Microsoft's Windows 10 Taskbar update that adds a customizable "News and Interests" widget is finally available to the general public.

The widget, which opens a panel of tiles displaying personalized news, weather, traffic, stocks, and sports information, was first released in January as part of the Windows 10 Insider program; according to the Windows Blog, the widget will be available "in the over the next few weeks" and will be rolled out to the official version of Windows 10.

In previous versions of Windows, the Start menu was cluttered with various news and weather tiles. Clicking on this icon will bring up an expanded window with the full set of tiles.

These tiles display news stories from across MSN, including sources such as USA Today, Quartz, Business Insider, Politico, and NBC Sports. Clicking on a story opens a "streamlined reading experience" as opposed to opening the story in a full browser window.

Central to News and Interests is the ability to fine-tune content preferences. For example, one can exclude sports or stock content, or select specific topics one would like to read more about.

The aforementioned weather icons can also be personalized, with or without text detailing the current local conditions. Hovering over the icon will display additional weather information without having to open the entire "News and Interests" window.

While some users may not want to share any more personal information with Microsoft, this taskbar update seems like a useful little upgrade ahead of the Windows 10 Sun Valley update scheduled for later this year. That said, it would be nice if Microsoft could find a way to reduce News and Interest's RAM usage.