Waiting for the arrival of Windows 11, Microsoft begins to unveil the latest news: from the Start news aggregator to the new design of the Photos app
A new service is coming for Windows users. As the launch of Windows 11 approaches on October 5, Microsoft expands the services offered to its users and begins to unveil in detail all the new features that await us in the coming months.
The Redmond-based company announced in a post on its official blog the arrival of Microsoft Start, the new news feed customized to the interests of Windows users. The news aggregator is actually not a real novelty, but an update of MSN News and Microsoft News services that comes with a new name and an improved algorithm to ensure users a better experience and content of interest. Also unveiled in these days the new design of the Photos app for Windows 11: Panos Panay, Microsoft's Chief Product Officer, showed in a video on his official Twitter account how the program will change, with a more streamlined style in line with the one chosen for the new operating system.
Microsoft Start: what it is and how it works
Microsoft Start was launched on September 7, 2021 in an official company post and is already active. The news aggregator comes from the experience of another Windows 10 app, News and Interests, which uses a new artificial intelligence algorithm to select the news of the day and propose them to users. A sort of Microsoft News update, however, it will be integrated into Windows 11 widgets and the Windows 10 taskbar.
Using Start, users will also be able to access a personalized news feed and premium content dedicated to them, choosing from over a thousand editorial brands from around the world. Users will then be able to express a preference for their preferred publisher or topic, or change their interests by clicking Customize in the top right corner. This will open a screen in which to indicate their interests, divided into different categories, and where to find the hidden titles if they decide to rehabilitate them. All information that through machine learning will help artificial intelligence understand the user's tastes.
The standalone MicrosoftStart.com website is already online and can be used from browsers, such as Chrome and Edge. Microsoft also announced the release of dedicated apps for mobile devices, both iOS and Android.
Photos app for Windows 11: the new design
Another important news from Microsoft concerns the Photos app, which has been totally redesigned. The announcement this time comes from Panay's official Twitter account, which in a 20-second video shows what we can expect from the new app.
The new app shows a window with rounded corners and a streamlining of the user interface, which appears cleaner and tidier. The controls for photo editing and collage creation have been compactly repositioned, and a new screen for cropping images also arrives, with the tools moved up from the sidebar of the previous version of the app.
Finally, there will also be a new interface that allows you to easily move between photos when opening a folder that contains multiple images. It will then be possible to select multiple photos from the carousel at the same time, so you can choose which ones to view together. The design is thus brought in line with that of the new Windows 11 operating system, and all that's left to do is wait for the launch of the app, which has just been made available to Insiders and may arrive after October 5.