Windows

Microsoft has been building out its Phone Link tool for connecting Windows and Android together, and it seems it may soon support a new feature in streaming your phone’s camera to your computer.

Link to Windows has been a useful tool for certain Android users that enables them to connect PCs and Windows laptops to their mobile Android devices. Now, Link to Windows is expanding to OnePlus, Oppo, and Realme phones.

Microsoft is launching the “Windows app,” a new service that will stream the company’s full desktop OS to other devices from the cloud, including Chromebooks. However, regular users cannot try it out yet.

What Microsoft was working on with Bing Chat has evolved into something much more – Windows Copilot. Copilot is an AI-powered virtual assistant, much like Google Assistant on the Pixel, except with LLM knowledge.

Google’s Emoji Kitchen has recently expanded, allowing users on just about any device – iPhone, Android, Windows, macOS, and other devices or computers – access weird and unnatural emoji combinations that invoke pure joy.

Following its launch earlier this year, Google is widely expanding the availability of Nearby Share for Windows PCs to nearly all countries around the globe.

One of the tools that I’ve always been a little envious of from Apple’s ecosystem has been AirDrop. While it’s not something I want to use constantly, being able to throw a file from my phone to my computer or vice versa is compelling. Now, that’s finally possible on Android and Windows, as Google has released Nearby Share for the Microsoft-owned platform, and it’s wonderful.

Samsung has been pushing the idea of the Galaxy ecosystem over the past few years, building out features and new devices to let you get things done across every form factor. But where Apple has macOS to offer its customers a full experience on desktop and laptops, Samsung doesn’t have a full desktop OS of its own – DeX doesn’t count. With a suite of software on top of Windows 11, the Galaxy Book 3 Pro 360 is a killer way to round out an ecosystem of Galaxy devices, and it also happens to be an excellent laptop on its own.

The past couple of years have brought the arrival of some much-needed features on Android in the launch and fast expansion of Fast Pair and Nearby Share, but despite Google’s promise over a year ago, neither has arrived on Windows PCs, the company’s own Google TV platform, or even ChromeOS.

Windows 11 famously made it an exhaustive chore to change your default browser, but it has since eased up quite a lot. Now, Google Chrome is rolling out the ability to become your default browser on Windows with a single click.

Android is already a flexible platform, but it seems power users will get even more flexibility in the next major update. Thanks to Android 13, phones such as the Pixel 6 are able to run virtual machines for Windows and Linux with better performance and fewer headaches.

While Chrome OS is Google’s “desktop” platform for laptops and other computers, many Android users turn to Windows for a more powerful operating system. Google is now fully embracing that trend, with plans to bring Nearby Share and Fast Pair to Windows PCs.

The ability to share your copy/paste clipboard between your phone and computer is a neat trick, but one that’s not always been very easy on Android devices. In its latest update, Microsoft has just granted the ability to sync your clipboard across Windows and Android, thanks to SwiftKey.

With the recent release of M1-powered Apple Macs and MacBooks that are capable of running iOS apps, it seems as though on the PC side of the fence we may soon see something similar occur. According to Windows Central, Microsoft’s “Project Latte” could see Android apps run on Windows.