WW 919: The Supermodel of Apps - Windows MIDI Services, OCR, IVAS program

Windows Weekly (Audio)

Patch Tuesday has arrived and Windows 11 23H2/24H2 gets those preview updates we talked about two weeks ago: Taskbar preview improvements, Windows Studio Effects on taskbar, File Explorer improvements, Mouse improvements, Time Zone changes without admin privileges, OneDrive continuity (23H2 only), Windows Share improvements (23H2 only), new keyboard shortcut for Magnifier. While Windows 10 gets the new Outlook, you lucky dogs!

Windows

• Beta (yesterday) - Beta/Dev window is open, Beta will move to 24H2 soon, this new build was for 23H2, new Paint app
• MIDI IS BACK BABY! MIDI Services 2.0 now in public preview
• Photos app OCR capabilities are back - feature was in testing but disabled in November, supports 160 languages
• HoloLens is finally dead: Microsoft partners with tech bro to offload US Army contract

AI/Dev

• Microsoft schedules Build 2025 for May 19-22. And then Google schedules I/O 2025 for May 20-21
• Elon Musk and investors supposedly make bid for OpenAI - hilarity ensues
• OpenAI is working on its own AI chip because everyone else is
• OpenAI is working on its own AI chip because everyone else is
• You don't have to sign in to OpenAI to use ChatGPT Search now
• Google Gemini 2.0 family is now (mostly) generally available
• GitHub Copilot is getting agentic features this year
• Remember the so-called Windows Copilot Runtime? It's finally happening. Paul noticed that the Windows App SDK 1.7 Experimental 3 release finally had WCR bits, was quietly released last week
• Coding hands-on: Building text rewrite and summarize requires just a few lines of code

More Earnings/Corporate

• Qualcomm - $11.7 billion in revenues, up 17 percent
• It's over! Arm Holdings drops Qualcomm complaint, will not terminate license
• Amazon: $188 billion in revenues, up 9.5 percent - AWS was $29 billion in revenues, up 16 percent. Amazon to spend $75 billion this fiscal year on AI infrastructure build-out, similar to MSFT, that figure was $28 billion in the previous quarter
• Here comes Conversational Alexa - Amazon devices and services event February 26
• Sonos continues its downward spiral - Before earnings, restructuring and layoffs

Xbox

• Good news/bad news on Xbox console sales - Better than expected, honestly
• Candy Crush Solitaire is first new King game under Xbox - Perfect King/Microsoft mashup

Tips and Picks

• Tip of the week: A few steps forward (and back) for the 2025 online accounts push
• Tip of the week #2: Get the Bill Gates book Source Code
• App pick of the week: Notion is nearly perfect
• RunAs Radio this week: Upgrading to Windows Server 2025 with Robert Smit
• Brown liquor pick of the week: Mackmyra Brukswhisky

Hosts: Paul Thurrott, Richard Campbell, and Mikah Sargent

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Check out Paul's blog at thurrott.com

The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of Carl Franklin.

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