MS-203 plan - Microsoft 365 Messaging

Apparently, the introduction of Windows Copilot signaled the end of Cortana on Microsoft's desktop OS. In a new support document first spotted by Windows Central, the tech giant has announced that it will stop supporting the standalone Cortana app for Windows in late 2023. Microsoft launched Cortana as a voice assistant for Windows mobile devices back in 2014. It was supposed to be the company's answer to Apple's Siri, and it even predates Amazon's Alexa, but it never quite achieved their level of recognition and popularity.

Over the year, Microsoft scaled back its plans for the voice assistant until it discontinued its Android and iOS apps back in 2021. The company even removed it from partner manufacturers' devices, such as smart speakers. For Windows, in particular, Microsoft changed its status as a baked-in digital assistant and spun it out into its own app for computers. That's the app we're bidding farewell to by the end of the year.

In its announcement, Microsoft pointed out that users will still have access to "powerful productivity features in Windows and Edge, which have increased AI capabilities." It specifically mentioned the new Bing that's now powered by OpenAI's GPT-4 technology. Microsoft introduced the Microsoft 365 Copilot tool that can create content within Office apps with text-based prompts in March.

And then in late May, the company revealed at its Build developer conference that it's making AI a deeply integrated part of Windows 11 by putting a Copilot tool in the platform's sidebar. Users can ask it to perform tasks within the OS, such as changing the computer background, or even editing photos and summarizing documents, without having to launch apps or to search for particular settings. Most likely, very few people will be missing Cortana. Those that do use the assistant can transition to using Copilot, which will be available as a preview version for Windows 11 starting this month.

One of the unanswered questions about Microsoft major push to add generative artificial-intelligence applications across the company’s product line is just how it intends to monetize the innovations. And there is early evidence that the company plans to take an aggressive approach.

© Provided by Geekwire Microsoft says it will dispute the legal basis of an expected fine from Irish regulators over LinkedIn’s targeted advertising practices. (GeekWire File Photo / Todd Bishop)

Microsoft will take a charge of $425 million in the current quarter in anticipation of a fine from the Irish Data Protection Commission over alleged data privacy violations stemming from targeted advertising on LinkedIn.

Microsoft acquired LinkedIn for more than $26 billion in 2016. LinkedIn’s revenue rose 34% in Microsoft’s fiscal 2022, to more than $13.8 billion, representing nearly 7% of Microsoft’s overall revenue for the year.

Unsurprisingly, it seems Microsoft may be exploring a Plan B option if their appeal of the UK’s Competition and Markets Authorities vote to block the Activision deal doesn’t play out in the company’s favor.

While Microsoft filed its formal appeal of the CMAs decision to block its acquisition of Activision Blizzard last week, a report from MLex, a lawyers’ news source, posits the idea that the company is actively working on an end-around to both the initial decision as well as the subsequent interim ultimatum the regulatory body dished out.

For now, Microsoft is publicly pursing the appeals process and has not stated any different, “Our priority is pursuing the appeal process in the UK, and we remain committed to constructive dialogue and solutions to address regulatory concerns,” according to a company spokesperson.

However, MLex understands that Microsoft has retained additional lawyers to examine possible ways for the company to close the deal in the face of an official veto from the CMA.

Some alternative paths for the closing Microsoft’s acquisition bid in spite of the CMA’s current decision is to have Activision leave the UK for “another European country”, and remove itself from CMA jurisdiction. Another option being bandied about by lawyers is Microsoft extending the same licensing concessions it gave the European Commission unilaterally across the UK.

Microsoft is also looking into the legality of the CMA to issue a global ban as it pertains to localized issues within UK markets. Microsoft and Activision could present a case that the CMA needs to narrow its ultimatum ban to only UK regions and thus allowing Microsoft to close wherever else it’s gotten approval.

Lastly, Microsoft could forge ahead with a close on the deal and when sued by the CMA for “violating” its global veto, take the matter to court on grounds of illegality.

Whatever the case may be, the Microsoft and Activision deal is still an active merger and could remain one even with a failed appeal to the Competition Appeals Tribunal.

For now, Microsoft has the next few weeks to purse the path of least resistance with an appeal to the CTA, and perhaps, nudging the tribunal into various conflicts of interest CMA directors may have knowingly or unknowingly engaged with during the investigatory process.

Via Twitter

Microsoft recently announced a major update to its communities and GroupMe features on its free Teams app. In addition to more features that mirror a platform like Discord, Teams now supports AI-generated images in Communities, à la Midjourney.

The Communities feature has been a breakout hit for Microsoft Teams since its introduction in December 2022, and has been available for Microsoft 365 Personal and Family plans, along with Teams Essentials accounts. Since then, many people have found the feature beneficial for local collaboration such as sharing projects, exchanging ideas, and pooling resources. According to user feedback, the feature allows people to stay connected before, during, and after gatherings, Microsoft said.

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Taking into consideration new functions, streamlined accessibility, bug fixes, and other user notes, Microsoft has rolled out an updated version of Communities for Microsoft Teams. These features will be available immediately for Windows 11 devices, as well as iOS and Android devices, for free. Here are some of the new features available on Communities.

• You will be able to collaborate with communities on Teams across platforms, Windows 11, iOS, and Android. As a community owner, you will also be able to start communities, share your communities and invite members, host events, and moderate content. These features will soon be coming for Windows 1, macOS, and web-based communities.
• Communities will have support for Microsoft Designer, allowing you to create AI-generated design content within hosted spaces.
• Communities will include a camera feature that will allow you to capture video from mobile devices or edit content with filters and markup tools.
• You will be able to find new communities to join based on your interests, such as parenting, gaming, gardening, technology, and remote work.
• Community owners now have the ability to approve or reject requests for joining spaces, and can also gather polls from the community, which are powered by Microsoft Forms.

In addition to the Communities updates, Microsoft has also announced its new features on GroupMe, which is a communication app centered on college and university campuses. GroupMe has seen a visual redesign, with new subject chats meant for large group conversations. The ecosystem is focused on discovering new people. As it’s based on Microsoft Teams, you can make Teams calls without having to leave GroupMe.

Microsoft is making some key improvements to the free version of Microsoft Teams on Windows 11. The new changes will make the video conferencing software - which many of us dread using - a lot more user-friendly, and generally a lot more pleasant to use.

The built-in Teams app will include support for Microsoft’s communities feature inside Teams, the company’s more professional rival to Discord. Microsoft Designer, the nifty generative AI art tool, will also receive integrated support in Teams, making it easier for users to whip up images for invitations, social media posts, or a cheeky work meme all in one place.

Microsoft Teams ‘communities' launched last December and act as a way for families, friends, and businesses to plan out meetings, share calendars, and chat, similar to how people might use Slack or Discord. The feature has been limited to mobile so far, but today’s expansion will let Windows 11 users join in on the fun.

Amit Fulay, Vice President of Microsoft Teams, explained in a blog post that “On Windows 11, community owners can create communities from scratch, share and invite members, create and host events, moderate content with critical trust and safety features, and get notified about all important activities”. According to the post, Microsoft plans to extend the community love to Windows 10, macOS, and the web browser version of Teams.

Microsoft Designer will have a preview version available in Microsoft Teams for Windows 11 soon, which will help people create community banners, profile photos, inside jokes, and event imagery. This is the same service already integrated into Microsoft Edge, which uses a combination of Dall-E and Adobe Express features for basic, easy-to-use AI image generation.

Finally, amongst all these pretty cool updates, communities in Teams will be getting mobile and general usability improvements, allowing you to record videos from your phone and use filters on your videos and photos within the app.

It’s really encouraging to see Microsoft Teams get a huge personality update, shifting the general vibe of ‘dull and boring’ towards something people will hopefully be inclined to use every day.

Discord can be a lot to wrap your head around if you’re just starting out on the platform, so gradually introducing similar features to Teams, which many people already use for work or school, cuts out that initial confusion and gives users more tools to employ in a familiar environment. These Teams updates basically make the online collaboration platform a lot more fun and unintimidating. We’re excited to see these updates - and probably make many, many memes with the Designer tool.

At the Microsoft Build event in Seattle, the tech giant has just unveiled its latest plan to go toe-to-toe with Apple. In a move that should surprise nobody with their finger on the pulse of the tech world, Microsoft’s new plan is – of course! – AI.

The Windows and Surface creator is teaming up with chipmaker Qualcomm to “scale AI capabilities and bring best-in-class AI experiences to users across consumer, enterprise, and industrial devices”. This is just the latest effort from Microsoft to remain competitive against the powerful Apple M2 chips, most recently seen in the new 14-inch MacBook Pro (2023).

What does this actually mean? Well, for starters, it means we can expect to see more Windows devices equipped with Qualcomm’s successful Snapdragon processors – chips we’ve mostly seen so far in phones, tablets, and Chromebooks. Currently, most Windows products run on either Intel or AMD hardware.

Circling back to Microsoft’s AI promises: Qualcomm’s senior vice president of product management, Ziad Asghar, made the excellent point that for machine learning technology to properly infiltrate the mainstream space, it needs to be on-device AI.

AI in your pocket

At present, most AI – such as popular chatbot ChatGPT and Microsoft’s own Bing AI – run using cloud computing. Switching over to local hardware will, as Microsoft noted in its press release, bring numerous benefits for “cost effectiveness, privacy, personalization, and latency”.

Privacy is a huge factor here; there are already many concerns about what exactly cloud-based AI platforms are doing with their users’ data, and how secure that data might actually be. Running your favorite AI programs locally on your own hardware is a big step forward in terms of digital security.

So that all sounds great – and we already know that Microsoft is going all-in on AI in its continued attempts to Excellerate Windows 11. At the Build event, Qualcomm showed off Snapdragon-powered Windows devices running Stable Diffusion (one of the best AI art generators) entirely on local hardware – an impressive feat.

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The latest Snapdragon processors pack a dedicated ‘Qualcomm AI Engine’ specialized for handling AI-powered workloads separate from the integrated CPU and GPU, which boosts performance and makes running AI software possible even on super thin-and-light devices like the best ultrabooks. There’s one major problem that Microsoft hasn’t addressed, though…

The ARM problem

For the uninitiated, there’s a very important difference between Windows devices that use the best processors from Intel and AMD, and those that use Qualcomm’s chips. Unlike conventional desktop CPUs, Snapdragon processors are based on the ARM compute instruction set – basically, a form of computer architecture distinct from the x86 instruction set used by most Windows devices.

Windows on ARM (WoA) has been a thorn in Microsoft’s side for years, ever since the company’s first foray into creating its own ARM-based chips for the deeply lackluster Surface Pro X. Even the more latest (and definitely better) Surface Pro 9 5G suffers from using an ARM CPU.

The issue is that since Windows is designed for x86 (and the older x64 CISC), the vast majority of third-party applications made for Windows – which is a massive, massive amount of software – aren’t actually compatible with WoA. What this means in practice is that you’re effectively limited to only using software downloadable from the Microsoft Store. If there’s a program you need that isn’t in the Store, tough luck.

Of course, Microsoft has big plans for Windows 12 to run better on its own silicon, so we might finally see a version of the popular operating system that manages to bridge the gap between x86 and ARM. If that happens, this fresh collaboration with Qualcomm could be the silver bullet Microsoft needs to smash Apple’s increasingly powerful MacBooks.

Will it happen, though? Will Windows on ARM – newly empowered with Snapdragon AI capabilities – finally emerge victorious? We’re divided here at TechRadar. I think Microsoft has a chance to make it work, but my colleague John Loeffler thinks Microsoft silicon is a terrible idea. Only time will tell…