Microsoft’s latest Windows 11 preview build in the Beta channel brings new Windows Studio Effects to Taskbar Quick Settings, a new Energy Suggestion feature, and larger widgets.
Windows Studio Effects arrives with Windows 11 22H2 and uses AI to improve audio and video calling across apps like Teams, as well as creator tools and gaming features. But this feature is dependent on the laptop with Neural Processing Unit (NPU), which includes Surface Pro X with SQ1 / SQ2 . processors – co-developed by Microsoft and Qualcomm – as well as Latest SQ3 available as variant of newly announced Surface Pro 9.
Bringing Studio Effects to the taskbar Quick Settings helps you configure camera effects such as background blur, eye contact, and faster auto-framing, while audio effects including Focusing voice, relying on sound processing. The processing of all these effects happens in the NPU.
Studio Effects can still be configured in Settings, so this is a small change, but including it in Quick Settings will assist Microsoft bet on NPU will be the future for desktop and mobile app development.
For recent examplelMicrosoft released $599 Windows-on-Arm developer kit equipped with NPU, Windows Dev Kit 2023 (codenamed Project Volterra). Microsoft wants developers to build NPU-mining desktop applications for AI/ML workloads.
Microsoft is also starting to release Power Recommendations to save energy and battery usage. Users can apply all of Microsoft’s power recommendations, or some of them, such as enabling dark mode and power mode settings for best power efficiency. It’s one of Microsoft’s environmental efforts. Microsoft notes that it is only available to some current users as it is currently collecting feedback.
Other new additions in Builds 22621,885 & 22623.885 includes an expanded view in the Widgets on the Windows 11 widget panel for those who think the original widgets in the panel are too small. Changes will make them easier to see. There is an expand and collapse button in the top right corner of the widget panel, which stays the same size once set up. Again, this is slowly being rolled out.
Build 22623.885 also has many fixes for the taskbar and system tray and File Explorer. Separately, there are also multiple fixes for both build 22621.885 and build 22623.885 for the taskbar and system tray.
