Sofia Elizabella Wyciślik-Wilson

If you’re the sort of person who likes to be in control of what happens on your computer – as much as such a thing is possible – you may have disabled automatic updates for Microsoft Store apps.

Microsoft has, without warning or any sort of announcement, removed this option. If you have installed an app from the Microsoft Store, you are now essentially forced to keep the very latest versions of that app installed.

Google has introduced a handy new way for Android users to keep on top of their emails – a Mark As Read option.

This may sound like nothing new, but this is not just any Mark As Read option. It is a new Mark As Read option that can be accessed from. The notification that appears when a new email arrives.

Microsoft has reminded users, yet again that support for Windows 10 is coming to an end. You could be forgiven for being tired of hearing about this, but as the cut-off date is very much on the horizon, Microsoft’s eagerness to ensure everyone knows is understandable.

There are now less than two months to go until Microsoft stops issuing updates to Windows 10 for anyone who has not paid for extended support. This is really not long, and while it is hard to believe that there could possibly be anyone who is not yet aware of this, there will of course be some.

What could be better than a new MacBook Pro – assuming you’re a fan of Apple laptops? How about a 5G MacBook Pro? If this sounds good to you, code spotted in macOS Tahoe all but confirms there is one on the way.

While tethering a MacBook to an iPhone or – dare we say it? – an Android phone is all well and good, a laptop with built-in data connectivity is a real boon. Apple fans have been hoping for such a device for a long time, and now it seems that the company is ready to deliver the goods.

Some Apple Watch users are about to receive a software update which will provide them with a redesigned Blood Oxygen feature.

The update affects owners of Apple Watch Series 9, Series 10, and Apple Watch Ultra 2 in the US who do not yet have the Blood Oxygen feature. Access to the health tool comes after a US Customs ruling.

Google has announced new features for Gemini and changes to the way the AI works. In launching a new Temporary Chats function, Google is really sneaking in the fact that Gemini will – unless you choose otherwise – remember everything you have said to it.

The ability of Gemini (which will be the default) to remember all of your past conversations is sold as a way to make it an “even more personal, proactive and powerful assistant”. There are, of course, privacy concerns.

OpenAI has confirmed the rollout of Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Contacts Connectors in ChatGPT.

Available to Pro and Plus tiers, the connectors come hot on the heels of the recently added Box, Canva, Dropbox, HubSpot, Notion, Microsoft SharePoint, and Microsoft Teams integrations. By granting ChatGPT access to Gmail emails, Calendar entries and Contacts data, the AI should be able to provide more personalized and relevant information.

It is time for a new PowerToys update, and with the release of version 0.93.0 of the utility suite, Microsoft delivers a lot.

As well as fixing bugs and making improvements to a number of the modules, PowerToys v0.93.0 features a new dashboard UX. There are no new modules this time around but there are some impressive performance improvements.

The AI race is the modern-day space race, and the US is concerned that China will make too much progress too quickly. This is precisely why President Trump recently suggested that the likes of NVIDIA only allowed to sell limited versions of its AI chips to Chinese customers.

How could this be policed? Through the use of trackers, according to sources familiar with the matter.

Chrome has not been put up for sale, but that has not stopped AI startup Perplexity from putting in a bid to buy the web browser from Google.

While on the face of things the $34.5 billion bid seems large, it has been widely dismissed as being a fraction of Chrome’s real value. So, what is the deal with Perplexity trying to snap up the most popular web browser in the world?

Microsoft just found a new use for AI. Excel users can now turn to the new Explain Formula feature which uses Copilot to use artificial intelligence to understand how a formula works.

There are many advantages to this. It can serve as a way to learn about how to create new formulae of your own, but it is also a handy way to not only understand how a formula works as well as a means of debugging if the output is not what you were expecting it to be.

Microsoft OneNote is an incredibly useful tool, and a clever one – sometime too clever. After being absent for far too long, it now finally has an unformatted text pasting option.

It is hard to believe that it has taken over twenty years for this to arrive – and it is not clear why it has taken so long – but it is finally here. No longer will you have to strip out unwanted formatting, change color and so on. Unformatted text pasting is now just a keyboard shortcut away.

Microsoft has launched a limited public preview of Windows 365 Reserve, a new cloud-based service to help reduce downtime and disruption for business when disaster strikes.

Whether there is a system failure, a cyberattack, or something else goes wrong, Windows 365 Reserve provides access to a Cloud PC to help reduce disruptions. Microsoft says that it offers businesses “secure and on-demand Cloud PC access from anywhere when you need it most”.

Instagram recently added a number of new features, including sharing your location. While some additions – such as reposting – were welcome, location sharing sparked concerns.

The new Instagram map feature allows the people you are connected to on the social media platform to see your location – and you can see theirs. Instagram has pitched this as being useful to parents, but many users are worried about the privacy implications of location sharing.

There is no shortage of generative AI tools out there, and the latest is Copilot 3D. This experimental tool from Microsoft does very much what you would expect of it – it creates three-dimensional images using artificial intelligence.

As this is an experimental tool, there are a couple of things to keep in mind. Firstly, it is not a completed product so there may be issues with it. Secondly, this is an experimental tool which is still being developed, so it could change dramatically or even disappear altogether. But let’s take a look at what is currently available.