Technology
Microsoft needs some time to ‘refine’ updates for Copilot AI in Windows
Microsoft’s latest Windows Insider blog posts say that when it comes to testing new Copilot features in Windows 11, “We have decided to pause the rollouts of these experiences to further refine them based on user feedback.” For people who already have the feature, “Copilot in Windows will continue to work as expected while we continue to evolve new ideas with Windows Insiders.”
We’re expecting to see new Surface laptops powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite processors that run Windows on Arm and compete with Apple’s M3-powered MacBook Air. Meanwhile, new features for Windows are expected to include an AI Explorer app that resembles the old Windows 10 Timeline feature that remembered what you were doing and allowed users to pick up tasks across different devices, and play up the idea of a “Copilot for every person.”
Copilot features Microsoft recently tested in the preview include one where the Copilot taskbar icon animated to show when the AI assistant could help. You could then hover the mouse icon over it to see your options, like getting an AI-generated summary of text.
Another allowed Copilot in Windows to pop out of the sidebar and into a normal application window, which users could resize and move around. This feature started rolling out to the Canary channel in March.
New builds going out to both the Dev and Beta channels include a fix for Copilot unexpectedly auto-launching after a restart. There’s also a new shortcut in the right-click menu for tabs in File Explorer, allowing users to duplicate the current tab. But for those who keep a close eye on Task Manager, the most important note of all is that Microsoft has updated the units to correctly reflect memory speed, going from the MHz of yesteryear to a DDR-ready MT/s count.
Technology
Head of Canada’s intelligence agency warns Canadians not to use TikTok
Canada’s security agency is trying to dissuade Canadians from using TikTok, telling users that their data is “available to the government of China.”
In an interview with CBC News set to air on Saturday, David Vigneault, the director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, said that “there is a very clear strategy on the part of the government of China … to be able to acquire … personal information from around the world,” the CBC reports.
“They’re using big data analytics, they have amazing computer farms crunching the data, they are developing artificial intelligence … based on using this data,” Vigneault added.
The Chinese government’s ability to access user data is at the forefront of US efforts to regulate — and potentially even ban — the app. Congress passed a bill that would ban TikTok unless it divests from its Beijing-based parent company, ByteDance, in April. TikTok sued the US government over the law in May, arguing that the looming ban is unconstitutional.
TikTok has previously claimed that staffers in China are unable to access US and European users’ data. The company has undertaken two massive corporate restructuring efforts — Project Texas and Project Clover, referring to the US and European endeavors, respectively — to silo off user data from China. US user data is hosted in Oracle’s cloud infrastructure and isn’t supposed to be accessible by anyone outside the US, though a recent report by Fortune suggests efforts to secure US user data have been “largely cosmetic.”
“These assertions are unsupported by evidence, and the fact is that TikTok has never shared Canadian user data with the Chinese government, nor would we if asked,” TikTok spokesperson Danielle Morgan told The Verge.
Technology
Microsoft’s Surface AI event: news, rumors, and lots of Qualcomm laptops
The Snapdragon X Plus is Qualcomm’s entry-level laptop chip. It has 10 cores, 42MB of cache, a maximum multithreaded frequency of 3.4GHz, and an NPU with 45 tera operations per second (TOPS, or how many mathematical calculations it can solve in a second) to assist with fancy-smancy generative AI applications. But keep in mind, TOPS is an arbitrary measurement that can sound more impressive than it is because it doesn’t necessarily take into account the type or quality of those calculations.
Technology
New Teslas might lose Steam
Tesla might be dropping Steam support on some new deliveries of Model X, according to a message from the company shared by a Reddit user who is expecting to take delivery of the long-range version of the electric SUV.
Tesla’s message alerts the customer that the company is “updating the gaming computer” in the Model X and says it’s “no longer capable of playing Steam games.” The message ends with a button for the customer to confirm they will proceed with the delivery.
There’s no indication that other Tesla models will be affected. And we’re not seeing any signs that the automaker plans to remove Steam from current owners’ vehicles through a software update. However, Tesla’s already seems to be leaning toward dropping Steam support for some other models.
Steam isn’t available in the Cybertruck, for example, and Tesla hasn’t said whether it plans on bringing the gaming platform to its bestselling Model Y and Model 3 vehicles, despite newer models sporting improved AMD Ryzen processors. The company has already removed some games over the years, including Sonic the Hedgehog.
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