Tag: Windows 11

Categories
Mobile Syrup

Microsoft begins rolling out support for iPhone in its Phone Link app

The latest feature coming to Microsoft’s Phone Link app is iPhone support. The new Windows 11 app update is rolling out globally, according to Microsoft, and will be available for all PC users by the middle of May.

With the update, iPhone users can access phone calls, notifications, and iMessage threads directly on their PCs. While it’s a step in the right direction for cross-platform compatibility, the implementation is limited.

iMessage support is limited to one-on-one conversations, so don’t expect to participate in green bubble group chats from your laptop. Other functionality, like quick camera roll access, is only available for Android phones.

Microsoft has been slowly but steadily providing updates to Phone Link, including an interface redesign and an ‘Instant Hotspot’ feature last year.

The Phone Link app is available in the Microsoft Store and works on Windows 10 and Windows 11.

Source: Microsoft Via: The Verge

Categories
Mobile Syrup

Lenovo’s new Slim Pro laptop has a mini-LED display

Following up on last week’s Lenovo gaming laptop announcement, the company is back with several new Windows 11 laptops for work and creativity.

The new laptops include the Slim Pro 9i Gen 8, Slim Pro 7 Gen 8, Slim 7i Gen 8 and Yoga 7.

Lenovo’s Slim Pro 9i (pictured above) is the flagship offering, boasting 14.5- or 16-inch PureSight Pro displays, Lenovo X Power, and more. PureSight Pro is a new display technology available on several of Lenovo’s new laptops that uses mini0LED technology to offer up to 1200nits of brightness and colour accuracy by hitting 100 percent of both DCI-P3 and the Adobe RGB colour gamut.

Lenovo X Power, on the other hand, is a set of hardware and software features that work together to improve various experiences. An example offered by Lenovo is that X Power can “drastically” speed up software preview, rendering and exports when editing video.

Lenovo Slim Pro 7

Beyond X Power and PureSight Pro, the Slim Pro 9i offers up to 13th Gen Intel Core CPUs and an Nvidia RTX 4070 laptop GPU.

Finally, there’s the AI Engine+, which is available on the 9i and other Slim Pro laptops. It helps improve performance by anticipating power or battery needs based on what users are doing with the laptop.

Slim Pro 7, Slim 7i and Yoga 7 series

Lenovo Slim 7i

Moving on to the other laptops, Lenovo aims to pack performance into sleek designs.

The Slim Pro 7 sports a 14.5-inch PureSight Pro display with up to a 3K resolution, 400 nights of brightness and a 120Hz refresh rate. Lenovo didn’t note the CPU options for the Slim Pro 7, but did say it’ll use either the Nvidia RTX 3050 or 4050 laptop GPUs.

The Slim 7i, on the other hand, sports the latest generation 13th Gen Intel Core CPUs.

Lenovo Yoga 7

Finally, the Yoga 7 and 7i offer 360-degree hinges — as standard with the Yoga line — so that users can take advantage of a typical clamshell laptop experience or fold the device into a tablet. The Yoga series offers either the latest 13th Gen Intel or AMD Ryzen 7000 CPU with a 2.8K OLED 16:10 display.

Availability

Lenovo provided the following details about the laptops’ availability in North America, though only with U.S. pricing. I’ve included CAD conversions below, though actual Canadian pricing may vary.

  • Slim Pro 9i (16-inch) will start at $1,799.99 USD (about $2,456.81 CAD), with expected availability starting May 2023.
  • Slim Pro 9i (14.5-inch) will start at $1,699.99 USD (about $2,320.32 CAD), with expected availability starting May 2023.
  • Slim Pro 7 will start at $1,199.99 USD (about $1,637.87 CAD), with expected availability starting April 2023.
  • Slim 7i will start at $1,179.99 USD (about $1,610.57 CAD), with expected availability starting April 2023.
  • Yoga 7i (14-inch) will start at $849.99 USD (about $1,160.15 CAD), with expected availability starting April 2023.
  • Yoga 7i (16-inch) will start at $799.99 USD (about $1,091.91 CAD), with expected availability starting April 2023.
  • Yoga 7 will start at $799.99 USD (about $1,091.91 CAD), with expected availability starting May 2023.
Categories
Mobile Syrup

You can un-crop screenshots captured by the Windows 11 Snipping Tool

Earlier this month, details emerged about a flaw with Pixel phones’ Markup tool for editing screenshots. Dubbed ‘aCropalypse,’ the flaw allowed malicious actors to restore some or all of a cropped or redacted image.

Now it appears Windows 11 is impacted by a similar flaw.

Developer Chris Blume uncovered that the Windows 11 Snipping Tool is vulnerable to a similar exploit as was used for aCropalypse and shared the finding with Simon Aarons, one of the reverse engineers who discovered aCropalypse, on Twitter.

Bleeping Computer verified the exploit with David Buchanan, the other reverse engineer behind aCropalypse, and found that a slightly modified version of the script Buchanan made to extract hidden info from an edited Pixel screenshot worked on the Windows 11 Snipping Tool.

As with Pixel’s Markup software, the Snipping tool doesn’t completely erase unused parts of the PNG image data, such as parts of the image that are cropped out. This data can be partially or fully recovered.

However, it’s worth noting that the problem doesn’t impact all PNG files captured with the Snipping Tool, with optimized images being among those unaffected. Moreover, JPEG files also leave behind data, but so far, the exploit isn’t known to work with that file format. Finally, images that have been saved as another file in an image editing tool should be safe as well.

Microsoft told Bleeping Computer it was “aware of these reports and [is] investigating,” and it will take necessary action to protect users.

The flaw doesn’t appear to impact the Windows 10 Snipping Tool. Moreover, Buchanan isn’t publishing the modified scripts for the Windows 11 Snipping Tool since Microsoft hasn’t had a chance to patch it.

Meanwhile, Windows 11 users will want to be careful with what they capture using the Snipping Tool and where they share images. The main concern here is that someone might capture sensitive information in a screenshot and crop it out, but a malicious actor could restore the information using the modified aCropalypse script.

It’s worth noting that Google already pushed out a patch for aCropalypse to Pixel phones, but it doesn’t fix screenshots captured before the update.

Source: Chris Blume, David Buchanan, Bleeping Computer, Via: Engadget

Categories
Mobile Syrup

Microsoft confirms it’s testing a revamped volume mixer for Windows 11

Earlier this year, Microsoft’s work on a revamped volume mixer for Windows 11 leaked. Now the company has confirmed it’s testing a new volume mixer in a post about Windows 11 Preview Build 25309, which is rolling out to testers in the Windows 11 Insider Dev channel.

The new volume mixer appears in the quick settings panel and can be accessed by clicking the Wi-Fi/sound/battery icons in the bottom-right corner of the taskbar. Microsoft also added a keyboard shortcut to access it (Win+Ctrl+V).

The volume mixer adds several quality-of-life improvements to Windows 11’s volume controls. It adds the ability to quickly swap between audio outputs like headphones and speakers, adjust the volume of individual apps, toggle spatial audio technologies and more.

New volume mixer in Windows 11

New volume mixer in Windows 11 | Image credit: Microsoft

As was pointed out back in January when the feature leaked, the changes largely mirror what’s offered in a third-party app called EarTrumpet created almost five years ago to fix the various limitations of the Windows 10 volume controls.

It’s not clear when Microsoft will roll out the new volume mixer for all, but at least now we know for sure the company is testing it. It should eventually make its way into stable Windows 11.

Source: Microsoft Via: The Verge

Categories
Mobile Syrup

Microsoft’s latest Windows 11 update adds Bing Chat to the taskbar

Microsoft has unveiled its next big Windows 11 update, chock full of new features and capabilities. However, the star of the show is Bing.

If it weren’t for the fact that Microsoft’s ChatGPT-powered Bing Chat dominated tech headlines for the last two weeks, I’d be shocked that Bing would be the standout addition to Windows 11. This is the world we live in now. In a blog post about the new Windows 11 update, Panos Panay, chief product officer, outlined that the Windows 11 taskbar would now include access to the new Bing in the search bar.

Bing Chat on the Windows 11 taskbar | Image credit: Microsoft

Microsoft didn’t say much more about Bing Chat in Windows 11, but it did explain that those in the Bing preview will have access after installing the new Windows 11 update. If you haven’t joined the waitlist for the Bing preview, you can learn more about how to do so here.

Beyond Bing

Phone Link for iOS | Image credit: Microsoft

Of course, Bing was one of many announcements. Microsoft also shared that Windows 11 would get a preview of Phone Link for iOS. Phone Link, for those unfamiliar, is a Windows feature for linking various smartphone features, such as access to messaging, apps on your phone, sharing photos and videos, and more. The iOS version of Phone Link will allow sending and receiving iMessages, as reported by The Verge.

So far, Phone Link has only really worked with Android, and Samsung phones getting the most feature support. It’s great to see Phone Link expanding to include iPhone. I suspect this was sped along by competition from the launch of Intel Unison, a similar phone-to-PC connection software that does support iPhones. Those interested in trying the Phone Link for iOS preview can learn more here.

Revamped touch taskbar | Image credit: Microsoft

Microsoft also highlighted recent Phone Link improvements for Android users, specifically mentioning the ability to activate your Samsung phone’s hotspot with a click from your PC, or the ‘Recent Websites’ feature that can transfer your browsing sessions from your Samsung phone to your Windows PC.

Microsoft says it updated Windows Studio Effects to make it easier to access the features from the taskbar. Along with that, Microsoft revamped the ‘Chat’ feature of the Windows 11 taskbar with a video preview to help streamline the process of jumping into a video call.

Snipping Tool will let you record your screen

Snipping Tool with screen recording capabilities | Image credit: Microsoft

Moreover, Microsoft added a revamped ‘Quick Assist’ app that should make it easier for the tech-savvy among you to help troubleshoot friends’ and family members’ Windows woes. Quick Assist includes the ability to switch between screen sharing and full control during a session, as well as a new “laser pointer” people can use to highlight icons, menus and more.

Perhaps one of the other exciting additions — at least for me — is that the Snipping Tool will now be able to record an area of the screen. This is a huge bonus as someone who often wants to record part of my screen to make a GIF for a story I’m working on.

Windows 11 Energy recommendations | Image credit: Microsoft

Windows 11 is getting new energy-saving features too. In the Settings menu under System > Power & Battery, there’s an ‘Energy recommendations’ screen that suggests different settings people can tweak to improve energy use.

Wrapping things up, Microsoft expanded Windows 11’s Widgets system with new options from Phone Link, Xbox Game Pass and partners like Meta and Spotify, there’s an improved touchscreen mode with a minimized taskbar, Notepad now has tabs, and there are new accessibility options in the Windows 11 update.

You can check out everything new in Windows 11 here.

Update 2023/02/28 at 9:04am ET: Added a sentence about Phone Link for iOS supporting iMessage.

Categories
Mobile Syrup

Microsoft reportedly testing AI-powered Snap layouts in Windows

Microsoft has AI plans beyond just Bing Chat and integrating that in Edge. The company also has plans to infuse AI capabilities into parts of Windows, with new details revealing how AI could improve Windows 11’s Snap features.

Snap, for those unfamiliar, is a feature of Windows that enables configuring your windows in various ways — for example, having two apps side by side, four apps on screen at once, and other layouts. Microsoft improved Snap in Windows 11 with six pre-set layouts that users can access by hovering their cursor over the square maximize button on a window or by dragging a window to the edge of their screen.

According to sources that spoke with Windows Central, Microsoft plans to further improve Snap with new “smart snap” suggestions. These include the ability for Snap to remember layouts for certain apps and the use of optical character recognition (OCR) technology to enable searching for apps in the Snap suggestion view.

The OCR feature would also make it faster to find an app to snap, allowing people to search for a word, phrase or image, even if it’s just one that’s on a webpage or in an app.

In-development Snap layouts

AI-powered smart Snap layouts in Windows 11 | Image credit: Windows Central

Windows Central also detailed that Microsoft is experimenting with Snap layouts that adjust dynamically. For example, when running two apps in a 70/30 split, the app you’re currently using would expand to take up 70 percent of the screen while the other app takes up the 30. When you click between apps, they will adjust automatically. On paper, that sounds neat, but at least for the way I use Windows and Snap layouts, I’m worried it might be an inconvenience more than anything.

All these features are largely experiments, and it’s not clear if or when they’ll roll out to Windows users. Windows Central noted that some of the Snap suggestions features are hidden in some recent Windows 11 preview builds, so some of these changes could come sooner rather than later.

Source: Windows Central

Categories
Mobile Syrup

Windows 11 will soon let you control RGB accessories natively

Your Windows 11 PC might soon be able to control RGB PC accessories natively.

As shared by Albacore (@thebookisclosed), via The Verge on Twitter, in the latest public test build of the operating system, Albacore has found a new setting for “device lighting.”

“New settings for device lighting make an appearance in build 25295. Is this the beginning of the end for low quality RGB gamer gear apps?” wrote Albacore.

The screenshots shared reveal that users would be able to control basic RGB settings, including brightness, lighting effect, effect speed and colour. There is also a toggle to “Match my Windows accent colour.”

The update could allow Windows 11 users to avoid software like Razer’s Synapse app, Logitech G Hub or the SteelSeries GG app, in case they only control basic lighting features for the RGB lights.

As pointed out by The Verge, Microsoft hasn’t officially announced the existence of the feature, or the fact that it is working on it. However, the company is working on several experimental features, many of which are expected to appear in Windows 11 later in 2023.

Microsoft is also reportedly looking to add the ability to capture screen recordings to the Snipping Tool. Read more about it here.

Source: @thebookisclosed via The Verge

Categories
Mobile Syrup

Microsoft working on File Explorer improvements: report

Microsoft is reportedly working on modernizing the File Explorer in Windows 11, specifically with a focus on updating core areas of the app and building deeper integrations with company services like OneDrive and Microsoft 365.

As detailed by Windows Central, which obtained internal mockups of the work on the revamped File Explorer, the app will feature several changes to modernize the interface. That includes a new header with a modern file directory box, search box, and a new ‘home’ button. Existing header buttons, like the ‘new,’ ‘copy,’ and ‘paste’ options, will move to the top of the file/folder view below the header bar.

Alongside changes to the apps, Microsoft is working on revamping the home page of the File Explorer, which is where people will start seeing some of the deeper OneDrive integration. The top of the home page includes a carousel of recommended files featuring large thumbnails with a preview of the file. What’s shown in the mockup looks very similar to what you’d find in Google Drive.

Other changes are less exciting but still present nonetheless. Changes include modernizing the design of the left-side navigation panel (rounded buttons, modern code, etc.), updates to the details pane, including integrations with Microsoft 365, such as surfacing related email conversations for a given file.

Windows Central also reported on a new ‘Gallery’ area that will improve the experience of viewing photos in File Explorer. That includes the ability to view a larger preview of images by mousing over them. Moreover, Microsoft is reportedly looking at bringing a ‘tagging’ system to File Explorer, which would allow people to categorize their files using keywords and colours — something long available on Apple’s macOS.

Microsoft reportedly aims to roll out the refreshed File Explorer by the end of the year, likely in the company’s 23H2 update expected in the fall.

The changes would mark some of the most significant improvements to File Explorer in years, but it seems like Microsoft is trying to keep File Explorer familiar to users while still adding improvements. More recently, Microsoft added tabs to File Explorer, which has been a huge boon to my workflow. I’m excited to see what comes with the next round of File Explorer updates — Windows Central‘s details look promising.

Source: Windows Central

Categories
Mobile Syrup

Microsoft to stop selling Windows 10 Home, Pro at end of January

Starting January 31st, Microsoft will stop selling Windows 10 downloads.

The move shouldn’t come as much of a surprise — Windows 11 has been around for a while and Microsoft plans to officially stop supporting Windows 10 on October 14th, 2025. The Verge spotted updates to Microsoft’s online store to note that it will stop selling Windows 10 Home and Pro downloads at the end of the month.

However, Microsoft would only confirm its own plans to The Verge, which indicates Windows 10 will still be available from third parties beyond the January 31st deadline. At the very least, it’s not clear what will happen to Windows 10 licences available from the likes of Amazon.

The Windows 10 downloads being removed include licence keys, which are needed to activate and use the download. In it’s place, Microsoft is — naturally — recommending Windows 11.

The Verge notes that Microsoft launched Windows 10 in July 2015 with a focus on running like a service with continuous updates. At one point, the company even pitched it as the “last version of Windows,” although Microsoft eventually changed its tune on that.

Anyway, if you’re not interested in Windows 11 but need a copy of Windows to get you through the next two years, you can grab Windows 10 from the Microsoft store until January 31st.

Source: Microsoft Via: The Verge

Categories
Mobile Syrup

Microsoft tests better Windows audio controls

The latest Windows 11 test build includes a new volume mixed that appears to borrow heavily from third-party audio tool EarTrumpet.

As spotted by The Verge, the test build features a hidden volume mixer that can be enabled through an experimental flag. The Verge notes that Microsoft hasn’t officially acknowledged the feature yet and that it might not ship, but we’re still in the early phases.

Initially designed for Windows 10, EarTrumpet adds several options for controlling audio, including the ability to adjust volume for classic and modern apps individually, quickly switch between default audio devices, and move apps between playback devices.

The tweaked Windows 11 audio feature brings quick access to switching audio outputs, and individual app volume controls to the taskbar, just like what EarTrumpet enabled.

Microsoft MVP Rafael Rivera, who helped create EarTumpet, cheekily pointed out that Microsoft was “catching up to EarTrumpet” on Twitter.

Despite the similarities between Microsoft’s test and EarTrumpet, it’s good to see Microsoft working to improve the audio experience on Windows. After all, people shouldn’t need to rely on third-party tools to fix core parts of an operating system.

Source: The Verge