#microsoft-photos

#microsoft-photos

X's new AI-powered auto-translate option will enable users worldwide to read posts from other regions, enhancing accessibility and engagement across diverse languages.

What started in 2019 as a couple of utilities for things like window and shortcut management has gradually expanded to nearly 30 useful tools, including a keyboard shortcut creator, an image-to-text extractor, and a better search bar than the one that's built into Windows proper. PowerToys has become wildly popular among Windows power users, with more than 70 million downloads to date, but it's also completely free, with no ads, Office upsells, or ham-fisted Copilot integrations.

Microsoft PC Manager, which first appeared in beta form in 2022, and is now available for free to anyone who wants to give it a try. Microsoft promises it "effortlessly enhances PC performance with just one click," and will "keep your PC running smoothly." In other words, it's intended to clean up some of the clutter and baggage that your PC may have accumulated over the years.

Microsoft is making it a lot faster and easier to add links to text inside Word documents. Instead of having to open a menu item to insert a link or use the CTRL + K keyboard shortcut, you can now simply paste a link on top of the text you want to hyperlink. This new feature reduces the amount of clicks you need to do an everyday task like linking URLs, and it works across Word for the web, Windows, and Mac.

Microsoft keeps touting its Copilot AI as the greatest invention since the wheel. Toward that end, the company has been force-feeding more and more AI into Windows in the belief that everyone is yearning for an "agentic OS." Well, based on much of the user feedback, that's not quite the case. In fact, the more Microsoft keeps promoting AI as some white knight riding in to rescue Windows users, the more that people have been pushing back. The main argument?

The "What's New" first-run experience will appear during startup to guide users through the app's latest features. According to Microsoft, "this dialog provides a quick overview of what's possible in Notepad and serves as a helpful starting point for both new and returning users." It can be closed and reopened by clicking a megaphone icon in the top-right of the toolbar.

Microsoft has made OneDrive agents generally available, allowing users to query multiple documents simultaneously through Copilot instead of just one at a time. Users can select up to 20 files and create an agent, saved as a .agent file in OneDrive. Rather than teasing information out of individual documents, Microsoft says users can make cross-document queries, including "What decisions have we made so far?" and "What risks keep coming up?" The agent then generates a response based on the documents' content.

Adobe has improved the tools for Generative Fill, Generative Expand and Remove that are powered by its Firefly generative AI platform. Using these tools for image editing should now produce results in 2K resolution with fewer artifacts and increased detail all while delivering better matches for the provided prompts.