Microsoft is making a major change to its Windows 10 taskbar soon, with the addition of a news and weather widget. The new feature is available to testers today and will allow Windows 10 users to access a feed of news, actions and weather information directly from the taskbar. You’ll be able to quickly see the weather forecast without having to open the Start menu, install a third-party application or check online.
The taskbar feature will appear in a mini content feed that can be customized with the latest sports news, headlines and weather information. Microsoft is using its Microsoft News network to deliver news and content from more than 4,500 sources. The company has been curating this through artificial intelligence for the past few months, and this specific feature will also learn what news is relevant to you when you ignore or like stories in the feed.
Microsoft is starting to test this new feature with its Windows Insiders on the Windows 10 dev channel today, and is likely to be available to all users later this year. It will initially be available only to testers in the USA, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and India.
This new taskbar feature will also require Microsoft’s Chromium-based Edge to be installed on a PC. This means that any link you click on the resource will force you to sign in to the Edge to read it, and Microsoft is presenting the content in the read view by default.
Of course, you can disable this new taskbar feature, and Microsoft says it will be an ad-free experience. It seems to be more useful than the People Bar that Microsoft incorporated into Windows 10 a few years ago. The People Bar acts as a quick way to access contacts, but it only supports applications like Mail and Skype and not large third-party messaging services.