After testing it with Insiders, Microsoft is adding a new News and Interests feature to Windows 10. In short, the tool creates a shortcut on the taskbar that allows you to check the weather, as well as catch up on the latest news, sports scores and stock prices. Tapping on a story will open it in a browser. You can also save an article for later reading and share it if you so desire. What you won’t see in the feed, at least not yet, are any ads.
Naturally, you can tweak the selection of topics you see in your feed, as well as the publications Windows uses to source articles. Additionally, you have some flexibility in how the icon appears on your taskbar. It’s also possible to turn off the feature if you don’t want to see it all.
In adding news and interests to the taskbar, Microsoft says it’s trying to accomplish a handful of goals. First, it wants to make finding high-quality and relevant news content easier. Moreover, the way the company sees it, most people already have a routine where they’re constantly checking what’s going in on the world throughout the day. So why not make that process more seamless? Including a way to check the weather through Windows is something people have been asking for a while as well.
Microsoft plans to start rolling out News and Interests to the Windows taskbar beginning over the next several weeks. It says it’s taking a “phased and measured approach,” with the entire rollout slated to take several months.