Sofia Elizabella Wyciślik-Wilson

Google’s love affair with AI shows no signs of burning out, and the company has just announced even deeper integration of Gemini into Chrome.

Billed as a reimagining of the web browser with artificial intelligence, Google says this is about more than just bringing more AI smarts to the humble web browser. The company says that the addition of Gemini-powered features will not only help to make users more productive, but will also keep them safer. Bold claims.

This October marks the end of support for Windows 10, but the same is true for some version of Office. Microsoft has issued a reminder for anyone still using Office 2016 and Office 2019 that their version of the office suite will receive no more updates after the middle of next month.

Also losing support are Visio 2016, Visio 2019, Project 2016 and Project 2019, with the important date to keep in mind being October 14, 2025. Microsoft has advice for anyone who is working with any of these software titles.

Google has launched a new search app for Windows 11 which is already being likened to the Spotlight found in macOS. There is also Windows 10 support, but this may not be the case for very much longer given the operating system’s days are numbered.

This is a wide-ranging search tool, and, despite Google’s heritage, it is not limited to searching the web – although it does do this. Using a simple keyboard shortcut that works from anywhere (it is Alt + Space, if you are interested) the app can be used to search files stored locally, those in Google Drive, your apps, and more.

PayPal has announced the launch of a new payment option called PayPal Links. The new system of personalized one-time links makes it easier to both send and receive money, including cryptocurrency.

PayPal Links have been designed for quick and easy sharing via email, text message, chat or social media. The links can be configured for sending money or requesting it, and the company is putting a great deal of focus on how easily links can be created – and by extension how quickly payments or money requests can be made.

Whether you are using Windows 11 on a desktop PC or a laptop, keyboard backlighting can be extraordinarily useful... or a huge annoyance. We are talking about standard lighting up of keys here, not RGB craziness, by the way.

When using a keyboard in the dark or low light, the right amount of backlighting can be a boon. But just what is the correct backlighting level is not only a matter of personal taste, but also something that is extremely circumstantial. Microsoft is about to make it much quicker and easier to adjust lighting levels so you can adapt to ambient lighting changes.

It is not very often that companies give users more for free, but this is exactly what Spotify is doing. Having just recently announced that Premium subscribers are gaining access to lossless audio, Spotify is giving users on its free tier something extra as well.

As part of a major change to its treatment of users who do not pay for a subscription, Spotify now lets free users search for and play any song they want. There is no longer a need to wait for an album or playlist to reach the song you want, or use those valuable skips. Here is what you need to know.

Can your online experience ever be fast enough? Probably not. And this is why Google is taking steps to speed up Chrome – or at least to make the browser feel as though it is faster.

The company is testing a method of loading pages in the background before they are needed so the experience of a page appearing is faster. Currently in testing is an optional feature called prefetching which works much as you might expect it to.

There are plenty of internet speed test tools you can access from your browser, but it looks as though Microsoft is playing with the idea of adding one straight into Windows 11.

If the idea of an internet speed test tool being integrated into Windows 11 interests you, you should perhaps keep your expectation low. Early signs are that this is not an integrated speed tester as such, but a shortcut. Still, it is a useful feature, and making speed testing more accessible is very welcome.

WhatsApp is a near-ubiquitous messaging app used and loved by millions of people globally. Its popularity does not mean, however, that it is perfect – there are many areas in which there is room for improvement.

Thankfully, WhatsApp developers are not inclined to rest on their laurels and add features, make changes and improvements, and respond to feedback with speed and frequency that puts other dev teams to shame. The latest addition is a welcome one: threaded messaging.

This will all be over soon, we promise you. But for a little while longer you are going to continue hearing about Windows 10. It is something that has been talked about for so long that it would be easy to start to feel numb to any more mentions of the operating system, but the end of support for Windows 10 has reached an important milestone.

Over the weekend, we hit the point of there being only 30 days left. Never one to miss an opportunity to remind users of Windows 10 about the end of support – or, indeed, to suggest upgrading to Windows 11 – Microsoft issued a reminder about the upcoming end of servicing.

Microsoft is by no means a stranger to nagging its customers in one way or another – usually with the intention of parting people from their money. In a somewhat unusual move, the company has used the latest preview builds of Windows 11 to introduce a way to pester Microsoft 365 (or “Office” to most of us) subscribers.

A full screen “reminder” – or nag screen – has been added in the Dev and Beta builds of Windows 11 released to Windows Insiders. Microsoft, of course, is talking about it in rather different terms.

Every web browser has a browsing mode designed to be more private; in Chrome, it is Incognito Mode. But while switching to this mode can help with improving privacy at a local level, it is not flawless when it comes to blocking external privacy invasions.

Tackling the problem of websites using invisible images to track visitors who have cookies disabled, Google is currently testing a new method of making Incognito Mode more secure and private.

Mastodon is to roll out the ability to quote other people’s posts in your own posts on the decentralized social platform. This is something that has been a very long time coming, with Mastodon having talked about it for months.

The reason it has taken so long for post quoting to become a reality is because of the protections that have been built-in. Specifically, users have controls over who is able to quote their posts in order to avoid “dunking” – the phenomenon that sees mass quoting used for negative purposes.

Microsoft has managed to avoid a hefty fine or other sanctions after the European Commission accepted the company’s proposal for unbundling Teams from Office 365 and Microsoft 365.

 A complaint from Slack a few years ago started the European legal wheels turning as Microsoft was accused of anti-competitive behavior once again. The European Commission agreed that the company had “granti[ed] Teams an undue competitive advantage in terms of distribution”, but now accepts Microsoft’s unbundling proposal.

Microsoft has announced that it is going to allow app developers to publish to the Microsoft Store without having to pay.

The company says that by removing a friction point of requiring a credit card, it is “creating a more inclusive and accessible platform”. More than just taking away registration fees, Microsoft is also offering free hosting, free signing and automatic updates for MSIX packages.