Prepare the Double Box! - One year of Copilot, Arc's Act II, Mozilla Monitor Plus

This week on Windows Weekly, join Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and (eventually) Richard Campbell for a series of chats on Microsoft Copilot, implications of AI advancements, evolving mobile and cloud services, and the intricacies of Xbox's ecosystem strategies. From the future of internet browsers to the beauty of Richard's birthplace, this episode will have you "hooked."
Windows
• Radio silence from the Windows Insider Program this past week
• Just a single bug-fixing update in Beta - need to hit that toggle to get it
• Copilot in Microsoft 365 can now be accessed from Copilot in Windows
• Copilot now opens wider by default, is resizable
• Yet another indication that this year’s big release is Windows 11 24H2, not Windows 12
• Mozilla highlights how Microsoft, Google, and Apple disadvantage Firefox on their OS platforms
• The ensh!ttification we see in Windows is a direct result of smartphone platforms and their makers’ desire to lock down those systems and create walled gardens
• Consider how default apps has worked and changed since US v. Microsoft
• Firefox has 0.5 percent usage share across all platforms now. But it’s surprisingly resilient on the one platform without ensh!ttification, Linux. This should be a proof point for the courts but we need more data
• Apple is by far the worst of the three platform makers
• Clipchamp gets two new audio features, with one more coming this month
AI
• Microsoft Copilot turns one! Twelve months of breathtaking announcements, updates, rebranding, and more
• Over 5 billion chats, 5 billion images created, “sustained growth in Bing and Edge”
• Copilot app stores on iOS and Android, UX update, inline image editing, plus one new Copilot Pro feature (resize and regenerate images between square and landscape without leaving chat)
• Coming soon: Designer GPT inside Copilot for “an immersive, dedicated canvas inside of Copilot where you can visualize your ideas”
• Arc Browser follows up last week’s mobile release with three new AI features for desktop browser
• Microsoft partners with news organizations to create responsible AI guidelines
• Google Bard will be rebranded as Gemini
• Google is bringing generative AI to Maps
• Google launches ImageFX, an AI image generation tool
• Meta will soon label AI-generated images on its services
More Earnings
• Amazon - up 14 percent to $170 billion in revenues
• Apple - $119.6 billion, but flat with the previous year, so the AI hand-waving begins
• Meta - up 25 percent to $40.1 billion
Xbox
• It’s happening: Physical game titles are disappearing from European retailers too
• Microsoft reportedly bringing first-party Xbox titles to PS5, other platforms
• With rumors swirling, Xbox to reveal its expanded cross-platform strategy soon
• Xbox fans need to wake up: This new strategy isn’t just right, it’s the only thing that will save this business
• First Game Pass titles for February, including another Resident Evil game
• Nintendo has sold almost 140 million Switch consoles
Tips and Picks
• Tip of the week: Everyone can sign-up for Twitter Classic, er, Bluesky now
• App pick of the week: Mozilla Monitor
• Podcast pick of the week: Managing Cloud Native with Brendan Burns
• Brown liquor pick of the week: Cardrona Full Flight Solera
Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell
Windows Weekly episode 867
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TWiT.tv is a technology podcasting network located in the San Francisco Bay Area with the #1 ranked technology podcast This Week in Tech hosted by Leo Laporte. Every week we produce dozens of hours of content on a variety of programs including Tech News Weekly, MacBreak Weekly, This Week in Google, Windows Weekly, Security Now, and more.