Microsoft

Microsoft has stopped including its Surface Pro power supply in markets across Europe to comply with EU initiatives to reduce e-waste. Windows Central noticed that you’ll have to buy one separately (£79.99 or €89.99), because the Surface Pro is technically a tablet. Laptops are currently exempt from the EU’s USB-C charging mandate until next year. Microsoft has also slimmed down its Surface Pro 11 packaging after removing the charger.

Microsoft has now reached the milestone of more than 1,000 Xbox Play Anywhere titles. Originally launched in 2016, Xbox Play Anywhere lets you purchase an Xbox game once and play it across consoles and PCs. Xbox Play Anywhere will be a key part of Microsoft’s merging of Xbox and Windows, and VP of Next Gen Jason Ronald says “many many more” Play Anywhere titles are on the way.

FTC staffers have continued to work on the investigation in recent weeks according to Bloomberg, a sign that Trump-appointed FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson is going to prioritize scrutiny of tech giants.

You can long press a message to open up a DM with Copilot, according to a blog post. Microsoft says the GroupMe Copilot can help with things like drafting a response and building a playlist.

Microsoft is rolling out a new way to summon Copilot in Windows for voice interactions. The new Copilot for Windows app now has a keyboard shortcut that lets you hold the Alt + Spacebar keys for two seconds to start chatting to Copilot. It’s rolling out to Windows Insiders first before all Windows 11 users in the coming weeks.

Xbox testers that have installed the latest Alpha or Alpha Skip-Ahead builds are waking up to consoles that have been reset to default factory settings. Luckily, any games installed locally haven’t been wiped. While serious bugs like this do occasionally happen with pre-release software, the early Alpha builds of Xbox dashboard are often very stable and reliable so issues like this are incredibly rare.

The Competition and Markets Authority has ruled that the relationship between the two companies “does not qualify for investigation” under merger rules. The CMA said in 2023 that it was assessing whether Microsoft’s $13 billion investment into the AI startup gave it de facto control over OpenAI policy.

The new button opens up a panel where you can quickly access emoji and GIFs, similar to what you can already do with the Win + . keyboard shortcut.

Redditors have discovered that Copilot will recommend a script to permanently activate copies of Windows and Office. It’s a method that’s been available for a couple of years now, but it’s certainly amusing to see Copilot offer up the exact detailed steps.

Phi-4-multimodal and Phi-4-mini are Microsoft’s latest small language models, both launching on Azure AI Foundry and Hugging Face today. Phi-4-multimodal improves speech recognition, translation, summarization, audio understanding, and image analysis. Phi-4-mini is designed for speed and efficiency situations, and both can be used by developers on smartphones, PCs, and cars.

Microsoft will bump how many points it takes starting April 20th, 2025, writes Pure Xbox. Afterward, those who use the Rewards auto-redeem feature to cover their subscription after accruing enough points will need to set it up again.