What a wild week it's been for Microsoft and Windows news. Seemingly by coincidence, the biggest news stories of the week have a theme, crossing platforms. Sea of Thieves became was the most pre-ordered game on PlayStation, developers managed to get the Surface Duo to run Windows 11, and new EU law forced Microsoft to let people use non-Microsoft services on Windows. Toss in Windows 11 shoving an ad for Bing into Chrome, and you have a packed week of news. Oh, and did I mention the free version of Copilot got an upgrade as well?
EU helps fix Windows 11
Windows 11 just got a bit better, and you have the European Union (EU) to thank for it. The EU's new DMA regulations are designed to foster competition among companies, and Windows is one of the big players affected by the legislation. While some Microsoft products are exempt from the DMA regulation, the tech giant had to make several changes to Windows 11 to comply with the law.
Most notably, users in the European Economic Area can uninstall Microsoft Edge, disable Bing in Windows Search, and turn off the Microsoft News feed and ads in the Widgets Board on Windows 11. Why won't Microsoft just allow anyone to have the option to do so? I'll leave the to you to guess.
The changes made their way to PCs through the latest Windows 11 feature drop. That update also has some new features for Copilot and some other changes.
Sea of Thieves PS5 preorders
Some were unhappy when Microsoft announced that a handful of its Xbox console exclusives would ship to PlayStation and Nintendo Switch. It appears PlayStation owners aren't among those complaining. Sea of Thieves, which is among the first four Xbox console exclusives to make their way to other consoles, reached the top spot on the PlayStation preorder chart in the United States.
Microsoft already has several popular titles on PlayStation, including Minecraft, Minecraft Dungeons, and many Bethesda titles and Activision Blizzard games. But Sea of Thieves is a different beast, considering it was once Xbox console exclusive and is now on PlayStation.
Surface Duo lives on
Microsoft has essentially abandoned the Surface Duo lineup. Technically the Surface Duo 2 is still supported until later this year (the first one reached end of support last year), but Microsoft hasn't shipped a meaningful update to a Surface Duo in a while. That hasn't stopped third-party developers from having fun with the device, however. Gustave Monce led the charge to get Windows 11 to run on Surface Duo, and our Senior Editor Zac Bowden showed the technical marvel in a recent video.
Windows 11 looks surprisingly good on Surface Duo. Given that Surface Duo runs Android out of the box, there are some odd behaviors here and there. There are also some noteworthy limits, such as not being able to send text messages. This is more of a passion project than a way to get a device you can use daily.
The Surface Duo was originally supposed to run Windows, but Microsoft's leadership shifted plans late in the development of the device.
While Windows 11 on Surface Duo is a technical marvel, owners of a Surface Duo may be more interested in the work of Thai Nguyen, who made a custom Android 14 ROM for Surface Duo.
Bowden spoke with Monce and Nguyen, both of whom shared insight into the unique challenges of their respective projects.
Copilot gets an upgrade
The free version of Microsoft Copilot is now more accurate and powerful, thanks to an upgrade to GPT-4 Turbo. The tool previously used GPT-4, which has a much earlier cutoff date than GPT-4 Turbo. The older GPT-4 also has a smaller context window (8k vs. 128k). In layman's terms, GPT-4 Turbo is better in many cases and should result in an improve Copilot experience.
OpenAI explained the four main benefits of GPT-4 Turbo over other models:
- Context window (some models have as low as an 8k context window while some have an 128k context window)
- Knowledge cutoff (some models have been training on more up to date information which makes them better at certain tasks)
- Cost (the cost for models vary, our latest GPT-4 Turbo model is less expensive than previous GPT-4 model variants, you can learn more on our pricing page)
- Feature set (some models offer new features like JSON mode, reproducible outputs, parallel function calling, etc)
- Rate limits (different models have different rate limits, check out the limits page for more details on each models limits)
While newer is often better, sometimes old tech is best. If you prefer the GPT-4 model, it is still available, but using it requires a Copilot Pro license.
Reviews
Our team takes a close look at the latest games, gadgets, PCs, and accessories each week. Recently, our experts went hands-on with the SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro, sat down and watched episode 6 of the Halo TV series' second season, and used a surprisingly good flight stick from Turtle Beach. Here are all of our recent reviews.
- SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro review — The king of all Xbox and PC gaming headsets
- Huion Kamvas Pro 19 review: You don't need to spend crazy money to get the perfect high-end professional Windows drawing display
- Halo TV series Season 2, Episode 6 review: Tensions boil over into disaster
- I never expected Turtle Beach to build my new favorite flight stick but the VelocityOne Flightdeck is perfect
- ASUS upgrades to the latest Intel Core Ultra CPUs with its new ROG Zephyrus OLED gaming laptop and it's gorgeous
- Logitech's best wireless keyboard proves the MX Master mouse wasn't an anomaly, and even makes it better
Tech deals of the week
Some excellent laptops and convertibles are on sale at the moment, including the Surface Pro 9, Dell XPS 17, and Lenovo Yoga 9i. We also saw a discount on the Xbox Series X|S Seagate Storage Card (2TB) that's still going strong.
In addition to the deals below, make sure to check out our collection of the 7 best Xbox games under $10.
