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Microsoft’s latest update to Copilot Mode for Microsoft Edge turns the browser from a passive page renderer into a permissioned, proactive assistant — adding Copilot Actions, the new Journeys session recovery, and optional personalization that uses browsing history to deliver richer, task-oriented help. Background Since its initial rollout, Copilot Mode has reframed Edge as an AI-enabled workspace rather than just another Chromium-based browser. The feature set introduced earlier this year...

Windows 11’s 25H2 enablement update does not deliver the raw CPU throughput improvements some hoped for, and in a focused, no‑games head‑to‑head on high‑core Zen‑5 hardware modern Linux snapshots (running Linux 6.16/6.17 series kernels) retain a measurable lead in multi‑threaded, creator‑style workloads. Background / Overview Windows 11 version 25H2 is being shipped as an enablement package on the same servicing branch as 24H2 rather than a full binary rebase. That delivery model flips...

Microsoft’s latest Copilot rollout gives the assistant a literal face — Mico, a small, animated, non‑human avatar that appears in voice interactions — and the move crystallizes a strategic shift: Copilot is being recast from a faceless query box into a persistent, multimodal companion that remembers, collaborates, and now emotes. Background / Overview Microsoft introduced Mico as part of a coordinated Copilot Fall Release that bundles a set of functional changes with a visible persona. The...

As enterprises race to embed generative AI into everyday workflows, Microsoft Copilot has become one of the most visible vectors for that shift — but the difference between adoption and durable value often comes down to structured, role-focused training that turns promise into performance. Background: Copilot’s arrival and why training matters Microsoft Copilot is positioned as an AI assistant embedded across Microsoft 365 — Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams, Loop and more — designed...

Early independent testing shows that Windows 11 version 25H2 delivers no measurable CPU throughput gains over 24H2 while modern Linux snapshots continue to outperform Windows on multi‑threaded creator workloads — in Phoronix’s Ryzen 9 9950X testbed Ubuntu 25.10 averaged roughly a 15% advantage across 41 CPU‑focused benchmarks, and running Ubuntu under WSL2 on Windows 11 produced a measurable ~13% composite penalty versus native Linux. Background / Overview Windows 11 25H2 is being...

Microsoft's new animated avatar, Mico, arrives as the face of Copilot — a deliberately friendly, emoji-like companion that Microsoft says is designed to be useful without being obtrusive, a modern answer to the mixed legacy of Clippy and a direct test of whether personality can make AI assistants more helpful rather than more harmful. Overview Microsoft unveiled Mico during its Fall Copilot release, rolling out a collection of updates that push Copilot toward more social and voice-driven...

Maester arrived as a simple idea with a practical purpose: treat cloud configuration like code and test it continuously so Microsoft 365 and Entra administrators stop discovering broken security only after an incident exposes the gap. Background Cloud configuration drift is a persistent, low‑visibility risk in modern organizations. Administrators change settings, delete groups, or tweak policies for operational reasons; over time the tenant’s effective security posture diverges from the...

Microsoft has given Copilot a visible face — and hidden a paperclip inside it — as part of a broad Fall Release that turns the assistant from a text‑only helper into a voice‑first, personality‑driven companion across Windows, Edge and Microsoft’s consumer services. Background Microsoft’s October Copilot push is the most public consumer‑facing step yet in a multi‑year strategy to make Copilot a persistent assistant that remembers, reasons and sometimes acts on behalf of users. The package...

Microsoft’s Copilot now has a face — an animated, blob‑like avatar named Mico — and with it Microsoft is making a deliberate bet that personality can make voice and tutoring interactions feel more natural without repeating the mistakes of the past. The new Mico avatar, introduced as part of Microsoft’s Copilot Fall release on October 23, 2025, provides nonverbal cues (color, shape and expression changes) during spoken conversations, is customizable and tappable, and even contains a playful...

Microsoft’s iOS edition of Excel has been effectively unusable for many users since mid‑October after an update introduced a fresh “Liquid Glass” interface, with widespread reports of freezes, crashes and UI elements that no longer respond to taps — and the company’s public response has been thin at best. Users across Microsoft’s support forums, Reddit and the Apple App Store report the same pattern: Excel for iPhone and iPad started failing after the October 13, 2025 release of version...

Microsoft has pushed an out‑of‑band emergency update to restore USB keyboard and mouse functionality inside the Windows Recovery Environment after October’s Patch Tuesday introduced a serious regression that left many systems unable to navigate recovery menus. Background / Overview On October 14, 2025 Microsoft shipped the monthly cumulative update identified as KB5066835. Within days users and administrators reported a troubling side effect: USB keyboards and mice stopped working when the...

In a development that reads like a modern Cold War thriller, U.S. prosecutors this month accused a former executive tied to a government cyber-intelligence contractor of stealing and selling proprietary hacking tools to a Russian-based buyer for roughly $1.3 million — allegations that expose urgent vulnerabilities at the intersection of private cyber R&D, government contracting, and national-security oversight. Background The criminal information filed in U.S. District Court on October 14...

Microsoft’s Copilot just got a face — and a social backbone. The Copilot Fall Release introduces Mico, an optional animated avatar, alongside a suite of collaboration, memory, browser‑automation and health‑grounding features that push Copilot from a one‑off Q&A tool into a persistent, voice‑ and group‑aware assistant across Windows, Edge and mobile. Background / Overview Microsoft billed this update as part of a broader push toward human‑centered AI: making assistants more social, more...

Microsoft’s Copilot has taken a deliberate step toward being more personal — and more social — with a Fall Release that adds an animated avatar named Mico, a new “real talk” conversational style, and shared Copilot Groups that let multiple people work inside a single Copilot session. These changes, announced during Microsoft’s Copilot Sessions in late October 2025, reposition Copilot from a one-off Q&A tool to a persistent, multimodal assistant that listens, remembers (with user controls)...

Microsoft’s latest Copilot refresh puts a deliberately playful — and strategically cautious — face on its AI assistant: an animated avatar called Mico that Microsoft positions as an optional, non‑human visual companion for voice interactions while pairing it with long‑term memory, group chat features, and new agentic browser actions. Background / Overview Microsoft is shipping Mico as part of a broader Copilot Fall release that reframes Copilot from a one‑off Q&A tool into a persistent...

Microsoft has officially ended mainstream support for Windows 10, and millions of PCs now face a choice: upgrade to Windows 11, enroll in the time‑boxed consumer Extended Security Updates (ESU) program, or run increasingly vulnerable systems without vendor OS patches. Background / Overview Windows 10 debuted in 2015 and received regular feature, quality, and security updates under Microsoft’s long-running servicing model. That lifecycle reached its planned endpoint when Microsoft stopped...

Microsoft’s new Gaming Copilot — the in‑overlay AI assistant in the Xbox Game Bar — can capture screenshots, extract on‑screen text with OCR, and on at least some Windows PCs appears to have been configured so that the Copilot “Model training on text” option was enabled by default, creating a renewed privacy backlash and a narrow but serious question about what Microsoft is allowed to collect, when, and under what defaults. Background / Overview Microsoft rolled Gaming Copilot into the...

Microsoft has quietly turned a routine screenshot into a one‑click visual lookup by adding Bing Visual Search to the Windows 11 Snipping Tool, folding a Lens‑style “circle to search” capability into the OS’s native capture workflow. Background / Overview The Snipping Tool began life as a basic screenshot utility and has steadily evolved into a multifunction capture suite on Windows 11. Over the past two years Microsoft has layered in Text Extractor (OCR), QR code detection, basic screen...

Microsoft’s newest attempt to put a friendly face on AI arrived this week in the form of Mico, an animated, non‑human avatar built into Copilot’s voice experience — part of a broader Copilot Fall Release that also adds group sessions, a “Real Talk” mode, Learn Live tutoring flows, and expanded memory and agentic features. Background: from Clippy to Mico — a short lineage Microsoft’s experiments with persona-driven assistants are a familiar thread in consumer computing history: early efforts...

Microsoft’s new Copilot avatar, Mico, arrives as a deliberate attempt to give the company’s virtual assistant a friendly, non‑human face while avoiding the UX mistakes that made Clippy a cautionary tale — but the move also widens the product’s technical and governance footprint in ways that demand careful scrutiny. Background / Overview Microsoft unveiled Mico as part of a broader Copilot fall refresh that bundles multiple feature changes: an animated, emoji‑like avatar for voice...