Microsoft’s controversial “Recall” feature delayed: won’t ship as a day one feature for Copilot+ PCs as initially planned

Microsoft’s Copilot PC+ initiative launches on June 18, when the first PCs with NPUs meeting the company’s minimum requirements for on-device AI performance hut the streets. On these laptops with Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus or Elite profess…

Microsoft’s Copilot PC+ initiative launches on June 18, when the first PCs with NPUs meeting the company’s minimum requirements for on-device AI performance hut the streets. On these laptops with Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus or Elite professors, Windows will be able to leverage the NPU for things like upscaling photos, providing real-time transcripts for video […]

The post Microsoft’s controversial “Recall” feature delayed: won’t ship as a day one feature for Copilot+ PCs as initially planned appeared first on Liliputing.

Microsoft delays Recall again, won’t debut it with new Copilot+ PCs after all

Recall will go through Windows Insider pipeline like any other Windows feature.

Recall is part of Microsoft's Copilot+ PC program.

Enlarge / Recall is part of Microsoft's Copilot+ PC program. (credit: Microsoft)

Microsoft will be delaying its controversial Recall feature again, according to an updated blog post by Windows and Devices VP Pavan Davuluri. And when the feature does return "in the coming weeks," Davuluri writes, it will be as a preview available to PCs in the Windows Insider Program, the same public testing and validation pipeline that all other Windows features usually go through before being released to the general populace.

Recall is a new Windows 11 AI feature that will be available on PCs that meet the company's requirements for its "Copilot+ PC" program. Copilot+ PCs need at least 16GB of RAM, 256GB of storage, and a neural processing unit (NPU) capable of at least 40 trillion operations per second (TOPS). The first (and for a few months, only) PCs that will meet this requirement are all using Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Plus and X Elite Arm chips, with compatible Intel and AMD processors following later this year. Copilot+ PCs ship with other generative AI features too, but Recall's widely-publicized security problems have sucked most of the oxygen out of the room so far.

The Windows Insider preview of Recall will still require a PC that meets the Copilot+ requirements, though third-party scripts may be able to turn on Recall for PCs without the necessary hardware. We'll know more when Recall makes its reappearance.

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This photo got 3rd in an AI art contest—then its human photographer came forward

Humans pretending to be machines isn’t exactly a victory for the creative spirit.

To be fair, I wouldn't put it past an AI model to forget the flamingo's head.

Enlarge / To be fair, I wouldn't put it past an AI model to forget the flamingo's head. (credit: Miles Astray)

A juried photography contest has disqualified one of the images that was originally picked as a top three finisher in its new AI art category. The reason for the disqualification? The photo was actually taken by a human and not generated by an AI model.

The 1839 Awards launched last year as a way to "honor photography as an art form," with a panel of experienced judges who work with photos at The New York Times, Christie's, and Getty Images, among others. The contest rules sought to segregate AI images into their own category as a way to separate out the work of increasingly impressive image generators from "those who use the camera as their artistic medium," as the 1839 Awards site puts it.

For the non-AI categories, the 1839 Awards rules note that they "reserve the right to request proof of the image not being generated by AI as well as for proof of ownership of the original files." Apparently, though, the awards did not request any corresponding proof that submissions in the AI category were generated by AI.

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Shackleton died on board the Quest; ship’s wreckage has just been found

“His final voyage kind of ended that Heroic Age of Exploration.”

Ghostly historical black and white photo of a ship breaking in two in the process of sinking

Enlarge / Ernest Shackleton died on board the Quest in 1922. Forty years later, the ship sank off Canada's Atlantic Coast. (credit: Tore Topp/Royal Canadian Geographical Society)

Famed polar explorer Ernest Shackleton famously defied the odds to survive the sinking of his ship, Endurance, which became trapped in sea ice in 1914. His luck ran out on his follow-up expedition; he died unexpectedly of a heart attack in 1922 on board a ship called Quest. The ship survived that expedition and sailed for another 40 years, eventually sinking in 1962 after its hull was pierced by ice on a seal-hunting run. Shipwreck hunters have now located the remains of the converted Norwegian sealer in the Labrador Sea, off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada. The wreckage of Endurance was found in pristine condition in 2022 at the bottom of the Weddell Sea.

The Quest expedition's relatively minor accomplishments might lack the nail-biting drama of the Endurance saga, but the wreck is nonetheless historically significant. "His final voyage kind of ended that Heroic Age of Exploration, of polar exploration, certainly in the south," renowned shipwreck hunter David Mearns, who directed the operation, told the BBC. "Afterwards, it was what you would call the scientific age. In the pantheon of polar ships, Quest is definitely an icon."

As previously reported, Endurance set sail from Plymouth, Massachusetts, on August 6, 1914, with Shackleton joining his crew in Buenos Aires, Argentina. By January 1915, the ship had become hopelessly locked in sea ice, unable to continue its voyage. For 10 months, the crew endured the freezing conditions, waiting for the ice to break up. The ship's structure remained intact, but by October 25, Shackleton realized Endurance was doomed. He and his men opted to camp out on the ice some two miles (3.2 km) away, taking as many supplies as they could with them.

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IV infusion enables editing of the cystic fibrosis gene in lung stem cells

Approach relies on lipid capsules like those in the mRNA vaccines.

Abstract drawing of a pair of human hands using scissors to cut a DNA strand, with a number of human organs in the background.

Enlarge (credit: DrAfter123)

The development of gene editing tools, which enable the specific targeting and correction of mutations, hold the promise of allowing us to correct those mutations that cause genetic diseases. However, the technology has been around for a while now—two researchers were critical to its development in 2020—and there have been only a few cases where gene editing has been used to target diseases.

One of the reasons for that is the challenge of targeting specific cells in a living organism. Many genetic diseases affect only a specific cell type, such as red blood cells in sickle cell anemia, or specific tissue. Ideally, to limit potential side effects, we'd like to ensure that enough of the editing takes place in the affected tissue to have an impact, while minimizing editing elsewhere to limit side effects. But our ability to do so has been limited. Plus, a lot of the cells affected by genetic diseases are mature and have stopped dividing. So, we either need to repeat the gene editing treatments indefinitely or find a way to target the stem cell population that produces the mature cells.

On Thursday, a US-based research team said that they've done gene editing experiments that targeted a high-profile genetic disease: cystic fibrosis. Their technique largely targets the tissue most affected by the disease (the lung), and occurs in the stem cell populations that produce mature lung cells, ensuring that the effect is stable.

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Civilization-like Ara blurs lines between hot-seat and play-by-mail multiplayer

Plus, the game promises an innovative approach to turn-based multiplayer.

We haven't written much about Ara: History Untold, a new historical turn-based strategy PC game that's been in the works for a few years now. Part of that's because its publisher, Xbox Game Studios, hasn't put much fanfare behind it; it wasn't even mentioned in Microsoft's not-E3 extravaganza last week.

But perhaps both we and Microsoft should be putting more of a spotlight on it, given that it now has a release date: September 24, 2024. The game will be released on Steam and Xbox Game Pass for PC simultaneously.

The date was announced during an Official Xbox Podcast interview (and accompanying blog post) with Marc Meyer, president of Oxide Games, the studio developing Ara. The podcast covered more than just the release date, though, with Meyer offering up some new gameplay details—particularly about how multiplayer will work.

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“Simulation of keyboard activity” leads to firing of Wells Fargo employees

With worker surveillance on the rise, vendors sell devices to fake keyboard and mouse movement.

Signage with logo at headquarters of Wells Fargo Capital Finance, the commercial banking division of Wells Fargo Bank, in the Financial District neighborhood of San Francisco, California, September 26, 2016.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)

Last month, Wells Fargo terminated over a dozen bank employees following an investigation into claims of faking work activity on their computers, according to a Bloomberg report.

A Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) search conducted by Ars confirmed that the fired members of the firm's wealth and investment management division were "discharged after review of allegations involving simulation of keyboard activity creating impression of active work."

A rise in remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the adoption of remote worker surveillance techniques, especially those using software installed on machines that keeps track of activity and reports back to corporate management. It's worth noting that the Bloomberg report says the FINRA filing does not specify whether the fired Wells Fargo employees were simulating activity at home or in an office.

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Microsoft in damage-control mode, says it will prioritize security over AI

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is now personally responsible for security flaws.

Brad Smith, vice chairman and president of Microsoft, is sworn in before testifying about Microsoft's cybersecurity work during a House Committee on Homeland Security hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on June 13, 2024.

Enlarge / Brad Smith, vice chairman and president of Microsoft, is sworn in before testifying about Microsoft's cybersecurity work during a House Committee on Homeland Security hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on June 13, 2024. (credit: SAUL LOEB / Contributor | AFP)

Microsoft is pivoting its company culture to make security a top priority, President Brad Smith testified to Congress on Thursday, promising that security will be "more important even than the company’s work on artificial intelligence."

Satya Nadella, Microsoft's CEO, "has taken on the responsibility personally to serve as the senior executive with overall accountability for Microsoft’s security," Smith told Congress.

His testimony comes after Microsoft admitted that it could have taken steps to prevent two aggressive nation-state cyberattacks from China and Russia.

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The rent is too dang high in Cities: Skylines 2, so the devs nuked the landlords

It was getting so bad, people were actually suggesting building more homes.

Cities: Skylines 2 shot of a house

Enlarge / Remember, folks inside those polygons: If your housing feels too expensive, spend less money on resource consumption. It's just math. (credit: Paradox Interactive)

City building simulations are not real life. They can be helpful teaching tools, but they abstract away many of the real issues in changing communities.

And yet, sometimes a game like Cities: Skylines 2 (C:S2) will present an issue that's just too timely and relevant to ignore. Such is the case with "Economy 2.0," a big update to the beleaguered yet continually in-development game, due to arrive within the next week or so. The first and most important thing it tackles is the persistent issue of "High Rent," something that's bothering the in-game citizens ("cims" among fans), C:S2 players, and nearly every human living in the United States and many other places.

C:S2 has solutions to high rent, at least for their virtual citizens. They removed the "virtual landlord" that takes in rent, so now a building's upkeep is evenly split among renters. There's a new formula for calculating rent, one that evokes a kind of elegant mathematical certainty none of us will ever see:

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Lilbits: Samsung Galaxy Watch FE, LineageOS for the Chromecast 4K, and a closer look at Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X chips

The first laptops with Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon X Elite and Snapdragon X Plus chips will be available starting June 18th. Over the past few months Qualcomm has released benchmarks and some limited details about its new processors, which it says…

The first laptops with Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon X Elite and Snapdragon X Plus chips will be available starting June 18th. Over the past few months Qualcomm has released benchmarks and some limited details about its new processors, which it says offer best-in-class performance-per-watt. Now the chip maker has provided additional technical details for folks that […]

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