News

Microsoft Makes Recall ‘Opt-in’ and Introduces New Privacy Protections
Microsoft responded to the controversial Recall feature in a blog post on June 8, stating that the feature is now explicitly optional and that users will be asked if they want to turn it on during the OOBE process. If users choose to turn it on, they’ll need to authenticate with Windows Hello when they need to view their timeline. Microsoft is also providing additional protections to prevent access to the entire Recall database, and Windows 11 will use on-the-fly encryption to ensure that the Snapshot and Search Index databases can only be decrypted after the user authenticates with Windows Hello and its enhanced security measures. Microsoft also reminds users of existing privacy protections it has implemented, such as storing snapshots locally and not sharing them with anyone (even with Microsoft), notifying users when Windows 11 takes a snapshot, support for DRM and InPrivate, the ability to filter, pause, and delete saved content, and more.
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Microsoft Commits to Support Win32 Classic Outlook Until 2029

Microsoft recently announced a roadmap for a new version of Outlook that explicitly mentions continued support for Classic Outlook until at least 2029. According to Microsoft’s plan, the deployment of WebView 2 Outlook to business customers will continue in phases, and in doing so, Microsoft has committed to continue to adhere to the published support schedule for existing versions of Outlook for Windows, ensuring that related applications will receive mainline support until 2029. However, on December 31, 2024, Microsoft plans to end support for the UWP version of Mail. At that time, users will no longer be able to download the UWP version of the Mail client from the Microsoft App Store.

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New App Releases

LinkSheet: Take Control of Your Link Jumps

Platform: Android
Keywords: link hopping, URL, hijacking, utility

The promotion of mobile apps is so pervasive that it not only places advertisements in various locations, but also invades your choice of opening hyperlinks: sometimes we just want to open a URL or jump to a certain app, but other apps on the phone will come out to brush up their presence, or even deprive the user of the right to choose.

LinkSheet is an application that intervenes in this process, allowing you to re-select the way you want to open. LinkSheet works by “restoring” the “URL-App-Chooser” feature that was removed from Android 12, forcing a choice dialog when opening regular URLs and Deep Link links. In order to do this, it needs to be set as the default browser to take over the processing of all links.

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AMD Officially Announces Ryzen 8040 Series Processors

AMD announced the first Ryzen 8040 series mobile processor products at its Advance AI event on December 7th. The new processor, codenamed Hawk Point, is an upgrade to the existing Ryzen 7040 series Phoenix. It also utilizes TSMC’s 4 nm process, the Zen 4 architecture for the CPU and the RDNA 3 architecture for the GPU. Additionally, the previous generation of Ryzen AI has been rebranded as NPU on the Ryzen 8040 series, and while it has more computing power, its architecture is still XDNA.

Intel, on the other hand, recently released a brochure called Core Truths, which claims that AMD is using older CPU cores in its latest Ryzen lineup and argues that not all of AMD’s CPU cores provide the best overall performance. It also says that Intel’s processors are ahead of AMD’s products across the board in terms of performance numbers. But Intel’s propaganda doesn’t quite hold up, for one thing, Intel has been known to use older CPU cores in newer products (such as 7th to 11th generation Core processors), and Intel’s newest processors use a hybrid architecture of P-cores and E-cores, where the E-cores can slow down gaming performance if they don’t pass the Thread Director technology.

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Microsoft to Offer Extended Security Updates for Windows 10

According to YooCare, on December 6, Microsoft announced that it will offer three years of paid Extended Security Updates (ESUs) for companies that need to use Windows 10 beyond the end of its lifecycle.Devices enrolled in the ESU program will receive monthly security updates to keep those Windows 10 PCs secure.The ESUs for Windows 10 will include critical and/or important security updates. The ESU does not cover new features, customer-requested non-security updates, or design change requests, and technical support outside of the ESU itself is not available. It is important to note that ESUs will be available for purchase by individual consumers, although ESU pricing has not been announced at this time. Additionally any Windows 10 PCs logged into a cloud PC running Windows 11 (via Microsoft 365) will automatically receive these ESU updates for free, which also applies to any Windows 10 instance in an Azure virtual desktop.
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GTA 6 First Trailer Online, and Will be Released in 2025

In the early morning hours of December 5, the first trailer for Grand Theft Auto 6 (GTA 6), which was scheduled to go live on the same day, went live due to a leak, and the X platform account that leaked the trailer was subsequently banned. The official trailer, released by developer Rockstar, confirms some of the rumors and revelations that have appeared on the internet over the past two years, including a dual protagonist design set in the series’ predecessor, Sin City, and including the series’ first female protagonist. The trailer states that GTA 6 will be released in 2025, and in a press release issued late Monday, Rockstar noted that the game will be coming to PS5 and Xbox Series X/S that year, with no mention of a PC launch date, which, based on the pace of the previous installments in the series, could be several years later than the console platforms.

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Microsoft Clarified Game Pass Availability

On December 1, Windows Central interviewed Phil Spencer, CEO of Microsoft’s gaming business and head of Xbox, who clarified that “Microsoft’s goal is to bring Xbox Game Pass to ‘any screen where you can play a game,'” as suggested by Tim Stuart, Xbox’s chief financial officer, in a speech last week. Spencer clarified that there are no plans to bring Game Pass to PlayStation or Nintendo platforms, and that the focus is on how to continue to serve buyers of Xbox hardware. Microsoft is looking into allowing players to stream purchased games through the cloud.

Regarding Activision Blizzard’s future plans, Spencer reiterated that he would not force the Activision Blizzard team to remake classic games such as Age of Empires and Starcraft, but would be willing to do so “when the right team is found and the right opportunity arises”.

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Windows Hello Fingerprint Authentication System Vulnerable

Researchers at Blackwing Intelligence have found that Microsoft’s Windows Hello fingerprint authentication can be easily bypassed on Dell, Lenovo, and even Microsoft laptops, and that these fingerprint sensors have multiple vulnerabilities. Microsoft asked Blackwing Intelligence to evaluate the security of fingerprint sensors, and the team reported their findings at Microsoft’s BlueHat conference. They conducted research on popular fingerprint sensors from Goodix, Synaptics, and ELAN, and in a recently published blog post detailed how to build a USB device to perform a man-in-the-middle (MitM) attack. This incident isn’t the first time Microsoft has run into problems with Windows Hello biometric authentication. Microsoft has issued patch fixes because it was possible to spoof Windows Hello’s facial recognition with an infrared image of the victim.

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Sam Altman to Return as CEO of OpenAI

On November 22, OpenAI announced via social media that former CEO Sam Altman had reached an agreement in principle to return to the company as CEO and to reorganize its board of directors, which will consist of Bret Taylor, Larry Summers, and Adam D’Angelo. Sam Altman himself retweeted the announcement and later tweeted that he was willing to return to OpenAI and maintain a good relationship with Microsoft. Sam Altman himself retweeted the message and later tweeted that he would like to return to OpenAI and maintain a good relationship with Microsoft after the board reorganization.

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Except for ChatGPT, the AI chatbot that has recently become a big hit, Edge is still a crazy pile of material in terms of basic browsing functions, and has become a bit bloated without realizing it. But with a more modern look, clearer font rendering and some clever little features, it’s a real treat to look at. This article summarizes a few of the small features that Edge has added, is pushing, and will soon be available for you to experience while you wait in line for the new chatbot.
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