October 31 tech news roundup: Firefox is getting many new features, Cloud Rebuild lets you reinstall Windows 11 without USB, Copilot for Smart TVs is being discontinued

Mozilla is working on 6 new features for Firefox

Mozilla has revealed a roadmap of Firefox’s development, to highlight 6 upcoming features that will be added to the browser. The first of these is a Mini Window, which will allow you make a tab or a part of the page into a small floating window that stays on top of other tabs. It can help users multi-task with ease. Firefox will soon be able to read web pages aloud to you, even if your phone’s screen has turned off. The read aloud feature is coming to the desktop and Android versions of Firefox. Firefox is adding an offline mode to its Android app, to let users save articles to be viewed when they don’t have access to the internet.

The next feature is another audio-related improvement, the speech to text option will allow users to talk to the browser for voice input. Mozilla says its speech recognition happens on device, i.e.e it works offline once the model has been downloaded. This option is coming to the desktop version of Firefox, and can also transcript content offline.

Mozilla is also fine tuning the built-in VPN in Firefox. Currently, when you enable the VPN, it works across every website. An upcoming change will allow users to choose which websites they want to use the VPN for by setting custom rules on a site-by-site basis. Mozilla has also confirmed that it is bringing its VPN to Firefox on iOS.

Firefox on desktop will soon display a fire button in the Classic Window, it is functionally similar to the Private Window’s Clear Browsing Session option, which deletes all browsing data in one-click. Chipp.in reports that Mozilla has also moved to a faster release cycle, instead of a single update every month, it will release a new Firefox version once every two weeks. This has already begun with Firefox the release of 159.0.

Cloud Rebuild will help you reinstall Windows 11 without USB

Microsoft has introduced a new feature called Cloud Rebuild for Windows 11. You may be aware that Windows 11 already has an option to Reset this PC, but this feature only works when your computer is able to boot to Windows, and stable enough to download the operating system again. When your computer fails to start due to corrupted or broken files or is stuck in a boot loop, you may have to reinstall the operating system. Normally, to do this, you need to connect a USB flash drive with the Windows installer, and start fresh.

Cloud Rebuild has been designed to allow users to reinstall the operating system without using a USB flash drive or an ISO. In case of problem with the OS, users can got to the Settings > System > Recovery to perform a Cloud Rebuild. If your PC cannot start Windows, but can boot to the WinRE troubleshooting menu, you can select Troubleshoot > Windows Cloud Rebuild. IT administrators can initiate a Cloud Rebuild remotely for enterprise managed devices. Cloud Rebuild is available for PCs via the KB5127936 Windows Update.

Microsoft is ending Copilot for Smart TVs

Microsoft is still trying to undo the various Copilot integrations that it introduced over the past couple of years. When Microsoft decided to push a Copilot companion app for Samsung and LG TVs, there was a big uproar against it. LG has begun displaying a popup on its smart TVs to notify users that Copilot support is ending soon. The note mentions that Microsoft has recently decided to end support for Copilot functionality on all TVs. Oddly, there is no ETA as to when Copilot support for TVs will end, the note says that it will be discontinued before the end of the year.

Microsoft’s Copilot strategy has changed significantly in the past few months. The Redmond company recently released a unified Copilot app, merging Copilot and Microsoft 365 Copilot into a single app.

Linux Mint 27 Adrien to be released in December 2026 with several new apps

The next version of Linux Mint will be called Adrien. And it’s not going to be Mint 22.4 or Mint 23, the developer team have decided to change the version numbering to match the upcoming year. So, the next version will be Linux Mint 27. According to the official announcement, Mint 27 will be based on Ubuntu 26.04. It will available in Cinnamon, Xfce and MATE editions.

Earlier this year, the developers opted to shift from a 6-month release schedule to a yearly one. But this also meant that they could implement changes and introduce new features that may have been difficult on a faster release cycle. Mint 27 will come with some new features, the first of which has been confirmed, a built-in alarm functionality. Alarms are available as part of a new Clocks app, which was inspired by Android. It can be used to set recurring alarms, choose custom sounds, and will display notifications even if the app is closed.

According to recent changes made to the Xapp projects on GitHub, Mint 27 will come with several new apps including a Veloccity terminal, a Superlight system monitor, a Xepub ebook reader, and the Unfold archive manager. There’s another reason to look forward to Mint 27, it will finally bring full support for Wayland. The developers have confirmed the Linux distro will retain X11 support.

If the developers stick to their usual process, we can expect a beta version of Linux Mint 27 Adrien to be released in mid or late November, followed by a stable release in December.

Wikimedia’s court filing against OpenAI seeks to protect open knowledge

The Wikimedia Foundation has filed an amicus brief, related to the lawsuit between The New York Times v OpenAI and Microsoft. The nonprofit organization, which hosts Wikipedia and other projects, believes that open knowledge on the web should be protected.

It suggested that a ruling in favor of blanket fair use could reduce the availability of secondary source materials, and lead to a closed web where knowledge is weakened. However, it also noted that a ruling that is too restrictive when it comes to fair use could prevent technological innovation, and would harm open source projects such as Wikipedia, and the open web.

Wikimedia wants a neutral ruling between the two, it says that using copyrighted content for training large language models should be considered fair use. Wikimedia pointed out that it is important especially if the LLMs are different and offer something new compared to the original sources.