Microsoft has created a real-time AI-generated rendition of Quake II gameplay (playable on the web).

Friday Xbox's general manager of gaming AI posted the startling link to "an AI-generated gaming experience" at Copilot.Microsoft.com "Move, shoot, explore — and every frame is created on the fly by an AI world model, responding to player inputs in real-time. Try it here."

They started with their "Muse" videogame world models, adding "a real-time playable extension" that players can interact with through keyboard/controller actions, "essentially allowing you to play inside the model," according to a Microsoft blog post. A concerted effort by the team resulted in both planning out what data to collect (what game, how should the testers play said game, what kind of behaviours might we need to train a world model, etc), and the actual collection, preparation, and cleaning of the data required for model training. Much to our initial delight we were able to play inside the world that the model was simulating. We could wander around, move the camera, jump, crouch, shoot, and even blow-up barrels similar to the original game. Additionally, since it features in our data, we can also discover some of the secrets hidden in this level of Quake II. We can also insert images into the models' context and have those modifications persist in the scene...

We do not intend for this to fully replicate the actual experience of playing the original Quake II game. This is intended to be a research exploration of what we are able to build using current ML approaches. Think of this as playing the model as opposed to playing the game... The interactions with enemy characters is a big area for improvement in our current WHAMM model. Often, they will appear fuzzy in the images and combat with them (damage being dealt to both the enemy/player) can be incorrect.
They warn that the model "can and will forget about objects that go out of view" for longer than 0.9 seconds. "This can also be a source of fun, whereby you can defeat or spawn enemies by looking at the floor for a second and then looking back up. Or it can let you teleport around the map by looking up at the sky and then back down. These are some examples of playing the model."

This generative AI model was trained on Quake II "with just over a week of data," reports Tom's Hardware — a dramatic reduction from the seven years required for the original model launched in February.

Some context from The Verge: "You could imagine a world where from gameplay data and video that a model could learn old games and really make them portable to any platform where these models could run," said Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer in February. "We've talked about game preservation as an activity for us, and these models and their ability to learn completely how a game plays without the necessity of the original engine running on the original hardware opens up a ton of opportunity."
"Is porting a game like Gameday 98 more feasible through AI or a small team?" asks the blog Windows Central. "What costs less or even takes less time? These are questions we'll be asking and answering over the coming decade as AI continues to grow. We're in year two of the AI boom; I'm terrified of what we'll see in year 10."

"It's clear that Microsoft is now training Muse on more games than just Bleeding Edge," notes The Verge, "and it's likely we'll see more short interactive AI game experiences in Copilot Labs soon." Microsoft is also working on turning Copilot into a coach for games, allowing the AI assistant to see what you're playing and help with tips and guides. Part of that experience will be available to Windows Insiders through Copilot Vision soon.

Slashdot reader zlives shared this report from BleepingComputer: Microsoft used its AI-powered Security Copilot to discover 20 previously unknown vulnerabilities in the GRUB2, U-Boot, and Barebox open-source bootloaders.

GRUB2 (GRand Unified Bootloader) is the default boot loader for most Linux distributions, including Ubuntu, while U-Boot and Barebox are commonly used in embedded and IoT devices. Microsoft discovered eleven vulnerabilities in GRUB2, including integer and buffer overflows in filesystem parsers, command flaws, and a side-channel in cryptographic comparison. Additionally, 9 buffer overflows in parsing SquashFS, EXT4, CramFS, JFFS2, and symlinks were discovered in U-Boot and Barebox, which require physical access to exploit.

The newly discovered flaws impact devices relying on UEFI Secure Boot, and if the right conditions are met, attackers can bypass security protections to execute arbitrary code on the device. While exploiting these flaws would likely need local access to devices, previous bootkit attacks like BlackLotus achieved this through malware infections.
Miccrosoft titled its blog post "Analyzing open-source bootloaders: Finding vulnerabilities faster with AI." (And they do note that Micxrosoft disclosed the discovered vulnerabilities to the GRUB2, U-boot, and Barebox maintainers and "worked with the GRUB2 maintainers to contribute fixes... GRUB2 maintainers released security updates on February 18, 2025, and both the U-boot and Barebox maintainers released updates on February 19, 2025.")

They add that performing their initial research, using Security Copilot "saved our team approximately a week's worth of time," Microsoft writes, "that would have otherwise been spent manually reviewing the content." Through a series of prompts, we identified and refined security issues, ultimately uncovering an exploitable integer overflow vulnerability. Copilot also assisted in finding similar patterns in other files, ensuring comprehensive coverage and validation of our findings...

As AI continues to emerge as a key tool in the cybersecurity community, Microsoft emphasizes the importance of vendors and researchers maintaining their focus on information sharing. This approach ensures that AI's advantages in rapid vulnerability discovery, remediation, and accelerated security operations can effectively counter malicious actors' attempts to use AI to scale common attack tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs).
This week Google also announced Sec-Gemini v1, "a new experimental AI model focused on advancing cybersecurity AI frontiers."

An anonymous reader shares a report: The gap between Windows 10 and Windows 11 continues to narrow, and Microsoft's flagship operating system is on track to finally surpass its predecessor by summer. The latest figures from Statcounter show the increase in Windows 11's market share accelerating, while Windows 10 declines.

Before Champagne corks start popping in Redmond, it is worth noting that Windows 10 still accounts for over half the market -- 54.2 percent -- and Windows 11 now accounts for 42.69 percent. However, if the current trends continue, Windows 10 should finally drop below the 50 percent mark next month and be surpassed by Windows 11 shortly after.

The cause is likely due to enterprises pushing the upgrade button rather than having to deal with extended support for Windows 10. Support for most Windows 10 versions ends on October 14, 2025, and Microsoft has shown no signs of deviating from its plan to retire the veteran operating system. [...] Whether users actually want the operating system is another matter. Windows 11 offers few compelling features that justify an upgrade and no killer application. The looming October 14 support cut-off date is likely to be the major driving factor behind the move to Windows 11.

Microsoft is testing a new Windows 11 feature that resizes taskbar icons dynamically like on macOS, with options to shrink icons when the taskbar is full or keep them small at all times. The Verge reports: If you're on the beta, under Taskbar settings - Taskbar behaviors, you can now select options under Show smaller taskbar buttons: Always, Never, or When taskbar is full. The third option will scale down icons so that they all can fit and not get hidden away in a second menu. The behavior appears to be similar to macOS where icons on the dock get smaller as more applications or minimized windows are added. Microsoft is also testing an update to the Start menu. "Now, it has a larger layout that includes the ability to hide the recommended recent apps and can show all of your apps on the page," reports The Verge.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Microsoft's business-oriented "Link" mini-desktop PC, which connects directly to the company's Windows 365 cloud service, is now available to buy for $349.99 in the US and in several other countries. Windows 365 Link, which was announced last November, is a device that is more easily manageable by IT departments than a typical computer while also reducing the needs of hands on support.

To mark Microsoft's 50th anniversary, Bill Gates has released the original Altair BASIC source code he co-wrote with Paul Allen, calling it the "coolest code" he's ever written and a symbol of the company's humble beginnings. Thurrott reports: "Before there was Office or Windows 95 or Xbox or AI, there was Altair BASIC," Bill Gates writes on his Gates Notes website. "In 1975, Paul Allen and I created Microsoft because we believed in our vision of a computer on every desk and in every home. Five decades later, Microsoft continues to innovate new ways to make life easier and work more productive. Making it 50 years is a huge accomplishment, and we couldn't have done it without incredible leaders like Steve Ballmer and Satya Nadella, along with the many people who have worked at Microsoft over the years."

Today, Gates says that the 50th anniversary of Microsoft is "bittersweet," and that it feels like yesterday when he and Allen "hunched over the PDP-10 in Harvard's computer lab, writing the code that would become the first product of our new company." That code, he says, remains "the coolest code I've ever written to this day ... I still get a kick out of seeing it, even all these years later."

Microsoft is pushing businesses to shift away from perpetual Office licenses to Microsoft 365 subscriptions, citing collaboration limitations and rising IT costs associated with standalone software. "You may have started noticing limitations," Microsoft says in a post. "Your apps are stuck on your desktop, limiting productivity anytime you're away from your office. You can't easily access your files or collaborate when working remotely."

In its pitch, the Windows-maker says Microsoft 365 includes Office applications as well as security features, AI tools, and cloud storage. The post cites a Microsoft-commissioned Forrester study that claims the subscription model delivers "223% ROI over three years, with a payback period of less than six months" and "over $500,000 in benefits over three years."

Microsoft has announced that it's overhauling its Blue Screen of Death error message in Windows 11. From a report: The new design drops the traditional blue color, frowning face, and QR code in favor of a simplified screen that looks a lot more like the black screen you see when Windows is performing an update. It's not immediately clear if this new BSOD will remain as a black screen once Microsoft ships the final version of this update.

"We're previewing a new, more streamlined UI for unexpected restarts which better aligns with Windows 11 design principles and supports our goal of getting users back into productivity as fast as possible," explains Microsoft in a blog post about the change. "We've simplified your experience while preserving the technical information on the screen."

"Microsoft built things. It broke things."

That's how the Seattle Times kicks off a series of articles celebrating Microsoft's 50th anniversary — adding that Microsoft also gave some people "a lucrative retirement early in their lives, and their own stories to tell."

What did they remember from Microsoft's earliest days? Scott Oki joined Microsoft as employee no. 121. The company was small; Gates was hands-on, and hard to please. "One of his favorite phrases was 'that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard,'" Oki says. "He didn't use that on me, so I feel pretty good about that."

Another, kinder phrase that pops to Oki's mind when discussing the international division he founded at Microsoft is "bringing home the bacon." An obsession with rapid revenue growth permeated Microsoft in those early days. Oki was about three weeks into the job as marketing manager when he presented a global expansion plan to Gates. "Had I done business internationally before? No," Oki said. "Do I speak a language other than English? No." But Gates gave Oki a $1 million budget to found the international division and sell Microsoft products overseas.

He established subsidiaries in the most important markets at the time: Japan, United Kingdom, Germany and France. And, because he had a few bucks left over, Australia. "Of the initial subsidiaries we started, every single one of them was profitable in its first year," he says...

Oki left Microsoft on March 1, 1992, 10 years to the day after he was hired.
Other memories shared by early Microsoft employees:

• One recent graudate remembered her parents in Spokane saying "I think that's Mary and Bill Gates' son's company. If that kid is anything like those two, that is going to be a great company,'" She got her first job at Microsoft in 1992 — and 33 years later, she's a senior director at Microsoft Philanthropies.

• The Times also interviewed one of Microsoft's first lawyers, who remembers that "The day the U.S. government sued Microsoft ... that was a tough day for me. It kind of turned my world upside down for about the next eight years."

• Microsoft senior VP Brad Chase remembers negotiating with the Rolling Stones for the rights to their song "Start Me Up" for the Windows 95 ad campaign. ("Chase is quick to dispel any rumor that Mick Jagger called up Bill Gates and got $12 million. But he won't say how much the company paid.")
  
  But Chase does tell the Times that Bill Gates "used to say all of the time, 'We're going to bet the company on Windows.' That was a huge bet because Windows, frankly, was a lousy product in its early days."

What happens when you ask Copilot to "write a program that can be run on an iPhone 16 to select 15 random photos from the phone, tint them to random colors, and display the photos on the phone"?

That's what TouchDevelop did for the long-discontinued Windows Phone in a 2013 Microsoft Research 'SmartSynth' natural language code generation demo. ("Write scripts by tapping on the screen.")

Long-time Slashdot reader theodp reports on what happens when, 14 years later, you pose the same question to Copilot: "You'll get lots of code and caveats from Copilot, but nothing that you can execute as is. (Compare that to the functioning 10 lines of code TouchDevelop program). It's a good reminder that just because GenAI can generate code, it doesn't necessarily mean it will generate the least amount of code, the most understandable or appropriate code for the requestor, or code that runs unchanged and produces the desired results.
theodp also reminds us that TouchDevelop "was (like BASIC) abandoned by Microsoft..." Interestingly, a Microsoft Research video from CS Education Week 2011 shows enthusiastic Washington high school students participating in an hour-long TouchDevelop coding lesson and demonstrating the apps they created that tapped into music, photos, the Internet, and yes, even their phone's functionality. This shows how lacking iPhone and Android still are today as far as easy programmability-for-the-masses goes. (When asked, Copilot replied that Apple's Shortcuts app wasn't up to the task).

Slashdot reader jrnvk writes: The Verge is reporting that Microsoft will soon make it harder to run the well-publicized bypassnro command in Windows 11 setup. This command allows skipping the Microsoft account and online connection requirements on install. While the command will be removed, it can still be enabled by a regedit change — for now.
"However, there's no guarantee Microsoft will allow this additional workaround for long," writes the Verge. (Though they add "There are other workarounds as well" involving the unattended.xml automation.) In its latest Windows 11 Insider Preview, the company says it will take out a well-known bypass script... Microsoft cites security as one reason it's making this change. ["This change ensures that all users exit setup with internet connectivity and a Microsoft Account."] Since the bypassnro command is disabled in the latest beta build, it will likely be pushed to production versions within weeks.

uninet writes: The same year Apple launched the iPhone, it unveiled a massive upgrade to Mac OS X known as Leopard, sporting "300 New Features." Two years later, it did something almost unheard of: it released Snow Leopard, an upgrade all about how little it added and how much it took away. Apple needs to make it snow again. Current releases of MacOS Sequoia and iOS/iPadOS 18 are riddled with easily reproducible bugs in high-traffic areas, the author argues, suggesting Apple's engineers aren't using their own software. Messages can't reliably copy text, email connections randomly fail, and Safari frequently jams up. Even worse are the baffling design decisions, like burying display arrangement settings and redesigning Photos with needless margins and inconsistent navigation.

Apple's focus on the Vision Pro while AI advances raced ahead has left them scrambling to catch up, the author argues, with Apple Intelligence features now indefinitely delayed. The author insists that Apple's products still remain better than Windows or Android alternatives -- but "least bad" isn't the premium experience Apple loyalists expect. With its enormous resources, Apple could easily have teams focus on cleaning up existing software while simultaneously developing AI features.

Further reading: 'Something Is Rotten in the State of Cupertino' .

Microsoft plans to roll out a new Windows scheduled task in May that launches automatically to help Microsoft Office apps load faster. From a report: The company says the "Startup Boost" task will launch in the background on logon, with the roll-out to start in mid-May and worldwide general availability to be reached by late May 2025. On systems where it's toggled on, users will see new Office Startup Boost and Office Startup Boost Logon tasks in the Windows Task Scheduler, which will ensure that Office apps can preload "performance enhancements."

"We are introducing a new Startup Boost task from the Microsoft Office installer to optimize performance and load-time of experiences within Office applications," Microsoft says on the Microsoft 365 message center. "After the system performs the task, the app remains in a paused state until the app launches and the sequence resumes, or the system removes the app from memory to reclaim resources. The system can perform this task for an app after a device reboot and periodically as system conditions allow."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet, written by Steven Vaughan-Nichols: Despite the minor delay, Linux 6.14 arrives packed with cutting-edge features and improvements to power upcoming Linux distributions, such as the forthcoming Ubuntu 25.04 and Fedora 42. The big news for desktop users is the improved NTSYNC driver, especially those who like to play Windows games or run Windows programs on Linux. This driver is designed to emulate Windows NT synchronization primitives. What that feature means for you and me is that it will significantly improve the performance of Windows programs running on Wine and Steam Play. [...] Gamers always want the best possible graphics performance, so they'll also be happy to see that Linux now supports recently launched AMD RDNA 4 graphics cards. This approach includes support for the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT and RX 9070 graphics cards. Combine this support with the recently improved open-source RADV driver and AMD gamers should see the best speed yet on their gaming rigs.

Of course, the release is not just for gamers. Linux 6.14 also includes several AMD and Intel processor enhancements. These boosts focus on power management, thermal control, and compute performance optimizations. These updates are expected to improve overall system efficiency and performance. This release also comes with the AMDXDNA driver, which provides official support for AMD's neural processing units based on the XDNA architecture. This integration enables efficient execution of AI workloads, such as convolutional neural networks and large language models, directly on supported AMD hardware. While Rust has faced some difficulties in recent months in Linux, more Rust programming language abstractions have been integrated into the kernel, laying the groundwork for future drivers written in Rust. [...] Besides drivers, Miguel Ojeda, Rust for Linux's lead developer, said recently that the introduction of the macro for smart pointers with Rust 1.84: derive(CoercePointee) is an "important milestone on the way to building a kernel that only uses stable Rust functions." This approach will also make integrating C and Rust code easier. We're getting much closer to Rust being grafted into Linux's tree.

In addition, Linux 6.14 supports Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon 8 Elite mobile processor, enhancing performance and stability for devices powered by this chipset. That support means you can expect to see much faster Android-based smartphones later this year. This release includes a patch for the so-called GhostWrite vulnerability, which can be used to root some RISC-V processors. This fix will block such attacks. Additionally, Linux 6.14 includes improvements for the copy-on-write Btrfs file system/logical volume manager. These primarily read-balancing methods offer flexibility for different RAID hardware configurations and workloads. Additionally, support for uncached buffered I/O optimizes memory usage on systems with fast storage devices. Linux 6.14 is available for download here.

"There's no shortage of videos showing Steam running on expensive ARM single-board computers with discrete GPUs," writes Slashdot reader VennStone. "So I thought it would be worthwhile to make a guide for doing it on (relatively) inexpensive RK3588-powered single-board computers, using Box86/64 and Armbian." The guides I came across were out of date, had a bunch of extra steps thrown in, or were outright incorrect... Up first, we need to add the Box86 and Box64 ARM repositories [along with dependencies, ARMHF architecture, and the Mesa graphics driver]...
The guide closes with a multi-line script and advice to "Just close your eyes and run this. It's not pretty, but it will download the Steam Debian package, extract the needed bits, and set up a launch script." (And then the final step is sudo reboot now.)

"At this point, all you have to do is open a terminal, type 'steam', and tap Enter. You'll have about five minutes to wait... Check out the video to see how some of the tested games perform." At 720p, performance is all over the place, but the games I tested typically managed to stay above 30 FPS. This is better than I was expecting from a four-year-old SOC emulating x86 titles under ARM.

Is this a practical way to play your Steam games? Nope, not even a little bit. For now, this is merely an exercise in ludicrous neatness. Things might get a wee bit better, considering Collabora is working on upstream support for RK3588 and Valve is up to something ARM-related, but ya know, "Valve Time"...
"You might be tempted to enable Steam Play for your Windows games, but don't waste your time. I mean, you can try, but it ain't gonna work."

Microsoft has begun urging Windows 10 users to upgrade their systems ahead of the October 14, 2025 support deadline, but with a solution many find impractical: just buy a new computer. According to StatCounter data, 58.7% of Windows users remain on Windows 10 despite the impending end of security updates and technical assistance.

In emails to Windows 10 users, Microsoft's primary recommendation is to trade in old devices for newer Windows 11-compatible hardware, rather than focusing on alternative solutions.

Microsoft is developing a new Windows 11 feature that will explain how hardware limitations affect PC performance. The latest preview builds include a hidden FAQ section in system settings that addresses GPU memory, system RAM, and OS version impacts.

The feature, discovered by Windows observer "phantomofearth" in this week's Dev Channel build, requires manual activation. It provides specific recommendations for configurations like low RAM or GPUs with less than 4GB memory, and flags outdated Windows versions.

prisoninmate writes: GNOME 48 desktop environment has been released after six months of development with major new features that have been expected for more than four years, such as dynamic triple buffering, HDR support, and much more. 9to5Linux reports:

"Highlights of GNOME 48 include dynamic triple buffering to boost the performance on low-end GPUs, such as Intel integrated graphics or Raspberry Pi computers, Wayland color management protocol support, new Adwaita fonts, HDR (High Dynamic Range) support, and a new Wellbeing feature with screen time tracking.

"GNOME 48 also introduces a new GNOME Display Control (gdctl) utility to view the active monitor configuration and set new monitor configuration using command line arguments, implements a11y keyboard monitoring support, adds output luminance settings, and it now centers new windows by default."

Trend Micro uncovered an eight-year-long spying campaign exploiting a Windows vulnerability involving malicious .LNK shortcut files, which attackers padded with whitespace to conceal commands. Despite being reported to Microsoft in 2023, the company considers it a UI issue rather than a security risk and has not prioritized a fix. The Register reports: The attack method is low-tech but effective, relying on malicious .LNK shortcut files rigged with commands to download malware. While appearing to point to legitimate files or executables, these shortcuts quietly include extra instructions to fetch or unpack and attempt to run malicious payloads. Ordinarily, the shortcut's target and command-line arguments would be clearly visible in Windows, making suspicious commands easy to spot. But Trend's Zero Day Initiative said it observed North Korea-backed crews padding out the command-line arguments with megabytes of whitespace, burying the actual commands deep out of sight in the user interface.

Trend reported this to Microsoft in September last year and estimates that it has been used since 2017. It said it had found nearly 1,000 tampered .LNK files in circulation but estimates the actual number of attacks could have been higher. "This is one of many bugs that the attackers are using, but this is one that is not patched and that's why we reported it as a zero day," Dustin Childs, head of threat awareness at the Zero Day Initiative, told The Register. "We told Microsoft but they consider it a UI issue, not a security issue. So it doesn't meet their bar for servicing as a security update, but it might be fixed in a later OS version, or something along those lines."

After poring over malicious .LNK samples, the security shop said it found the vast majority of these files were from state-sponsored attackers (around 70 percent), used for espionage or information theft, with another 20 percent going after financial gain. Among the state-sponsored crews, 46 percent of attacks came from North Korea, while Russia, Iran, and China each accounted for around 18 percent of the activity.

Huawei will no longer be able to produce or sell Windows-based PCs as Microsoft's supply license to the Chinese tech company expires this month, according to Chinese tech site MyDrivers. The restriction comes as Huawei remains on the U.S. Department of Commerce's Entity List, requiring American companies to obtain special export licenses to conduct business with the firm.

Richard Yu, executive director of Huawei's consumer business unit, said the company is preparing to pivot to alternative operating systems. Huawei had previously announced plans to abandon Windows for future PC generations. The Chinese tech giant will introduce a new "AI PC" laptop in April running its own Kunpeng CPU and HarmonyOS, alongside a MateBook D16 Linux Edition, its first Linux-based laptop.