WW 922: There's Never a "Not OK" Button - End of Skype, MWC25, Rust-inovich

Skype to EOL in May, replaced by the consumer Teams client, which is surprisingly good now. There are three possible responses to this:

• "They still make Skype?"
• The 13 people who rely on Skype for calling landlines come out of the woodwork.
• "Come on, Microsoft telegraphed this two years ago"

Plus, Opera previews what an AI agent in a browser can be used for. Firefox 136 now comes with vertical tabs (again), updated sidebar, AI chatbots, and more. And a Google-related tip that lets one see what it's like to live in the EU, minus the universal health care and other social safety nets.

Windows

• Microsoft FINALLY updates the Copilot app in Windows 11 for the 127th time - What Microsoft didn't tell anyone. Arrives just after the release of a native Mac client
• Three months of Recall, and it IS controversial, just not for the reasons you think
• Dev and Beta (last week): lock screen widget customizing (finally), Windows Share updates (again), Task Manager CPU usage calculation change (seriously), more
• It may be controversial at Linux, but not at Microsoft, which is all-in on Rust
• Intel delays Ohio fabs until after the earth careens into the sun
• Dell up 7 percent to $23.9 billion ($11.9 billion from PCs)
• HP up 2.4 percent to $13.5 billion ($9.2 billion from PCs)
• Intel brings Core Ultra Series 2 "Arrow Lake" chips to commercial market

Microsoft 365

• Microsoft finally puts Skype out of its misery
• A look back at 22 years of Skype
• Outlook Mobile gets delivery and read receipts

AI

• USA! USA! USA! Microsoft makes AI export changes easy to understand for our stupid government
• OpenAI announces GPT-4.5, its final non-reasoning model
• Microsoft brings new local distilled DeepSeek models to Copilot+ PCs, starting with Snapdragon X - a little hands-on
• Microsoft announces Dragon Copilot for clinical workflow
• Stability AI + Arm Holdings = generative AI audio, more to come
• Scam Detection in Messages for Pixel and Android
• Gemini improvements including upcoming features
• Apple's struggles with AI are real. Just ask Siri. Kidding, no one asks Siri anything

Xbox

• New Game Pass titles for first half of March
• Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3+4 coming to all platforms including Game Pass on July 11
• Sony slashes prices on VR2 months after it stopped building it

Tips & Picks

• Tip of the week: Remove yourself from Google Search results
• App pick of the week: Mo' browsers!
• RunAs Radio this week: Secure by Design with Karinne Bessette
• Brown liquor pick of the week: Knappogue Castle 16

Hosts: Leo Laporte, Paul Thurrott, and Richard Campbell

Download or subscribe to Windows Weekly at https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly

Check out Paul's blog at thurrott.com

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