A new pre-release version of Windows includes an info service. Similar to Google Discover, Windows loads news, sports results, stock market prices and weather information tailored to the user in the background. A click on the task bar brings this information to days.

Participants of the program “Windows Insider “in Australia, Great Britain, India, Canada and the USA if they have Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 21286 to install. Sources of information about 4500 should be known titles such as the New York Times or the BBC are available.

Advertising comes later The proposed content should adapt to user preferences over time, if the user confirms or denies their interest in individual suggestions, as with Google. Emojis are also available for these reactions. The new service can be switched off by right-clicking on the taskbar.

Windows 10 Insider Preview News and Interests

(Image: Microsoft)

In order to counter headwinds from data protection activists, Microsoft has placed a direct link to the data protection settings according to the Windows Insider Blog. The company won’t be adding its own advertising to the News and Interests feature initially, but that may change over time based on customer feedback. With over a billion systems running Windows worldwide, this would be an attractive source of income. At the same time, the new feature is also interesting for information providers in order to get more readers to their websites.

Only with Edge Theoretically, a Chromium-based version of Microsoft’s Edge web browser is required, but this has already been refuted by a Windows expert. He was also able to use the service with an older Edge browser. However, not all message links can be opened in the old Edge.

Whether and when the messages and interests feature will be made available for all Windows users who are not part of the Windows system that was rebuilt last year. Insider programs are still unclear. For some time now, the rumor has been circulating that Microsoft only wants to roll out one function update per year. In this case, the changes would be available in Germany in spring at the earliest or possibly not until autumn 2021 in Germany.

(fds)