An anonymous reader quotes a report from Tom's Guide: Microsoft Teams is about to deal a heavy blow to those who like to work from home for peace and quiet. In a new feature update rolling out December 2025, the platform will track a worker's location using the office Wi-Fi, to see whether you're actually there or not. From a boss' perspective, this would eliminate any of that confusion as to where your team actually is. But for those people who have found their own sanctuary of peaceful productivity by working from home, consider this a warning that Teams is about to tattle on you. According to the Microsoft 365 roadmap: "When users connect to their organization's Wi-Fi, Teams will automatically set their work location to reflect the building they are working in." The location of that worker will apparently update automatically upon connecting.
It's set to launch on Windows and macOS, with rollout starting at the end of this year. "This feature will be off by default," notes Microsoft. But "tenant admins will decide whether to enable it and require end-users to opt-in."
Halo Studios has created something special for the 25th anniversary of Halo next year. Halo: Campaign Evolved is a full remake of the original Combat Evolved that launched alongside Microsoft’s first Xbox console in 2001. It has a fully rebuilt campaign with 4K visuals, new weapons and vehicles, a four-player online co-op mode, and brand-new story content.
And it’s all coming to the Xbox Series X / S, PC, and — for the first time — PlayStation 5 in 2026.
I’ve been playing a prerelease demo section of The Silent Cartographer mission this week to get a feel for all the changes. It’s the same level that was used as the demo version of Halo: Combat Evolved for both Mac and PC, but this remade version opens immediately with updated cinematics, improved voice lines, and greatly overhauled visuals and animations.
It looks and feels distinctively Halo, but then I started sprinting toward a rebuilt Warthog that has an extra seat at the rear and I realized there’s a lot going on in Campaign Evolved beyond its Unreal Engine 5-powered visuals.
“We did this work on HaloAnniversary. There were certain things that we weren’t able to achieve at that time, there were certain things we weren’t able to do,” says Greg Hermann, technical director at Halo Studios. “As we were building this out, we didn’t just put a coat of paint over the original cinematics. We ended up revisiting exactly how they were blocked out, how they were sequenced, and how they were put together. We’ve done that across the board.”
Halo Studios even brought in the core voice actors of Combat Evolved to re-record their lines. It was something I noticed immediately as The Silent Cartographer mission loaded in. “This really provides a degree of fidelity that we weren’t able to do for HaloAnniversary,” says Hermann.
The iconic vistas in Halo have also been rebuilt, as well as the alien architecture and environments. It’s really designed to be the ultimate remake of the original campaign that’s both welcoming to new players and also built in a way that respects Bungie’s original creation and story.
“Whenever we make a change, the number one thing is to be true to the original game,” says Dan Gniady, lead game designer at Halo Studios. Gniady joined Halo Studios last year and previously worked on the original releases of Bungie’s Destiny and Destiny 2 titles.
Halo Studios has access to the original source assets and code for Halo, as well as the original storyboards. That’s allowed the team to remaster and remix the music alongside the cinematic change and huge visual upgrades. All of the new content in the game is created in UE5, and it’s layered on top of the systems and code used for the original game to maintain that unique Halo feel.
Campaign Evolved includes three new bonus missions. “It was really important that we preserved the original story as it is, so these missions are meant to be a prequel setup for the main chorus,” says Max Szlagor, studio design director at Halo Studios. “These new missions are going to offer some new opportunities for character interactions between Chief and Johnson.” The missions will include new environments, gameplay, characters, and enemies.
There are also new mechanics and AI behaviors. Perhaps the most obvious is the ability to sprint in the game, which makes everything from combat to moving around missions feel a lot faster. There’s even a new seat in the Warthog, affectionately referred to as the golf cart seat or bumper seat by Halo Studios’ developers. It will be ideal for co-op missions, as someone can now hang off the rear of the Warthog.
Up to four people can play this campaign together online, regardless of what platform they’re on, thanks to crossplay and shared progression across console and PC. There’s also two-player split-screen co-op local play on consoles, just like the original game. “We will make some of the spaces larger, and we also want to make sure we’re authentic to the encounters themselves,” says Szlagor. “So it’s a balancing act between that difficulty tuning and making those encounters the right size for the right space.”
Halo Studios has rebuilt every part of the original game so movement, aiming, and weapons and look and feel like a modern Halo game.
All of the weapons have been remodeled and rebuilt with higher fidelity, so the look, feel, and sound of weapons is far better than what Halo Studios achieved with the remastered versions; the plasma effects from guns will even fully light up the indoor environments. You can also aim down sights with all guns now, and there are nine additional weapons from across the Halo series available in Campaign Evolved — including the ability to pick up an Energy Sword after you’ve killed an Elite. If you’re a fan of the vehicles in Halo, you’ll even be able to hijack enemy ones, so you can pilot a fully drivable Wraith in this campaign.
If you want to amp up the difficultly, Halo Studios is leaning even more on skulls in this remake, the gameplay modifiers from Halo: The Master Chief Collection. There are dozens of skull options in Campaign Evolved, “the most we’ve ever had in a Halo game,” says Szlagor. There are so many that the developers don’t think it will even be possible to complete the game on legendary mode with all skulls turned on. “There’s a lot, so if you can do a true legendary all-skulls-on run, let us know because I’d love to see it,” says Gniady. I’m sure a hardcore Halo fan will find a way next year, though.
Halo Studios has remade entire environments in Campaign Evolved.
The one thing that’s missing from Campaign Evolved is multiplayer.The original game had local multiplayer and maps, but it launched before Xbox Live, so there was never any official online multiplayer. While the PC version added online play, Halo Studios is sticking purely to the campaign element of the original Halo game. The Halo franchise is known for its multiplayer, but this really started with Halo 2. I did ask Microsoft to comment about the lack of multiplayer, but the company refused to discuss it.
Even without multiplayer, Campaign Evolved is a blueprint for future Halo games. “For future titles, we will continue to push the boundaries of technology while ensuring the core Halo gameplay for that game can be seen, felt, heard, and evolved where needed,” says Hermann.
Halo: Campaign Evolved is coming in 2026 to the Xbox Series X / S, PC, and PS5. It’ll be a day one game with Game Pass Ultimate / PC Game Pass, and will also support Xbox Cloud Gaming and Xbox Play Anywhere.
Swift has matured significantly over the past decade — extending from cloud services to Windows applications, browser apps, and microcontrollers. Swift powers apps and services of all kinds, and thanks to its great interoperability, you can share code across platforms.
The Android workgroup is an open group, free for anyone to join, that aims to expand Swift to Android. Today, we are pleased to announce nightly preview releases of the Swift SDK for Android.
This milestone reflects months of effort by the Android workgroup, building on many years of grassroots community effort. With the SDK, developers can begin developing Android applications in Swift, opening new avenues for cross-platform development and accelerating innovation across the mobile ecosystem.
The Swift SDK for Android is available today, bundled with the Windows installer or downloadable separately for use on Linux or macOS.
Getting Started
We’ve published a Getting Started guide to help you set up your first native Swift code on an Android device. The Swift for Android Examples help demonstrate end‑to‑end application workflows on Android.
The swift-java project enables you to interoperate between Java and Swift. It is both a library and a code generator, enabling you to integrate Swift and Java in both directions by automatically generating safe and performant bindings. To learn about generating bindings to bring your business logic to Android, check out the recent Swift Server Side meetup talk by Mads Odgaard.
Next Steps
This preview release opens many new opportunities to continue improving these tools. We encourage you to share your experiences, ideas, tools and apps on the Swift forums. This post has been published on an associated thread for discussion, and new posts can be shared in the Android category.
The Android workgroup is drafting a vision document, currently under review, for directing future work regarding Swift on Android. This vision will outline priority areas and guide community efforts to maximize impact across the ecosystem. In addition, we maintain a project board that tracks the status of major efforts, as well as official CI for the Swift SDK for Android.
If you’re as excited as we are, join us and help make this ecosystem even better!
A new report from the Potential Project—discussed this week in the Harvard Business Review—highlights how business leaders can leverage AI to improve their focus and help them better engage with employees.
The Hill: After China imposed export restrictions on rare earth minerals used in semiconductors and other key pieces of technology infrastructure, the Trump administration announced plans to take a more active role in ensuring access to the minerals.
Axios: An unidentified foreign nation-state breached major cybersecurity provider F5 last week, exposing more than 80% of Fortune 500 companies and several government agencies. The government shutdown and layoffs at the Stakeholder Engagement Division of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) have slowed response.
CyberScoop: The Cyberspace Solarium Commission, a bipartisan federal commission on cybersecurity strategy, released its fifth annual report this week. The report found lost progress on key cybersecurity goals, due to stalled nominations for key cyber leadership positions and federal budget cuts.
Nextgov: A bipartisan pair of midwestern representatives introduced a new bill this week to support small businesses across the country as they adopt AI. The AI for Mainstreet Act, led by Rep. Mark Alford (R-MO) and Rep. Hillary Scholten (D-MI), would require the Small Business Administration to conduct education, outreach, and guidance on AI opportunities and skill-building.
Fierce Network: Slightly more than 20% of Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) grants will go towards satellite connections, with 3.36 million of the 4.2 million locations reporting access plans. This is the first year satellites are eligible for these grants.
Vermont Public: Vermont allocated $8 million dollars to their supplemental state level broadband program. Funding comes from the American Rescue Plan Act, and will be used to help 2,000 low-income households with long driveways.
StateScoop: Nevada approved $300,000 to improve the state’s cyberthreat analysis and advance a project to create a statewide security operations center. In August, the state’s legislative system was hacked, and attempted attacks on the state have increased 300% in the two months since.
Fast Company: Pilot programs are using AI to produce faster and more accurate storm surge forecasts. If implemented widely, the stronger risk maps and warning systems can save lives, as storm surges are the top cause of damage and death from hurricanes.
Microsoft Threat Intelligence Podcast Microsoft’s 2025 Digital Defense report, released last week, provided a comprehensive overview of the state of cybersecurity. Now, cybersecurity specialists Chloé Messdaghi and Crane Hassold join the Microsoft Threat Intelligence podcast to discuss the report’s findings and its implications for the future of digital safety. (The New Frontlines of Cybersecurity: Lessons from the 2025 Digital Defense Report - October 22, 2025) - 46 minute and 51 second listen.
Voices for Innovation (VFI) is a Microsoft-supported community of technology professionals and everyday Americans committed to advancing discussions about the most important technology policies. As citizen advocates, we champion public policies that foster innovation, support business growth, and enable technology to address societal challenges. Learn more and join here Voices for Innovation
Hi, Insiders! I’m Nicole Toussaint, and I’m a Product Manager on the Teams team. I’m excited to share a new way to leverage Microsoft 365 Copilot in Teams group chats to streamline workflows and collaboration.
A new way to collaborate with Copilot in Teams chats
Many conversations with Copilot happen in a private, one-on-one setting. With this new capability, you will now also be able to add Copilot to Teams chats and engage with it in a group setting.
You can add Copilot to an existing Teams chat, or start a new group chat directly from a one-on-one conversation with Microsoft 365 Copilot. Once added to a chat, Copilot can accomplish many tasks, including but not limited to:
Summarize conversations or answer questions related to chat discussions
Compile information from a document or file, or pull relevant information from the web
Create meeting agendas or project outlines
When responding to prompts, Copilot has access to all the information that the person providing the prompt has access to, ensuring that it can utilize a variety of sources when generating responses. Its responses are grounded in data including:
Documents the prompter has access to
Chat and channel history
Web search (if enabled by admins)
How it works
Open an existing Teams chat.
Type @ Copilot into the chat, then select Copilot from the pop-up options and click Send to add Copilot to the chat.NOTE: You can also add Copilot to any group chat by selecting Add people, agents, and bots in the upper right-hand corner of the chat, then selecting Add agents and bots. Next to Copilot, select Add.
Once added, Copilot will appear in the participants list and automatically send a welcome message to the chat.
Ask Copilot questions anytime by typing @ Copilot in the chat. The full response will automatically be shown to all chat members in cases when the response uses the web to answer the query, and all members of the chat have access to the knowledge sources used to generate the answer.
In cases where Copilot utilizes sources not available to all members of the chat to generate its response, you will receive a response preview only visible to you before it’s shared more broadly. Select Allow to share the preview with the group, or Reject to delete it.
NOTE: If you reject a response, all chat members will receive a message indicating a response could not be shared at this time.
To delete Copilot from a conversation, navigate to the chat roster, and under Agents and bots,select the X button. NOTE: This will not remove your ability to engage with Copilot in private chats.
Tips and tricks
To start a group chat from a one-on-one Microsoft 365 Copilot conversation, select the down arrow next to the Start a new chat button in the top right header, then select Start a group chat in Teams. Enter chat members’ names, as well as the number of messages you want to share to the group from your conversation, and then select Create.
Copilot strives to provide accurate and informative responses based on the data available. Use your own judgment and double-check the facts before making decisions or taking action based on its responses.
Scenarios to try
Try out these prompts to have Copilot answer questions posed by chat participants, locate important information, or create artifacts to aid in group collaboration:
Generate an agenda for this week using the content from the chat and assign items to each team member based on their roles and responsibilities.
Summarize this chat over the last week and provide next steps for the upcoming week.
Summarize today’s news stories and headlines.
Create an FAQ based on this document [link to document/document name].
Known limitations
Copilot cannot be added to meeting chats and chats with yourself.
Copilot cannot be added to the chat roster during chat creation.
Creating a group chat in Teams from the Microsoft 365 Copilot entry point will always create a new chat.
You can only share up to 10 messages from Microsoft 365 Copilot to Teams group chats.
Text-to-image generation is not supported at this time for Copilot in Teams.
The ability to create a Teams group chat from Microsoft 365 Copilot or delete Copilot from a group chat is not currently enabled on mobile devices.
Privacy
Copilot is built upon and complies with Microsoft’s comprehensive approach to security, compliance, and privacy. For more information, see Data, Privacy, and Security for Microsoft 365 Copilot to learn about the standards Copilot was built upon for work and school users.
Requirements
To create, interact with, and manage Copilot in Teams group chats, you must meet the following requirements:
Have a Microsoft 365 Copilot subscription assigned to you.
Be a member of the channel where the agent was created.
People without a Microsoft 365 Copilot license can still communicate with other users as normal. However, they will not be able to @mention Copilot or ask Copilot questions. These users can still read Copilot responses initiated by other users in the chat.
Availability
To use this new feature, you must be a member of the Teams Public Preview on Windows, Mac, Android, iOS, or the web.
To enable your Teams client for the Public Preview, IT administrators must enable Show preview features in their update policy. You can learn more here.
Feedback
We’d love to hear what you think about this feature! Select the thumbs up or down buttons in your Copilot response, or select Settings and more > Feedback in the top-right corner of the Teams app, and then select either Report a problem, Give a compliment, or Suggest a feature to share your thoughts.
While this feature has mitigations in place to avoid sharing offensive or harmful content, you may still see unexpected results – please provide feedback by clicking thumbs down in the summary and providing additional comments in the feedback form. This helps us to improve and minimize this content in the future and proactively address issues in line with our Responsible AI Principles.
Log in
