Now, Start is a new thing – a relaunch of Microsoft News.
Users of Windows 11 in preview – due to release soon – can see the widgets for news on their task bar, or any users can go to MicrosoftStart.com. If you feel ` reducing the clickbait and garbaj, you can tune the sources and types of news you’ll receive and save the settings with your Microsoft Account. Apps are available for iOS and Android, on the web, the Windows taskbar / widgets, and on the new tab page on Microsoft Edge (like it or not). One notable absence from the announcement? The Microsoft News app for Windows. Install it while you still can. |
Tag: News
524 – I read the news today, oh boy
With most of the world in lock-down and everyone staying at home, it’s easy to be fixated with the news, even though there’s really only one topic.
The same guff pollutes the otherwise excellent new-tab experience in the new Edge browser, assuming you aren’t seeing the Office 365 tab. There’s an FAQ that explains the rationale behind the advertising, though if you have time on your hands, you could always make your feelings known through the Feedback Hub app (here’s how), add your voice to the reviews tab on the Store, or join up to the Microsoft Old Timers group on Facebook and gripe about it while sharing photos of old t-shirts and stuff. In the “good old days” theme, a new beta “News bar” app has been released, offering to display the same curated and presumably ad-filthy content on a sidebar reminiscent of a Vista gadget, or a ticker running along the top of the task bar like a 1990s website. Though it may be geo-locked so you can only get it in certain countries for now, read more on the News bar app here. Whilst cooped up inside, spending your life on conference calls or Teams meetings, spare a thought for those who are new to the whole experience, and shed a tear for the technology they’re using. They could be Skyping. |
Tip o’ the Week 467 – Gardyloo, It’s the News!
The Mobile version of Edge browser was updated in January 2019, to include the NewsGuard plugin (though it wasn’t enabled by default), and at the time it was widely reported that their vetting had decided the UK’s Daily Mail, a popular newspaper and at one time the largest newspaper website in the world, was not to be trusted. (Screenshots above & right were taken on 24 Jan 2019). More people probably read about the warning that was gleefully propagated by the Mail’s competitors, than there are actual users of the Edge mobile browser itself (if you use Edge on your PC, give it a try on your phone – it’s really rather good).
NewsGuard has since worked with the Daily Mail and decided that it’s not quite as bad as all that, so has backtracked and removed the klaxon warning. It’s still not giving a completely clean bill of health – see the “nutrition label” – but the feedback NewsGuard has shared with some other news websites may well help to improve the quality of their output. |
Tip o’ the Week 436 – I read the News today
Oh boy. The upside of snacking on a smörgåsbord of news sources is that the reader gets to choose the topics (and the providers of content too), so they can filter out the rubbish they’re not interested in, excluding the media outlets they don’t want to read. The flipside, of course, is that confirmation bias will tend to guide people to read and watch stuff that reinforces their existing opinions; so they’ll pick sources of news according to their political beliefs, and may not read about topics they know nothing about, to the detriment of balanced reporting of “news”. Anyway, news apps are one of the most used categories on mobile devices – rather than shuttling around between several web sites, aggregator apps consolidate the content and can alert the reader to breaking news. Google has a News app for iOS and Android, and is investing in AI technology to help curate compelling packages of news content that people don’t necessarily know they want to read. Apple has their own app, for fruity devices only, not as widely available and not quite as curated. Meanwhile, MSN News has been around for years, too, both as a service that shows tiles on the Edge browser’s start page and the MSN.com site, and as apps for Windows, iOS and Android. Well, the whole thing is getting a rebrand and the back end is being sharpened up; see coverage here, and here, and the official announcement. The Windows version of MSN News is still known as such in the Store, though
There’s a light or dark theme, and the content is displayed clearly and it’s easy to navigate by swiping left or right; the “My News” category is a summary of the categories you like, whereas “Top Stories” is curated by an editorial news team rather than using AI alone. Much is made of the partnerships established with the real news sources that provide the content, and it’s probably the Microsoft News service’s biggest strength.
Even without the warning in the headline, it’s pretty easy to spot sponsored content; headlines like Content Providers Are Furious About This… Something You Don’t Need Exciting People In <town you’re not in>, Hotels Don’t Want You To Know About This Secret Discount Trick, etc, etc. If any “story” Capitalises Every Headline Word, Even Mundane Ones… then maybe don’t open it. Still, the funding collected from sponsored stories is shared with the real news sources that provide the actual content, so it pays for everything else. If you don’t like the news presented in one app, then try another – like weather apps, it never does any harm to have a few on the go, so you can find something that makes you feel better. |