Microsoft may well be looking to excite its millions of users worldwide given it has annoyed a fair few of them by ending support for Windows 10 this week. As of Tuesday October 14, Windows 10 will no longer receive free software updates, bringing an end to ten years of the operating system.
In what could be an announcement positioned to deflect from the negative response to this decision, the official Windows account on X has posted a teaser for “something big” set to be unveiled this week.
“Your hands are about to get some PTO,” Windows said on X. “Time to rest those fingers…something big is coming Thursday”.
‘PTO’ is a US abbreviation for ‘paid time off’, implying that . Coupled with the resting of fingers, it is likely that Windows is going to gain something new to do with voice commands.
As reported by Windows Central, Microsoft has been dropping hints recently about how it is moving Windows towards more voice input functionality. President of Windows and Devices team Pavan Davuluri recently said that soon “you’ll be able to speak to your computer while you’re writing, inking, or interacting with another person. You should be able to have a computer semantically understand your intent to interact with it.”
If you’re a Windows 10 user though, you may be disappointed. Whatever the new feature, it’s likely to only be available for Windows 11, given Windows 10 is no longer getting updates, which includes any new Windows features as well as security patches.
“I think we will see computing become more ambient, more pervasive, continue to span form factors, and certainly become more multi-modal in the arc of time,” Davuluri recently said in an interview on Windows’ official YouTube channel.
“I think experience diversity is the next space where we will continue to see voice becoming more important. Fundamentally, the concept that your computer can actually look at your screen and is context aware is going to become an important modality for us going forward.”
These may be clues, but we could be way off the scent. Either way, the new feature due to drop today will probably involve AI – namely, Microsoft Copilot, the firm’s modern branding for its AI tools.
Copilot is available on many new Windows 11 PCs and has replaced Cortana as Microsoft’s voice assistant. It’s pitched as more than that, with Microsoft integrating the AI with various app and services, the idea being you can have lifelike, contextual conversations with Copilot.
This already works in some instances on newer Windows 11 computers, so we’ll have to wait and see until later today what exactly this “big” new something Microsoft has up its sleeve is.