Software & Apps - Page 29

If you're an avid user of the Freeform app on the iPhone, iPad, or Mac, you could be getting a big new update later this year if a new report is any indication. That report claims that the Freeform app is going to get a number of new features when the 2024 round of software updates is announced during the WWDC event in June.

We're expecting Apple to announce the iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS 15 software updates during the June WWDC event and now MacRumors reports that the outlet's industry sources say that there are big upgrades coming.

The Freeform app is a large whiteboard of sorts that allows people to collaborate and add just about anything including text, images, and more. It was announced in 2022 and is available for the iPhone, iPad, and Mac with Freeform boards syncing via iCloud.

For quite some time Elon Musk has been attempting to compete with Google with various business ventures, with one being the creation of OpenAI to be a counter weight to Google, and now X, formerly Twitter, pushing head first into video adoption.

Before Musk took over Twitter and changed it into X the platform was primarily a text and image-based platform, but that since changed with the integration of video in both long and short form. Now, Elon Musk has teased that X's video capabilities won't be exclusive to desktops, laptops and smartphones, as a dedicated X app is being developed for smart TVs.

Fortune reports, along with Elon Musk teasing the feature via a post to his personal X account, developers behind the scenes are working on a new X app that will be coming to Amazona and Samsung smart TVs first, according to a source that spoke to Fortune. This exclusive report and Elon Musk's post echo X's sentiments published in a recent blog post where the company wants to be seen as a "video-first platform" which is part of the company's overall push to turn X into the "everything app".

A recent update for Windows 10, patch KB5001716, has been reportedly failing to install for some users - and something pretty odd is going on here, apparently.

KB5001716 is actually an update for Windows Update across all versions of Windows 10, which Microsoft says does the following: "When this update is installed, Windows may attempt to download and install feature updates to your device if it is approaching or has reached the end of support for your currently installed Windows version. Feature updates offer new functionality and help keep your device secure."

Some folks are getting an error when trying to install the update, but the strange bit is the reason why they are getting this error message - because the update has already been installed on their Windows 10 PC.

Following the release of iOS 17.4 and iPadOS 17.4 to the public earlier this week Apple has today also made the macOS 14.4 software update available for download. The update has gone through a weeks-long beta program to get here with developers able to test their apps to make sure that they will work with the new update without causing any issues. Now, everyone with a compatible Mac - all those that worked with macOS 14 Sonoma will work fina - can now download the macOS 14,4 software update for free.

This new update brings with it a number of improvements although the list is not a huge one - top of the list is perhaps new emojis, with Apple adding a mushroom, phoenix, lime, broken chain, and more.

Alongside the new emojis, Apple also says that 18 people and body emojis now support facing the opposite direction. Beyond emojis, Apple's release notes also point to new transcript capabilities within the Podcasts app. Similar to those now found on the iPhone and Mac, users can see the text of a podcast and then use that to search for a word or phrase. Clicking on the text will see the podcast skip to that particular part of the episode, making this a great way to find a specific portion of a podcast when needed.

Windows 11 users might soon see a different behavior for Copilot in the taskbar, with the AI assistant appearing when the cursor is hovered over its icon.

This change is in testing in the latest Windows 11 preview build in the Beta channel, which is version 22635.3276 (KB5034857), though it's only rolling out, so not everyone will have seen it yet.

Currently in Windows 11, you need to click on the Copilot icon on the right side of the taskbar to get the AI assistant's panel to pop open. However, with the new scheme of things, just moving your mouse over the icon will invoke the panel, with no need to click.

Windows 11 is once again finding it hard to push forward with gaining market share, although the OS has picked up just a little in terms of adoption.

According to the latest figures from Statcounter, Windows 11 edged up to 28.18% as of February 2024, with the OS only witnessing an increase of 0.35% compared to January.

That's a fairly meagre uptick and we've seen a fair few of those in recent times, with Windows 11 not quite stalling, but coming close to it, when it comes to growing its user base.

Microsoft is ending support for hundreds of thousands of apps for Windows 11 users, with the company taking to its website to officially announce the news.

According to the announcement, Microsoft will no longer support Windows Subsystem for Android, which enables Android-based applications to run smoothly on Windows 11. Users who were taking advantage of this were able to simply download a large range of Android applications, typically through the Amazon Appstore, and utilize that application on a Windows 11 system.

However, support for this will end shortly as Microsoft has announced March 5, 2023, will be the last for support, with customers still being able to access already downloaded Android apps "through the deprecation date of March 5, 2023," but not after. Amazon also made the same announcement on its own developer blog, writing Amazon and Microsoft are working together to create a smooth "end of support experience for developers and customers".

Windows 11 users should look out for a smart new feature rolling out for Copilot which allows them to throw a file at the AI and then have it summarized in a swift fashion.

As spotted by Leopeva64 on X (formerly Twitter), it's now possible to drag a file to the Copilot panel, drop it in, and make a request - such as to summarize the info within that file. (Or rather than dragging the file, there's an 'Add a file' button should you wish to go that route).

In the test shown above, Leopeva64 gives Copilot a PDF which the AI assistant then quickly goes through, listing all the key points in the document.

Windows 11 just got a whole load of new AI capabilities, including fresh features for Copilot, but something else is inbound alongside all that, namely the ability to use your phone as a webcam for your desktop PC.

This feature is rolling out to Windows 11 testers across all channels, and Microsoft has said it's a gradual deployment, so some Windows Insiders may not see it for a while yet.

It uses the Link to Windows phone app to hook up your Android device to the PC, and you can then use either the front or rear camera of your phone (or tablet) as the webcam.

Microsoft has announced that Windows 11 users will soon get the benefit of a Copilot AI that can do more things, including new abilities to manipulate settings for the OS, plus plugins have finally arrived.

The new functionality in terms of getting Copilot to tinker with Windows 11 settings for you will roll out from late March.

It'll include the ability to tell Copilot to turn on battery saver, for example, or indeed turn it off, and to empty the Recycle Bin, or open the Voice Access panel.

If you use a DualSense controller for wireless gaming under Windows 11 (or Windows 10 for that matter), and you have an Intel Bluetooth chip, then a new driver update from Team Blue will be of interest.

This is Intel's Wireless Bluetooth Driver 23.30.0 and as Neowin highlighted (via TechRadar), it comes with a benefit for the PS5's DualSense gamepads.

We're told that the driver offers: "Improved connectivity to a second gaming controller (Dual Sense)."

Some Windows 11 users have been reporting an annoying glitch of late which causes the taskbar to be very slow to arrive on the desktop on first booting the system - but the good news is a fix is now in testing.

BetaNews flagged up the cure appearing in the Beta channel for Windows 11 testing (build 22635), while noting that the bug actually affected their HP EliteBook laptop. In their case, the taskbar didn't show up for a few seconds, or sometimes longer.

As bugs go, this is hardly the end of the world, but it's a bit of a pain, particularly if the first thing you want to do is facilitated via the taskbar (which is not unlikely, though you may have the same icons on the desktop, too, in some cases).

According to a new report at Windows Central, Microsoft is currently testing a new feature that will allow it to deploy security updates and other patches to Windows 11 systems without forcing a reboot or restart. We've all suffered through having to restart Windows as part of every minor update for years, so this is excellent news.

The latest Windows 11 build on the Dev Channel notes that Insiders with the Virtualization Based Security (VBS) feature turned on will be able to "receive Build 26058.1400 (KB5036080) and may not experience a restart upon installing the update." Very cool.

Hot patching is a brand-new feature for Windows 11 desktop users, and how it works is pretty simple. "It works by patching the in-memory code of running processes without the need to restart the process," Microsoft writes. Which lowers the workload impact, offers better protection, and reduces the time it takes to update.

Microsoft might be planning a very smart AI-powered feature for the Paint app in Windows 11.

If you recall, yesterday we reported on clues that pointed to a mysterious AI feature in Paint, and PhantomOfEarth on X (formerly Twitter) posted that this capability might be something called 'LiveCanvas.'

While the leaker didn't profess to know what this could be, MS Power User (via TechRadar) made the interesting observation that LiveCanvas is a generative AI tool in Leonardo.Ai.

Windows 11 users are encountering a bug that prevents the installation of the February cumulative update (KB5034765), and Microsoft has acknowledged this problem.

Bleeping Computer noticed that Windows 11 23H2 systems (and 22H2) were in some cases reporting installation failures with the download stopping just short of 100%, and throwing up an '0x800F0922' error code.

That's a typically meaningless stop error of the kind we're often treated to when Windows goes off the rails, but this time, Windows 11 does provide a more informative error message afterwards: "Something didn't go as planned. No need to worry - undoing changes."

Windows 11's Paint app could get another AI feature, or at least that's what the grapevine is suggesting.

Windows Latest grabbed the scoop on this one, with the website spotting a file which is called 'NPUDetect' in the Paint client.

What does that mean? Well, as you're doubtless aware, Paint already has a Cocreator AI feature (which can knock up images as needed, using Dall-E 3 which is seriously impressive), so it's presumably hinting that another AI capability is inbound. One that will make use of the NPUs which are coming on-board modern CPUs (such as Intel's Meteor Lake laptop chips).

FurMark 2 is now official and available for download right now from here. The new GPU stress testing, diagnostics, and benchmarking tool has been popular for years now, but its successor is here to melt your GPU even harder.

The new FurMark 2 was created using the latest cross-platform tool called GeeXLab with a GUI, while the command tool uses GeeXLab SDK. You've got support with FurMark 2 and Windows 64-bit, Windows 32-bit, and even Linux 64-bit with operating systems.

The next update for FurMark 2 will include support for Linux 32-bit and Raspberry Pi, with possible MacOS support coming in the near future. Future 3D APIs can be added into FurMark 2, including OpenGL 2.1 and OpenGL 3.0/3.1 APIs, but were most likely omitted from the v2.0 release because they're not cross-platform compatible.

While it had previously been reported that Apple had been a potential buyer for Microsoft's Bing search engine business, it wasn't entirely clear just how much Microsoft had tried to make a deal happen. That is, until now.

The new information comes after new documents were shared as part of the US Justice Department's lawsuit which claims that Google has a monopoly in the search market. As part of Google's argument that isn't the case, it says that Apple was offered Bing as a new default search engine for the iPhone. Google says Apple decided that Bing was subpar compared to its own offering. adding that the mere fact that Apple had to consider the options suggests there is indeed competition.

Microsoft reportedly pitched Apple on switching to using Bing as the default search option for users in 2009, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2018, and 2020. But with there being no sign of a deal being done. Microsoft also tried to get Apple to simply buy Bing as a whole. Another option was some kind of joint venture that would have seen Apple and Microsoft work on Bing together. This went down in 2018, with Apple ultimately deciding against any kind of deal.

Ever since current owner Elon Musk bought Twitter and turned it into X, he's been trying to create what some call the everything app. Such an app would become the central focus for a whole range of activities with China's WeChat being the example most people think of. The app is a social network but also used for a variety of things in the country, including payments. One of the features that Musk had X's engineers add was support for video and audio calling, but it was limited to only those who pay for X Premium. Now, that's all changed.

First announced by an X engineer before being confirmed by current CEO Linda Yaccarino, the change means that everyone who wants to take advantage of video and audio calls now can, with X also adding the feature to choose to allow calls from everyone or limit the number of people who call to just those who they follow, are verified, or are being followed. Choosing to only allow calls from people you follow is also an option.

Checking to see if your account now has the feature and managing who can call you is simple. Just open the X app on your phone, tap your profile picture, and choose the Privacy and Safety option in the app's settings. The calling feature is for some reason hidden inside the Direct Messages option, and that's where you can select the different settings to tailor the calling feature to match your specific requirements.

If you're a Google Chrome web browser user you're about to benefit from not just one, but three different AI capabilities that will do everything from automatically organizing your open tabs to writing text for you the next time that you need to fill in a form online. The new AI features are part of a new Chrome M121 release and are experimental, which means that they could change or just not work. But the fun is in the finding out.

There are three different features all announced under one AI-based blog post and they're all set to be useful to varying degrees. The first will automatically suggest and create tab groups based on the tabs that a user has open which could be useful when you're researching something but also want to keep those tabs separate from where you're ordering your groceries.

Chrome already has generative AI wallpapers on the Google Pixel 8 devices thanks to Android 14 and now the same text-to-image technology is now coming to Chrome. It'll create you new custom themes based on a mood or subject, or you can just give it a color or style and let it work its magic. The feature could be huge for people who just want a new theme but have no idea what they want it to look like - just let the generative AI do the creative thinking for you.