Introducing Copilot+ PCs

https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2024/05/20/introducing-copilot-pcs/

by skilled • 2 years ago

406 581 2 years ago

blogs.microsoft.com

But is it a normal Windows PC that supports normal Windows software or the weird abomination they had last time that supported a few specific apps and nothing else?

goosedragons• 2 years ago

It's normal Windows, just on ARM. Windows on ARM already supports x32 and x64 emulation. Pretty much the only stuff that doesn't work is hardware drivers (to be expected) and games with kernel level anti-cheat (also expected). They've also announced a new 20% faster x64 emulation layer. Recently there's been a big push of apps getting native ARM ports too, Chrome for example.

TiredOfLife13• 2 years ago

The Chrome one was interesting as Chromium and as conequence VSCode and Edge had arm versions for years

TiredOfLife13• 2 years ago

For the last 5 years starting with Windows 10 (Snapdragon 835 based devices) you could run any x86 software (that doesn't require driver/drm rootkit) and 64bit emulation was added with Windows 11 (when intel patents ended).

Sometimes it feels like the commenters on HN are being kept in suspended animation for 10 years then revived for a couple of days to comment then put back to sleep.

thesuitonym• 2 years ago

Again?

Rebelgecko• 2 years ago

This time it has AI in it

bithavoc• 2 years ago

It's Windows 8 AI Edition

sockaddr• 2 years ago

AI is now that crusty squirt bottle full of mystery beige sauce they squirt all over everything at the food truck. Yum. Just drench my whole OS in this.

jsheard8• 2 years ago

Yeah I was going to say. The very first Surfaces in 2012-2013 were ARM-based (using Nvidia Tegra), then they switched to Intel, then they tried ARM again in 2019-2020 (using Qcom Snapdragon) then went back to Intel again. Third times the charm?

At the very least they seem to have decent x86 emulation performance this time.

TiredOfLife13• 2 years ago

The last consumer Surface tablet before this was Surface Pro 9 with ARM and it came out less than 2 years ago.

hehdhdjehehegwv4• 2 years ago

Wow, I’m continually floored by how bad Intel shit the bed.

I remember not too long ago the only computer you would see is a “wintel” with a few esoteric graphic designers in Mac.

I guess it’s now “warm”?

coliveira• 2 years ago

And Apple was forced to move the Mac to X64. Intel was completely dominant 15 years ago.

hehdhdjehehegwv4• 2 years ago

Not only that, it probably saved Apple!

Dalewyn9• 2 years ago

Intel (and AMD) are also going to be part of this line of computers:

We look forward to expanding through deep partnerships with Intel and AMD, starting with Lunar Lake and Strix. We will bring new Copilot+ PC experiences at a later date.

I'm not blaming Microsoft for skipping Meteor Lake, it's been an awkward generation to say the least. Of course, if Lunar Lake sees delays then Intel really has shat the mattress.

hehdhdjehehegwv4• 2 years ago

Feel like corpspeak given the vast majority of their products ship on x86. You don’t want to come out and say your current and future products are garbage. Apple could do that because the own the whole stack, but not Microsoft.

jacobgorm• 2 years ago

I hope the Snapdragon D3D12 drivers come with actually working H265 video support, unlike on AMD where this is broken and no one seems to bother to fix it.

dr_2• 2 years ago

If they're true to the demo, the new Surface devices look impressive, with the Surface Pro clearly pushing in the direction that most have wanted the iPad Pro to go for some time. Microsoft has clearly been baking AI into their laptops and the updated Windows 11. Will be interesting to see what Apple has up their sleeves next month.

rychco• 2 years ago

Microsoft calls the new Laptop a “Copilot Plus PC”

I'd rather have a reliable ARM device, sans Copilot - which MS hasn't proved they're capable of yet.

Whether these computers can match or outdo Apple’s custom silicon remains to be seen

I would be shocked if this were ever the case.

srameshc• 2 years ago

Big news here is Qualcomm’s Snapdragon is now for PCs.

RobotToaster• 2 years ago

Could be good if any software can use it for other offline models like stable diffusion.

rcarmo3• 2 years ago

They literally demoed a Stable Diffusion equivalent with ControlNet-style guided drawing.

Animats• 2 years ago

Will this run locally, or is part of the work outsourced?

With "Recall", can law enforcement ask your laptop "Has your user done anything suspicious lately"?

soapdog• 2 years ago

Coverage on Windows Central says it is all local. As for the law enforcement question, it doesn't matter. If they want to get info from your computer, they will and they don't need AI to help.

mlindner2• 2 years ago

As for the law enforcement question, it doesn't matter. If they want to get info from your computer, they will and they don't need AI to help.

This is a poor take. Law enforcement needs a warrant to seize your computer to get your data normally. Law enforcement only needs a compliant and willing corporate person to willingly give over your data to law enforcement. It's about who owns it and where is it located and the protections around it.

matheusmoreira• 2 years ago

If they want to get info from your computer, they will and they don't need AI to help.

They wouldn't be continuously trying to ban encryption worldwide if that was true. There's plenty of things everyone can do to protect themselves.

gigel823• 2 years ago

They made a big deal of saying how private and secure it is, all running locally. However, nothing prevents that from changing in the future.

And for the law enforcement, I presume if they can log into your account, they can likely extract and view everything if you have the feature enabled.

pompino• 2 years ago

can law enforcement ask your laptop "Has your user done anything suspicious lately"?

The logging already exists. Whether the interface is AI or a command line tool is not so interesting.

Besides the "suspicious" stuff has other touch points like Google, ISPs, AWS, etc, etc. Those logs have been easy to get a hold of (with legal backing) - historically speaking.

Hamuko• 2 years ago

Can I call an AI expert as my witness to explain what "hallucination" is?

nerdjon5• 2 years ago

Even if it is run locally, does it sync between your devices?

Considering we seem to be putting safety largely out the window, I can see someone saying "yeah I want to be able to ask my other computer what I did on a different computer" or whatever. Thats valuable! Ignoring the risks that involves.

Also, even if it is run locally that likely means that some sort of additional logging (possibly screenshots given the mention of "photographic memory") on top of what is already in the system logs to achieve this.

Windows 11 LTSC, which will hopefully have these features ripped out, can't come soon enough.

WillAdams• 2 years ago

Windows 11, if one has OneDrive turned on backs _everything_ up in terms of data/files.

I bought a second computer recently which was the same as my Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro 360 --- after setting up Windows I found that it had downloaded _all_ of my files onto the new computer, but the wallpaper wasn't the same --- went to my old one, figured out where the file was and copied it to the desktop. While I was trying to figure out how I'd copy the file over, the file appeared on the desktop of my new computer.

MangoCoffee5• 2 years ago

Locally, it is supposed to take advantage of the new "NPU" that comes with Intel/AMD

richdougherty• 2 years ago

A few details here: "Recall leverages your personal semantic index, built and stored entirely on your device. Your snapshots are yours; they stay locally on your PC. You can delete individual snapshots, adjust and delete ranges of time in Settings, or pause at any point right from the icon in the System Tray on your Taskbar. You can also filter apps and websites from ever being saved. You are always in control with privacy you can trust."

https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2024/05/20/introducing-copi...

J_Shelby_J• 2 years ago

That didn’t answer the ops question.

Are they encrypted? Can Microsoft access them if compelled by law enforcement?

delusional2• 2 years ago

The AI is the least interesting part of this announcement. Microsoft is giving ARM another try with a special branding that's supposed to guarantee some level of performance and quality. That's possibly huge news.

jsheard8• 2 years ago

It's also notable that Qualcomm is officially upstreaming kernel support for the Snapdragon Elite platform that Microsoft is pushing, so those systems may actually not suck at running Linux.

user_78324• 2 years ago

In the past a few Snapdragon 8 Gen x chip dev kits have had Linux support if I recall correctly. I'd love to have built a device out of them but they seem quite expensive unfortunately for consumers ($800-1000, often from grey market sources). It's nonetheless good to see Linux support.

jwells89• 2 years ago

Yeah, “ARM-based Linux laptop with 22h battery life” is much more interesting to me than “Windows 11 ARM-based AI PC”. If the TPU can eventually be utilized by open models under Linux that’s just a cherry on top.

pentagrama• 2 years ago

Yes, and Lenovo is releasing a new Qualcomm-powered ThinkPad, which are known to be a Linux-friendly laptops.

The ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 is, of course, business-focused. It will have the same Snapdragon chip, storage capacity, and webcam but will support up to 64GB of memory and one of three 14-inch display options: an IPS with up to 400 nits of brightness; an IPS touch display; or an OLED that covers 100 percent of the DCI-P3 color gamut, also with 400 nits of brightness.
Lenovo expects the Yoga Slim 7x 14 Gen 9 to start at $1,199 and the ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 to start at $1,699. Both will be available in June.

Source: https://www.theverge.com/2024/5/20/24160819/lenovo-qualcomm-...

temac2• 2 years ago

I thought Microsoft requires UEFI + secure boot for Windows, and with no disabling option in the firmware setup, for Windows Arm PC? Or maybe it was "only" Microsoft Secure Boot and you can actually use a Linux distro? If this is the latter case, can you build and run the kernel you want or not?

dingle_thunk• 2 years ago

Microsoft has been consistently trying to give ARM a try since the surface RT. Consumers are not going to bite. marginal power saving is not meaningful.

jsheard8• 2 years ago

The first iteration of Windows ARM didn't have any x86 emulation layer, so that one was doomed from the start. The second iteration did, but it initially couldn't run 64bit apps and the performance was poor. They do have 64bit support now and it sounds like the emulation performance has come a long way.

dboreham• 2 years ago

I'm a Windows ARM user (Surface Pro X). For me the benefits (fanless, battery not running down randomly in your backpack, phone charger compatibility, integrated LTE, 16G RAM in that envelope), are worthwhile.

andersa2• 2 years ago

No one cares for power saving. Turn it into higher performance at same power usage and people will bite. Of course it has to actually be a real upgrade like the Apple Silicon chips were.

neverokay• 2 years ago

Think it’s worth mentioning that their Qualcomm exclusive windows laptop deal ends soon and this should allow AMD and NVIDIA to ramp up (arm) windows laptop cpus soon within the next few years.

dr_2• 2 years ago

Really? The Recall feature is pretty interesting and potentially quite useful. I see their AI implementation as V 1.0 of bigger things to come.

chucke19925• 2 years ago

The huge news is indeed that this time vendors support Microsoft's ARM efforts.

Dalewyn9• 2 years ago

Not quite. Hidden at the very end of Microsoft's blognouncement[1] is this tidbit (emphasis mine):

We look forward to expanding through deep partnerships with Intel and AMD, starting with Lunar Lake and Strix. We will bring new Copilot+ PC experiences at a later date.

So it's less Microsoft pivoting to and giving ARM a try again but rather testing the waters and distributing the risks by introducing ARM into a line of laptops and tablets that will still be fundamentally x86. Arguably, the only reason ARM is first to store shelves is because Qualcomm released this generation first before Intel and AMD.

This isn't as significant as Apple throwing Intel out to pasture and converting to ARM wholesale, not yet anyway.

[1] https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2024/05/20/introducing-copi...

genewitch7• 2 years ago

apple never wanted to use intel hardware, they were forced to by motorola/IBM et al; whoever was selling them the PowerPC chips told them to pound sand because the xbox and playstation needed way more PPC chips than apple. Apple made a business decision to switch to intel, which caused a bit of a to-do in the community at the time. That apple switched off intel at their earliest possible chance - that which took time to "design" their own ARM cpu - doesn't really mean anything, in my opinion.

I wonder how many people remember all of the hardware platforms that NT 3.51 and NT 4 ran on (Sparc, etc)

macintux• 2 years ago

Microsoft has no courage. They have to keep catering to every possible audience, so they’re not willing to pull the plug on x86, which means ARM will always play second fiddle.

rcarmo3• 2 years ago

I don't think the Intel or AMD chips will be (literally) as cool. AMD mini-PCs are _close_ to what an M1 can do, but still too power-hungry and slow.

CharlesW• 2 years ago

Microsoft is giving ARM another try with a special branding that's supposed to guarantee some level of performance and quality.

I hope so. I've been a happy Windows for Arm user (via Parallels on Apple Silicon) for a year+ and it's been good. Based on that, I think drivers are going to be the biggest PITA for ARM-based PC users for the first couple years — for example, Google Drive doesn't work for that reason.

abdusco• 2 years ago

I tried Windows on UTM (based on qemu, I believe) and the graphics were choppy. I attributed that to the lack of graphics acceleration. Is it also the same on Parallels?

ZeroWidthJoiner• 2 years ago

I think drivers are going to be the biggest PITA for ARM-based PC users for the first couple years — for example, Google Drive doesn't work for that reason.

Google Drive does ship with Arm64 drivers, and patching the platform check out of the installer gets them installed just fine (40 84 f6 74 08 -> 40 84 f6 90 90).

No idea why they're blocking the install.

joshuakogut• 2 years ago

'AI' is frequently the least interesting part of any announcement.

kyriakos• 2 years ago

Unfortunately announcement was very thin on actual details. For example is the new surface fanless? How's the battery etc?

Marsymars2• 2 years ago

As a fan (heh) of fanless PCs, it's remarkably difficult to filter based on that info.

dagmx2• 2 years ago

An interview with Satya and the WSJ indicates it is actively cooled. Joanna asks him whether you’ll be able to hear the fans and he says they’re quiet versus missing.

mmcnl3• 2 years ago

Exactly. They're now aggressively competing with Apple with supposedly better performance and better battery life. That's huge. Apple was years ahead with the introduction of the M1 but it appears competition has finally caught up. All of this has to be proven in real life though, but so far all the newly announced ARM devices [0] look like impressive MacBook competitors on their own.

[0] So far it seems this are the devices that have been announced.

Microsoft: Surface Laptop 7, Surface Pro 11

Dell: XPS 13, Inspiron 14 and 14 Plus, Latitude 5455, Latitude 7455

HP: OmniBook X and Elitebook X

Lenovo: Yoga Slim 7 and ThinkPad 14s Gen 6.

Samsung: Galaxy Book4 Edge

Acer: Swift 14

bdavbdav• 2 years ago

AIUI the snapdragon x elite they’re based on benches between the M3 and M3 pro for CPU.

wslh4• 2 years ago

I am excited on having an ARM on a PC with Linux support but I never see Windows as an OS optimized for batteries beyond if they use ARM or x86. The Apple advantage continues to be a complete control of the device from hardware to the operating system, while the bloatware of Microsoft Windows makes an arbitrary use of resources.

This is not to say that Microsoft Windows is not an advanced OS, the problem is that it is not laser focus optimized.

mhh__3• 2 years ago

I'd bet a tenner that they've caught up with where apple was 3 years ago rather than 1 year ago, at best.

dagmx2• 2 years ago

They do some sleight of hand when doing the comparisons during the release today.

The Surface Laptop is physically a competitor to the actively cooled MacBook Pro (in fact it’s thicker).

Their performance and battery metrics are against the slimmer and passively cooled MacBook Air.

Their performance comparison is between the M3 and the Snapdragon X Elite when the M3 has throttled (their wording is sustained performance)

Their battery comparison is between the M3 and the Snapdragon X Plus.

That they interchange both freely is a strong tell that their devices don’t compete on all fronts like your comment suggests.

The only area where I think the snapdragon X will compete is price, because they’re claiming it’s $200 lower than a comparable M3 MacBook Air (but don’t disclose the exact comparison).

Still, a very strong showing from Qualcomm/Nuvia. However the sleight of hand leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

hulitu• 2 years ago

Microsoft ... to guarantee some level of performance and quality.That's possibly huge news.

Only when you lived on a remote island, with no access to news. /s

akr4s1a4• 2 years ago

I still won't believe it until reviewers get hands on. In October 2022 I wanted an efficient laptop for web development but didn't want to grab a mac, so I bought a Lenovo Thinkpad X13s with the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3, which Qualcomm made similar promises about and it lived up to exactly 0% of them. The main draw, the battery life was worse than my old Blade 14 that ran Fedora, windows on ARM and their current emulation continues to suck, every so often core services would just not work. The Linux support is only just barely getting there, Ubuntu and Armbian have custom images, where a lot of stuff still doesn't work. The camera will never work because of proprietary blobs and the battery life is way worse than windows, no suspend, audio barely works, etc. And those aren't just problems of Lenovo or that thinkpad it stems from the platform. I ended up buying a macbook a few weeks ago and it was 2 years late, should have got it in the first place.

2019842• 2 years ago

Does anyone know if these chips will have SVE/SME?

2019842• 2 years ago

To answer my own question, it appears the Oryon CPUs do not according to this LLVM patch: https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project/blob/8aebe46d7fdd15f02a...

There's a pretty good interpretation of it here: https://chipsandcheese.com/2024/05/15/qualcomms-oryon-llvm-p...

pseudosavant2• 2 years ago

Unfortunately, even though I wish I could get an M4 (or equivalent) ARM SoC in a PC, it is very unlikely that these chips are going to live up to the hype. Qualcomm has a bad track record of overstating and cherry-picking benchmarks.

All of their claims so far have been both impressive, and very squishy. Microsoft's own messaging around performance and battery life for their Surface devices was also unusually squishy. And I am a huge Surface Pro fan that would love nothing more than a fanless AND fast ARM Surface Pro.

I live in San Diego, and know countless Qualcomm employees, none of them give a shit about anything other than modems really. The rest of the SoC is just something to push 5G. They care as much about CPUs/SoCs as Intel did about 5G modems.

candiddevmike• 2 years ago

Is Microsoft Copilot and GitHub Copilot the same thing?

delusional2• 2 years ago

No. Microsoft aren't even clear with their own copilot branding in the core MS products. In MS-land, anything to do with AI is just labeled Copilot right now.

Handy-Man• 2 years ago

Copilot is Microsoft's branding for all things AI for their products.

adastra229• 2 years ago

Except when it is actually Copilot, in which case they call it "Github Copilot."

yett• 2 years ago

No. It's more like ChatGPT

RedShift1• 2 years ago

Yesn't, just like Teams and Teams are the same thing.

andyp-kw2• 2 years ago

Teams, Teams and Skype.

arcanemachiner• 2 years ago

Come again?

pwarner• 2 years ago

There is also Microsoft 365 Copilot, Microsoft Copilot for Sales and I'm sure several more. Copilot is really great branding, and also really confusing

gmueckl• 2 years ago

This is another example of MS branding that is clear as mud. Skype vs. Skype for Business, Visual Studio vs. Visual Studio Code vs. Visual Studio for Mac, OneNote vs. OneNote for Windows 10...

To my knowledge, each one of the products in this list is a completely different beast despite naming similarities.

TonyTrapp• 2 years ago

And Surface initially was an interactive table (now called PixelSense) before they reused the name for their tablets. Which made it really difficult to find relevant information on developing software for the old Surface after the tablets were announced!

semi-extrinsic• 2 years ago

Nope. They are not even included in the same subscription. At my dayjob we had GitHub Copilot for the developer team for some months before everyone got MS Copilot. I had to spend quite some time explaining to central IT what the difference between these two things are, and do quite some digging into MS documentation to show them that the subscriptions are strictly disjoint.

sensanaty• 2 years ago

Brought to you by the company that has the Xbox, the Xbox One, the Xbox One X and the Xbox Series X (or something like that)

mlindner2• 2 years ago

My only question is how much of the models is being run offline and how much is the computer just siphoning up all the actions you do and feeding it into the cloud. Microsoft has a very bad history with user privacy, especially lately.

jmclnx• 2 years ago

Well I know which model to avoid should I need to pick up new hardware. But to be honest, more then likely I would pick up an old Thinkpad.

skilled• 2 years ago

There is an official link now so hopefully it can be changed as it has more clear details,

https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2024/05/20/introducing-copi...

dang• 2 years ago

Changed now from https://www.theverge.com/2024/5/20/24160486/microsoft-copilo.... Thanks!

sturza• 2 years ago

Microsoft's Strategy and Products:

Microsoft is shifting away from Intel chips, favoring Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon X Elite processors. The new Qualcomm chips boast better performance, power efficiency, and battery life, aiming to compete with Apple Silicon. Microsoft is launching Copilot Plus PCs, featuring built-in AI hardware for enhanced performance.

Surface AI Announcements:

Major updates to the Surface lineup. Introduction of a new era of AI-driven PCs.

Asus Vivobook S 15 (S5507):

Powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon X-series processors. Features 45 TOPS of neural processing power for AI-driven programs. Thinner chassis and display bezels compared to previous models.

DaVinci Resolve AI Features:

Uses Copilot Plus PCs’ neural processing unit for AI color corrections. CPU and GPU offload tasks to the NPU.

Acer Swift 14 AI:

Powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon processors. Supports new AI features in Windows 11. Configurable with up to 32GB of memory and 1TB of SSD storage.

HP Laptop Lineup:

Streamlining of product lines to OmniBook (consumer-focused), EliteBook, and ProBook (corporate-oriented).

Dell Qualcomm Laptops:

Announcing five Qualcomm Snapdragon laptops, including XPS 13 (9345), Inspiron 14, and Latitude models. Offers multiple display options and up to 64GB of memory.

Lenovo Laptops:

Introducing Yoga Slim 7x 14 Gen 9 and a new ThinkPad with Snapdragon processors. Features include up to 32GB of memory, 1TB SSD storage, and a 14.5-inch OLED touch display.

Adobe Creative Cloud on Arm64:

Full Creative Cloud suite available for new Copilot Plus laptops. Native Arm64 versions of Photoshop, Lightroom, Firefly, and Express.

Microsoft Real-time Translation:

New translation feature available across any video calling or entertainment app. Demonstrated real-time translation capabilities.

New Surface Pro:

First Surface Pro with an OLED display. Capable of producing perfect blacks and HDR output. Powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon X processors, up to 90% faster than previous models.

Surface Laptop:

Arm-based Surface Laptop with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite or Plus chip. Configurable with up to 64GB of RAM and 1TB SSD storage. Available in multiple colors.

Copilot Plus PCs:

New branding highlighting built-in AI hardware and support for AI features across Windows. Supported by major laptop manufacturers including Dell, Lenovo, Samsung, HP, Acer, and Asus.

Copilot Assistant:

Upgraded to GPT-4o. Demonstrated guiding a player through Minecraft using GPT-4o for real-time interaction.

Recall Tool:

AI-powered tool that logs and retrieves everything you see and do on your PC. Can track activities in apps, meetings, and web research.

Opera Browser for Windows on Arm:

Native version for Snapdragon-powered Windows devices. Promises over double the speeds of emulated versions.

Dell's Future XPS Plans:

Confidential document leak reveals detailed specs and future plans for XPS 13 variants. Includes multiple display options and Snapdragon X Elite chips.

Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus Processor:

Entry-level laptop chip with 10 cores and 45 TOPS NPU for AI applications. Competes with Apple, Intel, and AMD on speed.

wkat42428• 2 years ago

Huh did Acer take over HP's laptop line? Elitebook and probook were their trademarks.

chucke19925• 2 years ago

Well right now aside Qualcomm nobody else is offering the comparable ARM chip.

theropost• 2 years ago

What are TOPs exactly? Are we using INT? Float? Just trying to grasp the comparison to a TFLOP for instance

whitehexagon• 2 years ago

Can be configured with up to 32GB of memory

From my experience running 'AI' locally I would have expected 32GB to be the minimum spec machine. Assuming memory unification if they try to compete with Apple.

steve_adams_86• 2 years ago

My 32GB machine is remarkably not all that useful for testing and using AI models. It can use some good models, but I’m frequently disappointed by how many I can’t even come close to running.

UncleOxidant• 2 years ago

Came here to say the same. I would expect that you'd want to be able to expand to at least 64GB and probably even more if you want to target the AI market.

jazzyjackson4• 2 years ago

they're not running any LLM locally, the NPU so far is just an accelerator for OCR (for rewind.ai (oops I mean Recall)) and webcam background replacement without a GPU

chucke19925• 2 years ago

Actually the event was pretty cool. Would be neat if everything works as stated.

ffhhj• 2 years ago

And Microsoft sends all that info to their servers for better telemetry right?

NotYourLawyer2• 2 years ago

Everything Microsoft does to Windows these days just makes me want Apple hardware.

arrty88• 2 years ago

Do these qcom powered ARM systems have better battery life for laptops versus intel?

brcmthrowaway• 2 years ago

M$ giving Apple a run for its money.

LogHouse• 2 years ago

I know HN has a large Apple following but as a Windows lover (yah yah, I know), I am very excited about these announcements!

adastra229• 2 years ago

I recently got back into the Windows ecosystem, and I gotta say it's pretty nice. I'm excited too!

aquir• 2 years ago

The only issue is that these all run Windows…bloated, annoying, privacy intrusive in-your-face OS

binkethy2• 2 years ago

That is true. I do not use windows anymore. None of my servers ever ran windows.

One can only pretend that closed source operating systems ate acceptable for so long before one has to address the lack of configurability, in a deep sense.

I found it odd that your comment was greyed out.

I find this disturbing, to be frank.

resource_waste3• 2 years ago

I cannot imagine building on Microsoft in 2024. They have aggressively thrown their weight around doing anti-consumer moves. These are the warning signs they don't need to care about their customers and can fully exploit their market monopoly.

I still have ads after an update in windows 11 pro.

Not to mention I have file explorer bugs and one note path hijacking annoyances.

Legacy software is why we still use windows. There is nothing better about windows than say, Fedora.

wilsonnb32• 2 years ago

Legacy software is why we still use windows. There is nothing better about windows than say, Fedora.

Except, of course, the legacy software support.

whalesalad2• 2 years ago

They’ve been doing this for over 30 years.

eviks3• 2 years ago

There is nothing better about windows than say, Fedora.

Plenty. To base of your comment and the topic: Everything for file search, DOpus for a file manager are much better than anything any Linux can offer

aagha2• 2 years ago

Pay for Pro.

No ads.

tristan9572• 2 years ago

I've been a Pro user. It's still terrible, and has all the failures previously mentioned.

binkethy2• 2 years ago

I suspect that there will be a LOT of TPU e-waste in about 3-5 years. One can call me reactionary, but I see a greater benefit in providing SIMD primitives for known bottlenecks, co-processing for known inner loops, than to continually jump through the hoop of committing passing trends to hardware.

I suspect thst Microsoft will implement brilliantly on a bad idea, but that it still won't gain much traction, as Co-pilot is not the code assistant we need.

But since hammers are in fashion, expect attempts to shoehorn the world into nails.

jeroenhd3• 2 years ago

If vendors will go for strictly on-die TPUs, then maybe. However, I expect these machines to be quite capable without the AI hype.

I hope ar least some laptop vendors will use PCIe cards for their TPUs so that there's an upgrade path of sorts, and reusing older cards for simpler models remains possible.

stanleykm• 2 years ago

LLMs aside I would guess we may see more modest use cases for TPU/NPUs on PC. Phones have been coming with them for several years now - granted with stronger use cases around AR, photo retouching, and voice assistants. Maybe you are right though.

tk90• 2 years ago

The "Recall" part is interesting - I wonder if they're running RAG locally to achieve that? Interested to see how it works under the hood...

amai• 2 years ago

I also would be interested about this. Because I somehow expect that this screen logging feature is ripe for a security disaster. This is not just your browser history. Imagine a video of everything you ever did on your PC ending up in the internet.

walterbell7• 2 years ago

RaaS (RAT-as-a-Service).

andyp-kw2• 2 years ago

I can't remember seeing Qualcomm CPU's before. The name makes me think of WiFi cards.

With Intel stock taking a dive recently, I can't help but feel that the processor landscape is changing.

adastra229• 2 years ago

Qualcomm makes the CPUs in most android devices, as well as VR/AR (e.g. Meta's Quest line). Qualcomm probably makes more CPUs (and GPUs) than any other vendor.

https://www.pcgamesn.com/intel/qualcomm-snapdragon-x-elite-b...

re-thc• 2 years ago

This is Nuvia, whom Qualcomm acquired earlier. They came from Apple before that.

TiredOfLife13• 2 years ago

They have been making cpus for windows for 11+ years

roschdal• 2 years ago

What do we need it for?

999900000999• 2 years ago

1300$ for the 16GB Asus laptop.

That's actually not bad, I'm gonna toss a 4TB M2 in one of these.

I doubt it'll actually clear 18 hours of battery life, but I'd be happy with 10.

DeathArrow4• 2 years ago

I bet Intel is not happy.

MangoCoffee5• 2 years ago

Why? It runs on Intel/AMD's NPU. it's the new buzz "AI" PC in Copmputex 2024

CNBC talking about AI PC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEoStisYAVo

r1chardnl• 2 years ago

Is this is it or did they already lock down "their" hardware so you wouldn't be able to install alongside or solely another operating system? It seems that it's something we shouldn't take for granted as of now that the separation of OS and hardware allows you to install Linux or any other homebrew operating system on "your" computer.

phkahler• 2 years ago

To really be an AI PC, I'd want to be able to run something like llama 3 70B locally, and that's going to need a lot of RAM. Even running a 7B will take 14GB if it's fp16. So these really just need to be able to run a few MS AI apps. A quick googling tells me things like the Gen-AI in photoshop is actually done in the cloud, so that should still work but doesn't really require a special "AI PC".

coder5433• 2 years ago

No, 7B LLMs only need about 4GB of RAM.

There is extremely little quality loss from dropping to 4-bit for LLMs, and that “extremely little” becomes “virtually unmeasurable” loss when going to 8-bit. No one should be running these models on local devices at fp16 outside of research, since fp16 makes them half as fast as q8_0 and requires twice as much RAM for no benefit.

If a model is inadequate for a task at 4-bit, then there's virtually no chance it's going to be adequate at fp16.

Microsoft has also been doing a lot of research into smaller models with the Phi series, and I would be surprised if Phi3 (or a hypothetical Phi4) doesn’t show up at some point under the hood.

Tankenstein2• 2 years ago

The original commenter mentioned 70B, not 7B.

imiric• 2 years ago

You're not the intended market for this product. This is aimed at the general consumer who is interested in a fully tailored experience powered by "AI", and doesn't care whether the magic happens locally or in the cloud, not at someone who wants to run arbitrary models locally and tinker with the experience. Whether these machines can be repurposed for what you want to do, and whether the experience will be worth it, is yet to be seen.

wmf4• 2 years ago

These laptops have up to 64 GB RAM which should be enough to run 70B models (quantized).

drevil-v2• 2 years ago

Being the designated "tech" person for my extended family and friends circle, I don't think I could recommend this to any of them because of the privacy nightmare.

At least with Apple you have a single vendor who is vertically integrated and makes a huge song and dance about data privacy. Even if you discount their PR and marketing spin, IMHO you are still miles ahead of the likes of Microsoft + (pick one) HP, Asus, Lenovo and the rest of them.

There is no way I would trust any of them not to take advantage of the data gold mine.

resource_waste3• 2 years ago

At least with Apple
Even if you discount their PR and marketing spin,

It doesnt seem like you were able to do that.

lolinder• 2 years ago

Are they actually collecting new data to enable these features? Or is all of this data collected no matter what version of Windows you have installed?

It seems to me that what you just said is an argument against Windows in general, not against these new features.

onemoresoop4• 2 years ago

It's probably easier for MS to just collect that no matter what so I doubt they'd stop themselves from doing it.

rogerthis• 2 years ago

As it has been said so many times, tech privacy aware people are the minority. It won't make any difference for my non-tech neighbor (in fact, he will probably be delighted if it helps him with something).

grugagag2• 2 years ago

Not if you tell them beware, all this will be used against you in some way in the future.

nvtop• 2 years ago

The whole point of NPU-enabled devices is to run models locally, so they your data never leaves your device. This is a huge privacy win.

jsheard8• 2 years ago

Although the line can get fuzzy when they want to ship a feature that's too big to run locally. Android has run into that, some of the AI features run locally, some of them run on Googles servers, and some of them might run locally or on Googles servers depending on which device you happen to have.

jazzyjackson4• 2 years ago

They're trying to have it both ways and it's not clear to me as a consumer what is local and what is cloud. (As a developer, I can tell they're doing a few things locally like OCR and webcam background blur on the NPU, but they are not running ChatGPT on an a laptop anytime soon)

wmf4• 2 years ago

The whole point of enshittification is that companies don't need your data but they take it anyway.

papichulo2023• 2 years ago

The whole point is making the consumers pay the cost of running LLMs (both in hardware and power), not your privacy, they will still get your data to train better models.

cjk26• 2 years ago

I was speaking to someone at the weekend about this. She said "but why would I need this"?

I suspect most people aren't putting AI into any purchasing decisions. Most people really actually don't give a shit about it. They just want things to work exactly how they did before without people moving stuff around because they just want to get stuff done.

shmerl6• 2 years ago

Privacy oriented users are already using Linux.

dymk4• 2 years ago

As a desktop operating sytem? Not the ones that value their time.

Toutouxc2• 2 years ago

I can think of exactly four non-IT people in my life who don't run Windows, all of them are family members and I personally talked them into Macs.

In my social bubble, no one runs [desktop] Linux. No one knows Linux. No one cares about Linux.

kemayo• 2 years ago

The way Microsoft keeps pushing ads into the start menu doesn't make me incredibly trusting here, no...

mandibeet2• 2 years ago

It's a pity that sometimes preferences and comfort are being overlooked in favor of corporate interests(

Eldar_• 2 years ago

That’s a bubble

MangoCoffee5• 2 years ago

"AI PC", it's a new buzz in Computex 2024 event.

sylens• 2 years ago

Looking at the landing page for the new Surface devices (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/surface) the top third of the page looks really amateurish in terms of web design. Clicking one of the "Meet the new" buttons really drives it home.

jamesdepp2• 2 years ago

Looks like they're relying on system fonts instead of serving them over the web. It uses Segoe UI (a Windows font) by default. I tried accessing the page via Fedora and iOS and neither load the font correctly.

Dalewyn9• 2 years ago

Looks like they're relying on system fonts instead of serving them over the web.

This is a good thing. Using system fonts means less bandwidth consumed, more privacy (presumably), faster rendering, and better consistency with the rest of the user's environment.

The only failure could be not serving a web font as a failsafe, but I'm not going to count that against them because I hate the idea of web fonts.

Edit: Actually, nevermind all that. Microsoft is serving Segoe UI as a web font in addition to referring to the system copy.[1] If that's not rendering properly, either Microsoft got the URL wrong or something is fubar on the browsers concerned.

[1] https://blogs.microsoft.com/wp-content/themes/ms-blogs/style...

haunter• 2 years ago

Apple will do this in ~3 years or so and everyone will call it the biggest leap (“visionary”) in the history of computers

jazzyjackson4• 2 years ago

they've been doing it already since the M1...

on device OCR and photoshop filters using onboard NPU cores

jamesdepp2• 2 years ago

I am honestly not excited about the "AI" tech here--I'm excited about the battery life improvements that will come from using ARM chips. Battery life was the reason I chose an M1 laptop over the alternatives. Hopefully we can get some more competition in the space with these new chips!

sys_647382• 2 years ago

Are they secure boot locked or can we crowbar Linux aarch64 onto them?

f6v• 2 years ago

The thing is that everything I need just works on my ARM Mac and it’s been so for couple years already. Yet I keep hearing that “MS is committing to ARM”.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d love myself a Surface that’s super fast, responsive, has many app and good battery life. But I just can’t get myself to buy one whenever I try it in the store. So MBP+iPad it is, year after year.

dvt2• 2 years ago

It's clear that AI can be the catalyst for creating a lot of customer-facing value. (Though I still contend that the current incarnation of large language models ain't it yet.) Requiring a powerful (and power-hungry) GPU in all devices is non-tenable, so having a dedicated NPU is a pretty sleek way forward (that, to be fair, Apple spearheaded).

I'm very curious to see what APIs will be open to developers, because I think "next billion-dollar startup"-style value-generation won't be found in the generative aspect of these models, but rather the promise of automation, synthesis, summarization, agent invocation, and so on.

wayeq• 2 years ago

It's clear that AI can be the catalyst for creating a lot of customer-facing value.

It clearly will be a catalyst for creating a lot of shareholder value... I'm less sure about the customer facing value of a lot of these products.

dvt2• 2 years ago

I'm less sure about the customer facing value of a lot of these products.

I agree, but mostly due to the fact that there are no "products" yet.

adastra229• 2 years ago

Minimum RAM requirements of 16GB. Hopefully this will force Apple to move from 8GB/16GB consumer models to 16GB/32GB.

resource_waste3• 2 years ago

Different consumer base.

Enterprise/high end use vs front end or SSH. I don't see why you'd ever need more than 4-8GB for a Macbook.

adastra229• 2 years ago

Base macOS uses more than 4GB, or close to it, on a fresh install right after booting. 8GB really is a minimum for macOS. But tons of consumers use their computers in ways that require more resident pages in memory, like having hundreds of open tabs in Chrome or Safari. 8GB is getting really constricting even for casual use.

josefresco• 2 years ago

Are these suitable gaming laptops? I run local LLMs (Ollama) using my NVIDIA graphics card but I can't tell if these ARM chips are suitable for gaming.

Dalewyn9• 2 years ago

I hope you realize that most of the gaming world runs on ARM CPUs and iGPUs today. Smartphones and tablets far outnumber gaming PCs.

bibanez• 2 years ago

I intuit parent was referring to PC gaming, which is far more demanding than mobile gaming. Also, most PC games are compiled to x86_64, which means there will need to be a virtualization layer for non-native games (the majority), which will add latency.

tredre3• 2 years ago

You're made that same comment several times in this thread. But:

- All gaming PCs are x86 - PS5 and Xbox are x86 - Handheld PCs (Steam Deck, Legion, etc) are x86

This is the market people are talking about when they say "gaming" and you know it.

TiredOfLife13• 2 years ago

In a FAQ https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/copilot-plus-pcs?r=1... they list these games as supporting the new upscaling thing coming to these laptops:

7 Days to Die, BeamNG.drive, Borderlands 3, Control, Dark Souls III, Dying Light, The Forest, God of War, Resident Evil 2, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Skyrim SE, Sons of the Forest, Totally Accurate Battle Simulator, Unturned, Warframe, and The Witcher 3

But you will get much better experience and longer battery life with using something like Geforce Now

glutamate• 2 years ago

The new Flex Keyboard, which costs $450 and comes with a Slim Pen... [0]

At that price, I would expect a Generously Voluminous Pen and a whole lot more...

[0] https://www.theverge.com/2024/5/20/24160707/microsoft-surfac...

deergomoo• 2 years ago

They have surely just looked at the price of an iPad Magic Keyboard + Apple Pencil and thought, “yeah we can probably get away with that too”.

Not sure how well that will go given that even the most ardent Apple fans will concede that a keyboard case costing approximately the same as one whole entry-level iPad is a bit much.

chickenWing• 2 years ago

The real danger of AI is it will annoy us all to death as companies keep jamming it into everything.

DeathArrow4• 2 years ago

People even coined a term for Microsoft-Intel symbiosis: Wintel. Most often Windows meant Intel and Intel meant Windows.

I wonder how this will fare for the future of x86. Maybe Intel will focus on the server market.

tempaccount420• 2 years ago

40 TOPS is not that impressive, an iPhone 15 Pro has 35 TOPS.

callalex• 2 years ago

These kind of stats really need a “for 30s” and “for 10m” qualifiers. I strongly suspect that an iPhone will start throttling within seconds of not minutes compared to a laptop with a fan.

(Although there are definitely laptops with fans that still throttle within minutes, and they usually have a fruit on the side of them.)

layer82• 2 years ago

“TOPS” isn’t a standardized measure, you can’t compare them like that.

isoprophlex3• 2 years ago

Their "copilot" brand is so weird and... muddled.

There's the AI code assistant thing that github actually started, there's the horrible chatbot maker GUI demoware, there's AI stuff you might be able to do with your sharepoint (if only you could get hold of the right ms sales rep to take your money), there's an app that does genai things on your personal MS account... And now there's a Surface rebrand?

That org chart meme about Microsoft being little fiefdoms pointing guns at eachother never stops being relevant.

[1] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-copilot/microsoft-...

[2] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2023/05/0...

[3] https://copilot.microsoft.com/

And [4] the meme itself, as you really can't convince me the above is the result of a coherent company-wide strategy https://i.insider.com/51dfec8469bedd5e19000017

wizzwizz4• 2 years ago

The original [4]: https://goomics.net/62/ (and its sequel: https://goomics.net/329/).

isoprophlex3• 2 years ago

That sequel is (also) just wonderfully accurate!

dweinus2• 2 years ago

100% accurate. Impressive

biglyburrito2• 2 years ago

Never heard of this comic before... thank you for sharing!

chatmasta• 2 years ago

Their first co-pilot (which still exists) was about pairing a second Xbox controller to your console.

udp• 2 years ago

Ah but is that the Xbox 1, the Xbox One, the Xbox One X or the Xbox Series X?

wildrhythms• 2 years ago

I thought it was a reference to Microsoft Flight Simulator.

pelagicAustral• 2 years ago

See the hellish naming and branding they've done with the .NET ecosystem... It is so convoluted, even people actively developing on their stacks would have and issue figuring out if they are downloading the right stuff.

Atotalnoob2• 2 years ago

Not really. It was a little confusing when they renamed .net core to .net, but most people have moved past it

CTDOCodebases2• 2 years ago

Microsoft appearingly random naming conventions make me want to actively avoid using their products because I know the web searches will be heavily polluted.

I thought big companies like this would have some sort of internal committee that decides if a new products branding makes it easier for customers to understand what the product is and where it fits in their offerings.

RachelF• 2 years ago

Yep, I have to do it occasionally.

The same with Visual Studio. It is referred to by a year, eg Visual Studio 2019, but then you need to look in the make files for the actual version number of the project, and then look on Wikipedia for a table matching versions to years.

Wikipedia at least has decent docs on versions.

adrianmsmith• 2 years ago

That was insane, e.g. ".NET Messenger" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Messenger_service which was just MSN messenger, had nothing to do with .NET as in C#.

Then there was the "Skype" and "Skype for Business" naming debacle.

EvanAnderson4• 2 years ago

Their "copilot" brand is so weird and... muddled.

Microsoft can't brand anything cleanly and unambiguously.

"MSN Messenger" / "Windows Messenger" / "Windows Live Messenger" / "Microsoft Lync"

"Internet Explorer" / "Windows Explorer" / "MSN Explorer"

Windows 95 email client "Exchange" / email server platform "Exchange"

"Outlook" / "Outlook Web Access" / "Outlook Web App" / "Outlook.com" / "new Outlook for Windows"

"Microsoft Teams" / "New Microsoft Teams"

"Office Communicator" / "Microsoft Lync" / "Skype for Business" / "Skype" / "Skype for Business Online" / "Skype for Business for Microsoft 365"

The most guffaw-inducing branding, to me, was the recently-announced remote desktop client called "Windows App". That's going to be an easy one for users to search for.

(For guffaw-inducing I suppose there's also the Windows 98-era "Critical Update Notification Tool"[0])

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Update#Critical_Update...

(Edit: Yikes. I didn't even consider .NET. Windows.NET server. .NET Framework. ASP.NET. .NET Core. Ugh...)

More editing because I can't stop myself:

"Great Plains" / "Navision" / "Solomon" / "Axapta" / "Dynamics AX" / "Dynamics GP" / "Dynamics SL" / "Dynamics NAV" / "Dynamics 365" / "Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations" / "Dynamics 365 Business Central"

More editing because I was egged-on... >smile<

"Windows Defender" / "Microsoft Defender" / "Windows Defender Antivirus" / "Windows Firewall" / "Windows Defender Firewall" / "Microsoft AntiSpyware" / "Microsoft Security Essentials" / "System Center Endpoint Protection"

Oh, ugh... then there's the whole "Microsoft Proxy" / "Forefront" / "Federated Identity Manager" nightmare.

Then there's "System Management Server" / "System Center" and that whole train of products.

Edit: Forgot SharePoint

"Microsoft FrontPage" / "Site Server" / "Site Server Commerce Edition" / "Office Server" / "SharePoint Portal Server" / "Windows SharePoint Services" / "Microsoft Office SharePoint Server" / "SharePoint Foundation" / "SharePoint Server" / "SharePoint Standard" / "SharePoint Enterprise" / "SharePoint Online" / "SharePoint Designer"

brazzledazzle• 2 years ago

Let's not forget Azure AD is now Microsoft Entra.

aragonite• 2 years ago

From Wikipedia: [1]

Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps (formerly Windows Store apps, Metro-style apps and Modern apps)...

Ironically, that list misses another former name, "Windows App" (different from the "Windows App" you guffawed at). That name was used around 2017 and used extensively in the 7th edition of Windows Internals.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Windows_Platform_a...

dark__paladin• 2 years ago

To add to this, I have always found the Xbox naming conventions to be confusing, personally. "Xbox One" is the third one, not the original "Xbox" and the two newest models are named almost identically; "Xbox Series X" vs "Xbox Series S".

ackfoobar• 2 years ago

"Azure Active Directory" (now "Entra ID") and "Active Directory" caused me a great deal of confusion.

zaat• 2 years ago

You've missed Defender there

Edit: you updated defender, but you missed the depth of the rabbit hole. There's defender for office 365, there's defender for IoT, for Containers, for cloud, for cloud apps, for identity. There's one for gramma too

flyingswift• 2 years ago

Team Foundation Server -> Visual Studio Team Services -> Azure DevOps

pjob• 2 years ago

One team I was on had a bug where the product name was so long that it was being truncated in the about dialog. It was something like:

Microsoft Dynamics® CRM 2011 for Microsoft® Office Outlook® with Offline Access

biglyburrito2• 2 years ago

In 2013, "Team Foundation Services" was renamed to "Visual Studio Online".

In 2015, "Visual Studio Online" was renamed to "Visual Studio Team Services".

In 2018, "Visual Studio Team Services" was renamed to "Azure DevOps Services".

bloaf• 2 years ago

Don’t forget “Windows Live Mesh/Windows Live FolderShare/Live Mesh/Windows Live Sync/Windows Live Folders/Windows Live SkyDrive/SkyDrive/OneDrive”

To be fair, they have mostly settled on OneDrive after the lawsuit that forced the name change.

ptk• 2 years ago

It’s called “Intune” / sorry, “Microsoft Endpoint Manager” is a way better name / just kidding, it’s “Intune” again! We had you there for a second though!

whalesalad2• 2 years ago

microsoft is KING of doing this sort of thing.

onemoresoop4• 2 years ago

The great king of klusterfuck, I agree

bastawhiz• 2 years ago

Copilot is the new Watson

runevault• 2 years ago

dotnet for me is the most obvious example of how terrible they are at branding. First there was .NET framework which was windows only (note I'm ignoring Xamarian because it was originally not owned by MS).

Then they decided to do a reboot with cross platform support and named that Dotnet Core. This was honestly fine. But then we reach late in the 3.x timeframe and they declare for real and for true that Framework is a dead end, and Dotnet Core will be the one true Dotnet moving forward. And to indicate this, the next version will remove Core from the name, skip 4 because it would be too confusing with Framework, and just call it Dotnet 5.

I wish they'd stuck with the Core name, if no other reason so if they decide in another 15 years to do a major rebuild again they can just come up with another new descriptor the way Core described the transition away from Framework and towards real cross platform support from MS itself.

arresin2• 2 years ago

Watch how they change it again next year to dotnet (all lower case) AI core.

jonathankoren3• 2 years ago

Their "copilot" brand is so weird and... muddled.

It’s Watson.

Ha ha, only serious. You’re right. It feels like an umbrella brand they’re just tossing around, because AI — and Copilot in particular — is hot in Redmond.

I find the new Copilot key funny, because it feels like a pantomime of the Windows 95 keys[0], but with Logitech characteristics.

[*] Okay, it’s been 30 years. I haven’t used a Windows computer in almost as long, and so I ask. Do people who use Windows actually use any of those keys? It always seemed weird that you’d need the start menu at a single button press, and the right click menu at a keyboard press felt even weirder. I think I only used the Windows key as a meta under Linux, and I don’t think I ever hit the context menu key out of anything but curiosity.

isaacdl• 2 years ago

I use the "Windows" key pretty extensively, including to open the start menu (and then type in a search term, i.e. a program on my computer to launch).

I also use it extensively for "Windows" (operating system) level shortcuts: Win-R to open a run dialog, Win-E to open Explorer, Win-<left arrow|right arrow> to move/resize windows, etc.)

That being said...I use it in basically the same way on Linux, and use the Command (Apple) key on Macs for essentially the same purposes.

I don't think I've ever used the "right click menu" key for anything, though. Most modern Windows keyboards don't include it, or have it hidden behind a manufacturer-specific function key.

JohnFen4• 2 years ago

Do people who use Windows actually use any of those keys?

I only use Windows at work, and there, I use the Windows key to lock my screen on demand, and to make cropped screenshots. That's about it.

At home, I never use that key for anything.

vel0city2• 2 years ago

I use it a lot. Win and start typing to launch just about any app or open any document is really handy. Win and a number key launches or switches to that app pinned at that position on the taskbar. Win+L locks the screen whenever I get up from my desk. Win+Shift+S starts the screen clipper. Win+Left/Right snaps an app from one side to the other, win+shift+left/right switches between desktops, Win+Tab lets me drag apps from one desktop to another and see what's open where if needed, Win+E opens a new explorer window, Win+. opens the emoji keyboard. Those are just the ones I use almost every day, I probably use a few others a lot as well.

WarOnPrivacy4• 2 years ago

Do people who use Windows actually use any of those keys?

Context menu key. XP VMs (for Navision) have no mouse in Hyper-V until Integrated Services are installed.

toast0• 2 years ago

The windows key is pretty handy. Lots of good shortcuts, and they add new useful ones often. I don't tend to hit it by itself much anymore, because the start menu is so terrible and inconsistent, and anyway, we only run three programs anymore.

I don't think I've used the menu key... If I want to right click, there's the mouse, or mousekeys... But maybe I just missed out on learning to use it. Mostly everything in the context menu is in other places too that you might get to with the keyboard.

michaelbuckbee• 2 years ago

It's a real shame as well since the Surface line of PCs started as such a clean break and has devolved into a confusing mess.

EvanAnderson4• 2 years ago

That name was cursed from the start, too. The original "Microsoft Surface 1.0" was tabletop platform that got renamed "PixelSense"[0] years before there was a "Surface" tablet computer.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_PixelSense

TylerE3• 2 years ago

Do you expect anything else from the company that introduced "Plays For Sure" branding over a wide ecosystem, only to kill the ENTIRE thing (not just the branding) less than 5 years later? (as in, all purchased content became unplayable)

notatoad• 2 years ago

Still one of the funniest pieces of corporate stupudity ever.

And not just because they killed it. Even when they introduced it, the "plays for sure" brand meant music that couldn't be played on the ipod or most mobile phones. That it quickly came to mean music that couldn't be played anywhere was just the icing on the cake.

qingcharles• 2 years ago

I was peripherally involved around that time. Trying to go through in my head what caused a lot of that, it feels like meetings were MBA heavy and light on engineering and design; whereas other startups have had more balanced meetings where the grunts could push back against the totally out-of-touch ideas of the pointy-hairs.

(I think where I was working we pushed back hard enough on this name that it never got launched... www.webaudionet.com was a really, really bad name: https://web.archive.org/web/20020401235841/http://www.webaud... )

partiallypro• 2 years ago

I don't find it all that confusing, most of them work similarly and I don't see how you could call them different things. I just hate that their logos aren't uniform. The Windows & Bing logo is a rainbow color (looks awful), and the Edge version is blue and green (looks way better). It's not remotely comparable to their other branding flubs (Teams, .NET, etc). I wish they would have kept the Cortana and Continuum brands. Recall is basically what Continuum should have been, why not just keep the name? Co-pilot works for naming in some cases, but when you look at the GPT 4o voice demo that seems like the Microsoft white labelled version should be Cortana.

Cortana's biggest fault was mostly that it wasn't very good, and the things it was good at required the Cloud...but with the new AI chips, some of that can be offloaded and work much faster. It's like when they added Cortana to Xbox and killed the other voice commands. Then it just became a very slow process when the old on-board model was way faster. Even the voice commands became longer "Xbox on" to "Hey Cortana, turn on my Xbox" then having to wait for it to ping a server and come back to your device.

outside12342• 2 years ago

Microsoft is a "student body left groupthink" company. We once named EVERYTHING "Active" something, then EVERYTHING ".NET" something. This is just the latest in a long line of tradition of groupthink.

orph• 2 years ago

It made sense when I named GitHub Copilot, since that product was a passive addition to your regular workflow.

The name was sticky enough that they've run with it, misunderstanding or ignoring that fundamental metaphor.

cromka• 2 years ago

This is what happens when engineers borrow the concepts previously created by dedicated teams. Happens a lot with UX/UI, too.

isoprophlex3• 2 years ago

In my perception, Github Copilot is the OG. The first one, amd the only product in that list that is actually making my life better.

nxobject• 2 years ago

I await Copilot+ .NET Plus! 365 Home Professonal Plus.

beachy• 2 years ago

Perhaps borrowing from IBM's Watson strategy of flooding the zone with marketing shit.

jeroenhd3• 2 years ago

The thing about Copilot is that outside of the developer niche, nobody knows the term. The vast majority of Microsoft's customer base will recognise neither the Xbox feature nor the Github product.

In the same way, their .NET naming has never bothered anyone they actually care about selling stuff to. It's a tad annoying for developers, but nothing more than that.

I find the way they renamed their Office products every five years much more baffling. Consumers probably don't care beyond "office" but I'd expect them to protect their business clients from their ever changing names for office products at least.

jetrink• 2 years ago

It's not a terrible name either. Assistant would be better, but they can't use that name[1] of course... I'm having a hard time thinking of something else that instantly communicates this idea of an intelligent subordinate aide that doesn't have negative associations.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Assistant

accidbuddy• 2 years ago

I agree, and it's strange to see 'Copilot' everywhere. By the way, does anyone know how the development/update of GitHub Copilot is going? I tried to look for a blog from the engineering team or something similar, but I can't find anything.

wslh4• 2 years ago

Their "copilot" brand is so weird and... muddled.

Again the .NET effect, unsearcheable for decades. The COM[1] could be just bad luck.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Component_Object_Model

thomasjudge• 2 years ago

(posted before) Microsoft on Microsoft marketing (from 2006ish)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUXnJraKM3k

lallysingh• 2 years ago

Windows Surface Copilot for Workgroups 360.Net

It's kind of like those cryptographic keys they use a dictionary for: a nonsense noun phrase representing a number. Perhaps they're just encoding a SKU?

cka• 2 years ago

I think you meant Azure Windows Surface Copilot for Workgroups 360.Net. Everything at Microsoft is Azure now.

themagician• 2 years ago

Copilot is a game-changer in coding, helping developers with real-time suggestions and code snippets. However, it's controversial because it relies on large datasets scraped from public code repositories. This raises intellectual property issues and concerns about algorithmic bias, as Copilot's suggestions are influenced by that data. Despite that, it's super useful, but Microsoft needs to address the legal and ethical issues around data usage and bias to keep it on the right track.

kixiQu• 2 years ago

Yeah, but they're definitely gonna fix it by sponsoring a multi-headliner pop punk tour!

(Real: https://www.summerschooltour.com/)

TwoNineFive2• 2 years ago

you really can't convince me the above is the result of a coherent company-wide strategy

Well that was an ignorant thing to say given how widely famously Microsoft implemented it's stack ranking system and the toxic culture it produced (as intended). This is exactly the result of that strategy. People who thought it had gone away are mostly parroting Microsoft propaganda. I live here in town with these people. You don't get hired without having "Microsoft morals". It's all a desperate gold rush to find out who is going to get promoted.

edgefield• 2 years ago

Yes, and additionally the Copilot 360 user interface is a mess, processing time is slow, and the quality of results is poor. Using the Chat GPT or Claude interface produces much quicker/better results.

guiambros• 2 years ago

Not much has changed in 18 years...

Microsoft Re-Designs the iPod Packaging - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUXnJraKM3k

mhh__3• 2 years ago

A Microsoft employee did once joke to me that if Microsoft had invented the holy grail it would be called the Microsoft life preserver 3.4 Pro+ or something like that

DeathArrow4• 2 years ago

They could have learned something from Apple. iBrain, iBrain Pro, iBrain Pro Plus, iBrain Ultra, iBrain Ultra Max.

Elfener• 2 years ago

Copilot is also the name of a windows (and presumably xbox console) feature that allows you to combine multiple controllers and have them show up as one device.

MangoCoffee5• 2 years ago

Its a new buzz "AI PC".

Company like Intel is happy that this is happening, it run on NPU from Intel/AMD. This AI PC buzz is supposed to help sell more x86/Windows.

gjsman-1000• 2 years ago

Oh joy, Pluton is back.

gigel823• 2 years ago

What do you mean back? Pluton has been shipping in all mainstream CPUs for at least 1 year.

beretguy2• 2 years ago

I hope gaming on Linux keeps getting better. I don’t see myself using anything beyond windows 10.

__loam3• 2 years ago

Same. Our household has one pc from 2019 running windows, 3 on Linux, and one Mac, plus two macs from work. The only thing keeping me on windows is league of legends and stone art programs and I might get a mac to do that.

branon• 2 years ago

League runs on Linux easy, all you need is patched Wine: https://github.com/GloriousEggroll/wine-ge-custom/releases/t...

It's easiest to use this via software like Lutris or Bottles.

freedomben2• 2 years ago

We've been linux-only now for quite a few years, and I've been really pleased with how much we can get done without Windows (or Mac). All the Windows only games we play work great on Proton (disclaimer: we don't do any games with anti-cheat though). The only thing that I still must have Windows for is a Cricut machine that my wife has. I've got it working in a KVM VM though with USB pass through.

redml3• 2 years ago

its pretty much peaked at this point. works with every game i've ever tried, new and old titles.

alecsm• 2 years ago

Unless it requires a kernel level anti cheat. I don't play those games but if someone does, it's a thing they should know.

beretguy2• 2 years ago

I don’t know. I tried NFS Undercover on my gtx 1650 laptop with highest settings - it couldn’t do it, lags to the point of totally unplayable. On windows it works perfectly fine. Why is that? Can somebody explain?

davidgerard2• 2 years ago

tl;dr yes: https://brodybrooks.com/posts/2024-linuxgamedev/

cjk26• 2 years ago

If the following does not happen in 2 years I will eat my hat:

They will have performance problems. They will have compatibility problems. They will have poor repairability and zero repair network and support. The software will be abandoned and completely useless within 18 months. They will fail very early but just outside a standard 1 year warranty. This will be a lot of e-waste. Regulatory or national bodies will step in and force privacy regulations which make all of this unworkable.

gigel823• 2 years ago

Wait, are you the other guy that bought a Windows Surface RT? :)

We should make a club.

cjk26• 2 years ago

Um, err, yeah :(

tomcam• 2 years ago

I’m in lol

nyanpasu64• 2 years ago

I'd join, but Metro Internet Explorer crashes whenever I try to message, and the tablet battery won't last me the trip to the club...

genewitch7• 2 years ago

If in 18 months anyone feels that their ARM laptop isn't cutting it, i'll gladly pay $0.15/$1.00 for them. I know lots of people who could definitely benefit from a laptop that cannot afford them, and IME ARM runs linux just fine.

cjk26• 2 years ago

I suspect they will be locked down like the RT devices were...

ghostly_s• 2 years ago

Really? Just researched this recently and it seemed the consensus was linux on Arm Surface devices is still mostly a non-starter.

stetrain• 2 years ago

They've been selling ARM Surface devices for a while now. Not sure why these would suddenly fall over and stop working.

Even if the AI stuff doesn't pan out that doesn't make it e-waste, that just makes it a normal PC that could do everything previous PCs could do anyway.

cjk26• 2 years ago

Mostly implied by that large pile of dead Surface machines we had which weren't even remotely repairable and lasted 12-18 months...

walterbell7• 2 years ago

Does this prediction also apply to the HP, Dell and Lenovo devices with Qualcomm Oryon / Snapdragon X?

cjk26• 2 years ago

Yes. All of them. There has been a massive race to the bottom recently.

joshstrange• 2 years ago

There are a number of aspect of this I find very interesting if only so that Apple has to come up with an answer to them (which I'm sure we will see some of at WWDC) but the "Copilot" brand is clear as mud... It's like that period they added ".NET" to bunch of things but way worse.

golergka• 2 years ago

How much ads would I expect on this out of the box? A banner in the start menu, ad notifications, what else?

askonomm• 2 years ago

I heard that they are even experimenting with full-screen ads!

jarjoura• 2 years ago

The coordinated launch of real ARM laptops across 4 different companies, Dell, Lenovo, HP and Samsung is quite an achievement for Microsoft after a decade of failed ARM launches. This seems uniquely different to me because, there is a real and marketable limitation to what you can find in Intel/AMD (the lack of NPU).

Before Microsoft pushed ARM as an option for "all day battery power" however, the huuuuuge tradeoff was compatibility with your existing tools and very underwhelming performance.

However, can I just complain for a moment?! Why are these laptops shipping with fixed options at exactly 1TB of storage and only 16 GB of memory with no way to specify different configurations? So with all this cross-company coordination and opportunity for eyeballs on this renewed ARM push, they still felt the timid 16 GB would be more than enough to generate excitement?

Yes, yes, I know, it's fine for a generic office product, but am I the only one who is thinking this is a red flag, and this is going to be just another failed launch and huge missed opportunity at wider ARM adoption?

winwang• 2 years ago

Does AMD lack NPUs on mobile still? It should be coming quite soon, apparently 40 TOPs.

wmf4• 2 years ago

Ryzen 7000 had a slow (not Windows-certified) NPU and Ryzen 8000 has a full-speed NPU.

danybittel• 2 years ago

Both Intel's and AMD's newer chips have NPUs as well. They are also better in the power consumption area, not as good as arm though. I don't see a reason they can get there as well, the actual instruction set does not matter much for power consumption. The MS announcement also talks about Intel/AMD favors of their "Copilot+ PCs"

Gant1• 2 years ago

"Connected to and enhanced by the large language models (LLMs) running in our Azure Cloud in concert with small language models (SLMs)..."

Remember Scroogled? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-y2mqoDjQXI

OnionBlender• 2 years ago

"Easily find and remember what you have seen in your PC with Recall"

I can't even get Windows File Explorer to reliably search for a file by name. It frequently freezes or shows no results.

Findecanor2• 2 years ago

You're lucky to get that far. I got a tablet with 32-bit Windows 10, which doesn't get updates any more. When I tap the search box, the on-screen keyboard appears ... and then immediately closes again.

TiredOfLife13• 2 years ago

Exactly my experience using Steam Deck desktop mode

mpeg• 2 years ago

I'm curious, why install windows on the deck?

aagha2• 2 years ago

Everything by Void

nenadg• 2 years ago

<spoiler> productivity goes 1000+% wages not so much </spoiler>

JaneLovesDotNet• 2 years ago

There's a little mention that's easy to miss:

With a powerful new emulator, Prism, your apps run great, whether native or emulated.

Curious to hear more about what strides they've made there.

UPDATE: Found more details here -> https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/05/microsoft-says-prism...

10-20% faster emulation

genewitch7• 2 years ago

I ran windows under qemu, with a GPU, and a dedicated soundcard, and multi-monitor for years - even though ostensibly there was a 10-15% "overhead" due to emulation/virtualization. I had exactly zero issues, and to be quite frank i couldn't tell any difference in framerates, especially compared to my windows laptop running the same games with roughly equivalent GPUs.

user_78324• 2 years ago

Could you share a little more about your setup? I assume a linux host, and perhaps 2 GPUs with one per OS? I'm guessing it's a desktop build and not a laptop (iGPU+dGPU)?

I've really wanted to switch fully to linux, but I still use some "power" features in MS Office which apparently don't play nice on linux. Dualbooting Fedora is decent... when I can understand what's happening and don't need to go 4 layers deep every time I have a problem, unfortunately.

llsf3• 2 years ago

I cannot wait to see Apple's response. While Microsoft announcement seems rush and products half backed/thought, there are on to something. I would hope Apple would learn from it, and find the right path.

I would really like to have a AI companion that runs locally, on my dev laptop, tailored for my developer's needs. Something optimized for the hardware, and yet with tight privacy.

Apple... your turn!

jerlam• 2 years ago

Apple WWDC is in three weeks. I am not sure they can change anything based on the Microsoft announcement.

KeplerBoy• 2 years ago

I am sure Apple is not surprised by any of this and they are not too worried.

They have had competent arm chips for years and will board the ai hypetrain in time.

llsf3• 2 years ago

I agree that it might not arrive at WWDC unless Apple was already working on it for several years...

Nonetheless, I see this Microsoft initiative as a canary in the AI coal mine. I would hope Apple would learn from it.

ppeetteerr• 2 years ago

I don't know if this is the case for others, but I'm seeing missing images on their laptop and tablet marketing pages. The new product line feels very rushed.

jazzyjackson4• 2 years ago

These don't run LLM locally

dweinus2• 2 years ago

Genuinely curious: do any of the features/use cases they market here sound appealing to people? I am struggling to imagine wanting to use any of them. I can, however, easily imagine the sound my cooling fan will make while the NPU is running 24/7.

DariusKocar• 2 years ago

I find this useful as a productivity tool. For example, this can give me my standup update summary. It knows what I worked on and can summarize it for me.

AI/LLMs are great at staying organized over huge amounts of data and this is the perfect application.

disclosure: I am the founder of Perfect Memory AI https://www.perfectmemory.ai/ that does something very similar today.

chx• 2 years ago

Until the day it submits something to standup you don't want to and don't tell me you will always carefully filter it and then in best case you get fired. Worst case, you get criminally prosecuted.

Jesus, you people never learn.

PKop• 2 years ago

Not in the least. I'm looking forward to when this trend dies and all of these worse than useless features hopefully get scrapped. Meanwhile there is now extra hardware being put inside new laptops. I wonder if we'll be able to buy CPU's without NPU's?

keyringlight• 2 years ago

My feeling is much of this client AI hardware push is to dodge the power cost. They're looking at spending $100B on a 5GW 'Stargate' datacenter for AI, and paying back that investment will go better without the ongoing (forever?) costs of running the resulting models centrally.

makeitdouble2• 2 years ago

Honestly no. But then computer marketing hasn't sounded appealing for a while IMHO.

Were you excited by the Bezos charts explaining Apple Silicon's blow away performance ? or how the Macbooc Pro M3 is the proest macbook you'ever seen, or how delightful the spaceness or midnightness of the metal finish is ?

The machines themselves might actually be pretty good, and have an impact on our daily lives with better battery, better keyboards, clearer screens etc. But expecting the marketing events to honestly assert the incremental improvements is a tall order.

kotaKat• 2 years ago

Can we stop forcing this on the consumers, Microsoft? Please? For once? Can you take "no" for once?

AdamH121132• 2 years ago

Billions of dollars to cram "AI" down our throats, but they can't be bothered to get Excel back up to the level of quality and performance it had 20 years ago.

AdamH121132• 2 years ago

In retaliation for this comment, Excel glitched out and deleted fifteen minutes' worth of carefully-formatted graphs when I tried to save.

teitoklien• 2 years ago

Words have consequences

-- Bing Chan, from Redmond, Washington.

mandibeet2• 2 years ago

Just can imagine the feeling...

BitwiseFool2• 2 years ago

One thing that has continued to baffle me about Excel is the fact that they force worksheet tabs and the scrollbar to co-exist in the same pane. Why in the world can I not have a full horizontal scrollbar and a full width tab collection?

yazzku3• 2 years ago

Imagine the crass software quality of an AI startup on top of 30+ years of legacy code. That's Copilot+PC for you, boys. Enjoy it to the fullest when your company IT sends it your way.

geophph2• 2 years ago

Still blows my mind that, in the year 2024, it is still unable to open two workbooks with the same name

wvenable• 2 years ago

It would break the VBA API.

mhh__3• 2 years ago

I assume (without any evidence) that excel is basically mothballed / offshored other than the occasional LET and LAMBDA type of deal every now and again

_diyar• 2 years ago

I believe this is only the beginning of the modern OS with a user-interface that is based around AI. Imagine the platform lock-in from a lifetimes worth of meta-data around interactions with an AI agent, which obviously will not be transferable between vendors.

onemoresoop4• 2 years ago

The modern OS that nobody asked for. This could backfire pretty badly if it doesn't succeed. We're still in a hype bubble. When the bubble bursts some thing will stay but many will be washed away

beoberha2• 2 years ago

No chance id want to use these features for personal use for pretty much your exact reason. But for work - man I can’t wait.

walterbell7• 2 years ago

obviously will not be transferable between vendors.

EU DMA regulators could intervene on data portability, https://blog.google/around-the-globe/google-europe/an-update...

ilikeitdark• 2 years ago

Someone convince me that Microsoft isn't just some giant practical joke.

butterlesstoast• 2 years ago

Just came here to say. This has become my all time favorite HN thread.

afiodorov• 2 years ago

Live Captions now has live translations and will turn any audio that passes through your PC into a single, English-language caption experience, in real time on your screen across all your apps consistently. You can translate any live or pre-recorded audio in any app or video platform from over 40 languages into English subtitles instantly, automatically and even while you’re offline.

Wow that's an amazing feature!

walterbell7• 2 years ago

Multi-language Whisper!

https://github.com/openai/whisper

beoberha2• 2 years ago

I work for Microsoft, so take what I say with a grain of salt. I could not be more excited for these AI productivity features built into the OS. “Recall” is almost exactly what I’ve been dreaming of since the AI boom. I didn’t catch it in the release, but something that can “record” my work life and do things like auto-manage my todo list or answer a question I had about how I did something a year ago is the killer AI product I’ve been waiting for. Not sure I’d want this as a personal device, but would be amazing for work.

mellosouls• 2 years ago

Possibly, but instant-find software already exists (eg copernic desktop search), and the extra functionality posited by Recall sounds like a potential surveillance nightmare in workplaces given Microsoft's form in the corporate arena.

walterbell7• 2 years ago

Lawsuit discovery fodder.

michaelteter• 2 years ago

I'd like to know what their battery life estimates are with Outlook and Teams running. My guess is ~2 hours.

arresin2• 2 years ago

What I don’t understand about this that they tried it by shoehorning it into windows updates (without asking if you wanted it) and it was (in my bubble at least) universally loathed. Does anyone know anyone actually using and enjoying the windows 11 “copilot” update?

bambax• 2 years ago

We set out to solve one of the most frustrating problems we encounter daily – finding something we know we have seen before on our PC. Today, we must remember what file folder it was stored in, what website it was on, or scroll through hundreds of emails trying to find it.

It is indeed frustrating that one still cannot search effectively a local device, but it doesn't need AI to solve. It needs a proper search engine, and Microsoft has resisted that, for some mysterious reason, for 30+ years.

fassssst• 2 years ago

Search engines use language models.

relyks• 2 years ago

Not all do and the ones intended for desktop search likely shouldn't. Something like an inverted index would be a much better solution imo

kasabali• 2 years ago

For a long time they didn't, and they'd worked better than ever.

JohnFen4• 2 years ago

It's really baffling, isn't it? A part of me wonders if Microsoft is simply unable to figure out how to make a good Windows search and so is looking for AI to do it for them.

But it seems like shooting a mosquito with an elephant gun.

spartanatreyu• 2 years ago

Microsoft has tried to make a "better" search before, by redesigning the file system and the metadata that can be tied to files.

The idea was that you could search this:

the phone numbers of all persons who live in Acapulco and each have more than 100 appearances in my photo collection and with whom I have had e-mail within last month

They had hyped this up as coming in Project Longhorn (which was eventually split into Vista and salvaged in Windows 7), but the new filesystem was eventually dropped like their other attempts:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WinFS

butterNaN• 2 years ago

It is less baffling when you consider decisions are not being driven by engineers. Investors don't want a search engine. Investors (and other non-engineers) want "AI"

paxys2• 2 years ago

Anyone remember Google Desktop? Did the job perfectly 20 years ago.

mktemp-d• 2 years ago

It always baffles me how long it takes for Windows to search for a file while the GNU's `find` command churns through filenames and paths like it's nothing.

NelsonMinar• 2 years ago

RIP Google Desktop, 2004-2011

yread• 2 years ago

What there are still people who don't install Voidtools' Everything on all Windows PCs and assign it a global shortcut? Since I have it I don't even bother organizing stuff

joenot443• 2 years ago

Does anyone know of a similar tool for macOS? I'd gotten really comfortable with a Ctrl+Alt+S binding on Windows for Everything and miss it these days on macOS.

metadat• 2 years ago

This is the first time I've heard of it.

https://www.voidtools.com/

Joe_Cool6• 2 years ago

It's amazing. It does what Google Desktop tried and failed to do on Windows XP. And it's blazingly fast by reading NTFS directly instead of using the Windows API. (OK, back then needing 1GB of RAM was pretty much impossible.)

ericswpark• 2 years ago

They had a perfectly working search box in Windows 7, then gutted it and made it search the web whenever you wanted to launch Notepad.

wkat42428• 2 years ago

It worked ok for finding apps, not so much for random files or especially content within files.

sexy_seedbox• 2 years ago

and made it search the web...

How else would they trick you into opening and using Edge, the best web browser in the whole wide world?

WuxiFingerHold2• 2 years ago

Yep, but fd and rg work fine on Windows. However those CLI tools are not for pure Windows people, I admit.

raxxorraxor• 2 years ago

There is locate32, which also builds an index, but then is blazingly fast. Windows does build an index too, but it doesn't feel like it uses it in any way.

baby• 2 years ago

I don’t understand why you say it doesn’t need AI. It’s like saying a financial application doesn’t need a database. Maybe it can use something else, but who cares what technology is used as long as it’s good? I’m willing to believe that AI is making this tech much more effective

outside12342• 2 years ago

Sounds like the ActiveX of PCs

fusspawn• 2 years ago

ok but what about desktops and non oem silicon

brap• 2 years ago

I feel like we’re at the “3D TV” phase of AI right now.

victor106• 2 years ago

Thanks but no thanks,

Not buying or requesting another Windows pc ever again.

Its full of adware and spyware at this point. even though I do like Satya's MSFT better than Balmer's.

srid• 2 years ago

Would I still be able to run Ubuntu in WSL when using these Copilot PCs running an ARM processor?

dstaley• 2 years ago

You can already do that today with existing ARM-powered Windows devices (well, most of them anyway).

throw7• 2 years ago

"You are always in control with privacy you can trust."

Sure Jan. Maybe Microsoft should start with proving to us they can actually can keep their private keys secure for starters.

yazzku3• 2 years ago

A company that is at this point considered a national security threat. Yeah, you can certainly trust them with your privacy.

proactivesvcs• 2 years ago

We're not always in control when telemetry cannot be turned off, when informed consent cannot be given, when choices are repeatedly overridden. They've proven this time and time again, as well as being unable to keep their own house in order.

moskie• 2 years ago

A "Creativity" slider.

paxys2• 2 years ago

Still waiting for an actual use case for these things. And no, "easily generate AI images" is not one of them, no matter how much Microsoft likes to push it.

munchler• 2 years ago

Running high-powered AI locally seems like a pretty good use case to me. Cloud-based AI, like OpenAI sells, is expensive and provides inadequate privacy. I want a truly personal computer, not a dumb client.

layer82• 2 years ago

Running high-powered AI locally is not a use case, it’s something one has to provide use cases for.

vel0city2• 2 years ago

Being able to vaguely ask my computer "what that cooking thing Greg talked about and I looked up on that kitchen supply website three months ago" and have it instantly pull up the chat and the web page is pretty handy.

Having my computer automatically reference some document I was supposed to look at an hour before a meeting scheduled titled "Important Document Review Meeting" even though it's not attached but on some vague share and a deep directory I forgot about would be nice as well. Maybe this would do that.

dustedcodes• 2 years ago

The word Copilot has been used for so much shit now by Microsoft that it’s literally vomit inducing at this point. Say one more time Copilot and I’m gonna lose it.

TiredOfLife13• 2 years ago

Copilot, Copilot, Copilot!

redml3• 2 years ago

the last few years focused on short term conversion metrics for bing and edge have already done their damage, its going to be an uphill battle for them

davidgerard2• 2 years ago

meanwhile, Windows 11 is so awful that a game developer can find Linux to be a better desktop for game dev: https://brodybrooks.com/posts/2024-linuxgamedev/

wslh4• 2 years ago

VS Code optimized would be a better catch, just saying...

TiredOfLife13• 2 years ago

Arm 64 version of VS code came out 4 years ago

wslh4• 2 years ago

I meant the name.

tornadron• 2 years ago

reading all of these comments, reminded me of the old "Microsoft iPod" video, had to dig it up and still kinda relevant---it's 18 years old (!!!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUXnJraKM3k

hollowturtle2• 2 years ago

“New era” everywhere

hollowturtle2• 2 years ago

Can I click the Copilot button and ask the os to debloat himself?

malshe• 2 years ago

Somewhat OT but still related - I am using less AI in the last few weeks. I pay for ChatGPT but I barely use it. I sometimes use Perplexity but then also verify the response using Google search, which means I don't use Perplexity often.

It's certainly early but as a consumer I feel the AI hype is just that.

w_for_wumbo• 2 years ago

"In fact, 87% of the total app minutes people spend in apps today have native Arm versions." - Are they meaning web browsers? I'm pretty sure the majority of time people spend in apps are web browsers, so it feels incredibly misleading if that's what they're referring to.

GartzenDeHaes• 2 years ago

Probably whatever they're calling Windows Store apps now, universal windows app or something. These are .net applications that are natively compiled when installed (I think).

TiredOfLife13• 2 years ago

Browser, Office and VS Code

Multicomp• 2 years ago

Pluton will be on by default per the article. This is MS latest play to lockdown PCs from being general purpose computers to 'large mobile phones' and the ARM platform seems to be the trojan horse to get that across the line.

* grabs tinfoil hat, considers how it depressingly hasn't worked before, puts it on anyways *

walterbell7• 2 years ago

This Apple-genesis (Nuvia) and Microsoft-led (Pluton) Arm Oryon hardware provides rare boot standardization and optional upstream Linux on Arm EL2. With enterprise PC OEMs on board, there should be a healthy supply of used Arm Linux laptops in a few years. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40350408#40355554

  The system firmware will ship with 3 boot modes selectable via the setup interface:

  - Windows (this one has the Windows tcblauncher escalated to EL2 through Secure Launch)
  - Linux (this one stays at EL1)
  - Linux w/ KVM (which jumps to EL2 [at ExitBootServices] before kernel handover)

Mainline Linux support is underway via Linaro/Qualcomm and Dell supports Ubuntu Linux as a first class OS. Linux support won't be perfect in OryonV1, but if enough customers use these devices with Linux, it can only improve. Device trees are likely still needed for Linux.

  Arm SystemReady SR/ES assumes sane ACPI tables. That's something that Snapdragon X (1st-gen) very much doesn't have. The ACPI tables present there are pretty much only usable for Windows if you want full functionality.. ESXi-Arm is bootable, but a number of patches were required.

April 2024 video & slides: https://eoss24.sched.com/event/1aBEy/enabling-linux-support-...

the upstream kernel was used during the Snapdragon X1 Elite SoC Linux bringup.. demo booting upstream kernel with a Debian/Ubuntu userspace on a Snapdragon X1 Elite QRD (Qualcomm Reference Device).. Boot to console support has already landed on kernel version v6.7 and is on track to have remaining kernel support land by the time the first commercial device with X1 Elite SoC comes out on the market.

nerdright• 2 years ago

Terminal -> GUI -> Voice Interface

Looks like the circle to "humanizing" the computer interface is complete. The GUI is going to become the new terminal.

zachmu• 2 years ago

If Microsoft thinks I'm going to let Windows store screenshots of my work every second indefinitely with their current approach to online identity and privacy, they are nuts.

adamtaylor_13• 2 years ago

Tone-deaf. The last thing I want is AI deciding into which column of my start menu I’d like my Ads crammed. How about Microsoft design an OS that isn’t actively user-hostile and then, maybe, _maybe_ bake in some AI around that?

baidifnaoxi• 2 years ago

This feels like classic Microsoft. Put some great marketing out there. , claim the victory and deliver the actual product months from now. This puts any other vendor or company in a bad place with investors and the public.

You have to love it. Shrewd as hell.

TwoNineFive2• 2 years ago

A "Copilot". Like someone who stands there and makes sure you make the right decisions. A "minder", if you will.

amkkma• 2 years ago

Anyone know how the hardware compares to the latest mac laptops for running LLMs locally? (compute and vram, shared or otherwise)

WuxiFingerHold2• 2 years ago

This gives me instant urges to install i3 as WM on my Linux Machine.

firejake308• 2 years ago

Their Recall feature reminds me of a startup called Rem that posted on here a few weeks ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38787892

squigglydonut• 2 years ago

Just make Clippy, it's what the people want.

rldjbpin• 2 years ago

personally i am not all that excited with their hardware prospects, but am curious about all the "optimizations" they did at the OS level.

if they are real, can they bother trickling that in the x86 builds, pretty please?

i feel they are at the crossroads for supporting legacy, decade-old stuff with an architecture switch. i wonder if they are compromising on all that for the ARM variant.

Blackstrat• 2 years ago

Say goodbye to what little privacy we have left.

darthrupert• 2 years ago

Could be a very decent laptop if it runs Linux. But why pay Microsoft for an OS you're not going to use?

I hope System76 has ARMs up their sleeve.

ssahoo• 2 years ago

Hey copilot, generate name for our next hardware product that sounds similar to windows xp professional with service pack 2. Cortana: Sure thing, here you go.

Friedduck• 2 years ago

Microsoft still can’t manage file and email search so I’ll remain skeptical of any and all announcements about being able to locate what’s on my PC.

cyanydeez• 2 years ago

Really seems like their play is to use their business suite to sell huge privacy invasive tools under the guise of computing improvements.

This iteration of Microsoft products gonna really go for the throat.

PDSCodes2• 2 years ago

It feels desperate, rushed and ill thought through.

They seem desperate to be ahead and they will frighten people away from the usefulness of ai.

jimt1234• 2 years ago

I think this describes almost all AI products being promoted these days. They all seem rushed-to-market, in an attempt to get a boost to the company's stock price: "They're an AI company! BUY!"

PDSCodes2• 2 years ago

Smells like the late 90s dot com bubble!

Everyone on the bandwagon.

Put out a landing page with AI on it and ride the hype train.

MS are pouring a lot into this - can they sustain it!

Havoc4• 2 years ago

There is a giant hole in their pitch. Recall is supposed to be local only right? Thats what makes the record everything ok…

Now imagine you actively use it and it has all your memory and history. And then your SSD dies.

They’re going to have to push this to cloud for backup - the entire thing. But they can’t say that part out loud at this stage because people will freak

eightysixfour3• 2 years ago

Or you could just lose that history, which is basically a bonus for the experience, not a necessity. The competitor to this, rewind.ai lets you set your retention policy and deletes on a rolling basis anyways.

Havoc4• 2 years ago

If you want this to be the new computer use paradigm then it has to be durable and long term.

Same as any other info storage like Evernote and friends. Doesn’t really work if it’s flakey or impermanent

creatonez• 2 years ago

They’re going to have to push this to cloud for backup - the entire thing. But they can’t say that part out loud at this stage because people will freak

This doesn't mean unencrypted, though. Will have to wait and see how much it exposes and how the key management works.

I'm not optimistic but it does seem rather unlikely they would botch the privacy of a constantly screenshotting daemon, it would be a little on-the-nose even with MS's horrendous privacy record.

Havoc4• 2 years ago

It’s less a technical problem and more principles and optics.

Can’t really argue a strong local only stance and do cloud. Encryption sure but that takes us into “it’s not local but trust us it’s all good” territory…from a company known to comply with all sorts of gov info requests.

skenderbeu• 2 years ago

Zune inspired?

Introducing Copilot+ PCs

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