Windows Weekly with Paul Thurrott, Richard Campbell, and Leo Laporte

Dec 21st 2022

Windows Weekly 808

Nuclear Conservation

Wrapping Up Microsoft's 2022, Carmack quits Meta, Overwhelm Freeze

Records live every Wednesday at 2:00pm Eastern / 11:00am Pacific / 18:00 UTC.
Category: News

Microsoft in 2022: the good, the bad, the meh

  • Activision Blizzard. It’s the gift that keeps on giving. I mean, Brazil OKed the deal. COME ON
  • Microsoft Teams turned 5. Is it unstoppable? (Stack is asking for a friend) 
  • Games in Teams?
  • Just one feature update per year? Just kidding! Microsoft released Windows 10 version 22H2 in October. Since then, we’ve seen the unexpected, largely (or completely) untested rollout of three new features: Search “pill,” Task Manager access from the Taskbar, and now a new OneDrive. Each has inconsistently rolled out to different PCs. One has a regression. One was actually tested with the Insider Program. And one wasn’t tested at all.
  • Don’t like Windows 11? Please, let the designers explain it
  • One Outlook (Project Monarch) arrives, sort of, changes nothing
  • Loop doesn’t arrive, changes nothing
  • .NET MAUI lands. Is it the future? Or just “a” future?
  • Project Voltera looks cool, but Arm is still down the road
  • DuckDuckGo colluded with Microsoft, then didn’t
  • Alex Kipman was just trying to be like Bill Gates!
  • GitHub CoPilot: friend or foe?
  • PC sales fell off a cliff. That cliff is about to get higher. Deeper. Whatever
  • Joe B leaves. Like Mad Men, he might have stuck around too long
  • The year the Insider Program broke - there is no way out of Dev, Beta, or WOA builds

Windows 11

  • Microsoft brings Android 13 to WSA in preview

Hardware

  • Microsoft touts HoloLens 2 “momentum,” says that an HL3 will need to be “meaningful”
  • Lenovo is pre-gaming CES with major PC announcements. Isn’t this how E3 started to fall apart?
  • Google Android/Nest and Amazon both go live with early Matter implementations.

Microsoft 365

  • Microsoft will let all EU cloud customers store their data locally. 
  • Microsoft teams with AWS, Meta, and TomTom to take on Google Maps
  • Microsoft, Teams has failed with consumers. Just bring back Skype already
  • In its second announcement all year, Skype adds real-time translation that imitates your voice
  • Amazon settles EU antitrust case. Did it learn anything from Microsoft?

Xbox

  • Microsoft launches a massive sale on Xbox games
  • Amazon expands in gaming, will publish next Tomb Raider title
  • John Carmack leaves Meta, has a lot to say. Little of it good
  • Ubisoft is giving Stadia customers the PC versions of the games they bought

Tips & Picks

  • Tip of the week: Make Mastodon less sleepy
  • Apps of the year: Brave, Notion, ImageGlass, Modern Warfare II
  • Term of the Week: Overwhelm Freeze

Holiday cocktail pick of the season: Winter Warmer

  • Mix equal parts apple whiskey and cranberry juice with a few good shakes of ginger bitters.
  • Warm gently on the stovetop or in the microwave--to a little above room temperature, not hot like tea or coffee.
  • Serve with a cinnamon stick or dried apple slice.
  • You can make a batch for a party and keep it warm on the stove or in a crock-pot, just keep in on low or the alcohol will evaporate.

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