It took quite a while, but Twitter eventually decided to increase the maximum length of tweets to 280 characters. For some people, this is still not enough, and threading is not for everyone. It is with this in mind that Twitter has started testing a new long-form writing format called Notes.

Twitter has long been referred to as a micro-blogging service, and Notes takes things to the next level, essentially giving users the ability to write blog posts of any length. As well as eliminating the character limit, Notes can also include photos, videos and even embedded tweets. Best of all, Notes are editable. This may not be the "edit tweet" option people have been looking for, but it is a step in that direction.

Having previously only made the option available to "seekers", Microsoft has now rolled out the ability to use WLS2 distros in Windows Server 2022 to anyone who is interested in the functionality.

Last month, Microsoft released a preview of an update that brought Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 distro support to Windows Server 2022. Now this update has been made generally available, following the release of the KB5014678 update on Patch Tuesday this week.

Microsoft has publicly shared its Responsible AI Standard which includes its guidelines for building AI systems. The company says it is publishing the standard in order to "to share what we have learned, invite feedback from others, and contribute to the discussion about building better norms and practices around AI".

In addition to publishing the Responsible AI Standard, Microsoft has also announced that it is closing down some of the capabilities of its Azure Face facial recognition service. Features that are being retied include those that can be used to "infer emotional states and identity attributes such as gender, age, smile, facial hair, hair, and makeup".

Internet users get their news from a huge number of sources these days. In addition to newspaper websites, RSS feeds and social media, there are also aggregator sites -- including Google News. Google has just unveiled a major redesign for its news service, with a shift in focus as well as a change in appearance.

With the redesign -- which marks the 20th anniversary of Google News -- Google is placing an increased emphasis on local news, but it is also using the revamp to introduce a range of new customization options. The redesign is described as "a brand-new briefing, clear selections, and more picks for you".

While there are many complaints about Windows 11, there are also many things to look forward to. There are, of course, plenty of things in development that we know nothing about, but there are also many that we are aware of -- including the arrival of a much-requested tabbed option in Explorer.

But in addition to making life easier for people who need to be able to access several folders at the same time, there could be a somewhat unexpected side effect to the upcoming change: it could boost the performance of Windows 11.

Microsoft has released two out-of-band updates, one for Windows 10 and one for Windows 11. The KB5016138 and KB5016139 updates address a problem caused by the June 2022 update released on the most recent Patch Tuesday.

The problem prevents some users from signing in with Azure Active Directory, with knock-on problems for various apps and services such as Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Teams and VPNs.

For people with less sense than money, there are NFTs to waste hard-earned cash on. But Meta is introducing a new way to part fools from their money -- Avatars Store.

These will be available for Facebook, Instagram and Messenger, and will give users the opportunity to buy digital clothes with which to adorn their avatar. Attempting to justify the selling of more digital fluff, Mark Zuckerberg insists that "digital goods will be an important way to express yourself in the metaverse and a big driver of the creative economy".

Microsoft has long been accused of using Windows 11 -- and, for that matter, earlier versions of the operating system -- to spy on users by gathering telemetry. Accusations of invading privacy could also be levelled at many apps too, and Microsoft is introducing a new feature that places users in control.

Having apps secretly spying on users, or making use of cameras and microphones, is something that tends to be thought of in relation to mobile apps, but it can also be a problem on the desktop. With this in mind, Microsoft is testing a new Privacy Auditing feature that will make it possible to see which apps have been accessing such devices.

June's Patch Tuesday update releases for Windows 11 have once gain proved to be problematic. Microsoft has acknowledged a new known issue with the operating system following the installation of the KB5014697 update.

The KB5014697 update was supposed to address a number of security flaws in Windows 11, but it also introduced connectivity issues for some users, Microsoft is currently investigating the problem which affects Windows 11's Wi-Fi hotspot feature.

It is easy to perform searches in Chrome, but you can make things easier. You probably currently either launch Google (or your preferred search engine) in a new tab, or just type a search term in the address bar, but there is another somewhat secret option.

Google’s browser has an optional search sidebar that not very many people know about. Called simply Side Search, this useful left-hand panel makes it easy to explore search results at speed.

After something of a quiet period, Microsoft released the first update in a while for PowerToys last week. Now the company has issued what it describes as a "patch release", taking the popular utility collection up to PowerToys v0.59.1.

As this is a patch release, there are no new tools to explore, and no major new additions. But the release remains significant thanks to the bugs it addresses -- including fixes for problems with FancyZones and PowerToys Run.

It's the time of the month for Microsoft to release updates for Windows, and having done so for Windows 11, the company has also published updates for Windows 10.

There are two security updates to consider here. For users of Windows 10 version 1809, there is the KB5014692 update; for users of Windows 10 versions 20H2, 21H1 and 21H2, there is the KB5014699 update. Both are important security updates that should be installed immediately.

Microsoft has released a series of new updates for Windows as part of this month's Patch Tuesday, including the KB5014697 update for Windows 11.

The KB5014697 update takes Windows 11 up to build 22000.739, and it includes numerous bug and security fixes. Additionally, it brings Windows spotlight on the desktop to anyone who has not yet received it through previous updates.

Fans of Linux-based operating systems often cite greater security as the basis for the love of their chosen distro. Whether Linux distros have better security track records than the likes of Windows 11 and macOS because they are inherently more secure or because they are simply not targeted as much as very much open to debate, but Linux remains fallible, nonetheless.

Going some way to prove this is the Symbiote malware discovered by security researchers from BlackBerry and Intezer Labs. Symbiote is worrying for a number of reasons including the fact that it is described as "nearly-impossible-to-detect". It is also extremely dangerous piece of malware that "parasitically infects" systems, infecting all running processes and giving threat actors rootkit functionality, remote access and more.

Microsoft-owned GitHub plans to sunset its developer-focused text editor Atom. Citing a lack of "significant feature development", GitHub says that Atom will be killed off in December and its projects will be archived.

Atom has been around for more than a decade and has built up a dedicated following, but now its users have just six months to seek out an alternative that they love just as much.