Author: easyfilo

Enlarge (credit: Microsoft)

Plenty of apps that you install on your computer have a setting that tells them to launch when you initially log in to save you the trouble of launching your most commonly used apps yourself. Leaving this setting on can also allow apps to check for updates or launch more quickly when you start them for the first time. The difference for some of the preinstalled Microsoft apps in Windows 10 and 11 is that they use some of these resources by default, whether you actually use the apps or not.

Developer and IT admin Michael Niehaus drew attention to some of these apps in recent blog posts examining the resource usage of Windows 11’s widgets, Microsoft Teams, and Microsoft Edge in a fresh install of Windows 11 (the Edge observations apply to Windows 10, too).

Both Widgets and Teams spawn a number of Microsoft Edge WebView2 processes in order to work—WebView2 is a way to use Edge and its rendering engine without launching Edge or using its user interface. Collectively, these processes use a few hundred megabytes of memory to work.

Enlarge / Craob X. (credit: Craob)

As laptops have become thinner and lighter, there have been sacrifices along the way. Often, those sacrifices come in the area of port selection, as ultra-portable laptops keep getting bolder about omitting things like USB-A ports, 3.5 mm jacks, and SD card readers for the sake of portability and style. Whether you think that’s inconvenient or incredible, take a look at the Craob X laptop. It takes minimalism to a new level—it has zero integrated ports.

Spotted by My Laptop Guide on Monday, the Craob X claims to be the “world’s first port-less ultrabook.” Craob’s website provides limited information about the Craob X laptop and nothing about the company itself. There’s no release date beyond a vague “coming soon” advertisement. Overall, there’s very little detail about the Craob X, making us skeptical about if or when it will be available. In fact, we can’t even find mention of the company existing beyond this website.

Still, the Craob X presents an interesting idea for the future of ultraportable laptops. While even the trimmest ultraportable will typically offer at least a USB-C port, the Craob X’s deck is empty. And we can see why—there’s barely room to fit anything there.

Enlarge / The new Gmail design. It has tweaked colors and an additional sidebar on the left for Google Chat and Google Meet. (credit: Google)

Google will finally start rolling out the Gmail redesign it first showed off last year. The company is calling the interface in the update the “integrated view” because the goal is to integrate Google’s latest messaging service, Google Chat (a Slack competitor and the successor to Hangouts) and Google Meet (a Zoom competitor) into Gmail. The main section will remain mostly the same, but there are plenty of changes coming to Gmail’s navigation sidebar.

Currently, the Gmail sidebar houses the sections you would expect, like the Inbox, Drafts, Trash, and your list of labels. The redesign will add a second, new higher-level navigation panel to the left side of the page, letting users jump between Gmail, Google Chat, Spaces (Google Chat group chats), and Google Meet. Besides the four app-navigation options, the new sidebar also has a stack of icons at the bottom, and it’s not entirely clear what they are. They look like chat profile pictures, so they could be either active chats or starred contacts. Since no one has tried this interface yet, we don’t know many details.

Google’s blog post has a detailed timeline for the rollout. Starting next week, February 8, the new interface becomes opt-in, and you can revert to “classic Gmail” in the settings (Google notes the update will take 15 days to roll out to everyone). In April, users will be automatically enrolled in the new interface. By “the end of Q2 2022,” the interface will become the standard for Gmail, with no option to use the classic interface. Google says there will also be a “new streamlined navigation experience on Chat web (mail.google.com/chat),” which I assume means you’ll get a similar sidebar setup where you can jump to Gmail right from Google Chat.

Enlarge / Spotify is in the middle of a transformation—it just may not realize it. (credit: Cindy Ord/Getty Images)

Spotify probably didn’t realize it, but it ceased being a tech company a few years ago.

It was excelling at all the tech startup things—attracting users and losing money—but like most businesses, it eventually wanted to make a profit. The company was having a tough time doing that simply by streaming music, which proved to be expensive since the labels demanded a hefty fee to access their catalogs. Without another product to sell alongside music, Spotify was hemorrhaging money.

So the company started looking afield, searching for a product that would complement its existing music offerings. It found one in podcasts.