April 16, 2025

Windows Weekly 928: The Rice is Done

2 hours 19 minutes

Paul, Leo, and Richard get into new Windows features (thanks to the Feature Tracker), hardware shifts for Microsoft/Intel/Apple, AI moves from OpenAI/Apple/Adobe, Notion Mail, a Hawaiian drink, the National Recording Registry, rice cookers, and electronic timer tunes!

Windows 11

Feature Tracker. Since we last talked, Microsoft has announced the following new features for Windows 11:

Semantic search can now search for Windows settings using natural language - Dev and Beta (24H2) channels, no clear stable date but guessing June

Narrator can more accurately describe images by detailing the people, objects, colours, text, and numbers in them, Snapdragon X only, same builds as above

Snipping Tool with "Text extraction" in the capture bar - This in Canary now, but it was in at least Dev previously, this could ship in stable at any time, it's an app

Recall (preview) and Click to Do (preview) head to the Release Preview channel (24H2) - Expect this in May Patch Tuesday

Narrator speech recap, Phone Link/Start integration, File Explorer Home updates, Windows Share with Edit all head to Release Preview (23H2) - Expect these in May Patch Tuesday - They were added to Beta channel (23H2) a few days earlier

Plus, Microsoft Edge is up to 9 percent faster at web rendering and we're having a fiesta

Also, the Windows 95 startup/logout chime has been inducted into the National Recording Registry

Hardware

Surface Hub OG hits EOL this year just like Windows 10

First major change under new Intel CEO

What's a computer? The iPad, supposedly, but we'll see

Everything's fine, but Google laid off hundreds in Pixel/Android group

Apple is making big changes so that Apple Intelligence will actually be intelligent

Adobe is going agentic too

OpenAI is creating its own social network because the world needs another social network

OpenAI announces three GPT-4.1 models - may retire GPT-4 soon - plus now o3 and o4-mini models

ChapGPT gets an image library and a memory

Claude gets Research and Google Workspace integration

Meta will start training its AI models with EU data, wink wink

Xbox and games

Xbox app on mobile will soon let you buy games (!) and add-on content, join Game Pass, and redeem perks. Did Microsoft get a concession from Apple/Google??

COD: Modern Warfare II (OG) and more are coming to Game Pass in the next few weeks

Xbox announces Doom: The Dark Ages limited edition accessories

Sea of Thieves is coming to Battle.net

Sony forced to raise the price of PS5 in three locales

Tips and Picks

Tip of the week: Think like an individual, not an enterprise

App pick of the week: Notion Mail

RunAs Radio this week: How to Not Hate PowerShell with Barbara Forbes

Brown liquor pick of the week: 12th Hawaii Distiller's Reserve

Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell

Download or subscribe to Windows Weekly at https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly

Check out Paul's blog at thurrott.com

The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of Carl Franklin.

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