It might not get the same kind of attention as Google and Apple, but Microsoft is still one of the biggest and most powerful tech companies operating today. It runs Azure, one of the biggest cloud computing services, and maintains Windows 11 and the whole Office suite of software. It also makes plenty of Surface hardware and has a whole slew of gaming products, including the Xbox Series X. But the company is ever expanding — building new hardware, acquiring new game studios, and making sure that even if Microsoft doesn’t run your phone, it can touch plenty of the apps on it.
Microsoft’s new Xbox leader starts to talk strategy for the company’s gaming business.
Asha Sharma has a new strategy for her return of Xbox.
Microsoft just added its Xbox mode to the Release Preview version of Windows 11. That means the Xbox mode, that adds a full-screen interface to the Xbox PC app, is just days away from being available on all PCs. Microsoft did promise last month that it would roll out the Xbox mode to all PCs in April, and it looks like it’s rolling out on time.
Scott Hanselman is the VP of technical staff for CoreAI, GitHub, and Windows at Microsoft, but he’s also a developer that just brought a macOS Sonoma feature to Windows. PeekDesktop is a small system tray utility that lets you click an empty wallpaper to minimize open apps and interact with the desktop and restore everything with a click. You can kind of do this with Windows key + D, but Hanselman’s tool feels a lot more like macOS.
MAI-Image-2-Efficient is debuting on Microsoft Foundry and MAI Playground today, as Microsoft’s “best text-to-image model” yet. It’s essentially a faster and cheaper version of MAI-Image-2 that Microsoft claims is a “production workhorse” for businesses. “Use it when you need volume, speed, and tight cost control — product shots, marketing creatives, UI mockups, branded assets, batch pipelines,” says Microsoft.
[Microsoft AI]
Microsoft first launched Outlook Lite as a smaller app for Android devices in 2022, at the height of an industry focus on lightweight mobile apps. It was designed to be faster, use less battery, and work well across 2G and 3G networks. Microsoft now says it will fully retire Outlook Lite on May 25th, disabling mailbox access but still allowing the app to launch. It’s time to switch to the regular Outlook app if you’re still relying on Outlook Lite.
Microsoft is in the middle of fixing Windows 11 and it wants to hear more from the people that regularly test its OS updates. Microsoft is bringing back Windows Insider meetups, starting with an event in New York City on April 21st. Members of the Windows Insider team will also be visiting Hyderabad, Taipei, San Francisco, and London in the coming weeks.
[Windows Insider Blog]
Microsoft is working on UI improvements to the Xbox dashboard that will also include a new look and feel for Xbox achievements. Xbox Insiders can now test the new achievements, which have updated icons and animations when you unlock a classic or rare achievement. The notifications will also match your custom color. You’ll also be able to hide achievements from your Xbox profile later this month.
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The Zenbook A16 is a large laptop that weighs very little and performs great.
Microsoft is testing a Windows 11 feature that would let users “feel haptic feedback effects on compatible input devices while performing certain actions, such as aligning objects in PowerPoint, window snapping, resizing, or hovering over the Close button,” according to the Windows Insider Blog. This could be really cool on a good trackpad.
[Windows Insider Blog]
Even on NASA’s first crewed lunar mission in forever, the live stream captured astronauts having issues with Outlook (New) and Outlook (classic).
While I’m pretty sure the ship’s computers aren’t running on Windows, the crew is equipped with iPhones, tablets, and laptops “to review procedures and load entertainment onto before launch.”
OpenAI’s latest round of private investment has closed, with participation from Amazon, Nvidia, Softbank, and Microsoft, as well as $3 billion from individual investors, as it prepares for a potential IPO. This comes after it announced the end of its video generator Sora, and the announcement says it will focus on building a “unified superapp” with ChatGPT, Codex, browsing, and other agents all built in.
ChatGPT has 6x the monthly web visits and mobile sessions than the next largest AI app, while total AI time spent is 4x the next largest AI app and 4x all others combined. Search usage has nearly tripled in a year, and our ads pilot reached more than $100 million in ARR in under six weeks.
In addition to bringing Claude integration to Copilot for “long-running, multi-step tasks,” Microsoft is also launching an improved Researcher agent for information gathering and a new Critique feature, which essentially tasks GPT with drafting research and then has Claude give it an edit pass for accuracy.
[Microsoft 365 Blog]
