In our recap of yet another busy week in the world of Microsoft, we have lots of stuff to talk about, including what’s next for Windows 11, Windows updates, and some enhancements to Microsoft Edge.
We are at the close of another week of 2022, which means that it’s time once again to recap everything that went on in the world of Microsoft in the past few days. This time, we have a bunch of news related to what’s next for Windows 11, some information regarding Windows updates, and a sprinkle of Edge news for good measure. Find out more about this in our weekly digest for April 2 – April 8. This week, Microsoft held a special event to showcase the capabilities that are currently in development to facilitate hybrid work use-cases and productivity. We got an official glimpse at some of the features, including a tabbed File Explorer UX with Context IQ-powered recommendations, app folders in the Start menu, touch-optimized Snap Layouts, enhancements to Focus, and Live Captions. Microsoft also talked about improvements it is making to online meetings through AI-powered capabilities on Windows 11, such as Voice Clarity, Automatic Framing, Portrait Background Blur, and Eye Contact. The first one in the aforementioned list will initially debut exclusively on the Surface Laptop Studio through a Windows 11 update this month. Windows 11 is getting a bunch of security enhancements too. These will arrive in the form of increased integration of Microsoft Pluton security chip in upcoming Windows 11 PCs, Hypervisor-protected Code Integrity (HVCI) being enabled by default, Smart App Control, Enhanced phishing detection and prevention with Microsoft Defender SmartScreen, Personal Data Protection, and much more. There is some good news for IT admins in store too as Microsoft took the wraps off of endpoint management capabilities currently in development. These include remote help, new insights, VPN authentication on unenrolled devices via Edge, Windows AutoPatch, and more. Microsoft says that it will gradually roll out each of these features in the near future and once enough new services have reached general availability, it will bundle all of them in a new Microsoft 365 plan. That’s not all though, Microsoft is also looking to bridge the gap between local and cloud PCs through Windows 365. Functionalities currently in development are Windows 365 Boot, Switch, and Offline. Microsoft Executive Vice President and Chief Product Officer Panos Panay has emphasized that “they are just the beginning of our Windows and Microsoft cloud integration”.
