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Microsoft gets defensive and reminds users how great Windows 11 is
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Microsoft recently released a feature update for Windows 11 called Moment 3, which was full of useful upgrades and performance enhancements, that could even win over many Windows 10 users in the battle to get them to upgrade to Windows 11. 

Soon after the release of Moment 3, Microsoft released a list of enhancements that the company has made throughout the year to “more than a billion users worldwide” via a blog post. The list is basically a rundown of every change made in the past year on Insider channels that are now present in the Moment 3 update.

According to Neowin, Microsoft’s Executive Vice President and Chief Product Officer Panos Panay had reminded people that the newest iteration of Windows is focused on quality, and that Windows 11 is the “most reliable version of Windows ever.”

The official blog post from Microsoft with the rather unsubtle title ‘Delivering Delightful Performance for More Than One Billion Users Worldwide’ dives into all the major changes made thus far that Windows users should be grateful for.

There’s been no shortage of negative news stories, crashes and bugs crawling around Windows 11 and subsequent updates and fixes this year, so the blog post comes across like doubling-down from the tech giant. While the Moment 3 update was definitely welcomed with open, almost desperate arms, it does seem a little strange for Microsoft to put out a blog post detailing every ‘good’ change it’s made so far.

The improvements boasted by the tech giant are listed in full in the post, with some notable mentions like making PCs more sustainable, Microsoft Edge starting up faster and increasing users productivity by speeding up how long it takes to get to the desktop.

Microsoft still needs to entice more people to move over to Windows 11, and the recent string of bad headlines definitely hasn’t helped with the migration, but the new blog post could be persuasive.  If you’re apprehensive about upgrading to Windows 11, having every major change listed out could help settle any concerns and aid your decision to upgrade or stay put. That being said, some of the listed upgrades are a little vague, perhaps purposely so.

The Moment 3 update is definitely a step in the right direction and does show that Windows has moved pretty far away from the dark days of Windows Vista. Giving users a whole blog post on all the changes you’ve been making is a straightforward step towards enticing people to upgrade, and we will have to see just how persuaded users are. 

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Windows 11 gets a nifty tweak to kill frozen apps, catching up with macOS
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Windows 11 is getting the ability to kill an unresponsive app, known as ‘force closing’ (or force quitting) right from the taskbar in what’ll be a very useful tweak for the OS.

This functionality was previously spotted hidden in test builds of Windows 11, and caused a fair bit of excitement at the time, so it’s good to see Microsoft confirm it is indeed inbound.

The move represents a far more convenient and easy way to deal with a misfiring app than the current scheme of things in Windows 11, where you have to head into the Task Manager and hunt around a bit to accomplish the same feat.

The Verge reports that Microsoft let us know that the ability is coming to Windows 11 at its Build conference for developers.

Quite a bit of stuff has been announced at Build, in fact, and a bunch of minor but important changes along similar lines – like native support for dealing with RAR or 7-Zip files in Windows 11 (instead of having to download and install a third-party utility).

And of course there’s a huge change that has been announced, one we’re viewing with a little trepidation – namely the introduction of AI into Windows 11 in the form of Microsoft’s Copilot.

Analysis: Mirroring the Mac – finally

So, what’s the big deal here? When apps go rogue and freeze up, they can simply hang around, slowing down your system’s performance (perhaps) and generally being annoying.

To force close such an unresponsive app right now in Windows 11, you have to open Task Manager, which is a bit of a faff in itself, unless you know the keyboard shortcut (press Control+Shift+Escape together). Then you must scroll through the list of running processes to find the rogue app, select it, and click the ‘End Task’ button.

With the new option, all you have to do is right-click on the app in the taskbar, and select ‘End Task’ from the context menu – a far easier and quicker way of taming the application that’s gone awry.

As Mac users will realize, this exact ability is something present in macOS, so Windows 11 is catching up to Apple’s desktop operating system in that respect – and it’s about time, to be honest.

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Microsoft’s ChatGPT-powered Bing AI gets smarter with more local knowledge
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Microsoft’s Bing AI just got some more improvements, including one that should make the chatbot considerably more helpful when it comes to providing tailored recommendations based on your local area.

In a blog post introducing the latest changes, Microsoft acknowledged that it had received feedback telling the company that the ChatGPT-powered Bing needed to do better with local-related queries.

In other words, specific requests such as asking for the whereabouts of a store in your neighborhood, for example.

Microsoft informs us that it has bolstered Bing’s chops in this regard, so it’ll deliver “better answers if you’re trying to find a park, a store, or a doctor’s office near you.”

Other tweaks Microsoft recently applied to its Bing chatbot include increasing the limit of the max turns you can take (queries) in a single conversation from 15 to 20. Based on the allowance of 10 daily sessions, that gives you a limit of 200 turns per day in total.

Image and video search capabilities are also integrated in the chatbot now. These will pop up as answer cards, allowing the user to click ‘see more’ to dive into further detail with a Bing image search.

Analysis: Pushing forward and besting Bard

Obviously beefing up the performance of the Bing AI to do better with local queries is an important move to make. It’s no good having an all-singing and dancing AI (you have asked the chatbot to sing to you already, right?) if it falls down embarrassingly when it comes to making basic recommendations about locations and services near you.

Mind you, the enhanced performance for these kind of queries sounds like it’s in the early stages of getting a good coat of polish. As Microsoft puts it: “Expect us to make further improvements in local grounding based on your feedback.”

Like everything with Microsoft’s ChatGPT-powered AI, then, it’s very much a work in progress. Still, the amount of progress being made is impressively sure and steady, which has got to be a worry for Google.

Google’s rival AI, Bard, has been notably slow off the starting blocks. Indeed, it feels like Google forced Bard onto the starting blocks before it had even laced its trainers, because the firm felt like the new Bing couldn’t be left unanswered, seeing as the ChatGPT-powered AI is already boosting traffic to Microsoft’s search engine.

We’re told that Bard will become more capable, and will receive improvements to its reasoning skills later this week, and it’s clear enough that Google recognizes it needs to move faster with its rival AI. At the same time, it can’t afford any missteps as seen with Bard’s launch (and to be fair, with the Bing AI’s launch too, although Microsoft seems to have recovered pretty well from the mishaps Bing encountered early on).

Our main worry about Microsoft is that the success of the Bing chatbot – so far – could go to the company’s head. There’s already worrying talk of jamming adverts into Bing AI, which we very much hope won’t happen. That’s probably a forlorn hope, and if it turns out that way, this could be an area that Bard could turn to its advantage. That said, it’s not like Google won’t be surveying every avenue of monetization down the line, too – it’d be pretty naïve to think otherwise.

Both companies would do well to remember that these AIs must be perceived as helpful friends, though, and not ones with a hidden agenda. Or, more to the point we suppose, a poorly hidden agenda which becomes painfully transparent…

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AutoCAD 2024 gets native Apple silicon support
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AutoCAD 2024 has dropped – and it’s official: the top 3D modeling software now natively supports Apple silicon chips. 

According to developer Autodesk, Mac users should see overall performance upped to twice the overall performance compared to the last version. 

Alongside performance enhancements on Apple’s M-series chips, the latest update for Windows and Mac also adds improved machine learning and design automation across computers and laptops for AutoCAD.  

What’s new in AutoCAD 2024? 

Users have long wanted Autodesk’s popular software for architects and interior design to add native support for the M1 and M2 chips, But it’s not just Apple users benefitting from faster workflows. Windows users will see up to 9x faster switching between layout tabs, and increased stability and fidelity compared to AutoCAD 2023. 

With an eye on improving online collaboration, users can now view activity insights, which detail any file changes and user activities. The 2024 edition also includes better markup support. Not only do users have the option to annotate and share drawings, but it’s now quicker to implement feedback into drawings. 

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On the improvements, the company stated: “AutoCAD uses machine learning to detect certain instructions in the markup text enabling shortcuts to commands like Move, Copy, or Erase.”

The placement and replacement of blocks has also become smarter and faster. Imbued with those new machine learning capabilities, users are able to more easily find and replace blocks. Adding blocks, meanwhile, has also been streamlined. The software is able to infer the likely position of the next block based on the placement of previous blocks in the DWG file. 

“AutoCAD 2024 introduces new machine learning capabilities to push the boundaries of productivity and speed up our customer’s workflows. AutoCAD for Mac 2024 and AutoCAD LT for Mac 2024 deliver incredible, new performance improvements with the ability to run AutoCAD natively on Apple silicon. It’s exciting to see how customers can now take full advantage of the latest hardware and M-series chips for faster ways to work,”  said Dania El Hassan, Director of Product Management for AutoCAD. 

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Microsoft’s ChatGPT-powered Bing gets a personality makeover you may not like
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Microsoft has applied some further fine-tuning to its Bing AI, upping some chat limits and making changes to one of the chatbot’s personalities.

Chats have now been extended to allow up to 15 sessions per day, with the maximum length of a session pushed out to 10 queries (meaning a total of 150 queries is now your daily limit).

Microsoft has slowly but surely been pushing up those chat limits since the AI first launched and it was heavily restricted (to 5 sessions and 50 queries daily) when the chatbot’s behavior was observed going seriously awry in longer sessions.

But the more interesting change, as revealed by Yusuf Mehdi, Corporate VP & Consumer Chief Marketing Officer at Microsoft, is optimizing the ‘Balanced’ personality for better performance.

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As you may be aware, there are three personalities available for Microsoft’s AI. Balanced is the middle setting for the chatbot, a halfway house between Precise and Creative, which remain unchanged.

Precise offers more concise and business-like answers, more akin to a standard search, whereas Creative gives the AI more free rein in its replies – with Balanced lying in-between the two as a compromise option.

Analysis: Precise, A Bit Less Precise, and Creative?

As with any compromise, deciding exactly where to draw the line can be a tricky affair. However, it seems that Microsoft is shifting that line to a more conservative position with this latest change.

With Balanced now giving “shorter, quicker responses,” that sounds clearly more in line with the Precise setting, rather than Creative which is where the AI is allowed more freedom to ramble – and frankly, to be more interesting and human-like.

Therefore, moving the Balanced dial more towards the conservative end of the spectrum could be viewed as making the Bing AI a bit more straightlaced and, well, boring.

The whole point of having the three personalities is to give users the choice of how the AI will respond, so if they’re not happy with their interactions with the ChatGPT-powered entity, they can switch things around. But now it feels like there’s slightly less choice in terms of there being a ‘very conservative’ setting, a ‘somewhat conservative’ option, and a ‘freer rein’ choice.

Why has Microsoft moved in this direction? Our guess is that folks who want a more human-like chat experience are using Creative and maybe wouldn’t dream of dipping a toe into Balanced anyway. Perhaps few people are using Balanced overall, so tuning it towards Precise may tempt those on the latter into making use of the middling option – whereas those on Creative are going to stick there, most likely, as they want the AI to be as interesting and open as is inhumanly (ahem) possible.

Whatever the case, we can expect further tuning, and indeed likely other personality choices, down the line. We may even get a mode whereby the Bing AI can impersonate famous celebrities, too, if leaks are on the money. And that would likely help push user numbers even higher, when there are already a good few folks signed up to test drive the chatbot.

Via MS Power User

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Windows 11 gets a design revamp that makes it easier to use
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Windows 11 just got a fresh preview build which brings a slew of changes with it, including a new volume mixer, plus some tweaks for better accessibility in the OS.

Preview build 25309 has just been made available via the Dev channel, and it has given the volume mixer an all-new look.

As you may have noticed, there are bits of legacy UI elements in the Windows 11 interface that are outdated and rather jarring when they suddenly appear on-screen. The volume mixer, accessed from the taskbar (system tray on the right), is one of them, but in the new preview build, it now has a nicely modernized appearance.

The mixer allows for adjusting the overall volume, and the volume on a per-app basis, plus there’s a fresh addition here in the form of quick access to spatial audio settings. This lets you turn the feature on and off, or select different types of spatial audio such as Dolby Atmos for example.

Microsoft has also made improvements with the Voice Access feature in build 25309, revamping the help page which shows you all the voice commands that can be used in Windows 11. This now has a cleaner layout and is easier to take in, with a search bar so users can locate the commands they might need when operating Windows via voice.

On top of that, Voice Access is now available in some new English dialects, so as well as US, we now have UK English, along with Australian, Canadian, Indian and New Zealand English.

Oh, and there are also some new voice commands, one of which allows you to select a specific slab of text (from word ‘a’ to word ‘b’).

Windows 11 Voice Access

(Image credit: Microsoft)

A whole lot of tweaking is in evidence elsewhere with the Windows 11 interface, too. We’re talking about updated touch keyboard settings (new options for when to show it), and minor tweaks for the taskbar (so the search box is lighter when Windows is set to a custom color mode, such as dark mode).

Widgets are getting theme-aware icons, meaning that their icons will have their contrast ratios adjusted based on dark or light themes to allow them to stand out better and make their relevant details clearer.

There are also changes for snap layouts with build 25309. Microsoft is still experimenting with shorter periods of time for the snap flyout to appear, in order to improve discoverability for this feature.

For the full list of changes and known issues – there’s a lot of other work on the interface present here – as well as bug fixes, check out Microsoft’s blog post.

Analysis: A whole lot of strides forward for the UI

It’s good to see Microsoft keeping up its push for better accessibility, which has been something of a theme in recent times. There’s plenty of laudable work on voice commands in this new preview build, with some useful additional commands to make working with speech to text easier, and that improved help menu, which looks much better now. The changes to deliver better contrast ratios on widget icons will help people with low-vision, too. Good stuff.

There’s some interface work going on in the background too, because as leaker PhantomOfEarth pointed out on Twitter, the (hidden) photo gallery feature in File Explorer (read more about that here) has received a touch of polish in this build. Clearly, there’s a lot going on with the interface right now.

As ever, we can expect bugs with early versions of software (and the Dev channel is the earliest). Indeed, Microsoft specifically notes that the Voice Access help may go awry in places at this stage, and that descriptions and supplementary info for some commands might be inaccurate, so watch out for that.

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Our favorite free 3D modeling software gets free AI add-on
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Free 3D modeling software Blender now supports AI art generator Stable Diffusion, courtesy of an equally free Stability AI add-on. 

Dubbed Stability for Blender, the text-to-image generator lets users “add AI post-processing effects to renders,” Stability AI has revealed. Working inside the 3D software, they can experiment on scenes without endless remodeling, generating textures, animations, and images through text prompts and the tool’s style presets. 

By integrating Stable Diffusion within Blender, the firm hopes to streamline the design process, and make the tools more accessible without investing in dedicated hardware like high-end GPUs and graphic design laptops. 

But the AI tool may also offer an unexpected bonus for creatives. Artists, animators, and modelers who download the addon will be able to use the platform’s image editor to create textures and images. 

According to the company, users can go further, keyframing all properties and creating animations that “use Blender's built-in animation system to automate properties in Stable Diffusion.” By entering a text prompt, the tool creates an image using the artist’s existing render. 

3D model made in Blender

(Image credit: Stability AI / Blender)

In doing so, Stability for Blender could potentially swerve one of the biggest challenges facing content creators, content distributors, and AI developers: copyright infringement.

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With everyone from artists to Getty Images suing AI platforms for illegal use of copyrighted materials, employing rendered frames as a starting point for the diffusion process may yet prove a (somewhat) definitive answer to the question “Who owns AI art?” 

The launch comes just months after rival AI platform OpenAI revealed its own 3D model builder. Its POINT-E solution “produces 3D models in only 1-2 minutes on a single GPU”, the developer said, while admitting it currently “falls short of the state-of-the-art in terms of sample quality”. 

Users with a Stability AI API key can get the Blender add-on by clicking here.  

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Clubhouse finally gets dark mode on Android and iOS
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The exclusive audio-only social media platform is finally getting a dark mode on its Android and iOS apps.

Starting from April 14, those using an Android smartphone or an iPhone to access Clubhouse can at long last enter dark mode to turn the app’s UI black (or “velvety dark” as the blog post put it, *sigh*).

To turn this feature on you simply need to head to settings and select ‘Dark Mode’. From here you’ll have two options.

For those after the dark mode aesthetic 24/7, you’ll want to turn on ‘Always Dark Mode’. Meanwhile, those of you who use dark mode to reduce eye strain at night can turn on ‘User Device Settings’, causing the app to automatically shift between light and dark mode based on your phone’s settings.

Everyone's invited

The update should have already begun rolling out, though it can sometimes take a bit of time for it to reach everyone. You can check the Play Store or App Store on your phone to see if it’s updated or to force it to update for you a little sooner.

If this dark mode update has convinced you to finally give Clubhouse a try, then you’ll be glad to hear that the app is no longer invite-only. Anyone has been able to join Clubhouse since July 2021, but the reputation it built up from its invite-only beta has left some still thinking you can only join if you know someone who’s already on the inside.

To get started on the app simply download it from the Play Store or App Store and create an account.

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Adobe After Effects gets native Apple M1 support at last
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Adobe has announced native Apple M1 silicon support, hopefully meaning faster launch and rendering times for motion designers and video creators. 

In benchmark tests released by the company, running After Effects on a high-end M1 Ultra Mac is now up to three times as fast, and those using the video effects software on standard M1-powered devices should see performance jump to double the speed.  

According to Adobe, the power boost makes it easy for motion designers, “to explore ideas and iterate more quickly on their compositions.” 

Adobe benchmarks for M1 support

(Image credit: Adobe)

 What else is new in Adobe After Effects? 

Native support for Apple’s proprietary chip is just part of a wider package that’s being deployed by Adobe as it looks to better supply users across the world. 

 – After Effects and Premiere Pro subscribers now get free access to the Frame.io remote video collaboration service , which comes built into both the VFX tool and Adobe’s much-loved video editing software. 

– With 3D making (yet another) comeback, Extended Viewer and Binning Indicators for 3D layers now make it easier for designers to visualize compositions and move through three-dimensional spaces in real-time. 

– Scene Edit Detection finally makes the jump from Premiere Pro to After Effects. Powered by Adobe Sensei’s machine learning and AI, the new tool intelligently detects cut points in rendered footage and adds markers at edit points for more efficient creations. 

 The need for speed

Adobe clearly feels the need for speed – only last year, the software house unveiled Multi-Frame Rendering, boosting speeds by up to four times. This latest update continues a drive to improve motion graphics software performance and delivery for VFX artists. 

However, Adobe warns that certain new features and functionalities will be limited or unavailable when using incompatible third-party plugins, or plugins that aren’t ported for Apple silicon, with users seeing a warning pop up when the VFX tool spots an issue at launch. 

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Adobe also confirmed users can even use older versions of Adobe After Effects on M1 chips – but you’ll need Apple’s Rosetta 2 emulation software to get it running. 

The After Effects 22.3 update, which launches today (April 12 2022), is available to all users via a staggered roll-out from the Creative Cloud desktop app.

TechRadar – All the latest technology news

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Adobe After Effects gets native Apple M1 support at last
  • No Comments

Adobe has announced native Apple M1 silicon support, hopefully meaning faster launch and rendering times for motion designers and video creators. 

In benchmark tests released by the company, running After Effects on a high-end M1 Ultra Mac is now up to three times as fast, and those using the video effects software on standard M1-powered devices should see performance jump to double the speed.  

According to Adobe, the power boost makes it easy for motion designers, “to explore ideas and iterate more quickly on their compositions.” 

Adobe benchmarks for M1 support

(Image credit: Adobe)

 What else is new in Adobe After Effects? 

Native support for Apple’s proprietary chip is just part of a wider package that’s being deployed by Adobe as it looks to better supply users across the world. 

 – After Effects and Premiere Pro subscribers now get free access to the Frame.io remote video collaboration service , which comes built into both the VFX tool and Adobe’s much-loved video editing software. 

– With 3D making (yet another) comeback, Extended Viewer and Binning Indicators for 3D layers now make it easier for designers to visualize compositions and move through three-dimensional spaces in real-time. 

– Scene Edit Detection finally makes the jump from Premiere Pro to After Effects. Powered by Adobe Sensei’s machine learning and AI, the new tool intelligently detects cut points in rendered footage and adds markers at edit points for more efficient creations. 

 The need for speed

Adobe clearly feels the need for speed – only last year, the software house unveiled Multi-Frame Rendering, boosting speeds by up to four times. This latest update continues a drive to improve motion graphics software performance and delivery for VFX artists. 

However, Adobe warns that certain new features and functionalities will be limited or unavailable when using incompatible third-party plugins, or plugins that aren’t ported for Apple silicon, with users seeing a warning pop up when the VFX tool spots an issue at launch. 

Read more

> Find out how to download After Effects for free 

> Mac sales fly as PC declines – did the M1 chip save Apple?

> Apple M1 Ultra is here – everything you need to know about Apple's powerhouse

Adobe also confirmed users can even use older versions of Adobe After Effects on M1 chips – but you’ll need Apple’s Rosetta 2 emulation software to get it running. 

The After Effects 22.3 update, which launches today (April 12 2022), is available to all users via a staggered roll-out from the Creative Cloud desktop app.

TechRadar – All the latest technology news

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