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Posts tagged "could"

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Microsoft quietly reveals Windows 11’s next big update could be about to arrive
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If you were wondering when Windows 11’s big upgrade for this year will turn up, the answer is soon, with Microsoft now making the final preparations to deploy the 23H2 update – with a revelation apparently imminent.

As Windows Latest tells us, Microsoft just shipped a ‘Windows Configuration Update’ which is readying the toggle to allow users to select ‘Get the latest updates as soon as they’re available’ and be first in line to receive the 23H2 update.

Note that nothing is actually happening yet, just that this is a piece of necessary groundwork (confirmed via an internal document from Microsoft, we’re told) ahead of the rollout of the Windows 11 23H2 update.

Okay, so when is the 23H2 update actually going to turn up? Well, Windows Latest has heard further chatter from sources that indicates Microsoft is going to announce the upgrade at an event later this week.

That would be the ‘special event’ Microsoft revealed a while back, taking place in New York on September 21 (Thursday). As well as the expected Surface hardware launches, we will also evidently get our first tease of the 23H2 update, at least in theory.

Analysis: Copilot on the horizon

An announcement this week makes sense to us, ahead of a broader rollout that’ll be coming soon enough.

As Windows Latest further points out, the 23H2 update will likely become available next month – at least in limited form. This means those who have ticked that toggle to get updates as soon as possible may receive it in October – at least some of those folks, in the usual phased deployment – before that wider rollout kicks off in November, and everyone gets the new features contained within the upgrade.

In theory, that means Windows Copilot, though we suspect the initial incarnation of the AI assistant is still going to be pretty limited. (And we do wonder why Microsoft isn’t going to keep on baking it until next year, but that’s a whole other argument – it seems like with AI, everything has to be done in quite the rush).

It’s also worth bearing in mind that if you’re still on the original version of Windows 11, 21H2, you’ll need to upgrade anyway – as support for that runs out on October 10, 2023. PCs on 21H2 are being force-upgraded to 22H2 right now, although you’ll pretty much be able to skip straight to 23H2 after that, should you wish.

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Windows 11 could bring your desktop to life with AI-enhanced ‘moving wallpapers’
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Windows 11 is set to receive a whole new look and feel with an upcoming update, thanks to an AI-powered feature that will revamp the desktop experience. 

Internal documents spotted by Windows Latest suggest we may get something akin to a ‘live wallpaper’ for users' desktops. This would make the wallpaper look like it's 'popping out’ of your screen when you move your cursor across the display, with its appearance changing based on the cursor's movement. 

In addition to this, Windows Latest hints at the potential of adding a ‘parallax effect’ to the desktop background, making the wallpaper move more slowly in the background than the windows and apps that are on top, giving the illusion of depth to make your background look more immersive. 

Microsoft has been pushing hard on AI integration, putting a lot of time and effort into implementing artificial intelligence into its products since the success of the new and improved Bing, and it seems that every facet of Microsoft’s products may be graced by AI at some point. 

Cool wallpapers incoming  

We’re probably only going to see AI-powered wallpapers on devices that can support the movement detection required to create the desired effect, so we might first see the feature on newer, more powerful machines. 

It’s exciting to see Microsoft using AI to improved the aesthetics of your device, even if it is just a nifty wallpaper at this stage. From what we can tell, these depth and movement effects should work with most images you might use as a desktop background, and should save you from having to search for (and install) live wallpaper applications.

This could also be the first step in creating a truly immersive and interesting background with the help of AI, as we may soon see new features pop up once Microsoft makes the feature available. Hopefully, the company will build on that, and introduce more fun and engaging ways to make your device your own.

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The Apple Vision Pro could already have a potential competitor – A cheaper headset from Meta
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The Apple Vision Pro has caused quite a stir since it was announced at WWDC 2023, and its odd-but-captivating design has prompted several competitors to begin development of their own premium AR headsets, including Meta. 

The rumors swirling around the supposed Meta headset suggest that the company has partnered with LG to launch the mixed reality device at some point in 2025, with pricing set lower than the staggering price point of $ 3,499 of the Apple Vision Pro. 

Wccftech reports that the potential headset will feature the same ‘Pro’ tag, with the official name said to be the Quest 4 Pro. The partnership between LG and Meta mirrors that of Apple and Sony, so we can expect LG to be in charge of display production. 

More choice is always welcome

With the potential launch date set for a few years from now, it seems likely that Meta intends to see how consumers take to the Apple Vision Pro. The report from Wccftech suggests that a cheaper model of Meta’s headset will retail for $ 200 in 2024, with the Quest 4 Pro following a year later at an undisclosed price. 

While there are still a lot of mixed feelings surrounding the Apple Vision Pro leading up to the launch, it could be a good sign that other tech companies are looking into offering cheaper alternatives. 

Apple may be able to argue that the high cost of its headset is a result of the premium design and features offered, but if competitors like Meta could jump on the wagon and provide something similar for cheaper, Apple should start feeling a little nervous. 

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YouTube could soon let you search for songs just by humming
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Have you ever had a song stuck in your head so often you know how it goes but not its name? Well, YouTube may one day offer a solution as the platform is testing out a new search function that will be able to identify a song just from someone humming a tune.

While that sounds too good to be true, it does appear to be part of an ongoing project to introduce Shazam-like tech to YouTube. As seen on a Google support page, the feature would allow people to look up songs either by humming, as we just mentioned, or “recording a song that’s currently being played” into the voice search tool. 

The company states the humming or recording must last at least three seconds “in order for the song to be identified.” Once found, the website will bring up relevant, official content from YouTube channels, “user-generated videos”, or Shorts featuring the track.

Because it’s experimental, the platform is rolling out the test to only a “small percentage of people across the globe who watch YouTube on Android devices.” It’s unknown if it’s possible to request to join the program. We reached out to Google for more information. This story will be updated at a later time.

Old tech made new

The technology behind analyzing humming to find specific music tracks is not new. Both Google Search and Google Assistant for mobile rolled out this functionality back in 2020. YouTube’s version could well be using the same tech although it sounds like it has been vastly improved. To search for tracks on Google Assistant, for example, requires you to hum for at least 10 seconds straight versus three on YouTube.

Considering that Google is expanding its music recognition software, we can’t help but wonder if Apple will follow suit with Shazam. For the 20 some-odd years it’s been around, Shazam has relied on analyzing recordings to look up songs, never expanding its tech to include humming or singing even when it was bought out. 

Apple didn’t budge when smaller, third-party music recognition apps like MusixMatch began implementing this feature. But now that a major rival is jumping into the fray, we might see the long-awaited upgrade. 

Quality-of-life update

Google is also experimenting with another YouTube feature although it’s more of a quality-of-life upgrade than anything super substantial. The tech giant calls it “channel shelf”, and it will bundle together multiple uploads from your Subscription feed. Presumably, everything can be put together into a playlist of sorts. Google doesn’t explain exactly how it works.

It does explain why the company is adding this. One: YouTube wants to “make it easier for users to find” and engage with content. Two: it wants to take some of the pressure off creators who feel the need to upload videos multiple times a day. Like the humming upgrade, this is only available to “a small percentage of viewers to start.”

Listening to music on YouTube isn't the greatest experience. The platform compresses the audio, resulting in a dip in quality. You're better off listening to tracks on a proper streaming service. 

With that in mind, be sure to check out TechRadar's list of the best music streaming services for 2023. We recommend Tidal if you want truly lossless audio.

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Not upgraded to Windows 11 yet? You could miss out on faster Wi-Fi as a result
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A leaked Intel document has seemingly confirmed that users on Windows 10 and older operating systems won’t be able to enjoy Wi-Fi 7 when it launches next year.

The document, posted on Twitter by leaker @g01d3nm4ng0, lists Windows 11, Linux, and ChromeOS as supported platforms for the new Wi-Fi standard. While it isn’t explicitly stated that Windows 10 won’t be supported, it’s not an unreasonable extrapolation to make. 

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Wi-Fi 7 is expected to provide some seriously advanced data transmission techniques to offer speeds potentially close to five times faster than Wi-Fi 6, along with superior reliability, range, and power efficiency. Intel has been leading the charge to implement the new technology as early as 2024, so it’s unsurprising that’s where this leak originated from.

That being said, it likely isn’t Intel’s fault that Windows 10 (and presumably older versions of Windows) won’t support the new Wi-Fi standard. Microsoft has had a hard time pushing Windows 11 to users, and this is just another factor the tech giant can point to and say ‘look, you’re missing out on this!’

The death knell of Windows 10

Let’s face it: we’re going to have to let go of Windows 10 eventually. With Windows 12 just peeking over the horizon, it was inevitable that some new features wouldn’t make the cut for our beloved 10.

Still, it’s a shame to see Microsoft so aggressively pushing forward – especially when it’s arguably ahead of the curve when it comes to its operating system. Windows Copilot and the general slew of AI-powered updates for the OS show that Microsoft doesn’t even need version 12 to innovate in Windows, so why keep pushing ahead with major version releases like this?

Frustrations have been fairly widespread with regard to Windows 11, hampering adoption in a big way despite Microsoft offering free upgrades for existing Windows users. Part of the problem is the strict hardware requirements for Win11, which entirely prevent some users from upgrading past Windows 10 (the TPM 2.0 requirement is a particular sticking point here). Early leaks have suggested that Windows 12 will also come with new minimum system requirements, locking out even more people on outdated builds.

Still, if you can upgrade to Windows 11 and have simply been putting it off out of laziness or distrust of the new OS, now might be the time to start considering it. Wi-Fi 7 devices and routers aren’t available yet, but when they do arrive, you won’t want to find yourself stuck with slower wireless internet speeds just because you didn’t upgrade!

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New Tiny10 – the streamlined Windows 10 OS – could be your best bet for bringing an old PC back to life
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Tiny10 came out with a new version back in June, and now it’s been considerably improved by the developer, so those looking for a lightweight spin on Windows 10 to put on an old PC might be more tempted to take the plunge.

You may recall that the improved version of Tiny10 released a couple of months back was the 64-bit (x64) variant, which offers numerous advantages in terms of better security and performance over the old 32-bit incarnation. (This means you should run it, providing you have a 64-bit CPU, which is most likely the case – we cover this in more detail here).

That was the first release of Tiny10 x64 and now the developer, NTDEV, has pushed out a major refresh (the 23H2 version) which applies a lot of fixing work and more besides (as Neowin spotted).

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We’re told that Tiny10 x64 23H2 fixes “lots of nagging issues” and the rebuild of the OS ensures that it has full compatibility with “most” Windows components, meaning you can add bits and pieces back in post-installation, if critical parts of Windows 10 that you really want are missing.

Analysis: Sizeable improvements to a Tiny OS

While Tiny10 is all about streamlining Windows 10 and cutting everything right back so it’ll run on very old hardware, it’s good to have the ability to, say, reintroduce Windows Media Player into the mix if you want to. (Previously, the app didn’t work with Tiny10 x64).

This refresh of Tiny10 has also stripped back the Windows 10 installation provided even more, removing some little-used features such as, for example, OCR (optical character recognition).

The end result should be a smoother-running OS, and a slightly more compact one, albeit you do have more scope for reintroducing key Windows components should you want to.

In theory, Tiny10 can work on an ancient PC with as little as 1GB of RAM (although the official requirement is 2GB) and 16GB of storage space. The caveat with the OS (and Tiny11, the equivalent streamlined spin on Windows 11) is that you are using a modified Windows installation (ISO) file, and you cannot be exactly sure of the contents of that file.

You may want to be cautious in that regard, then, but both Tiny operating systems have been used quite considerably at this point with no complaints. Still, as ever with software downloads from the wild, you proceed at your own risk.

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Microsoft could be planning to infuse Windows 11 with AI in every corner
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Windows 11 could get AI enhancements for a bunch of its core apps in the future, according to a well-known source of leaks on all things Microsoft.

Zac Bowden (of Windows Central) informs us Microsoft is considering bolstering a ‘handful’ of the default apps in Windows 11 with AI functionality, and that includes Photos, Snipping Tool, Paint, and the Camera app.

The idea for Photos is that with images containing people or objects, the AI could identify these and give the user the ability to order them to be cut out and pasted to another image (or document, or wherever).

With Paint, the idea might be to usher in generative AI, meaning you could ask the app to create something specific (in the same vein that the Bing chatbot can knock up a composition of an image when given a brief).

For the Snipping Tool, the idea is to introduce OCR (optical character recognition) which could allow the tool to pick up on text in screenshots, facilitating the extraction of those words to the clipboard. The Camera app may also get a similar OCR trick to pull out text from photos.

Bowden underlines that these ideas are still at the experimental stage, and it’s not clear when they might come to Windows 11.

Analysis: Windows 11 or Windows AI?

The fact that these capabilities are experimental suggests that they may not be coming to Windows 11 in the near future (if they ever do – this is just speculation, after all). Who knows, though – Microsoft could have a lot of the groundwork in place (for example, the image creation functionality already in Bing AI), and it could happen faster than we think.

Certainly, these are going to be very handy features if they do arrive in Windows 11. They’ll cut corners in impressively swift ways – pulling text out of photos more or less instantly, for example, and cutting out a person from an image in the blink of an eye (a painstaking task when performed manually, of course).

So, what’s the catch? Well, apart from the rumored nature of these AI features, Bowden does observe that they may have hardware requirements in some cases. That could include the presence of a VPU or vision processing unit, for example (a capability set to be built into Intel’s next-gen Meteor Lake CPUs, which speeds up AI-based tasks).

All of the above-mentioned features sound realistic inclusions for Windows 11 at some point, beefing up the operating system’s core apps considerably, and fitting neatly alongside Windows Copilot in making the OS a more AI-driven experience all-round.

If this rumor makes one thing clearer, it’s Microsoft’s ambition to infuse Windows 11 with AI in every corner – or maybe next-gen Windows, which as Bowden observes, will incorporate AI more ‘significantly.’ Perhaps that’ll be Windows 12, as rumored, or maybe the next incarnation of the OS could called Windows AI, even?

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Microsoft’s latest trick for Edge could be the closest Windows 10 users get to Copilot AI
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Microsoft’s Edge browser has a new version which brings in some fresh features including the ability to detach the sidebar and move it onto the desktop for Windows 10 users.

This ability has been introduced with version 116 of Edge, as spotted by Ghacks, and it comes alongside the usual bug fixes and smoothing out of performance issues.

The Edge sidebar normally nestles on the right-hand side of the browser, but now, those on Windows 10 can pop it out of the browser window, and place it on their desktop.

The idea is to facilitate a “side-by-side experience” with the sidebar and any Windows 10 app, with the feature remaining present on the desktop, even if the Edge browser itself is closed.

So, this is kind of like having two taskbars on your desktop, if you will, with one of them being Edge-specific.

The Edge sidebar offers quick access to various bits of functionality, such as pinned websites, and Microsoft’s tools like Bing AI.

Analysis: Substitute Copilot – at least in a small way

This is a useful option that’s opt-in as Microsoft makes clear, so if you’re not interested in having the Edge sidebar on your Windows 10 desktop, you’ll never need to bother with it. For those who do want access to its features independently of the browser window, it’s clearly a handy choice to have.

Indeed, when you remember that Microsoft’s Copilot AI is only coming to Windows 11, this is actually a way of getting something a little like this on Windows 10. We’ve already seen that Microsoft plans to incorporate Copilot into the Edge sidebar, after all, so you’ll be able to deploy this on the desktop, in the same vein as Windows Copilot.

Granted, the functionality of Copilot for Edge will be nowhere near as useful as the full version of Copilot – which theoretically will be able to change all manner of Windows settings in the blink of an eye – but it’s something.

And Microsoft is going to work on adding “additional features and options” to the sidebar with future incarnations of Edge, as you might imagine. The sidebar isn’t going away, in short, for Windows 10 or 11 users, and is seemingly a key part of Microsoft’s ambition to make Edge one of the best web browsers out there.

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The Apple Vision Pro could pack in more storage than the iPhone 15
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We know that the Apple Vision Pro isn't going to be available to buy until 2024, but we're learning a little bit more about the specs of the device through leaks from early testers – including how much on-board storage the augmented reality headset might pack.

According to iPhoneSoft (via 9to5Mac), the Vision Pro is going to offer users 1TB of integrated storage as a default option, with 2TB or 4TB a possibility for those who need it (and who have bigger budgets to spend).

Alternatively, it might be that 256GB is offered as the amount of storage on the starting price Vision Pro headset, and that 512GB and 1TB configurations are the ones made available for those who want to spend more.

This information is supposedly from someone who has been given an early look at the AR device, and noticed the storage space listed on one of the settings screens. It's more than the standard iPhone 15 model is expected to have – if it sticks with the iPhone 14 configurations, it will be available with up to 512GB of storage.

Plenty of unknowns

It does make sense for a device like this to offer lots of room for apps and files, and it might go some way to explaining the hefty starting price of $ 3,499 (about £2,750 / AU$ 5,485). Watch this space for more Vision Pro revelations as the launch date gets closer.

While the Apple Vision Pro is now official, there's still a lot we don't know about it – and it may be that we won't find out everything until we actually have the headset in our hands and are able to test it fully.

There have been rumors that two more Vision Pro headsets are in the pipeline, and that some features – such as making group calls using augmented reality avatars – will be held back until those later generations of the device go on sale.

We're also hearing that Apple might not be planning to make a huge number of these headsets, so availability could be a problem. Right now it does feel like a high-end, experimental device rather than something aimed at the mass market.

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This bonkers Apple patent could solve one of VR’s biggest problems
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Apple might have found a wild solution to VR’s prescription lens problem; liquid lenses.

VR headsets and glasses don’t usually mix well. Often they sit too close to your face for glasses to fit in front of your eyes, and the solutions deployed by headset designers are a mixed bag – some package in optional spacers that make room for specs like the Oculus Quest 2, while others include a prescription lens attachment (but you need to buy lenses for it at an added cost) like the Apple Vision Pro, and a few do nothing at all.

This has resulted in some glasses wearers feeling like VR isn’t accessible to them, but that might change if Apple’s latest patent comes to one of its headsets.

According to the patent granted in the US (via Apple Insider) Apple has created a design for an “electronic device with liquid lenses.”  The document describes a “head-mounted device” (sounds like a VR headset) with “tunable liquid lenses.” You can read the patent for the full details, but the TL;DR is that electronic signals sent to the lenses will deform the liquid in them and alter the refractive index of the lenses. 

This should allow the liquid lenses to correct a wide range of eyesight issues without the need for any accessories. What’s more, the correction is calibrated by the headset’s eye-tracking system.

Apple’s patent also states that it could apply to a “pair of glasses.” We can’t read too much into patent wordings, but this could hint at the Apple AR glasses that Apple apparently also has in development.

When will we get liquid lenses? 

Apple logo seen through a pair of glasses

Apple’s liquid lenses could bring VR and AR into focus (Image credit: Shutterstock / Girts Ragelis)

As with all patents we need to note that there’s no guarantee that we’ll ever see these liquid lenses appear in a real headset – one that’s made by Apple or otherwise. While the design exists in theory, it might be less than practical to add liquid lenses to a commercially available headset – either from a design or cost perspective. Alternatively, Apple might develop a different solution to VR’s prescription problem.

What’s more, even if liquid lenses do appear in an Apple headset you or I could pick up off the shelf there’s no telling when that will happen.

It’s probably an impossibility for the first-generation Vision Pro to launch in early 2024, and we’d be surprised if it appeared in the second-generation headset that rumors predict will appear sometime in the next few years. Instead, it seems far more likely we’d see liquid lenses in the third-generation model (assuming we see them at all) in half a decade or so – as this would give Apple plenty of time to hone the design.

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