Software & Apps - Page 20

Mozilla Firefox is a popular open-source browser that is one of the few non-Chromium-based options out there. It's the latest to incorporate support for NVIDIA RTX Video technology, which uses GeForce RTX hardware to improve video streaming quality and performance.

RTX Video covers two key technologies: RTX Video Super Resolution and RTX Video HDR. The former is like DLSS for YouTube; it taps into NVIDIA's powerful AI-based Tensor hardware to make low-resolution video look cleaner, crisper, and more detailed while also minimizing and even eliminating compression artifacts. It's tailor-made for video streaming applications and services like YouTube, Prime Video, and Disney+ - while also being beneficial for those with spotty connections.

RTX Video HDR adds another layer by converting SDR video content to HDR with excellent results that improve color vibrancy and detail. NVIDIA notes that 90% of all videos online are 1080p or lower and in SDR, which makes the RTX Video technology suite a way for GeForce RTX owners to remaster and upscale the video content they watch.

Windows 11 just got its latest cumulative update and there's some good and bad news here - the latter being the fact that adverts are officially debuting in the Start menu.

If you've been following the story of adverts creeping into Windows 11, you might have noticed that with last month's preview (optional) update, a new form of promotion appeared in the Start menu - suggested Microsoft Store apps picked from certain developers.

Windows Latest observes that this is now rolling out to all Windows 11 users with the latest patch released yesterday (KB5037771).

Microsoft's most-popular operating system, Windows 10, will lose support for new drivers on AMD's next-generation CPU platform, according to reports.

Windows 10 is by far Microsoft's most popular operating system, with the company actively thinking up new ways to push users onto Windows 11 following the announcement it was ending support for the operating system in October 2025. Now, a new report from TechSpot citing a Weibo post from someone who claims to be Lenovo's China manager, AMD won't provide Windows 10 drivers for its Zen 5 CPUs, specifically starting with its Zen 5 Strix Point APUs.

Why would AMD choose to go down this route? It may not have anything to do with Microsoft directly but with the emergence and now importance of AI-based capabilities. The report states AMD is - like many other big tech companies - shifting its focus to AI performance, which is paramount for Zen 5 to be successful. Unfortunately, AI-based capabilities aren't likely to be coming to an old operating system such as Windows 10, especially when it will be hitting its end-of-support phase next year.

Microsoft is ushering in fresh AI capabilities for its Edge browser, and this new work pertains to customizing the app.

Windows Latest was keen-eyed enough to spot that an incoming feature called the 'AI theme generator' for Edge is part of a Microsoft 365 roadmap.

It'll work pretty much as you'd expect: you tell the AI what kind of theme you want via a simple text prompt, and it'll knock up some concepts along those lines that you can peruse.

Microsoft has previously confirmed that it has been breached by hackers from both China and Russia, and now the US government wants to talk about it.

The House Committee on Homeland Security has selected Microsoft's vice chair and president, Brad Smith, to attend a hearing called "A Cascade of Security Failures: Assessing Microsoft Corporation's Cybersecurity Shortfalls and the Implications for Homeland Security." For those that don't know, Microsoft has recently been put under the microscope by security researchers and the US government following a slew of security breaches.

Prominent incidents that likely caught the attention of Homeland Security were the attack on Microsoft Exchange in June 2023 that resulted in senior US government officials having their emails compromised - approximately 60,000, and the January 2024 attack by Midnight Blizzard. The latter of the two was traced back to Russia, and the breach resulted in Midnight Blizzard breaking into the email accounts of Microsoft executives and stealing messages and files from the leadership team.

It was only a few weeks ago that Microsoft continued with its plan to roll out a controversial Windows 11 update that implemented new advertisements into Windows 11, and now users have spotted yet another additional promotion now baked into Windows.

The new advertisement from a few weeks ago was implementing a "Recommended" section within Windows 11's Start menu. This new section first began testing within Microsoft's Insider program and according to Microsoft the recommendations within the section will be for apps sourced from a "small set of curated developers" that will meet Microsoft's quality standards. Notably, users are able to switch off recommendations within the Personalization section of Windows 11.

Now, Microsoft has rolled out a new advertisement within the "Settings" option for Windows, and this advertisement is for its Game Pass subscription service. The advertisement was discovered in the latest Dev channel version 26120.470 (KB5037864). The new Game Pass promotion ties in with the company's previous statements regarding Game Pass growth on PC still being present, while it stagnating on Xbox consoles.

Sonos released an updated version of its mobile app back on May 7th, and while most similar app updates would just pass without too much interest among the masses, this one has very much gone in another direction. The app has been almost universally derided, with some accusing it of breaking accessibility and others simply lambasting the decision to remove features. But whatever reason people don't like it, they can all generally agree that it isn't great.

Sonos, on the other hand. would argue differently. The company says that it's aware that people don't seem to like the new update and that it's working to address the functionality that it has removed as part of this latest change. But in a statement provided to The Verge, Sonos says that it stands by its decision to roll the app out.

The Verge reports that Sonos believes that the changes it has made will ultimately result in a better app further down the line.

Windows 11 has some interesting new features incoming based on the latest preview version of the operating system.

As well-known leaker on X (formerly Twitter) Albacore noticed, in the fresh preview build 26212 (deployed in the Canary channel), Microsoft has introduced what are called 'companions' for the Start menu.

These are widget-style concoctions that are attached to the Start menu in a floating panel that can be docked to the left or right-hand side, piping through info in real-time to the UI in a kind of 'Live Tiles' style. (Which of course was a piece of functionality Microsoft previously did away with - these were introduced with Windows 8, but Windows 11 dropped them).

WhatsApp, the Meta-owned instant messaging platform that works on just about everything with a display and an internet connection, has announced some changes to its iPhone and Android apps. The updates aren't new features as such, but more tweaks to the existing interfaces that people use daily. Changes include an upgraded color palette, an improved default chat background, and more.

WhatsApp made the changes known via a lengthy post to the Facebook blog in which Idit Yaniv, VP, Head of WhatsApp Design, detailed the changes that are being made. All of these changes are rolling out to users now, although they require a server-side flick of a switch. Make sure that you have the latest version of WhatsApp installed on your iPhone or Android phone and hang tight if you don't see them just yet.

Meta explained that there are a number of different changes that have been made including the use of a new color palette that will allow the company to make better decisions about the way the app uses color as a whole. As part of that, the post also announced that Android users can expect a new, darker dark model. WhatsApp says that people had requested that the dark mode be less bright, so it's now one shade darker.

Windows 11 users running an inactivated copy of the operating system may find that in the future, there's a further penalty exacted on them for failing to activate - and it involves Microsoft's Edge browser.

Windows Latest noticed that in a fresh test build of Edge, there are several flags that hint at the potentially incoming move. These are:

Just by looking at those flags you can guess the functionality being leveraged: a check for activation, then a trigger if Windows 11 isn't activated that means Edge Settings are locked.

The Senate officially banned TikTok in the United States, giving the popular app owner the choice of selling it to a US government-approved buyer or having it banned from app marketplaces.

The US government has deemed TikTok a national security risk due to its owner being China-based company ByteDance, which officials believe have ties to the Chinese government. More specifically, the US government believes TikTok is capable of scraping the personal data of 170 million Americans, and that data could then be shared with the Chinese government. Furthermore, the US government believe TikTok could be used to spread misinformation throughout the US.

The banning of the app gave its owner 270 days to sell TikTok, with an additional 90-day presidential extension. TikTok and ByteDance have since responded to the new legislature by filing a lawsuit that directly challenges the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, which President Biden signed into law last month.

Windows 10 users wanting to upgrade to Windows 11 will soon be put on the latest version of Microsoft's newer operating system.

What, you might be thinking: Didn't this happen already? No, actually, because some of those upgrading from Windows 10 found themselves migrated to Windows 11 22H2, rather than the 23H2 flavor of the OS.

Windows Latest reports that they have observed on several Windows 10 PCs that Microsoft was offering the upgrade to Windows 11, but that it would install the 22H2 version.

Apple's Let Loose event was billed as the one where Apple would announce a new iPad Pro and a refreshed iPad Air and it definitely didn't disappoint on that front. But the company also took the time to announce a couple of new software updates for its creative apps, including the popular Final Cut Pro app for the iPad and Mac.

The new Final Cut Pro for iPad 2 is a big update and coincides with the release of the new iPad Pro, and Apple says that it transforms the tablet into a multicam production studio with Live Multicam, a feature giving users the ability to connect and preview up to four cameras at the same time.

Apple also announced new AI features coming to Final Cut Pro for Mac 10.78, giving users the ability to rapidly edit the look of videos and photos with a single click, among other things. There are new workflow-accelerating tools that are designed to bring new ways to manage color correction and more, too.

Apple's Let Loose iPad event might have been all about the new M4 iPad Pro and the iPad Air getting an M2 chip, but the company also took time out to show people what people can do with those new tablets. It announced updated versions of its creativity apps, including the popular Logic Pro music-making and podcasting app.

The update, which is available for both the iPad and Mac, brings with it a couple of notable upgrades including Session Players. Apple says that they offer new experiences for creators by giving them a personal, AI-driven backing band that responds directly to any feedback that is given. The app update also includes Stem Splitter, allowing artists to recover moments of inspiration for any audio file and then separate almost any mixed audio recording into four distinct parts; drums, bass, vocals, and other instruments. One the tracks have been separated musicians can then apply effects, ad new parts, and more. And it's all powered by AI on M-series Apple silicon devices.

There's a lot more going on in this update and you can read about it in the press release linked before. The update is available for free to existing owners and will be available for download from May 13.

The discrepancy between Windows 10 users and Windows 11 users is seemingly growing and not in the direction that Microsoft wants.

According to new data from Statcounter, a renowned web analytics service that has tracking code on more than 1.5 million websites, market share figures between Windows 11 users and Windows 10 users is trending - at least in the short term - toward more Windows 10 adoption, as global desktop share between February 2024 and April 2024 dropped from 28.16% to 25.65%. On the other hand, Windows 10's market share grew from 67.26% to 70.03%.

These numbers, while not being anywhere near as accurate as what Microsoft has internally, are a good indicator for market share, and if they are close to being accurate, it means Windows 10 users aren't being convinced to upgrade to Windows 11, something that Microsoft has been pushing for a few years now, and particularly so since the company announced Windows 10 support would end on October 14, 2025.

Microsoft has revealed its discovered a serious security vulnerability that impacts countless Android applications, leading the possibility of valuable user data being stolen.

Microsoft has dubbed the security vulnerability "Dirty Stream" and explains the flaw can be traced back to a critical system that is responsible for the secure data exchange between different applications on a device. This system is also responsible for conducting handshake authorizations through safeguards such as the isolation of sensitive data, hiding any permissions that are attached to specific Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs), and preventing any unauthorized access through validating file pathways.

Unfortunately, Microsoft has discovered a critical exploitation within the system, exposed by the incorrect use of "custom intents" which is a messaging system that Android apps use to communicate with different aspects of the app - essentially the messaging system used for all of the app components to talk to each other. The exploitation led to researchers discovering the sensitive areas of an app and a possible route for an attacker to seize total control of an app and harvest sensitive user data.

Windows 11 and Windows 10 users are again under fire from a Microsoft pop-up which is rather intrusive, flashing up on the desktop to advertise Bing AI for those using Google's Chrome browser.

Windows Latest notes it initially spotted the pop-up, which urges Chrome users to use ChatGPT-4 powered Bing - and to set Bing as their default search, and install its extension - back in March, but it's now appearing again.

Multiple readers have been getting in touch lately complaining that they've been hit by this dialog box, which stays present until you dismiss it - you have to answer either yes or no to the suggested Bing-related modifications to Chrome.

Windows 11 just made quite a leap in adoption levels with PC gamers, or at least those that use Steam.

Valve's popular gaming platform conducts a monthly hardware survey, as you're doubtless aware, and that includes the operating system gamers are running as well as hardware components.

For the month of April, the hardware survey shows that Windows 11 adoption rose to reach 45.15%, which represented an increase of 3.54% on the previous month.

In February, Microsoft announced it was killing support for its most popular operating system, Windows 10, but the company's efforts to transition users from Windows 10 to Windows 11, isn't working.

Windows 10 is by far Microsoft's most popular operating system at the moment with a market share of more than 70%, according to Statcounter. Despite the company announcing it was ending support for the operating system in October 2025 users still aren't making the switch over to Windows 11, as Statcounter reports that for the first time since late 2023 Windows 10 has climbed past 70% market share.

According to the firm;s April numbers, Windows 10 climbed nearly 1% in market share, with Windows 11's market share dipping to 25.68%, which indicates the new Windows 10 users came directly from Windows 11. Why is this happening? Extremetech reports Windows 10 users may be climbing due to refurbished PC's being dumped in retail channels, and due to many of these PCs having an SSD and being a lot cheaper, buyers may find them very attractive in an effort to save money and still acquire a decent rig.

In a world where too many people continue to use a single username and password combination across multiple devices, services, and accounts, it's good to see that the passkey revolution continues to gather pace. We've already seen various companies and services offer passkeys as a new way of biometric-secured authentication with Apple, WhatsApp, and PlayStation among others all on side. But now one of the really big names has also thrown its hat into the ring.

In a post on its security blog, Microsoft has confirmed that it is now rolling out passkey support for Microsoft accounts, making it easier, quicker, and more secure to sign into those accounts. Creating a passkey is easy with users given the option to switch from their previous username and password via the sign-in process.

When it comes to signing into a Microsoft account using a passkey, the new sign-in option will be offered with support for signing in using a fingerprint, a face recognition solution like Face ID, a PIN, or a security key. Microsoft says that, starting today, users can sign into Microsoft apps and websites including Microsoft 365 and Copilot using both desktop and mobile web browsers.