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Gemini is rolling out to Google Messages, but it’s not the same across Android
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Gemini continues its march across the Google ecosystem. The AI is currently making its way to Google Messages after restrictions were scaled back on June 18. 

According to the news site MySmartPrice, you’ll soon be able to instruct the feature to “draft messages, have fun conversations, plan events,” among other things. However, the form that Gemini will take on the app may differ from person to person.

The information here mirrors what was in the June 18 report. Gemini can be accessed by tapping the New Chat button at the bottom and then selecting the AI in the following window. The option appears at the top above your contacts list. But Android Police states it will come as a floating action button, or FAB for short.

The FAB will sport the Gemini logo and sit on top of New Chat in the bottom right corner. Don't worry about any differences in service as it performs in the exact same way. You can ask whatever question you want or instruct it to give you ideas like what to cook for dinner. The main difference here is the fact it lessens the amount of taps “required to access Gemini inside Google Messages.”

Additionally, Android Police points out that the Gemini FAB causes the compose button to shrink as you scroll.

Limitations

Upon accessing Gemini for the first time, you will see a terms and conditions page telling you how the AI works. It states conversations with the feature are not encrypted so be mindful of the information you tell it. Gemini does not have access to any private conversations nor will it know your exact location. 

At most, it’ll have a general idea of where you are “based on your IP, [home], or address”. Chats will be saved for 18 months on your device by default, however you can change this to either three or 36 months.

There are some criteria you must meet before you take the artificial intelligence out for a spin. The full list can be found on Google’s Gemini Apps Help page. To give you an idea, you must have an Android phone with 6GB of RAM or higher, have RCS chats turned on, and have the device’s language set to either English or Canadian French. 

Google’s Help page also has instructions on how to delete chats ahead of the time limit running out as well as how to report content.

Keep an eye out for the patch for when it arrives. It should be rolling out within the next few weeks to an Android phone near you.

If you're in the market for more robust content generators, check out TechRadar's list of the best AI tools for 2024.

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Microsoft pauses Windows 11 update as it’s sending some PCs into an infinite reboot hell
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Windows 11 just got its latest update, but Microsoft has put it on hold following the discovery of a bug that’s seriously bad news.

This is the KB5039302 update, which is an optional download for Windows 11 22H2 and 23H2, so it’s still in preview, ahead of its release as the cumulative update for July 2024 next month.

The showstopper of a bug puts affected PCs into what’s known as ‘reboot hell’ whereby the PC keeps failing to start, rebooting, failing again, then rebooting, and so on ad infinitum – well, until the user intervenes and tries to initiative a recovery. (Or in some cases, unplugs their PC out of frustration, no doubt – never do this if you can at all avoid it, we should add, as cutting power at the wrong time can be bad news for your system drive, as it could corrupt files potentially).

What’s the root cause here? Well, it appears to have something to do with PCs using virtual machines (running another OS inside the current operating system, essentially).

Neowin noticed that in its release health dashboard, where this gremlin has been flagged up, Microsoft tells us: “This issue is more likely to affect devices utilizing virtual machines tools and nested virtualization features, such as CloudPC, DevBox, Azure Virtual Desktop. We are investigating to determine the precise conditions under which this issue can trigger.”

While that investigation is taking place, Microsoft has paused this update, so it won’t be offered to Windows 11 home users or businesses.

Unhappy millennial male employee work online on laptop at home office frustrated by gadget error or mistake. Angry young Caucasian man stressed with computer operational problem or breakdown.

(Image credit: Shutterstock / fizkes)

Analysis: Room for doubt

Clearly, given that having a PC trapped in a reboot loop is a dire scenario, it’s a good idea that Microsoft has pulled this update until the firm can work out what’s really going on here. This is an optional update anyway, so it’s not like KB5039302 is crucial, or even finished – which is why this flaw is present, no doubt.

Although you’d really have hoped Microsoft would have picked up on such a calamitous bug before the final preview release of the update – but at least it’s being fixed now. This also goes to illustrate why it’s always a risk to download an optional update for Windows 11 – we’d recommend steering clear of these in case there is a last-minute showstopper, just like this glitch.

Granted, as Microsoft observes: “Users of Windows Home edition are less likely to experience this issue, as virtualization is less common in home environments.”

Even so, some Windows 11 Home users will use virtualization features, no doubt, and Microsoft isn’t 100% clear about the bug not affecting other PCs either. The language used is that the problem is “more likely” to hit PCs using virtual machines in some way, leaving room for doubt that it could affect other systems too. This is likely why the update has been retracted, for now, we’d wager.

The crucial thing is that Microsoft fixes this one up, or at least pushes the feature or code that’s caused the problem aside, before the full release of the July 2024 cumulative update, clearly enough.

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One of the most persistent Windows 11 bugs ever keeps telling users they’ve changed their location, when they haven’t – but it’s getting fixed
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Windows 11 has a new bug (that’s also in Windows 10) whereby the operating system keeps telling users that their time zone has changed, when it hasn’t – and repeatedly doing this, driving some users to the point of distraction by all accounts.

Windows Latest flagged up multiple complaints about this bug, which has been acknowledged by Microsoft, and the company is now working on a fix.

Indeed, the tech site notes that it has experienced the glitch itself, whereby a dialog box pops up, warning that “due to a location change a new time zone has been detected.”

Then the user has the choice of clicking ‘Ignore’ to dismiss the prompt, or ‘Accept’ to be taken to the Date & Time settings where there’s actually nothing amiss (the time zone and location aren’t changed, just to clarify).

Essentially, the prompt is appearing by accident, but the real problem is that affected users don’t just see this once. It’s occurring repeatedly and in some cases multiple times per day, or even hour, which is going to get seriously tiresome.

A user hit by the problem complained in Microsoft’s Feedback Hub: “This is the 2nd system where this pop-up about me changing time zones has occurred. After I set the date and time (Central time zone), why does Windows think that I have moved 455 miles to the East? Fix your darn OS Microsoft.”

Analysis: A rare bug apparently – but a seriously annoying glitch

This is a bit of an odd one, to say the least, and while it’s a relatively benign bug – an errant pop-up that doesn’t actually throw anything of a spanner in the works (unlike some of the showstoppers we’ve seen in the past) – if it’s happening regularly, then it’s going to be a headache.

The good news is that Microsoft says the bug is rare, and so presumably the set of Windows 11 and 10 users who are subject to it happening particularly regularly is even rarer. That said, it needs to be fixed, and the problem has been around for a few weeks now.

According to Windows Latest, the fix is already in the pipeline and should (most likely) be applied as a server-side solution, meaning that it’ll happen on Microsoft’s end, and you won’t need to wait for an update to contain the cure if you’re affected by this issue. Fingers crossed that this resolution arrives swiftly, then.

Meantime, if you’re getting these head-scratching time zone notifications, there’s nothing you can do but keep dismissing them.

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Want Wi-Fi 7 on Windows 10? Forget it, Microsoft has confirmed it’s for Copilot+ PCs only
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Microsoft has confirmed that the superfast wireless speeds that have arrived courtesy of Wi-Fi 7 – for devices and routers with support – will only be coming to the very latest version of Windows 11.

That’d be Windows 11 24H2, of course, and as you might know, this version is only currently available for Copilot+ PCs, but the big update for 2024 will roll out to all Windows 11 users later this year (maybe in September).

For now, though, the new Wi-Fi support is for Copilot+ PCs only, as Windows Latest spotted a Microsoft support document that confirmed this.

In the document on the latest wireless technology in Windows, Microsoft states: “Wi-Fi 7 is available starting with Windows 11, version 24H2.”

Now, that doesn’t mean that Wi-Fi 7 will always be limited to that specific incarnation of Windows 11 – 24H2 (or later) – just that Microsoft is kicking off availability with this version. It might be the case that it’s added to earlier versions of Windows 11 (well, 23H2) before too long.

However, it looks like Windows 10 users are out of luck though, as there’s no mention of the OS – as was the case with Wi-Fi 6E, the advancement on Wi-Fi 6 that previously came through.

Analysis: Wi-Fi 6E misstep unlikely to happen again

So, it seems like Wi-Fi 7 won’t debut for Windows 10, but that isn’t really a massive surprise. Firstly, Windows 10 runs out of support in not that much more than a year now, so it’s going to be limited in terms of new features being introduced anyway (though there will be some new additions into the mix, we know that much – enough to prompt Microsoft to resurrect the Beta testing channel for the OS).

And secondly, Windows 10 didn’t get Wi-Fi 6E as noted above, so it seems unlikely that it’d receive Wi-Fi 7 support. We can’t completely rule it out, of course – as it’s not explicitly stated that Windows 10 won’t – but that seems to be the heavy hint Microsoft is dropping by only mentioning Windows 11 versions.

Now, there is a slight twist here, in that Windows 10 did receive Wi-Fi 6E in what seemed to be a mistake with a single Intel driver that erroneously added support (somehow) – but that driver is reportedly buggy and not to be used (if you can find it at all). So, you could hope this might happen with Wi-Fi 7, but we’re betting it won’t – and Intel has learned from this mistake.

In short, don’t expect speedy Wi-Fi 7 for Windows 10, and of course remember that even on Windows 11, you need a router and PC that supports the new wireless standard to benefit from Wi-Fi 7.

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OpenAI has big news to share on May 13 – but it’s not announcing a search engine
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OpenAI has announced it's got news to share via a public livestream on Monday, May 13 – but, contrary to previous rumors, the developer of ChatGPT and Dall-E apparently isn't going to use the online event  to launch a search engine.

In a social media post, OpenAI says that “some ChatGPT and GPT-4 updates” will be demoed at 10am PT / 1pm ET / 6pm BST on Monday May 13 (which is Tuesday, May 14 at 3am AEST for those of you in Australia). A livestream is going to be available.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman followed up by saying the big reveal isn't going to be GPT-5 and isn't going to be a search engine, so make of that what you will. “We've been hard at work on some new stuff we think people will love,” Altman says. “Feels like magic to me.”

Rumors that OpenAI would be taking on Google directly with its own search engine, possibly developed in partnership with Microsoft and Bing, have been swirling for months. It sounds like it's not ready yet though – so we'll have to wait.

OpenAI, Google, and Apple

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AI chatbots such as Microsoft Copilot already do a decent job of pulling up information from the web – indeed, at their core, these Large Language Models (LLMs) are essentially training themselves on websites in a similar way to how Google indexes them.

It's possible that the future of web search is not a list of links but rather an answer from an AI, based on those links – which raises the question of how websites could carry on getting the revenue they need to supply LLMs with information in the first place. Google itself has also been experimenting with AI in its search results.

In other OpenAI news, according to Mark Gurman at Bloomberg, Apple has “closed in” on a deal to inject some ChatGPT smarts into iOS 18, due later this year. The companies are apparently now “finalizing terms” on the deal.

However, Gurman says that a deal between Apple and Google to use Google's Gemini AI engine is still on the table too. We know that Apple is planning to go big on AI this year, though it sounds as though it may need some help along the way.

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Signed, sealed, delivered, summarized: new Gemini-powered AI feature for Gmail looks like it’s close to launch
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A summarize feature powered by Gemini, Google’s recently debuted generative AI model and digital assistance tool, is coming to the Gmail app for Android – and it could make reading and understanding emails much faster and easier. The feature is expected to roll out soon to all users, and they’ll be able to provide feedback by rating the quality of the generated email summaries. 

The feature has been suspected to be in the works for some time now, as documented by Android Authority, and now it’s apparently close to launch.

One of Android Authority’s code sleuth sources managed to get the feature working on the Gmail app version 2024.04.21.626860299 after a fair amount of tinkering. It’s not disclosed what steps they took, so if you want to replicate this, you’ll have to do some experimenting, but the fact that the summarize feature can be up and running shows that Android Gmail users may not have to wait very long.

There is a screenshot featured in Android Authority’s report showing a chat window where the user asks Gemini to summarize an email that they currently have open, and Gemini obliging. Apparently, this feature will be available via a ‘Summarize this email’ button under an email’s subject line, I assume triggering the above prompt, and this should return a compact summary of the email. This could prove to be especially helpful when dealing with a large number of emails, or for particularly long emails with many details.

Once the summary is provided, users will be shown thumbs up and thumbs down buttons under Gemini’s output, similar to OpenAI’s ChatGPT after it gives its reply to a user’s query. This will give Google a better understanding of how helpful the feature is to users and how it could be improved. There will also be a button that allows you to copy the email summary to your clipboard, according to the screenshot. 

A man working at an office and looking at his screen while using Gmail

(Image credit: Shutterstock/fizkes)

When to expect the new feature

The speculation is that the feature could be rolled out during Google’s I/O 2024 event, its annual developer conference, which is scheduled for May 14, 2024. Google is also expected to show off the next iteration of its Pixel A series, the Pixel 8A, it could show its development of augmented reality (AR) technology, and new software and service developments, especially for its devices and ChromeOS (the operating system that powers the best Chromebooks). 

Many Gmail users could potentially find this new summarize feature to be time-saving and that it streamlines their emails, but as with any generative AI, there are concerns about the accuracy of the generated text. If Gemini omits or misinterprets important information, it could lead to oversights or misunderstandings. I’m glad that Google has the feedback system in place, as this will show if the feature is actually serving its purpose well. We’ll have to wait and see, and the proof will be in the pudding whether it results in improved productivity and is reasonably accurate when it’s finally released. 

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Copilot is everywhere in Windows 11 and it’s about to get harder to ignore – but is Microsoft in danger of wearing out the AI assistant’s welcome?
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Windows 11 is going to see a lot more of Copilot in the future – that’s pretty obviously the line Microsoft is taking with its desktop-based assistant – and there’s fresh evidence of the AI creeping into more corners of the OS.

Firstly, we have a sighting of a new wallpaper, which came yesterday, when a couple of inbound laptops with the promising Snapdragon X Elite CPU were leaked. Both of those Lenovo notebooks had a Copilot-themed wallpaper on the desktop, so it’s a safe assumption that Microsoft has an official new background for the AI in the pipeline.

As Windows Latest observes, this is actually a traditional ‘bloom’ wallpaper, except Microsoft has redone the image in the Copilot colors (mirroring the Copilot button in the taskbar).

The tech site also points out other ways in which Copilot is creeping into Windows 11 and Microsoft Edge. For example, in the Edge browser, as highlighted by leaker Leopeva64, there’s now a bar of options pertaining to the AI when you open the Settings panel.

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This bar contains suggestions for how you might use Copilot, allowing you to get advice on security settings for example, or managing your passwords in the browser. These suggestions change depending on what section of Edge’s settings you’re in, by the way, making them more relevant to what you might be looking to do.

Note that this idea is just in testing right now, and in the Canary channel to boot (the earliest test avenue).

Another ability brought in for Copilot in Edge (again, in the Canary channel) is an expanded Ask Copilot context menu. This means that when you select a section of text in a web page, there are new options for directly interacting with Copilot in this menu.

As Windows Latest explains, these choices are: Explain, Summarize, Expand, and Ask anything in Chat.

The last option acts like the current incarnation of Ask Copilot – it just fires up the AI’s panel with a query on the selected text.

With the new options, however, Explain prompts Copilot to do just that – offer an explanation of the text – and Summarize provides a summary, as you’d expect. In a similar vein, Expand goes the other way, furnishing you with extra facts or information about the selected text.

Again with Edge, Leopeva64 also spotted that AI is going to be integrated into the browser’s ‘Magnify Image’ option, with a button spotted that offers to ‘AI Enhance’ the image after it’s been blown up. This is in very early testing, though, and the button doesn’t yet do anything at all.

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Another recent addition Windows Latest flagged up is ‘Circle to Copilot’ in Edge in Windows 11 (and iOS), allowing you to literally draw a circle around something to activate a Copilot query about the highlighted item.

All this comes on top of a recent move in the Beta channel of Windows 11 previews, trying out a new way of highlighting that Copilot can help with something – by animating the taskbar button for the AI when this is the case. New options have also been added to the menu that appears when you hover over the Copilot button, too, expanding that further.

Analysis: Making Copilot a more visible presence

All of this is still to come, we should note – these are changes in testing for Windows 11 or its Edge browser, and in the case of the wallpaper, a glimpse of what’s very likely to come.

Indeed, that Copilot background will likely be the default wallpaper for AI PCs starting with Snapdragon X Elite-powered laptops that launch in June. (Not forgetting Microsoft’s own Surface Pro 10 and Surface Laptop 6, the consumer spins on which will land then, and may have a custom version of the Elite SoC inside).

Overall, though, it’s clear that Microsoft is pushing forward with expanding Copilot’s capabilities, and sussing out ways in which the AI can be made more visible on the desktop. Whether that’s about an animation for the taskbar button (effectively declaring “It’s-a-me, Copilot, I can help with that”), or a fancy desktop wallpaper that could be a permanent reminder of the AI, if you fall for the color scheme (which does look quite funky, to be fair).

We’d be surprised if most of these tested changes didn’t come to fruition, frankly, and as noted, there’s a theme of Microsoft increasingly pushing Copilot which comes as no surprise.

The big rumored addition on the horizon is, of course, AI Explorer – but that feature (supposedly debuting in the Windows 11 24H2 update) may have an unexpected twist in its initial incarnation that’s a bit of a shocker. (Spoiler alert: If you don’t have an ARM CPU like the aforementioned Snapdragon, then you can forget it – Intel and AMD-powered PCs might be left out in the cold).

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OpenAI’s Sora just made its first music video and it’s like a psychedelic trip
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OpenAI recently published a music video for the song Worldweight by August Kamp made entirely by their text-to-video engine, Sora. You can check out the whole thing on the company’s official YouTube channel and it’s pretty trippy, to say the least. Worldweight consists of a series of short clips in a wide 8:3 aspect ratio featuring fuzzy shots of various environments. 

You see a cloudy day at the beach, a shrine in the middle of a forest, and what looks like pieces of alien technology. The ambient track coupled with the footage results in a uniquely ethereal experience. It’s half pleasant and half unsettling. 

It’s unknown what text prompts were used on Sora; Kamp didn’t share that information. But she did explain the inspiration behind them in the description. She states that whenever she created the track, she imagined what a video representing Worldweight would look like. However, she lacked a way to share her thoughts. Thanks to Sora, this is no longer an issue as the footage displays what she had always envisioned. It's “how the song has always ‘looked’” from her perspective.

Embracing Sora

If you pay attention throughout the entire runtime, you’ll notice hallucinations. Leaves turn into fish, bushes materialize out of nowhere, and flowers have cameras instead of petals. But because of the music’s ethereal nature, it all fits together. Nothing feels out of place or nightmare-inducing. If anything, the video embraces the nightmares.

We should mention August Kamp isn’t the only person harnessing Sora for content creation. Media production company Shy Kids recently published a short film on YouTube called “Air Head” which was also made on the AI engine. It plays like a movie trailer about a man who has a balloon for a head.

Analysis: Lofty goals

It's hard to say if Sora will see widespread adoption judging by this content. Granted, things are in the early stages, but ready or not, that hasn't stopped OpenAI from pitching its tech to major Hollywood studios. Studio executives are apparently excited at the prospects of AI saving time and money on production. 

August Kamp herself is a proponent of the technology stating, “Being able to build and iterate on cinematic visuals intuitively has opened up categorically new lanes of artistry for me”. She looks forward to seeing “what other forms of storytelling” will appear as artificial intelligence continues to grow.

In our opinion, tools such Sora will most likely enjoy a niche adoption among independent creators. Both Kamp and Shy Kids appear to understand what the generative AI can and cannot do. They embrace the weirdness, using it to great effect in their storytelling. Sora may be great at bringing strange visuals to life, but in terms of making “normal-looking content”, that remains to be seen.

People still talk about how weird or nightmare-inducing content made by generative AI is. Unless OpenAI can surmount this hurdle, Sora may not amount to much beyond niche usage.

It’s still unknown when Sora will be made publicly available. OpenAI is holding off on a launch, citing potential interference in global elections as one of its reasons. Although, there are plans to release the AI by the end of 2024.

If you're looking for other platforms, check out TechRadar's list of the best AI video makers for 2024.

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Want Windows 11’s old Task Manager back? It’s easy – here’s how
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If you miss the older design of Task Manager in Windows 11, there’s good news – it’s still in the operating system and you can resurrect it – if you know where to look. The current design was introduced in the Windows 11 22H2 update. This Task Manager refresh was quite a big change to the interface, and not everyone was keen on it. 

Pressing the Ctrl + Shift + Esc keys or opening Task Manager from the Start Menu will bring up the new version of Task Manager. However, X user @thebookisclosed found that you can bring up the older version of Task Manager by accessing the Windows folder in your C: drive (most users’ main drive) and opening Task Manager via the app that’s located in the SysWOW64 folder. 

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There are two straightforward ways to do this:

Through File Explorer:

1. Open File Explorer from your Start menu.

2. Copy and paste “C:\Windows\SysWOW64\Taskmgr.exe” into File Explorer’s address bar.

A screenshot of locating the old Task Manager using File Explorer's address bar

(Image credit: Microsoft)

Through the Run app:

1. Open Run from the Start menu to open a dialog box.

2. Copy and paste “C:\Windows\SysWOW64\Taskmgr.exe” into the Run app’s dialog box.

3. Press Enter to launch it.

Either of these should launch the old version of Task Manager, which you can pin to your Taskbar as a shortcut, or create a desktop icon to access it more conveniently.

A screenshot of locating the old Task Manager by entering its file location into Run

(Image credit: Microsoft)

What to consider before firing the old version up

Windows Latest points out that you should make sure you choose one version or the other, as it’s not possible to run one while the other is already running, so close Task Manager if it’s already running before you try opening the old one. Nothing bad will happen, but it’ll just show the current version of Task Manager you’re currently using.

The newer Task Manager has a new menu sidebar that shows additional views, but apparently, some users find having this extra sidebar menu confusing. It has a new list of labels and icons, compounding some users’ confusion when trying to parse between various sections and processes, and trying to find a specific process. In the newer design, there’s a Settings options page in this sidebar menu as well.

A screenshot featuring the newer Task Manager design

(Image credit: Microsoft)

The older Task Manager is more minimalist, and only has the list of processes currently running, with the different sections and views laid out horizontally in tabs towards the top. It also only supports a light theme, whereas the new design of Task Manager can be used in light or dark mode. If you’re used to using dark mode like me, the older Task Manager will stand out.

A screenshot featuring the older design of Task Manager

(Image credit: Microsoft)

Another feature that the newer design features is Efficiency Mode, an option in the right-click menu of any task that allows users to manage resource consumption of the process. Efficiency Mode can be activated for third-party processes and this can free up CPU resources for other tasks, though this option isn’t available for Windows system processes.

The new Task Manager offers some very useful features, but it can seem complicated to some users, so if you want to revert to the older view, it’s good to know you can. I hope Microsoft doesn’t totally remove this option for users, or allow users to change to the older view by making the additional sidebar menu removable or at least collapsible. However, because the old Task Manager is pretty hidden away, it doesn’t seem like Microsoft is too keen on people using it – so we may have to get used to the new look.

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