Windows 11 users: get ready for lock screen widgets that might annoy you (but Microsoft is doing something about that)

Windows 11 and 10 users, you can breathe a sigh of relief for a moment, as there’s news that’s not about sticking more AI into the heart of Windows 11, or about Windows 10’s seemingly unavoidable end – although I don’t know if this development will be a cause for joy. Microsoft is fully rolling out MSN lock screen widgets after testing the feature for the past four months. 

Apparently, the feature is still in the process of being rolled out, so you may not see it quite yet, but these widgets should appear on your lock screen very soon (if they don’t already). Microsoft is implementing this change for Windows 11 and 10 via a server-side update, so the widgets will just suddenly appear – and so far, Windows Latest observes that users aren’t receiving them warmly.

Part of the problem is that the lock screen widgets displayed are pre-set by Microsoft, and they can’t be adjusted or modified to your preferences. The widgets appear if you switch them on, or already have the ‘Weather or more’ option turned on, in the Settings app. 

To be precise, you’ll find this option in the following location: 

Settings > Personalization > Lock Screen  

A selection of a screenshots of the Lock Screen section in the Settings app, allowing users to switch on the batch of widgets

(Image credit: Microsoft)

An all or nothing proposition – at least for now

The pre-configured MSN widgets include Microsoft Money, Sports, and Weather, but you can’t currently pick and choose which of these you’d like to keep and which to leave out. I imagine this is where a lot of the dissatisfaction with the feature comes from, as it feels that if you’d like widgets on your lock screen, but not all of them – well, it’s a case of tough luck. You’re forced to have them all, or none of them (if you switch them off).

Why can’t you adjust these widgets individually, turning off the ones you don’t like, as you can with other individual widgets such as Mail or Calendar? Well, the good news is that you’ll be able to do that before long, as Microsoft has promised this ability is inbound for Windows 11 and 10 users.

We don’t know when this important change is set to arrive, but hopefully, we’ll see this coming in sooner rather than later, as we can’t imagine it’s a huge task for Microsoft.

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There’s now an app to ditch Copilot AI from Windows 11 – but we wouldn’t recommend doing that

Debloating Windows is quite the tradition among some users, and there are apps out there to make this task easier – and a new version of an existing client takes things further with the ability to strip out AI functionality from Windows 11 (and Windows 10, which also has Copilot).

This is BloatyNosy, an app that has been around for quite some time (it was previously known as ThisIsWin11). Now, there’s a fresh incarnation: BloatyNosyAI.

It’s the first version of the new take on the app – still in preview, officially – and the idea is that it can help ditch AI features from Windows 11.

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Neowin spotted the launch and tried out BloatyNosyAI, which is handy as the app itself doesn’t make it clear exactly what it can do in terms of Windows 11 AI extraction on its GitHub page.

All the developer, Belim, observes is that the app offers the “ability to remove AI features in Windows” and that: “Plugins can be accessed, for example, via the keyword ‘Plugin’ or ‘AI’ to remove AI in Windows 11/10.”

Neowin tried those keywords – note that the app itself is AI-powered (ironically), which is what the name refers to, as well as debloating AI – and discovered options to remove the Copilot button from the taskbar, or to remove AI from the Edge browser.

The overall philosophy of BloatyNosy is suggested by the name; it’s not just about removing bloat from Windows and speeding it up a touch, but also tweaking privacy settings to combat Microsoft’s ‘nosier’ measures in the OS.


Analysis: Caution first

As already observed, we’d recommend being cautious with this one. It’s interesting to see the new angle and version of BloatyNosy here, but it is still a preview, and this kind of software can have unintended side effects. We’d avoid installing a preview update from Microsoft for Windows 11, let alone a third-party app, just because you never quite know what might go wrong with code that’s still in testing.

Especially when it’s messing around with the internals of Windows 11 (or Windows 10) and stripping out features.

It is, of course, possible to remove Copilot yourself as Neowin pointed out, but that involves fiddling around with the Registry, which is not a recommended pursuit for anyone except the highly tech-savvy.

There are measures you can take to minimize the appearance of Copilot in Windows 11, mind – such as turning off the taskbar icon for the AI, so at least you won’t see it. (Even if that’s hardly the same as removing the assistant from your desktop – or indeed your keyboard where it could set up home in the future).

For now, we’d treat this app purely as an emerging sign of the interest in banishing Copilot from Windows 11, as not everyone wants AI on their PC. Whether Microsoft itself will ever offer an option to strip out Copilot from Windows 11 completely (only available via a Registry hack currently, as mentioned), well, put it this way: we wouldn’t bank on it.

The good news is that Microsoft is making efforts to debloat Windows 11 in one way or another, to some extent, though.

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Canva thinks you’re doing data visualization wrong

Canva thinks businesses are doing data wrong. And it’s rolling out a tool to fix that. 

The company has announced the launch of interactive data visualizations built right into the graphic design software. These are engaging data maps, charts, graphs that make things seem just that little bit clearer. Most users will have toyed with them on news sites like the BBC. Now, they can add them to their own photos, PDFs, and presentations.

The move follows the acquisition of UK data-viz platform Flourish, as the Aussie firm ramps up its Europe presence.

Data ≠ dull

Data is tricky to present – especially to an audience who may be unfamiliar or unengaged with the topic. An Excel-generated bar graph, faded and static, will struggle in a content-rich world. The death yawn of a thousand sales pitches and PowerPoint slides. The last sigh of a think-piece.

And while the company didn’t put it quite like that, it’s this thinking – that data needs to be like everything else: visual – driving the roll-out. So, there’s no excuse for making data boring. 

Users will already find standard charts and graphs on the platform – we’ve always found them somewhat basic and uninspired. But from today, users can embed Flourish visualizations into their designs. Users get access to native hierarchical treemap and packed circle charts straight from the app, with Canva promising “animated charts, zoom-able maps, explorable diagrams, and more.”

That Flourish is deepening integration into Canva will come as no surprise. It’s not the first by any measure, with the firm counting stock photo sites Pexels and Pixabay amongst its relatively recent acquisitions. Meanwhile, it’s been quietly building out the platform with a free PDF editor, website builder, and AI photo tools. 

Readers may spot a common thread among the acquisitions: they’re all European businesses. Then came the opening of its first European campus in London. It seems the continent is where Canva sees its growth potential, with the company calling it home to some of its “fastest growing and most densely populated markets.” Just don’t tell Adobe Express about Canva’s continental plans.  

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Twitter’s latest meltdown proves Elon Musk is still doing it wrong

Twitter thrives on shares, not just within the social media platform but from partner links all over the Internet. Except on Monday, most of those links stopped working.

For approximately an hour, anyone trying to share recently published articles on Twitter was met with an error message clearly intended for developers:

Twitter API bug

(Image credit: Future)

It was almost as if Twitter was informing publishers that they didn't pay their water bill and, as such, couldn't publish links on the social network.

What went wrong?

We didn't have to wait too long for Twitter CEO Elon Musk to explain. In response to a tweet from former Netscape founder and well-known venture capitalist Marc Andreessen pointing out how four of the five top Twitter trends were about Twitter, Musk tweeted, “A small API change had massive ramifications. The code stack is extremely brittle for no good reason. Will ultimately need a complete rewrite.”

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This seemingly clear-headed tweet though should be cause for alarm. Musk claims the code stack (basically a massive stack of programs that all work together to create the Twitter whole) is brittle and needs a rewrite. What he fails to mention is that among the thousands of Twitter employees he laid off since November, a good number of them were engineers and, it's safe to assume, some were in what's known as QA or quality assurance.

Typically if you plan on making any kind of code change to a website, online service, or app, QA tests it on an offline copy of the platform. In this way, they ensure that the updates, no matter how small, won't adversely impact the live environment.

The concept is known as “production,” the live site or service, versus “staging,” an environment that's identical to live but can not be seen or touched by users. You run your new code or feature through staging, a group of QA testers applies a set of known scenarios (maybe they throw in an edge case or two) and as long as there are no red flags, the update gets pushed from Staging to Production. 

Twitter, which has seen its overall reliability drop (from going offline to having features appear and disappear unexpectedly) since Musk took over, may be getting its updates in a different way.

Musk likes to test features on production (the live site). As a result, he keeps running into unintended consequences.

There is some disagreement on whether or not there is a Twitter QA team.

Some argue one exists but Musk grows impatient and then pushes untested code live.

Others insist that Elon Musk arrived at Twitter and discovered that Twitter had no QA team and it was long in the practice of pushing untested code live. That though seems highly unlikely. 

I asked Musk directly on Twitter if the API update was tested on staging before being pushed live and will update this post if he responds.

Never assume

The assumption he made here, that a small API change would have little impact on the site was a poor one. And, yet, Musk still doesn't understand that he's doing it wrong.

Testing features of any kind on a live version of a complex platform like Twitter will inevitably result in bugs and crashes.

Will rewriting the code stack solve all this? Maybe, but very few platforms stay as clean as they were on launch and even if the rewrite is robust and perfect, frequent updates and fresh features will test that stability.

As long as Musk refuses to fully test what he launches before he launches it, there is no scenario in which Twitter escapes regular downtime.

This is a simple fix, Elon, make QA an inescapable part of the development pipeline and save yourself and us a lot of headaches. Or keep doing it your way because that's working out so, so well.

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Firefox 96 is a boost for anyone doing video calling

Mozilla has released Firefox 96, an update to one of the most popular web browsers out there.

According to Mozilla's desktop release notes, Firefox 96 is a big win for anyone who uses the browser to make video calls, with improved noise-suppression and auto-gain-control, plus echo-cancellation, to make sure you sound as crisp and clear as possible. 

By building the video improvements right into the browser, Firefox users without the best webcams or best USB microphones should see automatic improvements as we move into year three of working from home.

Firefox for Android boost

Elsewhere, there are a bunch of technical changes, including reducing the main-thread load, which should make Firefox run that much smoother on most machines. Also includes are the usual bug fixes, such as changing how macOS users can command-click on Gmail links. 

But it isn't just desktop that gets some Mozilla love, as the Android version of Firefox 96 is set to get some cool improvements, too. As Mozilla says in the Android release notes, users can now see highlights of recently-visited websites and bookmark images have been improved. There are also the usual range of bug fixes. 

While these are fairly small changes, they make a Firefox for Android that much better and help it compete with Chrome, Brave, Opera, and other Android browser alternatives. 

The news comes shortly after Mozilla was involved in a controversy over accepting crypto donations. The company was forced to step back from its position on accepting donations via cryptocurrency following a massive backlash which included Mozilla co-founder Jamie Zawinski slamming the company.

In response, Mozilla promised it will “take action”, particularly concerning its climate goals.

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