Microsoft Edge Gets Free 24-Hour Video Calls, Screenshot Tool, and Shopping Features (venturebeat.com) 37
Microsoft today announced a slew of new features coming to its Chromium Edge browser. From a report: There are PDF improvements, a built-in screenshot tool, support for more themes, and new shopping features in time for the holiday season. But the most notable addition is the one powered by Skype because for better or for worse, 2020 is the year of video calling. When Zoom usage exploded this year, Microsoft tried to save face by making it easier to join Skype calls -- the company dropping account sign-up requirements and expanded the number of supported users. Microsoft is now bringing that functionality to Edge's new tab page with a dedicated Meet Now button (not to be confused with Google Meet). [...] Microsoft claims "Edge is the best browser for shopping this holiday." To make the case, Edge is getting a feature called price comparison that compares the price of a product you're searching for across other retailers. If you add a product to a collection, you can then click "compare price to other retailers" to see a list of prices of that item across other retailers.
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Apparently Microsoft agrees with you since their next version of Windows is going to be built upon Linux.
Years and years of Microsoft bashing here on Slashdot, and you all mod down this?
10 years ago you would have been calling it fake news. What the hell are you pissed about now, *NIXies? You won. The Year of the Linux Desktop is finally here.
Perhaps you're just pissed because it ironically happens to be powered by Microsoft.
Re:Boooo Microsoft! (Score:4, Informative)
I don't moderate, but the next version of windows will probably not be based on Linux. OMBad is a known troll.
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I don't moderate, but the next version of windows will probably not be based on Linux.
Well, their user base hardly cares if it's a secure product, and privacy went out the window long ago for TelemetryOS, so makes sense they would continue with backwards compatibility being Priority #1 at Microsoft, and stick with the shit they know and love.
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You shouldn't be branding your product using common English language words. Plus, Microsoft's button is not using the word "Meet" as a proper noun. It's using it as a verb - the same way millions of companies use it.
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Plus, Microsoft's button is not using the word "Meet" as a proper noun. It's using it as a verb - the same way millions of companies use it.
This was my thought as well. I haven't actually seen the new interface but I assumed there was just a link/button somewhere that says "Meet now" that sent you to a Skype page. I was doubtful that the actual chat program was called "Meet Now".
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Meet now, nay, DATAMINE now. Seriously company need to rethink using those services, they are not in your interests, your interests are their interest to data mine and steal what ever ideas they can, seriously, do not do it, do not trust M$ with it, you are fools if you do without the required laws in place to block datamining.
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FWIW, I had a long video conference internationally on it and it worked beautifully and less fiddly even compared to Zooom. I think this is their solution because Teams is such a pain when it comes to just getting a video conference started with a link (like Zoom). No adding users , no fuss.
Prices (Score:2)
That's nice, but what's needed is the ability to track prices on those websites to see if one of them is trying to make more money, i.e. Amazon increasing their prices 100% or more on items I put in my shopping cart months ago.
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What is wrong with the price changing on an item you put in your cart "months ago"?
Are e-tailers now expected to keep the price locked in indefinitely as long as the item is in your cart?
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Yes, if the price is different between someone first time looking for item & someone re-looking or re-buying an item or having item saved in cart.
We have the Quakers to thank for fixed, non-haggling, stated prices - thank you Quakers!
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Actually, the fixed prices thing is a relatively modern invention, made in the 20th century with a store in the US. It was the first "do it yourself" store where instead of going to the shop keeper and asking what you wanted, you browsed the shelves, picked out what you wan
Re: Prices (Score:2)
And of course it is still a bullsshit made-up price with no relation to the actual work done and mostly theft aka profit. That you pay eith your money that is actually based on actual work.
Imagine making up a price for your $100 bill, depending on what you want to buy. Imaginethe shopkeeper's face. ... No copies allowed!".
Now imagine being real evil, and handing him a mere photocopied $100, with a license attached that says "Labor property of
Imagine if he knew that those $100 are $7 that sombody put into an
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I was trying to write something generic that could have happened to other people, but I did in fact buy something last week for 12$ and that exact same item is now 27$. I know that prices can fluctuate over time, but I have other items in my shopping cart that over the course of a year went from 130$ to 180$... and back to 130$ again. Nothing can explain such radical price changes except artificial, algorithm-driven pricing.
Great (Score:5, Interesting)
How do I disable all these new "features"?
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You can't. They're all right there on the page every time you create a new tab.
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On Windows 7 or 8.1 you uninstall Edge and install Chromium.
On Windows 10 you suck it.
Re: Great (Score:2)
On Windows 10 you boot from a Linux LiveUSB and install to disk. :P
It is getting bloated and allowing feature creep (Score:5, Insightful)
Less waste and more computers for everyone should be the priority.
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I don't know... it sounds like a handy app, if they'd just remove the unnecessary web browser.
screenshot (Score:5, Insightful)
So the Windows screen shot application is not good enough, they need to add more bloat to the browser?
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I suspect it takes screenshots of the full page (including what's "below the fold") and not just what's visible on the screen
Re: screenshot (Score:2)
But the OS knows when a widget has scroll bars. At least if the OS has a standardized widget kit, like any sane OS. So it should be able to shoot the entire content upon choosing to limit the shot to a particular widget.
In any case, this is just printing the page but with the screen stylesheet, and on a single sheet of paper the size of the page with no borders, and saving it as a picture instead.
So yay... triplication of functionality! The WhatWG crowd will love it!
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So the OS should just "shoot the entire content" of pixels that have not been rendered, because they are not visible?
Printing and taking a screenshot are two completely different things. And the OS doesn't know if your application supports printing, let along making it print to this mythical page-with-no-borders-and-is-actually-an-image-instead-of-a-page.
So you're now advocating for additional bloat in the OS to implement functionality that you think should be available to "any sane OS" but actually does no
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Replying instead of modding you down.
The screenshot feature being added to Edge allows you to scroll the page while selecting the screenshot region, allowing your screenshot to capture more of the page than what was visible in the browser window initially.
The Windows screenshot feature doesn't know about scrollbars, it only knows about pixels on the screen, so to achieve the same functionality you'd need to take multiple screenshots, manually scrolling the page between each one, and stitching them together.
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OK, I usually either zoom out, print as PDF or save the web page as HTML instead of doing that.
Still, it sounds like a feature which is not going to be used by most people, and would better left as an extension instead of adding bloat to the browser.
Or they could improve the windows screen shot tool. It's the same company after all.
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So you're calling this functionality in the browser "bloat", but then you're also calling for this bloat that's currently limited to a single application to be expanded to the OS instead?
It seems pretty clear that neither you nor BAReFO0t (making a similar reply to the comment above here) aren't developers in any fashion. Controls that aren't visible aren't rendered, so the OS screenshot tool has no way of getting those pixels from the application because the application hasn't drawn them yet. And you can't
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It seems pretty clear that neither you nor BAReFO0t (making a similar reply to the comment above here) aren't developers in any fashion.
Wrong.
This is functionality that can only be reliably implemented within the application itself.
Even if it's the case, that's what extensions are for. That corner case most people won't ever use.
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So you're calling this functionality in the browser "bloat", but then you're also calling for this bloat that's currently limited to a single application to be expanded to the OS instead?
Yes. Duplicating the functionality (both in the OS and in the browser) is bloat. You should need two different ways of taking a screen shot.
ISPs will love that (Score:2)
Hundreds of millions of people at work watching their dogs and cats (and wives/husbands) at home.
For free.
Is Edge embedded like IE was (Score:2)
Does it also include THAT amazing feature, since IE just *HAD* to be embedded into the lowest part of Windows so that it always "had to
Forgot the kitchen sink... (Score:2)
... to attach to those kitchen sinks.
Seriously, did that crowd of morons that develops browsers ever hear of modularity?