Microsoft is starting to test a new feature of Windows 10 called "News and Interests" in Windows 10 Insider Dev Channel. The flow of news, weather and other information can be personalized and most importantly, completely turned off for those who are not interested.
Today's version of Dev Channel build 21286 comes from the RS_Prerelease ring. This means that this feature is included in the list of features that may (or may not) appear in a future version of Windows 10. I guess it will be in Windows 10 21H2, after testing.
The News and Interests feature is similar to the news feed that Microsoft displays through the app Launcher and Bing search pages. Microsoft's decision to bring such an add-on to the taskbar is attributed to the "stay in your feed" concept. Why spend some time loading some other app instead of looking at your taskbar?
This new feed feature is probably the work of the Microsoft team (WebXT), which develops content services for Bing, Edge, MSN products.
Microsoft says the News and Interests feature will be a seamless experience advertisements, which will evolve over time based on customer feedback.
To turn off the News and Interests feature, you can right-click on the taskbar.
The feature is currently only available to Windows Insiders in the United States, Canada, Great Britain, the Australia and India. The feature requires the new browser to be installed Microsoft Edge based on Chromium. Microsoft executives said they were experiencing "different variations of this experience, so some Insiders will see different things than others."
For more information see Microsoft publication.