Windows 11 has a new preview build which further improves Voice Access, an area Microsoft has been putting a lot of effort into of late.
Preview build 22635.2915 (KB5033456) has just been rolled out to the Beta channel, and one of the additions is the ability to make customized voice shortcuts.
Using this feature, you can specify a trigger phrase for the command, and then the command itself.
Microsoft gives an example of an ‘insert work address’ command which when given automatically pastes in the specified address of your workplace. Anytime you need that putting into a document you’re working on, you just say the command – which is quite the timesaver.
Language support for Voice Access has also been extended, and now the following are included (on top of the existing languages): French (France), French (Canada), German, Spanish (Spain) and Spanish (Mexico).
Finally for voice features, multiple monitors are now supported, meaning that when you summon a grid overlay – for directing mouse clicks to certain areas of the desktop – you can do so on any of the screens connected to your PC. (Before now, the grid overlay could only be used on the primary display).
You can switch your focus to another monitor simply by using a letter (A, B, C and so on) or its phonetic equivalent (Alpha, Bravo, etc).
Microsoft further notes that there’s a drag and drop feature to move files or shortcuts from one display to another.
Elsewhere in build 22635, screen casting in Windows 11 has been improved, with a help option now in the Cast flyout from Quick Settings. This can be clicked if you’re having trouble piping your desktop to another screen and want some troubleshooting advice.
Users are also getting the ability to rename their device for the Nearby Sharing feature to help identify it more easily.
For the full list of changes and fixes in this Beta build, peruse Microsoft’s blog post.
(Image credit: Microsoft)
Analysis: Custom capers
This is some useful work with Voice Access, and those with multiple monitors who use the feature will of course be very pleased, no doubt. Voice shortcuts is a powerful addition into the mix for voice functionality, too, and with this, there are a good deal of options.
Not just pasting a section of text as we mention in the example above, but also tasks can be triggered such as opening specified URLs in a browser, or opening a file or folder. You can combine multiple actions too, along with functions like mouse clicks or key presses. This is a feature we’ve been wanting for some time, so it’s great to see it arrive.
It’s also worth noting that Windows Speech Recognition has been removed from Windows 11 in this build, and when you open that old app, you’ll now get a message informing you of its deprecation, and recommending the far superior Voice Access capability instead.
We’re hoping that in the future, Voice Access is going to become an even more central part of the Windows 11 interface, and it seems a great candidate to be driven forward with AI – and maybe incorporated into Copilot.
Every experience I have with Apple's Vision Pro mixed reality headset is the same as the last and yet also quite different. I liken it to peeling an onion: I think I understand the feel and texture of it, but each time I notice new gradations and even flavors that remind me that I still don't fully know Apple's cutting-edge wearable technology.
For my third go around wearing the Vision Pro I had the somewhat unique experience of viewing my own content through the powerful and pricey ($ 3,499 when it ships next year) headset.
A few weeks ago, Apple dropped a beta for iOS 17.2, which added Spatial Video capture to the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max (the full version landed this week). It's a landscape-only mode video format that uses the 48MP main and 12MP Ultrawide cameras to create a stereo video image. I started capturing videos in that format almost immediately, but with the caveat that not every video is worthy of this more immersive experience (you can't be too far away from your subject, and keeping the phone level and steady helps). Still, I had a solid nine clips that I brought with me for my second and by far more personal Vision Pro Spatial Video experience.
I tried, during this third Vision Pro trial, to pay more attention to some of the headset's setup and initialization details. As I've mentioned previously, the Vision Pro is one of Apple's more bespoke hardware experiences. If you wear glasses, you will need to pay extra for a pair of custom-made Zeiss lens inserts – I provided my prescription details in advance of this test run. It's not clear how long consumers might have to wait for their own inserts (could Apple have an express optician service in the back of each Apple Store? Doubtful).
Not everyone will need those lenses, or have to endure that extra cost and wait. If you don't wear glasses, you're ahead of people like me, and likewise if you're a contact lens wearer.
Not me wearing the Vision Pro, because Apple still won’t allow me to photograph myself wearing them. That said, pressing the digital crown is part of the initial setup process (Image credit: Apple)
Getting the custom experience right
Still, there are other customizations that I didn't pay attention to until now. The face cushion that rests on your face and connects magnetically to the main part of Vision Pro comes in a few different curve styles to accommodate the differing contours of of a range of typical human faces. I don't know how many different options Apple will offer.
One thing that's critical for a comfortable AR and VR experience is matching your eye's pupillary distance – the distance between the centers of your eyes. This was the first time I paid attention to one of the first steps in my Vision Pro setup. After I long-pressed the headset's digital crown, a pair of large green shapes appeared before my eyes. They measured the space between my eyes and inside the Vision Pro, and then the dual micro-LED displays and their 23 million pixels of imagery moved to match the space between my eyes. If you listen carefully, you might be able to hear the mechanics doing their job.
I also noted how the Vision Pro runs me through three distinct sets of eye-tracking tests, where I looked at a ring of dots and, for each one, pinched my index finger and thumb together to select them. It might feel tedious to do this three times (okay, it did) but it's a critical step that ensures the Vision Pro's primary interaction paradigm works perfectly every time.
Now, at my third wearing, I've become quite an expert at the looking and pinching thing. A gold star for me.
This cushion is magnetic, and detaches so you can get one that better fits your face. The band also detaches when you pull on a small, bright orange tab (Image credit: Apple)
Spatial computing is kind of familiar
Can you find me in this photo? (Image credit: Lance Ulanoff)
We AirDropped my spatial video and panorama shots from a nearby phone. It was nice to see how smoothly AirDrop works on the Vision Pro – I saw that someone was trying to AirDrop the content and simply looked at 'Accept' and then pinched my thumb and finger. Within seconds, the content was in my Photos library (spatial video gets its own icon).
When Apple's panorama photography was new in iOS 6, I took a lot of panoramic photos. I was tickled by the torn humans who moved too fast in the shot, and the ability to have someone appear twice in one trick panoramic photo. Apple has mostly cleared up the first issue – I noticed that fewer of my recent panos feature people with two heads. These days, though, I take very few panos and only had four decent ones to try with the Vision Pro.
Even with just a few samples, though, I was startled by the quality and immersive nature of the images. My favorite by far was the photo I took earlier this year from my CES 2023 hotel room with an iPhone 14 Pro. Taking these shots is something of a ritual. I like to see what the view and weather are like in Las Vegas, and usually share something on social media to remind people that I'm back at CES.
It would not be an exaggeration to say that this one shot, taken from fairly high up at the Planet Hollywood Hotel, was a revelation. Not just because the vista which virtually wrapped almost around my head was gorgeous, but for the first time I noticed when I looked at the far-right side of the image a complete reflection of me taking the photo. It's a detail I never noticed when looking at the pano on my phone, and there's something incredibly weird about unexpectedly spotting yourself in an immersive environment like that.
A vista from Antigua was similarly engaging. The clarity and detail overall, which is a credit to iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max photography, is impressive. I viewed most of my panos in immersive mode, but could, by using a pinch-and-push gesture with both hands, put the panoramic image back in a windowed view.
Spatial view
I promise you, this is much cooler when viewed on the Vision Pro (Image credit: Lance Ulanoff)
In preparation for my spatial video experience, I shot videos of Thanksgiving dinner, Dickensian carollers, walks in the park, model trains, and interactions with a friend's four-year-old.
Each of these videos hit me a little differently, and all of them in immersive mode shared a few key features. You can view spatial video on the Vision Pro in a window, but I preferred the immersive style, which erases the borders and delivers each video in almost a cloud. Instead of hard edges, each 3D video fades away at the borders, so there's no clear delineation between the real world and the one floating in front of your face. This does reduce the field of view a bit, especially the vertical height and depth – when I viewed the spatial videos on my iPhone (on which they look like regular, flat videos), I could see everything I captured from edge to edge, while in immersive mode on the Vision Pro, some of the details got lost to the top and bottom of the ether.
With my model train videos, the 3D spatial video effect reminded me of the possibly apocryphal tale of early cinema audiences who, upon seeing a film of an oncoming train, ran screaming from the theater. I wouldn't say my video was that intense, but my model train did look like it was about to ride right into my lap.
I enjoyed every video, and while I did not feel as if I was inside any of them, each one felt more real, and whatever emotions I had watching them were heightened. I suspect that when consumers start experiencing the Vision Pro and spatial videos for themselves they might be surprised at the level of emotion they experience from family videos – it can be quite intense.
It was yet another short and seated experience, and I'm sure I didn't press the endurance of the Vision Pro's external two-hour battery pack. I did notice that if I were about to, say, work a full day, watch multiple two-hour movies, or go through a vast library of spatial videos, I could plug a power-adapter-connected cable right into the battery pack's available USB-C port.
I still don't know if the Apple Vision Pro is for everyone, but the more I use it, and the more I learn about it, the more I'm convinced that Apple is set to trigger a seismic shift in our computing experience. Not everyone will end up buying Vision Pro, but most of us will feel its impact.
ChatGPT is back online after suffering a “major” outage, according to the OpenAI status log (as spotted by Bloomberg). It’s far from the first time the chatbot has gone down in recent months, and it comes amid increased competition from Google’s brand-new Gemini artificial intelligence (AI) tool.
OpenAI, ChatGPT’s developer, posted the note on its website stating that the company’s chatbot was down for just under 40 minutes yesterday, between 5:32pm and 6:10pm PST. Outage indicator website Downdetector logged almost 3,000 reports that ChatGPT had crashed, coinciding with OpenAI’s report.
Looking back through OpenAI’s incident report page, it’s far from the only time that ChatGPT has gone down recently. November was a particularly error-prone month, with another “major” outage on November 8, while a whole host of OpenAI services were inaccessible on November 11.
The latest crash comes at a potentially challenging time for OpenAI, as Google has just launched its Gemini large language model (LLM) that will power a range of AI services for the search giant. Yet Gemini hasn’t got off to the best start, as complaints have mounted over its abilities and Google’s decision to fake a “hands-on” video of the tool.
ChatGPT Plus resumes subscriptions
(Image credit: OpenAI)
Just as ChatGPT was coming back online, OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman shared some more positive news on X (formerly Twitter), noting that the company had re-enabled ChatGPT Plus subscriptions. “Thanks for your patience while we found more GPUs,” Altman added dryly.
ChatGPT Plus is OpenAI’s subscription service. For $ 20 / £16 a month, users gain access to a more advanced LLM (powered by GPT-4 rather than GPT-3.5, which runs the regular version of ChatGPT), faster response times and “priority access to new features and improvements.”
ChatGPT Plus had become so overrun in recent months that OpenAI was forced to pause subscriptions. According to Altman, a surge in use after OpenAI’s DevDay developer conference “exceeded our capacity and we want to make sure everyone has a great experience.”
With the rise of Google Gemini, you might be taking this moment to consider whether ChatGPT Plus is worth it. Google says Gemini can beat GPT-4 in a majority of tests, yet that’s with its high-end Ultra model, which isn’t available yet. So for now, ChatGPT Plus is still probably the best AI chatbot you can get – at least until Gemini Ultra launches.
The cumulative update for December, which just arrived (patch KB5033372), debuts Copilot (in preview) on the desktop, as well as applying the usual security fixes, and a few extra features besides.
Copilot’s icon is positioned on the taskbar, at the far right in the system tray. However, if you don’t see the AI assistant on your taskbar after installing KB5033372, that could be due to a slight complication for Windows 10 users regarding the interface, which we’ll come back to shortly.
Or it might be simply because this is a limited rollout of the AI to begin with. As Microsoft notes: “[Copilot] is available to a small audience initially and deploys more broadly in the months that follow.”
If you do see the Copilot icon, and don’t want the AI on your desktop, the good news is that you can right-click to disable it, as Windows Latest reports.
The December update for Windows 10 also gives the News & Interests panel more screen real-estate, and it introduces another feature from Windows 11 aside from Copilot.
That’s the ‘Get the latest updates as soon as they are available’ option, which as the name suggests, is a way to offer up your PC to get updates as soon as possible – with the catch that you may experience wonkiness as an early adopter. But more choice is always good in our book.
Analysis: Sidestepping Copilot
Copilot is the major move here, of course, but what about that mentioned interface issue? Well, there’s a problem for those who’ve moved their taskbar away from the bottom of the screen, and to the side, in Windows 10. Admittedly, that’s a niche set of users who are seriously into their desktop customization, but still, there are people who will likely be annoyed by this.
Microsoft informs us: “Copilot in Windows (in preview) is not currently supported when your taskbar is located vertically on the right or left of your screen.”
The obvious workaround, as Microsoft points out, is to move your taskbar back to the bottom of the screen (or the top). If you’re a hardcore customizer, though, relocating your taskbar from its preferred vertical position at the sides will probably mess with your mojo and workflow in a meaningful way.
At any rate, Microsoft tells us that it’s working on resolving this hiccup with the UI, and will keep us updated as to the progress on that fix.
The reason this isn’t a problem in Windows 11, by the way, is that you can’t move the taskbar away from the bottom of the desktop (much to the chagrin of those mentioned keen desktop tinkerers).
At the moment, Copilot is only on a limited rollout anyway, and it could take months to arrive on any given Windows 10 PC – but at least the process has now kicked off.
You’re not missing that much, mind, given the AI’s current condition, where it’s basically just a glorified version of the Bing chatbot (now renamed Copilot itself). It can manipulate some Windows settings, but not many to begin with – that functionality will be ramped up as the months pass, though.
Google Maps is getting a privacy update that gives users new ways to control their information on the platform.
First, the app will begin collecting your recent activity into one central location where you can view places you’ve been to in the past, the date you went there, and the amount of time you spent visiting. You’ll be even able to “delete your searches, directions… and shares” in the same hub.
Looking at Google’s announcement, it appears you can delete each entry one by one or the whole thing altogether. A window will pop up on the screen letting you know what’s going to be thrown out. The data packet will include photos, reviews, feedback reports, saved lists, and more you’ve made about a location.
Tapping the blue dot on Google Maps will now bring up a settings menu for the Timeline and Location History features where you can see if either tool has been turned on as well as if the app has access to your device’s location. Timeline, if you’re not super familiar with it, uses data obtained from Location History to keep a record of all the places you’ve been to.
The deletion tool and the blue dot menu will start rolling out to Android and iOS phones over the coming weeks.
Saving the timeline
There is another update; however, it won’t come out until sometime next year. The upcoming feature allows people to save their Timeline recording directly onto their device instead of leaving it up on Google’s cloud. You are, of course, able to delete a part or all of your information at once, if you don’t want to leave a trace behind. Conversely, users can back up their data to the company servers at any time. Everything is encrypted, so no one, not even Google, can take a peek.
Location History is getting a small tweak. Its auto-delete function “will be set to three months by default” rather than 18 months as is currently the case. After that time passes, all saved information will be deleted. If you want to go back to the longer period, you can adjust at any time.
It’s unknown exactly when the Timeline changes will roll out to Android or iOS in 2024, although Google states you will receive an account notification when it eventually arrives.
Google Maps is full of neat little tricks that most people are unaware of. If you want to know what they are, check out TechRadar's list of the 10 things you didn't know Google Maps could do.
It seems that GPT-4 Turbo – the most recent incarnation of the large language model (LLM) from OpenAI – winds down for the winter, just as many people are doing as December rolls onwards.
We all get those end-of-year Holiday season chill vibes (probably) and indeed that appears to be why GPT-4 Turbo – which Microsoft’s Copilot AI will soon be upgraded to – is acting in this manner.
As Wccftech highlighted, the interesting observation on the AI’s behavior was made by an LLM enthusiast, Rob Lynch, on X (formerly Twitter).
@ChatGPTapp @OpenAI @tszzl @emollick @voooooogel Wild result. gpt-4-turbo over the API produces (statistically significant) shorter completions when it “thinks” its December vs. when it thinks its May (as determined by the date in the system prompt).I took the same exact prompt… pic.twitter.com/mA7sqZUA0rDecember 11, 2023
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The claim is that GPT-4 Turbo produces shorter responses – to a statistically significant extent – when the AI believes that it’s December, as opposed to May (with the testing done by changing the date in the system prompt).
So, the tentative conclusion is that it appears GPT-4 Turbo learns this behavior from us, an idea advanced by Ethan Mollick (an Associate Professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania who specializes in AI).
OMG, the AI Winter Break Hypothesis may actually be true?There was some idle speculation that GPT-4 might perform worse in December because it “learned” to do less work over the holidays.Here is a statistically significant test showing that this may be true. LLMs are weird.🎅 https://t.co/mtCY3lmLFFDecember 11, 2023
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Apparently GPT-4 Turbo is about 5% less productive if the AI thinks it’s the Holiday season.
Analysis: Winter break hypothesis
This is known as the ‘AI winter break hypothesis’ and it’s an area that is worth exploring further.
What it goes to show is how unintended influences can be picked up by an AI that we wouldn’t dream of considering – although some researchers obviously did notice and consider it, and then test it. But still, you get what we mean – and there’s a whole lot of worry around these kinds of unexpected developments.
As AI progresses, its influences, and the direction that the tech takes itself in, need careful watching over, hence all the talk of safeguards for AI being vital.
We’re rushing ahead with developing AI – or rather, the likes of OpenAI (GPT), Microsoft (Copilot), and Google (Bard) certainly are – caught up in a tech arms race, with most of the focus on driving progress as hard as possible, with safeguards being more of an afterthought. And there’s an obvious danger therein which one word sums up nicely: Skynet.
At any rate, regarding this specific experiment, it’s just one piece of evidence that the winter break theory is true for GPT-4 Turbo, and Lynch has urged others to get in touch if they can reproduce the results – and we do have one report of a successful reproduction so far. Still, that’s not enough for a concrete conclusion yet – watch this space, we guess.
When the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses launched they did so without many of the impressive AI features we were promised. Now Meta is finally rolling out these capabilities to users, but they’re still in the testing phase and only available in the US.
During their Meta Connect 2023 announcement, we were told the follow-up to the Ray-Ban Stories smart glasses would get some improvements we expected – namely a slightly better camera and speakers – but also some unexpected AI integration.
Unfortunately, when we actually got to test the specs out its AI features boiled down to very basic commands. You can instruct them to take a picture, record a video, or contact someone through Messenger or WhatsApp. In the US you could also chat to a basic conversational AI – like ChatGPT – though this was still nothing to write home about.
While the glasses’ design is near-perfect, the speakers and camera weren’t impressive enough to make up for the lacking AI. So overall in our Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses review we didn’t look too favorably on the specs.
Press the button or ask the AI to take a picture (Image credit: Meta)
Our perception could soon be about to change drastically, however, as two major promised features are on their way: Look and Ask, and Bing integration.
Look and Ask is essentially a wearable voice-controlled Google Lens with a few AI-powered upgrades. While wearing the smart glasses you can say “Hey Meta, look and…” followed by a question about what you can see. The AI will then use the camera to scan your environment so it can provide a detailed answer to your query. On the official FAQ possible questions you can ask include “What can I make with these ingredients?” or “How much water do these flowers need?” or “Translate this sign into English.”
To help the Meta glasses provide better information when you’re using its conversational and Look and Ask features the specs can also now access the internet via Bing. This should mean the specs can source more up-to-date data letting it answer questions about sports matches that are currently happening, or provide real-time info on what nearby restaurants are the best rated, among other things.
Still not perfect
(Image credit: Meta)
It all sounds very science fiction, but unfortunately these almost magical capabilities come with a catch. For now, the new features – just like the existing conversational AI – are in beta testing.
So the glasses might have trouble with some of your queries and provide inaccurate answers, or not be able to find an answer at all. What’s more, as Meta explains in its FAQ any AI-processed pictures you take while part of the beta will be stored by Meta and used to train its AI. So your Look and Ask snaps aren’t private.
Lastly, the Meta Ray-Ban smart glasses beta is only available in the US. So if you live somewhere else like me you won’t be able to try these features out – and probably won’t until 2024.
If you are in the US and happy with the terms of Meta’s Privacy Policy, you can sign up for the Early Access program and start testing these new tools. For everyone else hopefully these features won’t be in beta for long, or at least won’t be US-exclusive – otherwise we’ll be left continuing to wonder why we spent $ 299 / £299 / AU$ 449 on smart specs that aren’t all that much better than dumb Ray-Ban Wayfarers at half the cost.
Windows 11 just got its latest cumulative update which applies a bunch of fixes to the OS, along with bringing improvements to the Copilot AI.
It’s Copilot that’s the main focus here, with Microsoft introducing the AI assistant to the Alt+Tab function in December’s update (patch KB5033375). In other words, when you use that to tab through the various running apps on your PC, Copilot will be one of those running processes.
On top of that, Microsoft has made it so that you can use Copilot across multiple monitors. You can invoke the AI on any monitor now (with its taskbar icon), and by using the Windows key + C shortcut you can bring up Copilot on the last display it was present on.
Another smaller tweak, but a very useful one, is that the December update makes Copilot open faster when you click its icon on the taskbar. It’s always good to have tasks happen in a speedier fashion, of course.
A bug which previously meant that the Copilot icon on the taskbar wasn’t showing as active when the AI was in fact running has also been fixed.
Elsewhere, KB5033375 solves a widely reported problem whereby Narrator (the screen reader feature) failed to work during the installation process for Windows.
Another interesting move here is a tweak for the Dynamic Lighting hub, and we’re told Windows 11 now reduces the amount of power it uses on your PC. Savings on wattage are always welcome, of course.
As mentioned at the outset, there are a bunch of security fixes applied in the December update, and general troubleshooting work besides. Check out the support document for KB5033375, or rather, for the same update in preview (which is where the tweaks are listed in full – that preview arrived earlier in December, just over a week ago).
Analysis: testing the waters
The slight catch with the major two additions for Copilot here – the support across multiple monitors, and within Alt+Tab – is that not everyone will get them to begin with. Only a small subset of Windows 11 users will benefit off the bat, ahead of a broader rollout which will be ongoing.
It’s likely that this will be the approach for much of Microsoft’s Copilot tinkering, testing the waters in a limited way before a wider deployment is initiated.
We can expect Microsoft to be constantly improving Copilot every month, pretty much, now that the AI has rolled out to the general public in Windows 11. It’ll without doubt be the focus for Microsoft going forward into next year – and the potential release of next-gen Windows in 2024 (which may or may not be Windows 12).
The saga of Beeper Mini continues as the developer behind it relaunched the app, although it comes at the cost of one of its main features.
To give you a crash course of recent events, Beeper Mini is an Android app that gives users the ability to send and receive texts using the iMessage protocol. Apple eventually found out about it then proceeded to block the service, claiming it posed “significant risks” to user safety. On December 11, Beeper the company managed to restore connectivity, however, people must now sign in with their AppleID credentials whereas before all you had to enter was the phone number of your Android smartphone.
This ease of use was especially appealing since you weren’t forced to add or create another login. According to Beeper’s post, texts will instead be exchanged through the email address listed on your AppleID. This won’t be nearly as convenient as TheVerge points out, but at least people can still communicate with iMessage.
Working things out
There are plans to restore phone number registration later down the line although no word when the feature will come back. To make up for the downscaling, Beeper Mini will now be free moving forward until the day comes when things stabilize. At that point, Beeper may reintroduce the monthly fee. You can keep the $ 2 subscription turned on as a way to support Beeper during these times, but it’s not a requirement.
The company states in its blog post it will remain committed to ensuring Beeper Mini becomes a successful service on Android. Apple is obviously the biggest obstacle to achieving this goal, so Beeper had decided to extend an olive branch to the tech giant by making two commitments.
One: if Apple truly believes Beeper Mini is a danger to iOS user safety, the developer says it will share the app’s entire codebase “with a mutually agreed upon third-party security research firm.” Two, at Apple's insistence, Beeper might consider “adding a pager emoji” to the metadata on all messages coming from their app. The purpose of the emoji is to make it easier for iMessages to filter out texts coming from Beeper Mini.
Mounting pressure
Now the question is will Apple leave the service alone? It’s hard to say. Apple certainly isn’t afraid to bring down the hammer despite pressure from other corporations and governing groups. That said, Apple isn’t inflexible. Hell froze over back in mid-November when it finally decided to support the RCS protocol from Android phones. Plus this whole situation caught the eye of the US government. Senator Elizabeth Warren on X (the platform formerly known as Twitter) called for Apple to allow Beeper Mini to exist.
She recognizes the fact that the “green bubble texts [from Android] are less secure”, putting forth the idea of expanding the security measures as well as making communication between the two platforms easier to do.
The updated Beeper Mini is currently available for download on the Google Play Store. We reached out to the developer on X asking if it could give us a timeframe for the release of future fixes plus what it hopes to achieve by sharing the codebase. This story will be updated at a later time.
Google will be pulling the plug on the last vestiges of Play Movies & TV, and to help with the transition, it’ll be moving users’ purchased content to other services.
The tech giant has been slowly shutting down the platform for the past two years beginning with its removal from various smart TVs. The storefront has since existed on Android TV devices and Google Play undisturbed until recently when a post on the Android TV Help website announced the changes. According to the page, the update will roll out over the coming weeks, but the day you’ll receive the patch depends on what country you live in. Then on January 17, Google will officially move everything you bought on or are currently renting from Play Movies & TV to its new home. Something you should know is access to your content depends on what hardware you own.
For example, if you have an Android TV or streaming device, you can find your purchases over “in the Your Library row on the Shop tab.” People who own a cable or set-top box “powered by Android TV” will have to open the YouTube app and then go to the Movies & TV section. Media will be under the Purchased tab. On web browsers, it’s the same process: head over to YouTube and hop on over to Movies & TV on your account.
Also, the post from earlier mentions you can view content on the Google TV mobile app. It doesn’t say exactly where people can find their media, but if we have to take a wild stab in the dark, it’ll most likely be under Your Stuff.
A small limitation
There aren’t a lot of restrictions. One we found is the fact that the ability to buy or rent movies on YouTube isn’t available around the globe. It's only in a few regions. A full list of supporting countries can be found on Google’s Help website. It’s worth mentioning some online reports claim they’ve already received the patch as they’re “already seeing old movie buys” on YouTube so the release may be happening sooner than expected.
We reached out to Google asking for some clarification on the rollout, like are certain countries being prioritized first? Additionally, what if someone gets the update earlier than January 17? Does this mean they'll be locked out of their purchases until then? We’ll let you know what the company says if they respond.
Be sure to check out TechRadar's list of the best Android box of 2023 if you're looking for a way to upgrade your TV.
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