Capita, the UK outsourcer that won a $323 million contract to administer the nation’s Civil Service Pension Scheme for 1.7 million members, has responded to a disastrous portal launch by asking users to hold off on complaints until its new AI chatbots go live.

The service launched on December 1 and immediately ran into problems including unrecognized passwords, broken links and placeholder text scattered across unfinished pages. In a December 17 email to members, The Register reports today, managing director Chris Clements said Capita was “working tirelessly” and promised “one of the biggest services in the United Kingdom with AI at its core” by March.

He asked users whose enquiries were not urgent to wait until the new year before contacting support again.

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Anyone can now try Alexa+, Amazon’s generative AI assistant, through a free early access program at Alexa.com. The website frees the AI, which Amazon released via early access in February, from hardware and makes it as easily accessible as more established chatbots, like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini.

Until today, you needed a supporting device to access Alexa+. Amazon hasn’t said when Alexa+’s early access period will end, but when it does, Alexa+ will be included with Amazon Prime memberships, which start at $15 per month, or cost $20/month on its own.

The above pricing suggests that Amazon wants Alexa+ to drive people toward Prime subscriptions. By being interwoven with Amazon’s shopping ecosystem, including Amazon’s e-commerce platform, grocery delivery business, and Whole Foods, Alexa+ can make more money for Amazon.

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A Paris court has found 10 people guilty of cyberbullying Brigitte Macron, wife of President of France Emmanuel Macron, the BBC reports. The judge found that the defendants made false claims about Macron’s gender and sexuality, and “malicious remarks” about the 24-year age gap between Macron and her spouse.

The defendants, eight men and two women, received a range of sentences, including jail time up to eight months and mandatory online harassment awareness training. Five of the defendants will also lose access to their X accounts for six months, according to The New York Times.

Key to the lawsuit is the fringe belief that Brigitte Macron was born a man — proponents for some reason believe Macron is Jean-Michel Trogneux, her older brother — and transitioned to living as a woman at some point later in life. This style of “transvestigation” is an unfortunately common type of online conspiracy theory, a roundabout way to both spread hateful rhetoric about transgender people and bully cisgender people at the same time. The campaign against Macron has the added twist of her age: Brigitte Macron is 72, 24 years older than President Macron. The pair married in 2007, but their age difference has been an ongoing narrative throughout Emmanuel Macron’s political career.

In July 2025, Macron also filed a defamation lawsuit in the US against Candace Owens, a right-wing podcaster and conspiracy theorist. Owens has made multiple attempts since 2024 to spread false claims about Macron’s gender, and has said that she’s willing to stake her “entire professional reputation” that she’s right.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/paris-court-finds-10-people-guilty-of-cyberbullying-brigitte-macron-195500994.html?src=rss

A reputable leaker has indicated that NVIDIA plans on bringing the RTX 3060 back to market, according to reports by Kotaku and WFCCTech. It first released the GPU at the beginning of 2021. The leaker Hongxing2020 indicates that NVIDIA will resume production of the 3060 sometime in the next few months.

Why is the world’s most valuable company reportedly bringing back such an antiquated graphics card? You know the answer. It’s the endless gaping maw known as AI. Tech companies have been hoovering up PC parts for AI applications with reckless abandon. It has become a legitimate challenge for a regular person to buy RAM and graphics cards, which has led to price increases across the board and companies like Crucial closing up shop.

It’s particularly difficult to get ahold of GDDR7 RAM, which is needed for the newer RTX 5060 cards. So NVIDIA’s solution looks to be a hop in the time machine to 2021. Gamers will need something, after all, and the 3060 technically gets the job done. Any downgrade in graphics and performance will be worth it once you watch an AI-generated video of Kurt Cobain singing in heaven with Albert Einstein, am I right? It’s hilarious because they never got to meet in real life.

The RTX 3060 is still pretty popular, despite NVIDIA phasing out the card back in 2024. We don’t know how much the company plans on charging for this trip down memory lane. The GPU originally cost around $329.

One would think that five-year-old technology could easily hit a much lower price point, but NVIDIA has us in a chokehold here and it can pretty much charge whatever it wants. Again, no price is too high when considering the magical wonders of generative AI. You can watch Tupac hang out with Mr. Rogers for five seconds.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/nvidia-is-reportedly-bringing-back-2021s-rtx-3060-gpu-because-ai-is-eating-all-of-the-newer-cards-194241706.html?src=rss

In late 2023, storage company Western Digital announced plans to split itself into two companies. One, which would still be called Western Digital, would focus on spinning hard drives, which are no longer used much in consumer systems but remain important to NAS devices and data centers. The other, called SanDisk, would handle solid-state storage, including the drives that Western Digital sold to consumers under its Blue, Black, Green, and Red brands.

That split effectively undid what Western Digital did a decade ago when it bought SanDisk for $19 billion. And we’re just now starting to see the way the split will affect the company’s existing consumer drives.

Today, SanDisk announced that mainstream WD Blue and WD Black SSDs would be discontinued and replaced by SanDisk Optimus-branded disks with the same model numbers.

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Google is quietly killing Gmail’s ability to fetch mail from third-party email accounts using POP3, a long-standing feature that has allowed users to consolidate multiple inboxes into a single Gmail interface. The change takes effect this month and also ends Gmailify, the companion feature that applied Gmail’s spam filtering and inbox organization to linked third-party accounts.

Google buried the decision in a support note rather than making any formal announcement. The company’s suggested workaround — switching to IMAP — doesn’t work for all affected users. Users can still access third-party accounts through the Gmail mobile app, but the Gmail service itself will no longer retrieve messages from external providers.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Dolby introduced its FlexConnect technology a few years ago, vowing that it would allow customers to position soundbars and speakers anywhere in a room. The company said the platform would then reconfigure the sound automatically, taking into account any locations that may be further away from the center sweet spot. At CES 2026, LG is the first to put Dolby Atmos FlexConnect in a soundbar, offering the so-called Sound Suite that also includes satellite speaker options and a subwoofer. You don’t need every member of the lineup to use Dolby’s tech, so you can pick and choose which items work best for your living room. 

The centerpiece of the Sound Suite is the H7 soundbar. This 9.1.6-channel speaker is configured for spatial audio (Dolby Atmos) and supports lossless audio up to 24 bit/96kHz. The standout on the spec sheet for me is the six up-firing channels, which should enhance the sensation of overhead sounds. Most of the soundbars I review have only two of those. 

What’s more, the H7 is equipped with a feature called Sound Follow that tracks the location of your phone to reconfigure the audio when your position changes. Maybe you move to a comfy chair instead of the sofa right in front of the TV. The idea is that you don’t have to suffer through subpar audio during a movie or show just because you aren’t in the best spot. 

Billy Steele for Engadget

Then there are the M5 and M7 speakers. When used with the H7 soundbar, these are the satellite speakers, but LG cautioned me against calling them “rear” units. While it’s true a pair of them will be positioned behind most people’s sofas, the company explained that there’s more audio content coming out of them than traditional rear channels provide. As such, two of the M5s or M7s that are used to complement the speakers inside one of LG’s impressively thin TVs are doing more work than just beaming sounds that are designed to come from behind. 

The M5 is a 1.1.1-channel speaker while the M7 is 2.1.1. Like the H7, both support Dolby Atmos and lossless music. What’s more, the entire Sound Suite arsenal has Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity, including AirPlay 2, Google Cast and both Spotify and Tidal connect. The whole shebang also employs LG’s own AI Sound Pro and Room Calibration Pro, and all of the settings are customized in the ThinQ app for Android and iOS. 

Each speaker can be used independently should the need arise, and as I already mentioned, you can pick and choose which components will work best for you — up to four total speakers. So you can opt for the H7, sub and two speakers or four of either the M5 or M7. You can also get a smaller setup with two speakers or just the soundbar and subwoofer. Dolby Atmos FlexConnect is still in play no matter what combination you decide on. I should note the optional W7 subwoofer is quite large, but you can use it standing upright or laying flat, according to LG.

Billy Steele for Engadget

Of course, none of this means anything if Sound Suite doesn’t actually sound good. I’m happy to report LG’s collection of speakers are sonically impressive. I was able to get a good sense of how they’ll perform in a quite demo room at CES. Watching a variety of movie clips in Dolby Atmos, I flipped back and forth between a setup with four M7 speakers and a more robust configuration of the soundbar, subwoofer and M7 speakers. While I preferred the overall tone and tuning of the four M7s, I can concede the bigger collection offered more immersive sound and better directional audio. That said, they both provided excellent clarity and pristine detail.

With Sound Follow, you can quickly have Sound Suite reconfigure the audio based on the location of your phone with just a tap. Let’s say you move from the couch to a comfy chair and want to adjust the sound to that spot. You can do that in the app. And while I could tell a slight difference in a side-of-the-room location and the center sweet spot in front of the TV, the correction did offer an improvement over the unadjusted audio.

I was also able to test standalone mode, where you can quickly use any Sound Suite speaker individually for music. Sound quality was consistent here too, and the system allowed me to add a second M7 speaker for a stereo pair with a few taps in LG’s app. Overall, the Sound Suite lineup offers lots of flexibility in terms of features and configurations. In fact, LG says that between the H7, W7, M5 and M7, there are 50 possible combinations.

Unfortunately, LG hasn’t announced pricing or availability yet. Given the capabilities of the Sound Suite system, I don’t expect the more robust collections to come cheap. However, I do think the company will offer a few different bundles that will hopefully provide a discount over buying each component individually.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/home-theater/lg-sound-suite-hands-on-at-ces-2026-home-theater-powered-by-dolby-atmos-flexconnect-192709499.html?src=rss

Hisense is all about TVs at this year’s CES—specifically, how those TVs display color. If the company’s keynote is any indication, Hisense is extremely invested in leading the charge in color reproduction. Though its tagline this year is “Innovating a Brighter Life,” the pitch is less on how bright their TVs are, and more on how true to life their colors are, especially when it comes to accurately displaying the filmmakers’ original intent. Will consumers buy a TV because their favorite movie looks a bit more how the director intended it to be? I’m not sure. But that’s largely the idea behind Hisense’s new RGB MiniLED Evo.

RGB MiniLED Evo

Credit: Lifehacker

Hisense’s biggest announcement of the day is its RGB MiniLED Evo. This iteration of the company’s RGB MiniLED technology comes with three key upgrades: First, there’s the “Chromagic” precision backlight. The company says this technology helps avoid color bleeding and tint shifting when watching content. It also boosts the colors offered by existing RGB MiniLED technology: Hisense says this new standard can display 110% of the BT.2020 color gamut with four-primary colors (red, green, blue, and sky blue, or cyan), while RGB MiniLED can achieve 100% BT.2020 with the standard three primary colors. The company says Evo also comes with AI-powered RGB color dimming with “134 bit precision.”

Second, RGB MiniLED Evo has a “Hi-View AI engine,” to sync color across the TV’s backlight. This engine comes with a three-core RISC CPU and a 2TOPS NPU for AI processing. Hisense claims the chip provides a 40% boost in computing performance, a 70% improvement in scenario recognition computing power, and 100% upgrade in scenario adaption computing capability. The company says the RGB MiniLED Evo can help display shows and movies as the original creators intended them to look. Hisense compared it to OLED, which it says displays content with too little brightness, and QD MiniLED, which it says compromises the color by being too bright.

Hisense’s RGB MiniLED—not necessarily just Evo—also supposedly cuts down on blue light. Hisense says its new display tech emits 60% “less harmful” blue light than QD OLED, though the science doesn’t necessarily support the claims that blue light is any worse for you than other light colors. The company also says RGB MiniLED is 30% more energy-efficient than QD OLED, though it didn’t include any references to back up those claims in the keynote. Finally, Evo comes with an AI calibration feature, which Hisense touts as a way for users to turn their TVs into professional reference monitors.

The company says RGB MiniLED evo is coming to its product lineup, including the U8, UX, U9, and U7 series, this year.

Other Hisense announcements at CES 2026

Credit: Lifehacker

While the RGB MiniLED Evo was undoubtedly Hisense’s biggest announcement this year, the company also ran through some other news at the keynote. First, there’s the XR10, a new projector that can reach up to 300 inches. It comes with liquid cooling, lens shift supporting a 4K projection, and 6,000 lumens of brightness.

The company also announced the MXS MicroLED TV, which can scale up to 163 inches. Despite devoting only a moment to the TV, company says the MXS won an CES 2026 Innovation Award. Hisense also made some announcements about its TV OS, including features like weather, calendar, and integrations with other smart home devices. But perhaps most notably, Hisense announced a partnership with Microsoft to bring both Copilot and Xbox Cloud Gaming to its TVs. That’s pretty big news.

Finally, if you’re both a Hisense and a FIFA fan, you can buy products from the “Hisense Elite Collection,” which are designed specifically for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. I’m not sure how big that crossover is, nor do I think I’d buy a TV because it was made for one soccer event, but it was part of Hisense’s announcement.

We’ll admit that we weren’t paying enough attention to the state of Anthem—BioWare’s troubled 2019 jetpack-powered open-world shooter—to notice EA’s July announcement that it was planning to shut down the game’s servers. But with that planned server shutdown now just a week away, we thought it was worth alerting you readers to your final opportunity to play one of BioWare’s most ambitious failures.

Anthem was unveiled at E3 2017 in a demo that was later revealed to have been largely faked to paper over major issues with the game’s early development. Anthem’s early 2019 release was met with a lot of middling-to-poor reviews (including one from Ars itself), followed about a year later by a promise from BioWare General Manager Casey Hudson that a “longer-term redesign” and “substantial reinvention” of the overall game experience were coming. Hudson left BioWare in December 2020, though, and a few months later, that planned Anthem overhaul was officially canceled.

While active development on Anthem has been dormant for years, the game’s servers have remained up and running. And though the game didn’t exactly explode in popularity during that period of benign neglect, estimates from MMO Populations suggest a few hundred to a few thousand players have been jetpacking around the game’s world daily. The game also still sees a smattering of daily subreddit posts, including some hoping against hope for a fan-led private server revival, a la the Pretendo Network. And there are still a small handful of Twitch streamers sharing the game while they still can, including one racing to obtain all of the in-game achievements after picking up a $4 copy at Goodwill.

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CES is once again where TV manufacturers lay out their plans for the year ahead, and CES 2026 is shaping up to be a showcase of both familiar rivalries and genuinely new display tech. While OLED and Mini LED remain central to most lineups, Micro RGB has emerged as one of the most talked-about developments at the show so far, especially at the higher end of the market.

Below are the TV announcements that stood out most from the pre-show events and early press conferences, with more expected as CES continues.

Samsung Micro RGB TVs

Engadget

Samsung’s Micro RGB push at CES 2026 isn’t just about big screens — it’s also about how the technology tries to redefine color accuracy and brightness in LCD-based TVs. Unlike traditional Mini LED backlights that rely on white LEDs and filters, Samsung’s Micro RGB TVs use microscopic red, green and blue LEDs in the backlight plane, which help deliver a wider color gamut and more precise local luminance control than conventional backlit LCDs.

The standout of the lineup so far is the jaw-dropping 130-inch Micro RGB concept, shown suspended on a massive gallery-style stand at Samsung’s First Look event. It’s powered by Samsung’s Micro RGB AI Engine Pro, a processing suite that includes Micro RGB Color Booster Pro and Micro RGB HDR Pro to refine contrast and push color depth and detail frame by frame, with HDR10+ Advanced support built in. Compared with previous Micro RGB models, Samsung says this expanded family will start at more practical sizes — 55- and 65-inch — and go up to sizes as large as 75, 85 and 100 inches, all with next-gen AI-driven picture and sound features baked in.

Samsung’s Micro RGB sets also carry the company’s Glare Free anti-reflection finish and tie into its broader Vision AI platform, which supports things like conversational search and contextual content discovery. While the 130-inch concept may remain more of a statement piece than a consumer product, the move underscores how Samsung continues to push next-gen TV tech forward.

Samsung OLED TVs

Samsung’s new 2026 OLED slate — including the S95H, S90H and S85H models — continues the brand’s use of quantum dot-enhanced OLED panels, bringing brighter highlights and richer colors than older WOLED approaches. These TVs also benefit from Samsung’s continued refinement of processing and anti-glare screen treatments, which make them more adaptable in bright living rooms than traditional OLEDs.

The flagship S95H retains its position as the most premium, using a quantum dot layer to help improve brightness and color purity. Below that, the S90H brings glare-reducing optical layers and robust picture processing to a slightly more affordable price point, while the S85H is designed to offer core OLED benefits, like deep blacks and wide viewing angles, in a more accessible package that now includes a new 48-inch size for smaller spaces or gaming setups.

Across the OLED family, Samsung’s Vision AI-powered tools such as AI Motion Enhancer Pro and AI Sound Controller (which dynamically adjusts audio based on content) are also part of the story, making these sets not just about panel tech but about richer, more adaptable viewing experiences.

LG OLED evo W6 Wallpaper TV

Devindra Hardawar for Engadget

LG’s OLED evo W6 Wallpaper TV makes a striking return at CES 2026, and this year’s version manages to blend design flair with high-end performance. The panel itself is an astonishing 9mm thick, designed to sit almost flush against a wall, and pairs with a Zero Connect Box that hosts all inputs and delivers wireless video feeds up to 10 meters away.

Under the ultra-thin exterior, the W6 uses LG’s Hyper Radiant Color technology coupled with Brightness Booster Ultra to push improved brightness and color saturation compared with previous Wallpaper models. It also received Intertek’s “Reflection Free with Premium” certification, indicating some of the lowest reflectance levels yet on an OLED TV. Gaming shooters and fast action fans might appreciate support for up to 165Hz refresh rates and both G-SYNC and FreeSync Premium compatibility, making this one of the most technically ambitious Wallpaper designs LG has shown.

LG Micro RGB evo TVs

LG is also entering the premium RGB-backlit arena at CES with its Micro RGB evo lineup, bringing a similar focus on wider color gamut and intense brightness. Early coverage indicates the Micro RGB evo models will arrive in 75-, 86- and 100-inch sizes, and are built around LG’s α11 AI Processor Gen3, which handles advanced upscaling, local dimming and dynamic HDR optimization.

LG’s Micro RGB evo TVs have been certified for full coverage of BT.2020, DCI-P3 and Adobe RGB color spaces, suggesting an exceptionally wide palette and precise color fidelity. Under the hood, the Micro Dimming Ultra system is said to deliver 1,000+ local dimming zones, which narrows the gap between LCD-based displays and self-emissive technologies like OLED in terms of contrast management.

This early positioning of RGB LED tech by LG also highlights a growing industry shift, with multiple brands teasing similar systems designed to improve brightness and color performance on large screen sizes — especially where OLED’s peak luminance traditionally struggles.

LG OLED TVs (C6 and C6H)

OLED remains a core focus for LG, and CES 2026 brought updates to its popular C-series. The LG C6 OLED continues the company’s tradition of balancing performance and price, while the C6H OLED steps things up with a new Primary RGB Tandem panel designed to deliver higher brightness and improved color volume.

These models are clearly aimed at buyers who want OLED’s deep blacks and wide viewing angles without jumping to LG’s most expensive designs, making them likely to be among the most popular TVs LG releases this year.

TCL X11L SQD-Mini LED TV

TCL used CES 2026 to make a strong case for Mini LED’s continued relevance with the X11L SQD-Mini LED TV, its new flagship model aimed squarely at large-screen home theater setups. Rather than chasing Micro RGB, TCL is refining its own approach with SQD, or Super Quantum Dot, technology, which combines an enhanced quantum dot layer with a dense Mini LED backlight to improve color purity and brightness.

The headline number here is brightness. TCL claims the X11L can hit up to 10,000 nits peak brightness, putting it among the brightest TVs shown at CES this year. That’s paired with an extremely dense local dimming system, with up to 20,000 dimming zones, which is designed to improve contrast and keep blooming in check despite the extreme luminance. TCL also says the panel covers 100 percent of the BT.2020 color space, a bold claim that, if it holds up in real-world testing, would put it in rare company.

The X11L is a 4K TV available in 75-inch, 85-inch and 98-inch sizes, with the largest models clearly intended to rival premium OLED and Micro RGB sets in dedicated home theaters. It supports a 144Hz refresh rate, making it appealing for gaming as well as fast-moving sports, and includes support for advanced HDR formats, including Dolby Vision, with further enhancements expected via software updates.

With CES press day underway and the show floor opening on January 6, more TV announcements are expected from major manufacturers. As additional models are revealed or details are confirmed, we’ll continue updating this roundup with the latest information.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/home-theater/the-biggest-tv-announcements-at-ces-2026-190929976.html?src=rss

Lego bricks come in a ridiculously vast array of sizes and shapes, but the company is unveiling an entirely new take on its classic shape at CES 2026. Meet the Lego Smart Brick, a standard-sized 2 x 4 brick that’s packed with modern technology to enable sets that can respond to how they’re played with or the sets you build. It’s part of a new initiative called Smart Play, which encompasses the Smart Brick as well as Smart Minifigures and Smart Tags. While we obviously don’t know yet how Lego fans will take to this new system, it’s still fair to say it’s the biggest move Lego has every made to infuse its products with connected technology.

The Smart Brick has a 4.1mm ASIC chip inside of it that Lego says is smaller than a standard Lego stud. It runs something called the Play Engine that can sense things like motion, orientation and magnetic fields. Thanks to this and some integrated copper coils, the Smart Brick can sense distance, direction and orientation of other Smart Bricks near it when you’re building. The brick also has a tiny built-in speaker, an accelerometer and an LED array. Lego says the speaker can produce audio that is “tied to live play actions” rather than just playing pre-recorded clips.

The Smart Tag and Smart Minifigures are a lot simpler. The Tag is a 2 x 2 studless tile with a digital ID embedded in it that the Smart Brick can read via “near-field magnetic communication.” This obviously sounds a lot like NFC, but we can’t be sure that these new Lego pieces will be able to communicate with any other NFC devices. Similarly, the Smart Minifigure also has a digital ID readable by NFC.

The purpose of the Smart Tag as well as the similar tech in a Smart Minifigure is to let the Smart Brick know what kind of context it is being used in. As Lego puts it, “The role of the Smart Tag is to tell the Smart Brick how it should play back with you.” The Tag tells the Brick what kind of object, animal, vehicle and so forth it should become. A Smart Tag in a Lego Star Wars X-Wing set, for example, will contain the unique ID and instructions for how the Smart Brick should behave.

If this isn’t enough, Lego has also built a local wireless layer that connects this all together called BrickNet. It’s based on Bluetooth and uses Lego’s proprietary “Neighbor Position Measurement” system, which is what lets the Smart Bricks know how close they are to each other and how they’re oriented. Lego says that this lets the bricks “talk” to each other directly without the need for apps, internet connections or external controls. It sounds like the idea is all three of these new Smart pieces can communicate and interact without any need for setup, which should make it refreshingly like a traditional Lego set.

That said, these bricks naturally will need some power. Lego says that their batteries should still perform even after “years” of inactivity, and the coils and power system is designed so that multiple bricks can be charged wirelessly on a shared charging pad.

Lego

Speaking of sets, Lego is unsurprisingly launching the Smart Play system with its biggest licensed partner: Star Wars. There will be three “all-in-one” Star Wars sets available, all of which are on the smaller side and definitely geared towards kids, rather than the 1,000 piece and up sets that the company has released to get adults (like me) interested.

The prices are inflated compared to non-smart sets, but not outrageously so. Darth Vader’s TIE Fighter is a 473-piece set with a smart Darth Vader Minifigure, one Smart Brick and one Smart Tag, priced at $70. Luke’s Red Five X-Wing is a 584-piece set with two Smart Minifigures, one Smart Brick and five Smart Tags, priced at $100. The Throne Room Duel & A-wing is a 962-piece set with three Smart Minifigures, two Smart Bricks and five Smart Tags, priced at a slightly shocking $160.

It’s an entirely new direction for Lego, and you won’t have to wait long to check it out. The company is putting those three sets up for pre-order on January 9, and they’ll launch on March 1. There’s obviously a lot of technology here that’s entirely new to Lego, and as such it’s hard to imagine just how this will all look when it comes together — but we’re hoping that Lego will have some sets on hand here at CES so we can get a closer look at how the Smart Play system works.

In the meantime, you can find a few videos on how Smart Play works here.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/lego-unveils-a-technology-packed-smart-brick-at-ces-2026-190000511.html?src=rss

Microsoft has started testing a “significant” visual overhaul for Edge in its Canary and Dev Channel preview builds, and the redesigned interface borrows heavily from the design language that first appeared in the company’s standalone Copilot app rather than the Fluent Design system used across Windows 11, Xbox, and Office.

The updated look touches context menus, the new tab page and settings areas, introducing rounder corners and the same color palette and typography found in Copilot. The new interface appears regardless of whether users have Copilot Mode enabled, though the new tab page reverts to MSN news articles and Bing search when Copilot Mode is turned off.

Edge is not alone in this shift, Windows Central writes. Microsoft is also applying the Copilot design language to Copilot Discover, an AI-powered version of MSN.com that may be internally codenamed “Ruby.” Windows and Xbox have not yet received similar treatment. The rollout remains uneven — the refreshed UI is not appearing on all test machines — and production releases are likely weeks away. If Microsoft continues down this path, Copilot, MSN and Edge will share a visual identity that looks noticeably different from the rest of the company’s software lineup, the publication adds.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.