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The Windows 10 emoji picker has been broken for a month

The Windows 10 emoji picker has been broken for a month August 8, 2025 On July 8th, Microsoft released update KB5062554 to the world. It contains no documented changes or features. This update broke the emoji panel’s search functionality for all Windows 10 users. The broken grammar isn't the bug, that's just... how it is The emoji panel (accessed with Win + .) is the official way of typing emojis on Windows. I’m sure many users don’t know it exists. It’s hardly discoverable, and most desktop

The First Xbox Handheld Could Be Coming Sooner Than You Think

Microsoft may be ready to announce an official release date for its long-awaited Xbox handheld (or at least, the one that’s not actually being made by Xbox). The most recent reliable leaks suggest the Asus ROG Xbox Ally and Ally X will hit the scene in October, with Microsoft planning to share pricing and preorder info later this month. The end of the year is shaping up to be open season for handheld PCs, though I’m still biting my bottom lip to get used to the sting of what may be very expensiv

Microsoft will kill the Lens PDF scanner app for iOS, Android

Microsoft announced that it will phase out the Microsoft Lens PDF scanner app for Android and iOS devices starting in September. Microsoft Lens (formerly known as Office Lens) can convert images into PDF, Word, PowerPoint, and Excel files, and it is capable of scanning both printed and handwritten text. Currently, the app has been downloaded 50 million times on the Google Play Store (with over 952,000 reviews with an average of 4.9/5 rating) and received nearly 136,000 ratings on Apple's App St

Microsoft 365 apps to soon block file access via FPRPC by default

Microsoft has announced that the Microsoft 365 apps for Windows will start blocking access to files via the insecure FPRPC legacy authentication protocol by default starting late August. These changes apply only to Microsoft 365 apps for Windows and will not affect Microsoft Teams users across Windows, Mac, web, iOS, or Android. "Microsoft 365 apps will block insecure file open protocols like FPRPC by default starting version 2508, with new Trust Center settings to manage these protocols," the

Microsoft rolls out GPT-5 across its Copilot suite - here's where you'll find it

Adam Gray/Bloomberg via Getty Images ZDNET's key takeaways Microsoft is rolling out GPT-5 to all its AI offerings, Thursday. The Copilot chatbot will provide GPT-5, even to free users. GPT-5 will also be available to coding and enterprise tools. OpenAI released its much-anticipated upgrade to the engine that powers ChatGPT and many other AI implementations, including Microsoft's AI offerings, on Thursday. Concurrent with the GPT-5 release, Microsoft announced that it is upgrading its consu

Microsoft rolls out GPT-5 across its Copilot suite - here's what we know

Matthias Balk/picture alliance via Getty Images ZDNET's key takeaways Microsoft is rolling out GPT-5 to all its AI offerings, Thursday. The Copilot chatbot will provide GPT-5, even to free users. GPT-5 will also be available to coding and enterprise tools. OpenAI released its much-anticipated upgrade to the engine that powers ChatGPT and many other AI implementations, including Microsoft's AI offerings, Thursday. Concurrent with the GPT-5 release, Microsoft announced that it is upgrading i

CISA orders fed agencies to patch new Exchange flaw by Monday

CISA has issued an emergency directive ordering all Federal Civilian Executive Branch (FCEB) agencies to mitigate a critical Microsoft Exchange hybrid vulnerability tracked as CVE-2025-53786 by Monday morning at 9:00 AM ET. Federal Civilian Executive Branch (FCEB) agencies are non-military agencies within the US executive branch, including the Department of Homeland Security, Department of the Treasury, Department of Energy, and Department of Health and Human Services. The flaw tracked as CVE-

Microsoft has ended 'active development' on Contraband

The upheaval continues for gaming at Microsoft. The latest victim appears to be Contraband, a planned release from Avalanche Studios with Xbox Game Studios as publisher. The co-op open-world game from the studio behind the entertaining Just Cause series was teased in a brief, mostly atmospheric trailer at E3 2021. But very little had been heard since about the project, and it seems the axe is currently hanging pretty precariously above Contraband. "Active development has now stopped while we ev

Microsoft brings GPT-5 to Copilot with new smart mode

is a senior editor and author of Notepad , who has been covering all things Microsoft, PC, and tech for over 20 years. Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. OpenAI officially launched its new GPT-5 models today, and Microsoft is now bringing GPT-5 to Copilot, Microsoft 365 Copilot, Azure AI Foundry, GitHub Copilot, and more. It’s part of a big simultaneous release of GPT-5 that will show up in Copilot as the new smart mode that I detailed in No

Can't upgrade your Windows 10 PC? You have 5 options - and 2 months to decide

simpson33/Getty Images ZDNET's key takeaways Windows 10 support ends on Oct. 14, 2025. Users have free and paid options for extended updates. Doing nothing is not a safe option. Have you decided what to do with your Windows 10 PCs when they reach their official end-of-support date in two months? I can tell you with absolute certainty that Microsoft is not going to back down at the last minute and extend that deadline. But you do have options, including some new ways to continue getting sec

Microsoft accidentally confirms GPT-5, GPT-5-Mini, GPT-5-Nano ahead of launch

OpenAI is hosting a live stream at 10AM PT to announce GPT-5, but Microsoft has already confirmed the details. In a GitHub document, which has now been taken offline, Microsoft confirmed GPT-5 is launching later today. While it was obvious, this is the first official confirmation. Microsoft also offered more details on GPT-5 models, including the base model, which is called just GPT-5. It is designed for logic and multi-step tasks. We also have GPT-5-mini, which is a lightweight version for c

Microsoft warns of high-severity flaw in hybrid Exchange deployments

Microsoft has warned customers to mitigate a high-severity vulnerability in Exchange Server hybrid deployments that could allow attackers to escalate their privileges in Exchange Online cloud environments without leaving any traces. Exchange hybrid configurations connect on-premises Exchange servers to Exchange Online (part of Microsoft 365), allowing for seamless integration of email and calendar features between on-premises and cloud mailboxes, including shared calendars, global address lists

A Man Who Beat IBM

The history of the personal computer wasn't just about technology—it was about vision, trust, and the courage to stand up to a monopoly. In his latest piece for The Crazy Ones, Gareth Edwards tells the story of how Compaq challenged IBM's dominance in the 1980s. When IBM tried to reclaim control of the PC market with proprietary technology, Compaq CEO Rod Canion decided to create an open standard and share it with competitors—effectively giving away "the company jewels" to preserve innovation. G

Motorola just picked this surprising alternative to Gemini Live’s camera sharing

Ryan Haines / Android Authority TL;DR Select Motorola phones will soon have Microsoft Copilot Vision baked into Moto AI. The Gemini Live camera sharing alternative will be available in the coming week in the US, Mexico, the UK, and more markets. The Copilot app will now be preinstalled on the brand’s latest phones. Motorola’s approach to AI is a little more flexible than other brands, as it enlists the help of various AI partners like Perplexity, Meta, Google, and Microsoft. Despite its AI-b

Israel is reportedly storing millions of Palestinian phone calls on Microsoft servers

Israel has allegedly been recording and storing millions of phone calls made by Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank as part of a large surveillance effort dating back to 2022, according to reporting by The Guardian , +972 Magazine and Local Call . The report suggests that the country has been shuttling these recordings to Microsoft Azure cloud servers. Company CEO Satya Nadella allegedly okayed the effort personally after meeting with a commander from Israel’s military surveillance agency, U

Microsoft is bringing its Xbox Copilot to the Windows Game Bar

is a senior editor and author of Notepad , who has been covering all things Microsoft, PC, and tech for over 20 years. Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Microsoft started testing its Xbox Copilot on iOS and Android earlier this year, and now it’s bringing the chatbot to the Game Bar feature on Windows 11. Xbox Insiders can start testing a preview of the Gaming Copilot integration in the Game Bar today, and Microsoft is planning “further opt

Microsoft makes OpenAI’s new open model available on Windows

is a senior editor and author of Notepad , who has been covering all things Microsoft, PC, and tech for over 20 years. Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. OpenAI released a new free and open GPT model yesterday that can run on a PC, and now Microsoft is making that easy to do for Windows users. The lightweight gpt-oss-20b model is now available on Windows AI Foundry, and will be coming soon to macOS, too. You’ll need a PC or laptop with at l

Microsoft pays record $17 million in bounties over the last 12 months

​Microsoft paid a record $17 million this year to 344 security researchers across 59 countries through its bug bounty program. Between July 2024 and June 2025, the researchers submitted a total of 1,469 eligible vulnerability reports, with the highest individual bounty reaching $200,000. These reports helped resolve more than 1,000 potential security vulnerabilities across various Microsoft products and platforms, including Azure, Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, Power Platform, Windows, Edge, and

Microsoft’s plan to fix the web with AI has already hit an embarrassing security flaw

is a senior editor and author of Notepad , who has been covering all things Microsoft, PC, and tech for over 20 years. Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Researchers have already found a critical vulnerability in the new NLWeb protocol Microsoft made a big deal about just just a few months ago at Build. It’s a protocol that’s supposed to be “HTML for the Agentic Web,” offering ChatGPT-like search to any website or app. Discovery of the embar

Microsoft increases Zero Day Quest prize pool to $5 million

Microsoft will offer up to $5 million in bounty awards at this year's Zero Day Quest hacking contest, which the company describes as the "largest hacking event in history." Last year's Zero Day Quest has also generated significant participation from the security community, following Microsoft's offer of $4 million in rewards for vulnerabilities in cloud and AI products and platforms. After the November hacking competition concluded, Microsoft announced that it had paid $1.6 million, having rece

Microsoft: Outdated Office apps lose access to voice features in January

Microsoft announced that the transcription, dictation, and read aloud features will stop working in older versions of Office 365 applications in late January 2026. Read aloud lets users hear documents and emails read back, transcription converts speech into text in real-time, and the dictation feature allows for voice-to-text input across Office applications. The company advised customers to update their Microsoft 365 Office apps to a version higher than 16.0.18827.20202 (released in early Jul

Microsoft tops $4T in valuation: Great news for MSFT, not so great for workers

If you own Microsoft stock, you’ve got to be happy. Microsoft’s latest financial results for the quarter ending June 30, 2025 were robust: Revenue reached $76.4 billion (up 18% year-over-year), with net income at $27.2 billion (up 24%). The primary driver was robust growth in Microsoft’s cloud and AI businesses. Azure’s revenue, which has finally been separated out in the financial reporting, now stands at $75 billion in annual revenue, representing a 34% surge for the year. Put it all togethe

Microsoft’s unreleased Surface Duo foldable with Windows is on sale, but good luck trying to buy it

David Imel / Android Authority TL;DR An unreleased prototype of Microsoft’s dual-screen foldable phone, Surface Duo, was recently found listed online for sale. While Surface Duo ran on Android, the leaked prototype runs an unreleased version of the Windows Phone interface. Microsoft envisoned this as an intermediate between a regular phone and a Windows PC, but never realized due to the decline in Windows Phone’s popularity. Microsoft persistently dabbled with mobile phones for almost the en

Ransomware gangs join attacks targeting Microsoft SharePoint servers

Ransomware gangs have recently joined ongoing attacks targeting a Microsoft SharePoint vulnerability chain, part of a broader exploitation campaign that has already led to the breach of at least 148 organizations worldwide. Security researchers at Palo Alto Networks' Unit 42 have discovered a 4L4MD4R ransomware variant, based on open-source Mauri870 code, while analyzing incidents involving this SharePoint exploit chain (dubbed "ToolShell"). The ransomware was detected on July 27 after discove

Microsoft is open sourcing Windows 11's UI framework

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works Microsoft has plenty of open-source projects, and these days, the company is much more open to community contributions. Still, plenty of code remains closed-source, and the company constantly receives more requests to open it. One of them is WinUI, Windows 11's user interface framework. While Microsoft is not opening it fully yet, the company shared details about plans for the next six months,

Microsoft is killing its failed ChromeOS competitor, Windows 11 SE

Microsoft is ending support for its ChromeOS competitor Windows 11 SE. The company will officially stop providing "software updates, technical assistance and security fixes" in October 2026, according to an updated support document spotted by NeoWin. When it was announced in 2021, Windows 11 SE was pitched as a simplified, lightweight version of Microsoft's operating system for the classroom. Chromebooks and ChromeOS devices are widely used in schools around the world, so it made sense that Mic

Mamoru Hosoda’s New Movie Looks Like a Fantastical Revenge Epic

Studio Chizu has finally released the first proper trailer for Oscar-nominated director Mamoru Hosoda‘s upcoming fantasy film, Scarlet. Scarlet, first announced by Sony in collaboration with Studio CHIZU back in April, is a new anime film helmed by the acclaimed anime director Mamoru Hosoda. He is known for his work on films like Mirai, Belle, The Boy and the Beast, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, and Summer Wars. The movie, also referred to as Scarlet Without Limits or Endless Scarlet in Japa

Microsoft Needs to Make Affordable 5G Surface Laptops a Reality

Microsoft didn’t launch its 2025 lineup of Surface devices with a 5G option. Instead, it waited a few months for interest to die down enough to release its business-end version with a starting price nearly twice that of the one built for the average joe. It shows that if users want a laptop that can connect to the internet without relying on spotty public or Starbucks Wi-Fi, they need to pay through the nose. Hopefully Microsoft’s new tech will get cheaper later, though only if laptop makers rec

After just five years, Microsoft will end support for low-cost Windows 11 SE

Microsoft says it plans to stop providing updates for Windows 11 SE, the special Windows 11 variant intended to compete with Google's ChromeOS in schools. The change was announced quietly via this Microsoft support document (spotted by the German-language site Dr. Windows), which says that Windows 11 SE will not be getting a version of this year's Windows 11 25H2 update. Security updates for Windows 11 SE will end in October of 2026, when Windows 11 24H2 stops receiving updates. "Support for Wi

Microsoft kills Windows 11 SE, another in a long line of failed ChromeOS competitors

Microsoft says it plans to stop providing updates for Windows 11 SE, the special Windows 11 variant intended to compete with Google's ChromeOS in schools. The change was announced quietly via this Microsoft support document (spotted by the German-language site Dr. Windows), which says that Windows 11 SE will not be getting a version of this year's Windows 11 25H2 update. Security updates for Windows 11 SE will end in October of 2026, when Windows 11 24H2 stops receiving updates. "Support for Wi