Microsoft Edge has a useful new feature on the accessibility front for those using its Bing AI in the browser.
As Leopeva64 on X (formerly Twitter) noticed, in the earlier test versions of Edge – namely Canary and Dev – Edge Copilot (which might be able to help you snag a Black Friday bargain) has a new option to read the chat aloud.
Edge Copilot now has an option to “read aloud” chats (available in Dev and Canary, controlled rollout): pic.twitter.com/KlFyrAe1fSNovember 19, 2023
After you’ve run a query, there’s a speaker button you can press to have the text response read out to you, and it turns into a pause button during playback – allowing you to stop the read-through temporarily if needed.
Note that this option is part of a phased rollout, the leaker tells us, meaning that even if you are running a test version of Edge, you may not see it just yet – only selected testers will. This is common practice for features in the early preview stages, of course.
Elsewhere in Edge, the New Tab menu (top-right, next to the window minimize control) has a new addition – a list of ‘Recently visited’ websites at the foot of the panel. As you might guess, this is a convenient way to quickly get back to any web page you’ve just been to but have since closed.
Again, that feature is in testing, though just for the Canary version of Edge in this case.
Analysis: Accessibility drive
Microsoft has been doing plenty of work to improve accessibility within Windows 11 and its Edge browser, and this is another piece of that overall puzzle. It’s a small change but one that’ll doubtless be very welcome for those who have been hankering after a reader tool for replies from Edge Copilot.
Granted, this is still in the early stages of development, so it may be some time before it reaches the release version of Edge. Naturally, any feature in testing won’t necessarily be implemented in the finished version of the browser, but in this case, we’d be surprised if it didn’t – given Microsoft’s extensive drive towards better accessibility, as mentioned.
