Microsoft has finally updated Sticky Notes in Windows 11 – and I’m excited about my favourite feature getting a lot smarter

Microsoft could finally be updating the Sticky Notes app for Windows 11 (and Windows 10), after years of seeming neglect.

Sticky Notes is a pre-installed app from Microsoft that allows users to put virtual sticky notes on the desktop to help remember tasks or make to-do lists across their devices linked to their Microsoft account. While it’s an app that can be easily overlooked (even by Microsoft), for those of us who use it – such as myself – it can be an incredibly useful tool for staying organized and productive.

As Windows Central reports, the Sticky Notes social media account has just put out an intriguing update, hinting at some big updates coming to the app in the near future. With the last official post from the account dating back to 2020, this sudden burst of activity suggests that whatever the changes are in store – they’re going to be big. 

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Microsoft has been pumping out a steady stream of updates for Windows 11 and Windows 10, and rumors of a big 24H2 update slated for later this year, suggest huge changes are coming to Microsoft’s latest operating system. Even ancient pre-installed apps like Microsoft Paint and Notepad have received some positive updates in the last two years, so it’s refreshing to see the Sticky Notes app finally get some love and attention. 

The recent post from the Sticky Notes account doesn't give out too much information, teasing only that we should expect one of the “biggest announcements yet” for the feature. The account also responded to some initial speculation from excited users clarifying that the news is not a web app – for now. Instead, Windows Central is speculating that it could have something to do with Artificial Intelligence (AI), and I agree- here’s why.

Working smarter, not harder 

Sticky Notes seems like quite a basic feature at the moment, which means it's ripe for getting new AI features – something Microsoft has been incredibly keen on lately. Its close partnership with OpenAI (the company behind the popular ChatGPT AI bot), and continuing mission to integrate its own AI bot, Copilot, into almost every facet of Windows 11, means Microsoft already has the tools and knowledge to give its older apps some AI brains.

This is exactly what happened with the iconic Notepad app, which recently got ChatGPT-powered AI features, turning the once basic word processing app into a rather cool and useful tool that can help you with your writing – and all for free, due to it coming pre-installed with Windows since the 1980s.

There are a lot of positives that can come out of combining the simplest tool on your desktop and the ‘smarts’ of ChatGPT or Microsoft Copilot coming together, especially as the Sticky Note app works across your devices. 

However, things could also go sideways and Microsoft might end up bloating and overcomplicating an app users enjoy for its simplicity and reliability. Sticky Notes is one of those apps on Windows that just works; you know what you’re going to find when you unbox a new PC and you always know exactly what your virtual sticky notes will look like. A big change like the social media account suggests could turn a lot of loyal users into disgruntled ones if Microsoft ends up making the Sticky Notes feature far too complicated. Plus, not every user will be thrilled to have artificial intelligence bleed into such a basic app (and the security and ethical issues that surround AI). 

I love Sticky Notes and while I’m on the fence about how these ‘big changes’ will affect one of my favourite Windows features, I do ultimately think it will be a good thing. We could see exciting updates that could allow people to create collaborative Sticky Notes on their desktop, have the AI draft shopping lists out of desired recipes, and comb through emails and calendar apps to create a daily to-do list or schedule. 

While I do think the Sticky Note app doesn’t need the upgrade, there is the concern that it could be left behind if it’s not brought up to speed. AI-powered features, if done well, will not only retain its existing fans like me but also encourage new users to discover the app – and maybe even fall in love with it.

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Windows 11’s latest update reportedly fails to install for no reason, and some users are getting really frustrated

Windows 11’s latest patch, the cumulative update for January, is failing to install for some users, and compounding the misery is that the reason for this spanner in the works can’t be discerned.

This is update KB5034123 and the trouble is that the installation process is failing, in some cases repeatedly, with the usual unhelpful error codes.

As Windows Latest pointed out, some of those include error ‘0x80188309’ and apparently more common is ‘0x800f081f’, although whatever string of characters happens to be spewed out, it’s unlikely to be of any use.

The only thing to be done with these stop codes is to search the web for them and see if there are any mentions of the specific issue in question, and possible workarounds or solutions, but in this case, there’s no apparent cause yet pinpointed.

There are reports of installation failure with Windows 11’s January update across Microsoft’s Feedback Hub and Reddit, and Windows Latest noted that it has received a bunch of reports from ‘many users’ claiming that it’s ‘nearly impossible’ to install KB5034123.

There are also some folks who are reporting that they are getting the same type of failure, namely that the update starts to download, reaches partway through (25% in many cases), and then Windows Update comes up with a failure message, offering to try again. However, retrying produces the exact same problem, and that’s pushing the boundaries of patience for some people, as you might imagine.

As a final note, some of those who are successfully installing the January update are finding that the patch is causing audio to stutter and glitch, and Windows Latest itself encountered this problem when viewing Netflix and playing games.

This might be a more isolated issue, though we have seen a scattering of complaints elsewhere about bugs with audio, graphics corruption, and mouse-related hiccups with KB5034123. Until they are reported with more prevalence, though, take them with a pinch of salt.


Analysis: A possible solution?

As a possible workaround, Windows Latest advises trying an in-place upgrade of Windows 11 (using the Media Creation Tool). Following that, whatever issue is buried in your OS might be fixed, so patch KB5034123 may then install successfully.

However, as this is a clunky and somewhat involved process, with no guarantee it will work in the end, it seems a drastic step to us. Rather than go this route, we’d recommend hanging on for now to see what Microsoft has to communicate on this issue – speaking of which, we’ve got in touch with the company to find out. If we hear back, we will of course update this article.

While it’s far from ideal to be without a cumulative update – mainly because you’re lacking the latest security fixes – it’s probably the lesser of two evils right now. As opposed to messing with in-place upgrades and hoping, rather blindly (let’s face it), that this may fix whatever issue is triggering the installation failures.

Note that these Windows 11 installation problems were first observed just after the January update was released (two weeks back), but they were very scattered in nature – and now they are distinctly more commonplace. Hopefully Microsoft will be investigating the matter as we type this.

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Microsoft is getting desperate for more Bing users – but this annoying Edge pop-up is definitely not the way to go about it

It seems Microsoft is up to its old tricks in trying to push people into using its products, once again, and this time the play is to persuade Edge users to switch their search engine to Bing.

As Windows Central spotted, developer Brad Sams (of Stardock fame) brought our attention to Microsoft’s latest bout of “anti-user behavior” in a post on X (formerly Twitter).

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Sams uses the Edge browser, but was prompted to switch to Bing as the default search engine rather than Google, as you can see in the above screenshot.

This is not the first time Microsoft has been promoting Bing in such a manner, alongside driving other services including Edge itself and OneDrive. (Search for a new browser in Edge, for example, and you’ll get a banner telling you there’s no need to download a different web browser, and the various reasons why).

The Bing search engine continues to struggle for market share against the might of Google, with Microsoft’s creation securing only 3.2% of the market as of November 2023, according to Statcounter.


Analysis: Bing headway – or lack of it

Microsoft hoped that Bing Chat, its AI now-renamed Copilot, would help to swell the ranks of Bing search users when it was launched early this year – but as we can see, that hasn’t happened. The Bing search engine had a 3% share at the beginning of 2023 going by Statcounter’s figures, so has notched that up 0.2% over the course of the year – a pretty miniscule uptick.

It’s safe to say, then, that the AI angle has not panned out for Bing search, although Microsoft has now started thinking about what its various products can do for Copilot, rather than what the chatbot can do for those products. (Witness the debut of Copilot in Windows 10, driving user numbers of the AI forward, rather than keeping Copilot as a carrot to drive migration to Windows 11).

At any rate, whatever piece of Microsoft’s vast jigsaw of products and services we’re talking about, we don’t want to see prompts in Edge, or Windows 11, or anywhere else, trying to twist the arms of users to switch to another Microsoft creation.

And fair enough, Google does this kind of thing too, pushing Chrome and its own search – but not as often as Microsoft in our experience. Can we please lay off the various prompts for 2024, Microsoft? Because if anything, throughout 2023 they seem to have become more prevalent again.

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Windows 11 is getting a voice-powered ability many users have been longing for, as Microsoft kills off Windows Speech Recognition for the far superior Voice Access tech

Windows 11 has a new preview build which further improves Voice Access, an area Microsoft has been putting a lot of effort into of late.

Preview build 22635.2915 (KB5033456) has just been rolled out to the Beta channel, and one of the additions is the ability to make customized voice shortcuts.

Using this feature, you can specify a trigger phrase for the command, and then the command itself.

Microsoft gives an example of an ‘insert work address’ command which when given automatically pastes in the specified address of your workplace. Anytime you need that putting into a document you’re working on, you just say the command – which is quite the timesaver.

Language support for Voice Access has also been extended, and now the following are included (on top of the existing languages): French (France), French (Canada), German, Spanish (Spain) and Spanish (Mexico).

Finally for voice features, multiple monitors are now supported, meaning that when you summon a grid overlay – for directing mouse clicks to certain areas of the desktop – you can do so on any of the screens connected to your PC. (Before now, the grid overlay could only be used on the primary display).

You can switch your focus to another monitor simply by using a letter (A, B, C and so on) or its phonetic equivalent (Alpha, Bravo, etc).

Microsoft further notes that there’s a drag and drop feature to move files or shortcuts from one display to another.

Elsewhere in build 22635, screen casting in Windows 11 has been improved, with a help option now in the Cast flyout from Quick Settings. This can be clicked if you’re having trouble piping your desktop to another screen and want some troubleshooting advice.

Users are also getting the ability to rename their device for the Nearby Sharing feature to help identify it more easily.

For the full list of changes and fixes in this Beta build, peruse Microsoft’s blog post.


Voice Access shortcuts

(Image credit: Microsoft)

Analysis: Custom capers

This is some useful work with Voice Access, and those with multiple monitors who use the feature will of course be very pleased, no doubt. Voice shortcuts is a powerful addition into the mix for voice functionality, too, and with this, there are a good deal of options.

Not just pasting a section of text as we mention in the example above, but also tasks can be triggered such as opening specified URLs in a browser, or opening a file or folder. You can combine multiple actions too, along with functions like mouse clicks or key presses. This is a feature we’ve been wanting for some time, so it’s great to see it arrive.

It’s also worth noting that Windows Speech Recognition has been removed from Windows 11 in this build, and when you open that old app, you’ll now get a message informing you of its deprecation, and recommending the far superior Voice Access capability instead.

We’re hoping that in the future, Voice Access is going to become an even more central part of the Windows 11 interface, and it seems a great candidate to be driven forward with AI – and maybe incorporated into Copilot.

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OpenAI confirms ChatGPT has been getting ‘lazier’ – but a fix is coming

Have you recently felt that ChatGPT isn’t performing as well as it used to? If so, you're not alone, as numerous users have claimed the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot has been on the decline – and ChatGPT developer OpenAI has just confirmed a possible reason why that might be the case.

In fact, OpenAI seemed to endorse the idea that ChatGPT was getting “lazier” on X (formerly Twitter). In the post, OpenAI explained it had heard users’ feedback and that the reason for ChatGPT getting “lazier” was that it hadn’t been updated since November 11 – an entire month.

While OpenAI said this lack of updates wasn’t “intentional,” it added that it was “looking into fixing it.” It also noted that “model behavior can be unpredictable,” perhaps hinting that the developer itself hadn’t noticed ChatGPT’s declining performance until users brought it to light.

Despite all that, OpenAI hasn’t given an indication of when the issue might be fixed. If you regularly use ChatGPT prompts and have noticed a downward trend in the tool’s abilities, you’ll just have to hang tight until an update gets released.

Temporary solutions

A laptop screen on a green background showing the ChatGPT logo

(Image credit: ChatGPT)

Underneath the post on X, OpenAI further clarified the issue. One user asked the developer how it's possible that ChatGPT could get lazier.

In response, OpenAI explained that “to be clear, the idea is not that the model has somehow changed itself since Nov 11th. It’s just that differences in model behavior can be subtle – only a subset of prompts may be degraded, and it may take a long time for customers and employees to notice and fix these patterns.”

Other comments suggested ways to restore ChatGPT to its former prowess, including using the phrase “take a deep breath” or telling the chatbot to “reason step-by-step.” These might serve as temporary solutions until OpenAI is able to fix the underlying issue.

The degradation of ChatGPT performance comes shortly after Google announced its own ChatGPT rival called Gemini. Yet despite flashy promises from the search giant, numerous reports have emerged claiming its abilities are less than stellar. Perhaps it's time for both OpenAI and Google to give their chatbots a Christmas break and work on some upgrades for 2024.

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Good luck getting Microsoft’s ugly Christmas sweater for 2023 – it stars Windows XP and is almost sold out already

Microsoft has revealed its ugly sweater for this year’s holiday season – and it’s going to be a real crowd-pleaser for fans of Windows XP.

And there are plenty of folks who regard this operating system as one of the best versions of Windows ever – after all, it’s the operating system that refused to die – so it turns out there’s been quite some demand for the sweater.

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The cotton garment (well, 55% cotton, 45% acrylic) shows a stylized version of the Bliss (default) wallpaper for Windows XP, and it’s labeled as ‘Merry Blissmas’ in the product listing.

The design features the iconic fluffy clouds in a blue sky, with a green landscape underneath, and the addition of an oversized mouse cursor (you wouldn’t want anyone to miss the point of the sweater, now, would you?).

It’s yours via the Xbox Gear Shop for $ 70 (£56 in the UK, and around AU$ 105).

The sweater can be shipped internationally, across the globe, but if you want the bad news, it’s already sold out in the most common sizes.

Small, medium, large, and extra-large have all gone, with only the 2XL and 3XL sizes remaining. You can still request a notification for one of the sizes that’s currently out of stock, mind, so Microsoft will let you know when (or if) more inventory comes in.

Microsoft advises: “Machine wash cold, tumble dry low, and never take off.”

As an added bonus, some of the money goes to charity – namely The Nature Conservancy, which aims to protect our environment and combat climate change.

Windows XP Sweater

(Image credit: Microsoft)

Analysis: Do sweat it

Microsoft’s holiday sweaters have become pretty famous at this point. In the past we’ve had the likes of Clippy last year (maybe a retired Copilot could be on a future sweater, though Microsoft better hope not, with the amount of eggs it has in that particular basket), and a Windows 95 sweater.

Indeed, there was a Windows XP sweater back in 2019 (which was also available in 2020, when Microsoft resurrected some past designs), covered with the ‘XP’ logo, but this take is a bit more subtle – aside from the stupidly supersized mouse pointer, anyway.

If there’s one point of criticism here, it’s that Microsoft should be making more of these garments. They’re clearly popular sweaters, and to be sold out of most sizes already is obviously going to be disappointing for those keen to get a slice of ‘bliss’ for the festive period.

We’re still waiting for the BSoD, frankly (that's the 'Blue Sweater of Death').

Via Tom’s Hardware

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Google Drive is getting some big changes – with a bonus for iPhone users

Google has announced that big changes are coming to Google Drive, its cloud-based file storage platform. This latest series of tweaks to the popular cloud storage service come mainly in the form of a shiny new landing page, but there’s an extra treat in sort for iOS users.

The new homepage (aptly named the ‘Home’ view) will become the default landing page for every Drive user when it rolls out over the next couple of months – though you’ll be able to swap back to the old view if you prefer. In a blog post explaining the changes, Google says that Home will be “streamlined” compared to the standard My Drive landing page, designed to make it “easier and faster for you to find files that matter most”.

To that end, the Home screen will include personalized suggestions that use AI to learn which files and folders you access regularly (or documents that are tied to upcoming events in your Google calendar). It’ll also include new ‘search chips’ that make filtering your files easier, and will employ Google’s Material Design 3 guidelines for a (hopefully) more modern and user-friendly look.

That’s not all, folks

Google isn’t stopping there, either. A long-awaited Drive feature is finally coming to iPhone and iPad: the document scanner, which uses your device camera to take high-quality scans of physical documents which are then converted to PDFs, with the ability to scan multiple pictures in succession for producing multi-page documents.

The feature has been available for Drive users on Android for a while now, so it’s good to see that Google isn’t planning on leaving iPhone owners out in the cold. The document scanner (which was recently upgraded for Android Users) will also use machine learning to suggest names for your scanned documents, such as recognizing a receipt from a store and giving it an appropriate filename.

The scanner feature is rolling out to iOS and iPadOS users now, so if you’ve got an Apple device you can expect to have it soon if you don’t already. The updated Google Drive homepage will be arriving at a slower pace, with early access starting now and a wide release for personal users from January 15 next year.

I’m personally a little dubious about an AI-powered homepage for Drive – ‘suggested content’ in the software I use has rarely been useful in my experience, AI-assisted or not. But thankfully Google has already confirmed that users will get an instant pop-up asking if they’d like to swap their default view back to the old My Drive page, so it’s not like this change is being forced on us.

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Windows 11’s Photos app is getting another nifty new feature

Those who use the Photos application in Windows 11 will be pleased to learn that another useful new feature is inbound for the tool.

It’ll allow you to strip away, or replace, the background in a photo, and it comes in the latest version of the Photos app in testing.

Microsoft has made the process dead simple – if you want to remove the background, you just click on a button, and it’s gone. You can then copy the foreground object that you’ve preserved to the clipboard for pasting elsewhere, or you can opt to just save the pic as is.

Alternatively, you can hit the replace button to take out the background and put in a solid color for a background instead. The color you want can be selected via a simple palette.

As Microsoft tells us in a blog post, as well as this capability, the Photos app now lets you easily share a photo that’s backed up on OneDrive. Simply right-clicking on the photo facilitates sending a link via an email (or you can copy that link to the clipboard for pasting wherever necessary).

Microsoft also notes that it has applied “various performance and stability updates to improve the Slideshow feature, navigation between tabs, and opening images.”

All of these changes and a few other tweaks are wrapped up in version number 2023.11110.8002.0 (or better) of the Photos app, with the update currently rolling out to testers (that’s all channels, from Canary testers onwards).

Windows Photos App Background Replacement

(Image credit: Microsoft)

Analysis: Steady progress with Photos

Microsoft already brought a background blur feature to the Photos app (it entered testing a couple of months back), so this is another useful introduction into the mix. It’s good to see this core application (which is part of Windows 11 by default – though you’ll be able to ditch it soon enough) being developed further.

Not everyone wants a fancy image editor, and some are quite happy using the (relatively) basic apps Microsoft provides with Windows 11, doubtless because they’re pretty straightforward. So, adding an easy-to-use way to remove or swap out backgrounds, in just a few clicks, is definitely a nifty touch for those kind of everyday users (as is the convenient background blur option, too).

Via SamMobile

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Bing AI may be getting crushed in the battle against Google search – but Microsoft might not care

Microsoft doubtless hoped that the launch of Bing AI would help attract users to the Bing search site, but that hasn’t happened going by some fresh stats.

Statcounter has just aired some figures on search volume and the bad news (for Microsoft) is that Bing’s share of the search engine market in the US has dropped by half a percentage point.

Bing was on 7.4% this time last year, but is now on 6.9%, whereas Google has notched up from 86.7% in 2022 to 88% now.

Okay, so it’s not a big drop for Bing, but nonetheless, it shows that – at least according to one source – Microsoft’s AI chatbot hasn’t made any difference to its search traffic.

The better news in these stats (spotted by Windows Central) is that Edge is up 1% in the browser market, but it’s only on 5.5% in total, so Google’s Chrome remains just as dominant as its search engine.


Analysis: A reversal of priorities?

This isn’t the first time we’ve heard about Bing AI not helping Microsoft’s search traffic efforts. A few months ago, Statcounter’s global stats also showed that Bing.com traffic fell slightly (to be fair, by 0.04% which is margin of error stuff, so effectively it stayed the same). The global stats for October 2023 also show a slight drop year-on-year.

The broad conclusion, then, is that Bing AI is not managing to drive any meaningful level of traffic to Microsoft’s search engine.

Does Microsoft really care overly about that, though? Maybe not so much now we’d suggest.

While the initial aim with Bing AI (or a big part of it) was to boost the attractiveness of Bing.com, since the launch of the chatbot, the AI explosion has been so pronounced – and the bandwagon so attention-grabbing – that artificial intelligence has become overrulingly important itself.

By which we mean that Bing search considerations, or persuading folks to adopt Windows 11 to get the Copilot AI (essentially integrated Bing with bells and whistles, though not many of the latter yet), have now taken a back seat.

If a fresh rumor is to be believed, Microsoft is bringing Copilot to Windows 10 – a surprising move after the software giant said that the older OS was no longer getting any new features (except for very minor tweaks – and the AI assistant most definitely is a major upgrade).

What this shows – if true – is that Microsoft is less worried about encouraging Windows 11 adoption (which has been seriously slow) and using Copilot as a carrot to persuade upgrades, and more concerned about getting all the many folks on Windows 10 using its AI, bolstering the figures for that.

We can believe this might be the case, given that in the bigger picture, AI has become such a huge deal – with everyone getting in on the act, and for example the likes of Nvidia making a ton of profit from its AI-targeted GPUs. Team Green is very keenly focused on those products now, to the extent that we even worry about the future of the best gaming GPUs (the GeForce ones, that is).

It’s likely the end goal is shifting to Microsoft advancing its AI tech across web properties and its desktop OS ecosystem alike, getting people used to Bing or Copilot being their everyday helper – and that being the primary goal.

Rather than leveraging AI to push the company’s other products, Microsoft is now prioritizing the other way round, possibly. Maybe also thinking that if its AI systems gain enough clout, users will follow to other products eventually, anyway.

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Google Maps could soon be getting its own AI chatbot

Google hasn't been shy about pushing artificial intelligence into its various apps and services, and it seems that the venerable Google Maps could be next in line to get an integrated AI chatbot of its own.

Code hidden in the latest beta version of Google Maps for Android, as spotted by Android Authority, makes various mentions of in-app conversations – including the line “you're talking with a chatbot”, which sort of gives the game away.

However, only a few strings of related code have been spotted so far, so we don't have too much more information about this chatbot in terms of what form it will take, what it's designed to do, and how it will integrate with the rest of Google Maps.

Nothing is certain yet, and of course Google could easily change its mind about the Maps chatbot – but given the company's focus on AI these last few months, we wouldn't be surprised to see this new feature arriving in the app very soon.

Getting chatty

Without any official word from Google, we're left to speculate what an AI chatbot in Google Maps might do. As Android Authority points out, it could well be something to do with submitting reviews and comments to Google Maps, perhaps via the Local Guides program.

The line of code that says “thank you for your contribution” certainly backs that up. Perhaps a chatbot might swing into action when you've visited a place, asking what your experience was like or what you thought of the service.

Another possibility is that the upcoming bot will actually give you travel advice: what to see in a particular area, where the best places to stay are, and so on. This would be similar to the advice that Google Bard (now with Google Maps integration) can already give.

AI chatbots might also be used to field questions from Google Maps users to businesses – questions about opening hours and facilities, for example. Right now, these questions can be posted and answered by humans, but AI might be about to step in.

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