Windows Weekly 864: Word Doesn’t Respect Me

Leo, Richard, and Paul discuss Outlookgate, Copilot Pro, PC sales, Windows 11, new updates for Windows 10, Xbox, and much more.

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Outlook, privacy, and the terribleness of Big Tech

Thanks to new EU privacy and gatekeeper regulations, we’re finally getting a clearer picture of how terrible Big Tech is. But this one cuts close to home:

• New Outlook Decried as a “Surveillance Tool for Targeted Advertising”
• One perspective: How terrible are other companies like Google and Meta?
• But also: How terrible are Windows 11, Teams, Microsoft Edge, etc.?
• And … what can we do about it

Supreme Court refuses to hear Epic v. Apple appeals

• So, Epic wins on one important count, being able to communicate to their own customers
• But Apple is still being terrible because it can be. Will the EU finally take care of this?

Google unlinking its services in the EU, Apple removing pulse ox from Watch in the US, Google comes clean on Incognito, and Microsoft Cloud lets EU customers keep data locally, it just keeps coming

Paul: All I’ve ever wanted was software that respected my wishes, didn’t track me, and gave me a choice to pay to avoid that

Copilot all the things

Richard correctly predicted that 2024 would be the year that Microsoft stopped talking about AI and started implementing AI. But who could have predicted THIS in the first two weeks (!) of the year

• Copilot Pro for consumers, Copilot for Microsoft 365 for all commercial customers with no baseline, Copilot on mobile, Copilot in Microsoft 365 mobile, Copilot GPT Builder on the way
• But there’s a real vulnerability for Microsoft and its AI aims here – Too soon, too little may be a mistake

Microsoft and Vodafone, sitting in a tree…

Plus: No Copilot AI (SLM) on the Galaxy S24 family? Interesting. Is Google trying to undermine that partnership and bring Samsung back into the fold?

Windows 11

PC sales for 2023: Good news, bad news. OK, it’s just bad news

They’re doing it again: After almost literally no testing, Microsoft launches new Weather experience on the lock screen and makes it the default

• Related: Store app install notifications are in stable now too

Windows Insider – THREE new builds were released last Thursday:

• Dev: USB 80 Gbps support, auto-start Copilot on 27-inch+ displays, Windows Share (as below) improvements, fixes
• Beta: More Windows Share improvements (WhatsApp, Gmail, X, Facebook, and LinkedIn URL sharing), Weather experience on Lock, Microsoft Store with instant arcade games and app install notifications
• Release Preview: New KB update gives us our second near-final peek at Moment 5, with more “Ink Everywhere,” eye control system support, 7-ZIP support improvements, other fixes

Related: Microsoft will reportedly bring back the Windows Insider Program’s Beta Channel for Windows 10 because they were just kidding about that whole “no new features” thing

• Speaking of which, Dev Home comes to Windows 10 – This is the latest in what is now a list of half-assed apps released before they were done, along with Loop, new Outlook, Windows Backup, etc.

Xbox

Here are the rest of January’s Game Pass titles … Still no Activision Blizzard

Xbox fixes Baldur’s Gate 3 save bug

Ubisoft mixes up its Ubisoft+ subscriptions

Tips and picks

Tip of the week: Maybe this is the year of NextDNS

With all the tracking going on, people are starting to look for workarounds. They’re out there. But they cause problems too.

App pick of the week: Brave

If you care about your privacy and security, there is no better choice than Brave. There’s just one Achilles Heel, and that’s why I use a password manager.

Semi-related: Bitwarden adds passkey sign-in support, but only on its web client

RunAs Radio this week: Copilots for Power Platform with April Dunnam

https://runasradio.com/Shows/Show/915

Brown liquor pick of the week: Writer’s Tears

https://www.walshwhiskey.com/our-whiskeys/our-whiskeys-writers-tears/