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That report from a few weeks ago was spot-on. As The Information‘s sources tipped, Microsoft 365 Copilot is adding Anthropic’s AI models. Microsoft announced today that Claude access is now rolling out for beta testers. For starters, it’s being integrated into Copilot’s Researcher and its agent development tool.

“Copilot will continue to be powered by OpenAI’s latest models,” Microsoft’s announcement was quick to stress. Following that report from earlier this month, it was easy to imagine growing tensions between the two. It didn’t help that the story came on the heels of reports of uneasy negotiations between the pair.

Whether or not there’s anything to that, OpenAI models like GPT-5 still fuel most of Copilot… for now. But Microsoft 365’s Researcher now allows testers to use Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.1. Copilot’s reasoning tool launched earlier this year. It’s designed to help you “tackle complex, multistep research.”

Microsoft posted the brief video below. It shows a new “Try Claude” button in the upper-right corner of the research agent’s interface.

Copilot Studio, Microsoft’s AI agent dev tool, offers similar functionality. There, a drop-down menu lets you choose between OpenAI’s and Anthropic’s models.

Anthropic integration is currently rolling out through Microsoft’s Frontier program. (That’s its optional beta program for AI previews.) After signing up, you’ll need to opt in to use Anthropic. This will all presumably roll out to the wider public later.

This won’t be the end of Copilot’s Anthropic integration. “Anthropic models will bring even more powerful experiences to Microsoft 365 Copilot,” Microsoft’s Charles Lamanna teased.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/microsoft-adds-claude-models-to-copilot-365-185032970.html?src=rss 

Valve has broadly rolled out a new Steam store menu after testing it since July. This redesign is available for the standard Steam PC client, the Steam Deck and Steam Mobile.

The big news here is that the update makes it easier to find stuff you want to play, which is a good move given the clutter of the current Steam store. Everything has been streamlined, with a new search menu existing up top. This search menu includes options for top sellers, new releases, discounted games and more. These criteria were already available, but all options are now grouped together in a nice and colorful menu.

The new “Categories” pull-down menu provides a more tailored feed, as it snags content from your top genres and offers suggested tags to find similar games.

Valve says the pre-existing search bar has gotten some upgrades underneath the hood. It can now offer suggestions based on common searches and can bring up a list of games you’ve recently searched for.

“With these changes, we’re aiming to make your experience smoother and more tailored to your needs,” Steam wrote in a blog post back in July. “We’ve been hearing from players, and experiencing ourselves, that some of the most commonly visited areas of Steam were hard to get to.”

The store update is rolling out now, so check your preferred Steam client to get started. It might be time to start clearing out that long-neglected wishlist.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/pc/valve-rolls-out-a-new-steam-store-menu-to-make-it-easier-to-find-games-190027385.html?src=rss 

YouTube says it will now let viewers dismiss the popups and video suggestions that appear at the end of videos with a new “Hide” button. These end screen popups are a standard part of most YouTube videos, but the company says it received community feedback that viewers wanted to dismiss them so they “focus on the content they’re watching.”

If end screens are bothering you before the video you’re watching has finished, you can now tap or click on a new Hide button in the top right corner of YouTube’s video player to dismiss them. It’s worth noting, though, that the setting only applies to the current video you’re watching, so you’ll have to tap on the Hide button again for each new video you watch. Even with that small annoyance, giving viewers the option is a positive change. End screens might improve a channel or videos metrics, but when they get in the way of watching, you should be able to hide them.

Alongside this new button, YouTube is also changing an interface element on the desktop version of the video platform. Now you’ll no longer see a “Subscribe” button when you hover your mouse over a video’s watermark — a feature that was already redundant because of the dedicated Subscribe button under each video.

YouTube claims neither of these changes will prevent video creators from adding things like end screens or watermarks if they want to, and the tweaks themselves only have a minor effect on the views or subscriptions a channel earns. “Giving users the option to hide end screens resulted in a less than 1.5 percent decrease in views from end screens,” YouTube claims. Meanwhile, “less than ~0.05 percent of all channel subscriptions come from the hover-to-subscribe functionality on the video watermark,” so removing the option isn’t much of a loss.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/youtube-will-finally-let-you-hide-popups-at-the-end-of-videos-183002850.html?src=rss 

Nearly 15 years in, Instagram has passed a new milestone: the app now reaches 3 billion monthly users, Mark Zuckerberg shared in a post on Threads. That’s up from 2 billion monthly users in 2022.

Meta doesn’t regularly share monthly or daily user numbers for its “family” of apps, but Facebook reached 2 billion daily users in 2023; WhatsApp passed 2 billion monthly users in 2020. The company reported 3.48 billion “daily active people” across facebook, WhatsApp and Messenger last quarter.

Meta shared the latest metric as it reportedly plans some significant changes to Instagram. According to Bloomberg, Meta will soon make Reels an even more prominent part of the app. Instagram exec Adam Mosseri told the publication that users will see a redesigned navigation bar that will “highlight private messaging and Reels.” The company will also run a test in South Korea and India that will allow users to set Reels as the default feed for the app. (Instagram’s newly-announced iPad app already makes Reels the default feed in order “to reflect how people use bigger screens today,” the company has said.)

It’s probably no coincidence that these changes come as the United States government edges closer toward an agreement that will put the US version of TikTok largely in the hands of US-based investors. Despite more than a year of uncertainty surrounding the app’s future in the United States, TikTok is still a formidable competitor to Meta more broadly and Instagram specifically.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/instagram-reaches-3-billion-monthly-users-160554420.html?src=rss 

When it comes to cooking meat, finding that all-important sweet spot between under- and over-cooked can be tricky to get right every single time. That is, unless you’re using one of the ThermoWorks instant-read thermometers that we’ve been big proponents of for a long time. And right now our favorite one is down to a record low of $76 in select colors, as part of the brand’s fall warehouse sale. Usually priced at $109, you’re saving $33 if you pick one up now.

The Thermapen One records accurate temperatures in an instant (specifically one second or less), which can be the difference between a perfectly medium-rare steak and one that requires a bit too much chewing. This model also has a handy auto-rotating backlit display that allows you to easily see the reading regardless of how you’re holding it. It also has useful auto-wake and sleep features, which again, are useful when doneness deals in seconds. An IP67 waterproofing rating means you don’t have to worry about it getting splashed. That said, the thermometer isn’t suitable for dishwashers, so keep that in mind.

The Thermapen One took home our best thermometer award, so this is definitely a deal we’d confidently recommend taking advantage of, but it isn’t the only one available right now. ThermoWorks’ sale also includes offers on its various BBQ alarm thermometers, battery banks, kitchen utensils and more. You can shop all the deals here.

Follow @EngadgetDeals on X for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/the-thermoworks-thermapen-one-is-30-percent-off-right-now-163043164.html?src=rss 

Search Live is now available for Google app users in the US, offering real-time, multimodal search, powered by AI. This feature will enable users to have real-time conversations with Google Search in AI Mode while sharing their phone’s camera feed with the app. Search will be able to see and interpret what the user’s camera is focused on and offer relevant links for deeper context, as well as live guidance.

The new feature can be accessed from a new “Live” icon beneath the search bar in the Google app. It can also be used from Google Lens by selecting the Live option at the bottom of the screen. Camera sharing will be enabled by default here to allow for an instant back-and-forth conversation about whatever is in front of you.

Search Live is available through the Google app on iOS and Android now. This wider rollout only supports English for now.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/googles-ai-search-live-is-now-available-to-all-us-app-users-151849371.html?src=rss