Leo, Richard, and Paul discuss the Windows 11 Feature Tracker, Microsoft Build, Microsoft consumer AI, Xbox and gaming, and much more.
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Introducing the Windows 11 Feature Tracker
From the “I should have done this two years ago” files, the “I have wasted my life” files, and the, “great, I needed more work to do” files … There is a need for this. So I made one. But it will evolve. Maybe into a web app/wiki/something else … like a Notion website?
More Windows 11
Windows Insider Program
- Beta build for 23H2: File new tab/new window changes, Explorer context menu regression may be permanent
- Dev and Beta (24H2): Taskbar icon scaling is a blast from the past we all need desperately
Related: Intel is killing its Unison app and service
Like winter, Build is coming
- Build session catalog is live – mostly AI as expected
- Paul and Richard are going
- Windows sessions here – Overview of the Windows Copilot Runtime (one year after it was announced), Windows Actions, standard Kayla Cinnamon talk on Windows productivity, using your own model with WCR, native app experiences(!), Arm64 app perf, etc.
AI
Final thoughts on Microsoft’s 50th
- Biggest accomplishment wasn’t any tech, it was changing with the times
- What it’s best at: Democratizing tech for the commoners, an expansion on Jack Tramiel/Commodore’s “computers for the masses, not the classes” schtick
- And that is exactly what it is doing with AI right now…
Microsoft hosts a consumer AI event and announces a metric ton of new Copilot features
- We need a Copilot feature tracker
- Copilot = every single feature other AIs have – Copilot Actions on the web, memory and personalization, Copilot Vision on mobile and Windows, AI-generated podcasts and
- Microsoft releases Copilot Search in Bing
Is AI turning us all into Charly from Flowers for Algernon?
- AI is making us stupider! There are studies!!
- This is the argument against every single tech advance from the steam train to the ballpoint pen to this ….
- Microsoft’s AI demo of vibe-coded Quake II highlights the problem nicely. This Twitter debate is amazing:
- Original complaint
- Plea to John Carmack
- Carmack’s lengthy reply
- Some of the more interesting (and SFW) replies:
- The goal is the games. Not the jobs.
- Jobs don’t inherently deserve to exist
- You’re saying this to the guy who open sourced all of that work while it was 10 years ahead of anyone else.
- ? This can never replace games made traditionally
- The goal of technology is the cut the jobs and increase efficiency. No one cares about your jobs
- If the goal is jobs, we’d dig ditches with spoons, not tractors
- ? Wasn’t quake made by a handful of people? Compare that to today’s games which are made by hundreds to thousands. I’m not sycophantic about AI but game dev is incredibly bloated, coming from someone in the industry.
Sometimes it’s the little things: AI recaps for book series in Kindle
GitHub Copilot updated with Agent Mode, Cursor-style code overviews, more
Xbox and gaming
Microsoft announces new Xbox Games Showcase for June
Edge Game Assist gets new features, support for new games
GTA V and enhanced version for PC coming to Game Pass on April 15 – In addition to the previous Game Pass titles we discussed last week
Good: Nintendo Switch 2 supports ray tracing and DLSS
Bad: Nintendo delays Switch 2 to figure out the tariffs mess
Tips and picks
Tip of the week: Programmers at Work
Nice follow-up on Programmers at Work conversation from last week
Thanks to Kode on Twitter/X
https://programmersatwork.wordpress.com/
App pick of the week: Apple Music
Apple Music for Windows now supports Dolby Atmos (it already did lossless)
Plus: A quick shout-out to software that is the opposite of enshittified – Notion, Typora/iA Writer, Proton Pass and everything else Proton makes
RunAs Radio this week: Application Risk in Security Copilot with Ari Schorr
https://runasradio.com/Shows/Show/979
Brown liquor pick of the week: The Heart Cut #02
https://drinksone.com/collections/other-whiskey/products/the-heart-cut-2-east-london-liquor-company-50cl
https://eastlondonliquorcompany.com/