold the Ctrl key, then click the power icon in the bottom‑right of the Secure Attention Sequence (the full‑screen Ctrl+Alt+Del menu) to invoke an Emergency Restart that immediately reboots the machine after a clear warning. Background / Overview Windows exposes several restart and shutdown paths — the Start menu, Alt+F4 on the desktop, the Win+X menu...

Ecommerce merchants face a pivotal choice: blanket-block AI crawlers and risk missing the next major shopping channel, or selectively monitor and enable agentic access to capture buyers who will increasingly begin — and sometimes finish — their purchase journeys inside conversational AI. Scot Wingo’s recent “Ask an Expert” column argues the decision must be strategic, not reflexive: don’t slam the door on AI agents — prepare for them, while still defending your catalog, margins, and customer...

Microsoft’s stock was hit with fresh analyst skepticism this week after two well‑known sell‑side desks — Stifel and Melius Research — downgraded the name within days of each other, calling out AI‑related execution risk, sharply higher capital expenditures, and uncertainty around Copilot monetization as drivers of a potential re‑rating for the company and its Azure cloud business. Background Microsoft reported a strong fiscal second quarter, beating top‑line estimates, but the numbers buried...

Microsoft’s AI experiments have shifted a debated privacy trade-off from theory to practice: features like Windows Recall — designed to give Windows 11 a searchable “photographic memory” of your screen — have prompted privacy experts, independent developers, and regulators to ask whether the new OS actually widens the desktop threat surface in ways Windows 10 did not. Background / Overview Windows 11’s roadmap in 2024–2026 moved aggressively toward an agentic vision: Copilot integrated...

If you use Windows 10 or Windows 11, there’s a built‑in backup tool hiding in plain sight — the legacy “Backup and Restore (Windows 7)” control‑panel applet — and it still works well enough for many users who want a simple, file‑and‑image backup without installing extra software. The tool can back up selected folders, create scheduled backups, and produce a full system image that captures Windows, your installed apps, and data so you can restore a PC to a previous working state. That said...

Microsoft’s recent round of UI polish for Windows 11 centers on the taskbar and desktop icons — subtle changes that aim to reduce clutter, improve discoverability, and prepare the shell for deeper AI integration — and they matter more than you might think because the taskbar is now the primary hub for search, Copilot, and ongoing system affordances. Background / Overview Windows 11 launched with a dramatic redesign: centered taskbar icons, rounded corners, and a new visual language that...

Microsoft has quietly shipped PowerToys version 0.97.2 — a targeted, stability-focused patch that fixes crashes, corrects UI and DPI glitches, and tunes several of the suite’s higher-profile utilities rather than adding new functionality. Background PowerToys began life as a Windows power-user toolkit and has evolved into a modular productivity platform maintained openly on GitHub. The project’s recent cadence emphasizes rapid iteration: major capability pushes are followed by small...

If you use Windows and want to reclaim control of your data, speed up repetitive tasks, and avoid vendor lock-in without spending a dime, these ten open-source apps are the fastest, most practical way to do it. They replace or meaningfully extend common proprietary tools—office suites, launchers, backups, password management, automation, and even local AI—while keeping your workflow local-first and auditable. The list below explains what each app does, why it matters, real-world strengths...

Windows Explorer’s Details view finally showing folder sizes is not a magic trick — it’s the result of two small, well-engineered tools working together: the ultra‑fast indexer Everything and the File Explorer mod host Windhawk, joined by a community mod that injects folder‑size data into Explorer’s Size column. Gigazine’s recent walkthrough lays out the exact install and setup steps used to make this work, and the technique is now widely discussed in the Windows community. (gigazine.net)...

Microsoft’s latest security push for Windows 11 marks a deliberate turn toward a consent-first, secure‑by‑default desktop: the company has announced Windows Baseline Security Mode (BSM) and User Transparency and Consent, a pair of features that together limit runtime execution to verified binaries and bring smartphone‑style permission prompts for camera, microphone, files and other sensitive resources. Background / Overview For years, Windows has balanced openness with a patchwork of...

Intel’s latest Wi‑Fi driver refresh surfaces a small but meaningful change under the hood: a driver-side toggle that lets Windows clients factor channel load into access‑point selection when roaming. That single option — described by the vendor as a way to prefer less‑loaded APs over simply the strongest signal — promises better real‑world throughput and stability in crowded networks, but it also raises compatibility and testing questions that every power user and IT admin should weigh...

When a reader clicks a link and lands on a “We couldn’t find that page” message, it’s easy to shrug and move on—but every missing page is a small story about the way the web, vendors, and the fast-moving world of AI communicate (and sometimes fail to). The Goodcall page at /voice-ai/ai-like-chatgpt appears to be one of those missing pages, and its absence exposes wider issues about how voice‑AI claims are published, verified, and preserved—from vendor marketing and SEO strategies to...

A widely deployed January servicing update has created a surprising reliability problem: some Windows PCs now refuse to power off cleanly, instead restarting, hanging on “Shutting down,” or powering back on after appearing to shut down — and the same regression that showed up first on Windows 11 has now been confirmed on Windows 10 systems still under extended support. This article breaks down what broke, why it matters, how Microsoft has responded, which systems are at risk, practical...

For decades Paint was the little, dependable canvas that taught generations how to click, drag and imagine — and now Microsoft has quietly turned that canvas into a full‑fledged, AI‑assisted creative surface built into Windows 11. What used to be a two‑minute doodle tool is being reimagined with layers, a Copilot hub, text‑to‑image generation, generative erase/fill and other AI-powered helpers designed to keep creativity fast, familiar and frictionless. The change is pragmatic: keep Paint’s...

Microsoft’s next living‑room gamble is no longer just a whisper: evidence from supplier comments, Microsoft’s own Full Screen Experience trials, and sustained reporting points to a plausible — if ambitious — plan to ship a hybrid console in the 2027 window that boots to a console‑grade, TV‑first shell while running a full Windows 11 runtime underneath. This approach would let the device act like a traditional Xbox for mainstream players while exposing a true Windows PC layer for power users...

AMD’s comment last week that its custom silicon is “progressing well to support a launch in 2027” has reset the public timeline for Microsoft’s next-generation Xbox — but industry reporting since has been unequivocal: supplier readiness is not the same thing as a locked-in release date, and 2027 should be understood as a best-case scenario rather than a stamped schedule. What changed is that a chipmaker publicly framed a window; what didn’t change is the long list of interdependent software...

Windows 11’s quietly shipped, built‑in “Store CLI” is the kind of small change that quietly reshapes daily workflows for power users, sysadmins, and IT pros — and it deserves a close, skeptical look before you add it to your automation toolbox. Background Microsoft already offers multiple command‑line touchpoints around app distribution: the Windows Package Manager (winget) for general package management, and the Microsoft Store Developer CLI (msstore) aimed at publishers and CI workflows...