Software & Apps News

YouTube has confirmed it's responsible for deleting thousands of accounts and videos that were mistakenly flagged as violations against its terms of service.

9to5Google pointed out that many YouTube account holders reported the loss of access to YouTube content. These reports were quickly followed up by YouTube in a support thread that confirmed bugs were present and they were affecting many aspects of the platform such as access to paid features such as YouTube TV, YouTube Premium, and YouTube Music.

Additionally, the bugs also affected other YouTube features, such as playlists. Along with the deleted of specific channels these bugs also removed videos from the platform. Reports indicate that affected users were sent unclear instructions by YouTube that ultimately weren't helpful in the recovery of their accounts. Additionally, another user claimed there was no way to lodge an appeal of the decision by YouTube.

Windows 11's Phone Link app is getting an AI-powered feature that was spotted in testing earlier this year, but is now rolling out to everyone.

This is 'suggested replies' which provides exactly that - short potential replies to the texts you get, within Phone Link - and this functionality is rolling out now (so not everyone will have it just yet, but it's coming).

The replies are generated via AI (in the cloud, not on-device), and they will only appear for certain messages. Namely texts where the AI can actually get a handle on the conversation enough to be able to generate some possible responses.

Windows 11 no longer has WordPad, with Microsoft finally giving the venerable app the chop with the 24H2 update.

This comes as no surprise, because Microsoft had already deprecated WordPad - that happened late in 2023 - marking it for removal from Windows 11. Following that, it was yanked from test builds of the OS at the start of 2024, and we were informed that the app would be cast out of Windows 11 when the 24H2 update came around.

Well, 24H2 is now here - or it's rolling out, anyway - and as promised, there is no WordPad anymore. Furthermore, fresh installs of Windows 11 won't come with WordPad either.

Some folks aren't so keen on the size of the taskbar buttons with Windows 11, and if you fall into the group that feels the icons are oversized, there's some good news for you going by a change hidden in testing.

As uncovered by PhantomOfEarth in a beta build of Windows 11 (22635), there's going to be an option to have the taskbar icons made smaller - but this is hidden in the preview right now.

The leaker uncovered the change by using ViVeTool (a Windows configuration tool) and just because the concept is present in testing, in the background, doesn't mean Microsoft will ever enable it. But there's certainly a chance that'll happen.

Windows 11 24H2 is finally here, the annual update for Microsoft's desktop operating system for this year, and its launch has arrived rather out of the blue.

Microsoft notes that the rollout will be a phased affair, which is always the case with these major updates. So, if you don't get Windows 11 24H2 straight away, don't be surprised - the initial batch of PCs that the 24H2 update is piped to will probably be a relatively narrow selection.

As Microsoft becomes more confident about how solid the 24H2 update is, and that there aren't any big bugs - or truly nasty showstoppers - involved anywhere, the scope and speed of the rollout will be increased.

Windows 11's latest update has been causing quite some chaos for some of those who have installed the preview - to the point that Microsoft has now pulled it completely (and issued a rollback for those who've installed it).

We're talking about the optional update for September, released last week, which has been responsible for Windows 11 users getting hit by Blue Screens of Death (or indeed GSoDs, the green variety) and multiple restarts - with the Automatic Repair tool getting triggered following those repeated reboots in some cases.

On top of that, the BitLocker recovery screen is appearing for some - a bug witnessed earlier this year in Windows 11 - and there are other issues with USB and Bluetooth peripherals failing to work.

Microsoft Recall, the AI-powered search tool for Copilot+ PCs, was quickly delayed after people realized what it did and how it worked. For those who needed a reminder, Recall was touted as the big AI feature for Copilot+. It would continuously take screenshots of your PC, index them, and use generative AI to turn them into a searchable database of your PC history.

"Hey Recall, what was that funny video I watched last night on YouTube," or "Hey Recall, can you put together a list of all the new sneakers I was looking at a few weeks ago." These are two examples of a potential use; however, early hands-on with Recall showed that its screenshots were not only unencrypted but would contain sensitive material like banking information, and the database itself was an indexed wet dream for hackers.

Well, Recall is coming back, and in a new Microsoft blog post, the company has outlined how this latest version is designed with "security and privacy in mind" and core principles like ensuring sensitive data is always encrypted and that other users won't be able to access encryption keys.

If you've upgraded your Mac to the latest desktop operating system from Apple, macOS 15, then you may have been seriously annoyed by the way screen recording permission requests now work.

The good news is that there's now a fix, sort of - not from Apple, but a third-party software developer that has produced an app called Amnesia.

To recap briefly, with macOS 15 the mentioned permission requests now happen repeatedly, so instead of having to grant an app that engages in screen recording - whether that's screen grabbing, or screen sharing in the likes of Slack - permission once, you're asked multiple times.

Spotify's AI Playlist feature is finally rolling out to those on the Premium plan in the US, albeit the functionality is still in beta.

Obviously enough, it uses AI to generate a playlist based on your request, and the feature was previously made available in the UK and Australia some time ago (nearly half a year back, in fact).

The AI Playlist is now available to users in the US and Canada, as well as Ireland and New Zealand, on mobile devices (Android and iOS).

Windows 11 has not gone down well with the computing public for one reason or another - from system requirements, through to bewildering interface changes (steps backward in places), ad pushing, and other niggles besides - and we've just caught a glimpse of what we could have had instead.

Well, kind of - if Microsoft had sat down and properly thought out making a desktop operating system which is clean and streamlined, free of bloat and, yes, dare we say it, with AI pushed more to the side.

BetaNews spotted that a well-known concept creator, AR 4789 on YouTube, put together a video clip showing off a mock-up of a fictional Windows 12.1. (It's not Windows 12, as AR 4789 already did a concept for that, so this is a refinement on that previous take).