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Frustrations are being aired about Windows 11’s new Copilot app – but here’s why we’re not worried (just yet)
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Microsoft is seemingly going backwards with Copilot in Windows 11, and things certainly don’t look great in testing for the AI assistant right now.

Windows Latest spearheads a complaint – echoed elsewhere by other denizens of various forums and social media outlets – that the latest incarnation of Copilot sees Microsoft ‘downgrading’ the AI to a “Microsoft Edge-based web wrapper” (we’ll come back to that point shortly).

To take a step back for a moment, this is all part of Microsoft’s recent move – announced in May 2024, and implemented in June – to switch Copilot from being an assistant anchored to a side panel (on the right) to a full app experience (a window you can move around the desktop, resize and so on, like a normal app basically).

As Windows Latest points out, in the latest update for Windows 11 (in testing), changes that are rolling out to some users turn Copilot into a basic web app – although in fact, Copilot has always been a web app (even when in its previous incarnation as a locked side panel, before the standalone app idea came about).

What the tech site is really complaining about is how basic and transparent Copilot’s nature really is in this freshly deployed take. This means the Copilot window shows Edge menus and options, and just opens copilot.microsoft.com in an Edge tab – and you can even open any old website in the Copilot app with a bit of fudging and a few clicks here and there. And all that feels rather disappointing and basic, of course.

Acer Swift laptop showing the Copilot key

(Image credit: Future / James Holland)

Analysis: Strip it back, then build it up

We get the criticism here, although as noted, all that’s really happening is that Copilot is being more obviously exposed for what it is – a simple web app that basically just pipes you through to the same AI chatbot experience you get with the Copilot website.

However, there is a twist here – namely that the extra options Copilot offered for manipulating Windows 11 settings in some respects (in the pre-standalone app days) have reportedly been ditched. Not that these abilities were any great shakes to begin with – they’ve always been fairly limited – but still, it does feel like a step back to see them vanish.

Ultimately, this leaves the new Copilot experience in Windows 11 feeling very disjointed and not at all well integrated into the OS – just slapped on top, really. However, we do have to remember that this is still in testing.

Stripping features back in preview can be expected – even if it isn’t a pretty sight right now, presumably Microsoft is going to build it back up, make the new Copilot app more seamless, and reintroduce those powers related to Windows settings. In fact, we’d be shocked if that didn’t happen…

Unless Microsoft does have plans to make Copilot a more basic entity in Windows 11, but that seems very unlikely unless many more future AI powers are going to be forked off exclusively for Copilot+ PCs, perhaps (like Recall – which is another controversial topic in itself).

Time will tell, but eventually, we expect Copilot to become a more well-rounded and seamless app, and crucially, when powerful NPUs become more widespread, the AI assistant will be able to perform a good deal more AI workloads on-device (rather than hooking up to the cloud to get the necessary processing power). That’s when a more fully-fledged app with greater powers to operate locally will likely become a reality.

In its current format, though, which has always been pretty basic, Copilot in Windows 11 doesn’t really need to be any more than a simple web wrapper.

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Forget Duolingo – Google Translate just got a massive AI upgrade that gives it over 100 new languages
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Google Translate is adding 110 new languages to its library, the largest expansion ever made to the platform. The update leverages Google's PaLM 2 large language model, an artificial intelligence tool that helps accurately translate across a wider array of languages than before. Those languages are spoken by approximately 614 million people, or about 8% of the global population. 

The list includes some widely spoken tongues, dialects, and languages that are native to smaller communities. Notably, African languages saw their biggest expansion, with Fon, Kikongo, Luo, Ga, Swati, Venda, and Wolof joining the list. On the other end of the spectrum, Cantonese is likely one of the most widely spoken languages on the new list, as is Punjabi (Shahmukhi), the most spoken language in Pakistan. 

There's also the Sicilian version of Italian, Manx, a Celtic language spoken on the Isle of Man that nearly went extinct, and a Papua New Guinea creole called Tok Pisin.

PaLM 2 Talk

For languages that blend regional dialects and different spelling standards, Google goes for something that might be best understood by most people, as with the Romani language offered by Google Translate, which includes three different dialects. 

The PaLM 2 LLM made the update possible, enhancing Google Translate's ability to learn and shift between languages efficiently. This model is particularly adept at handling languages that are closely related, like Awadhi and Marwadi, to Hindi or the various French creoles. PaLM 2's advanced capabilities allow it to manage the nuances and variations within these languages, providing more accurate and culturally relevant translations. 

The application of PaLM 2 to Google Translate is also interesting due to its origins as a tool for helping foster communications between humans and AI. For instance, both PaLM and PaLM 2 have been employed for helping teach robots how to carry out tasks and process commands from humans into steps to complete those tasks.

Potentially, the best part is that it's available on the web or via the Google Translate app on Android and iOS. 

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Mac users rejoice! The ChatGPT app is finally available for everyone, not just subscribers
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Anyone can now download the ChatGPT app on the Mac and use it, including non-paying users – previously the app was restricted to ChatGPT Plus subscribers. 

OpenAI announced in a post on X that you can now “get faster access to ChatGPT to chat about email, screenshots and anything on your screen with the Option + Space shortcut.” You can download the app via the official website, enabling more convenient access to the AI, and putting various features at your fingertips on the desktop.

From a central prompt box you can query ChatGPT, and access options to take a screenshot or upload a file to send to the chatbot, and engage with the AI in other ways, including easily searching through your old conversations to find something specific.

Another example shows someone using the shortcut to upload some PDF class schedule files, asking ChatGPT to find and summarize the deadlines within the three files. That effectively illustrates how this can be a helpful tool to sort through your overwhelming college or school workload. 

The most impressive aspect of the app is the way it streamlines the process of using ChatGPT. Instead of having to copy an entire document to paste into ChatGPT, you can simply select a section (or as noted above, upload the whole file), bring up ChatGPT, and just ask for feedback in the search bar. 

Alongside all of this, Mac users can speak to the desktop ChatGPT app for a more hands-free experience, a feature I believe truly shifts ChatGPT from being just any old chatbot and turns it into a virtual assistant in macOS.

An example query on the OpenAI website shows someone prompting ChatGPT to take a screenshot of some broken code, requesting help with that code, which then opens the app and provides suggestions as to what to do to fix the problem.

All that said, I’m someone who's very skeptical about the increasing integration and use of artificial intelligence in this way, especially considering the environmental impact that AI can have (in terms of processing workloads, and the power needed for that).

So while I do appreciate that this is all incredibly cool, and will make the lives of many people easier and more productive, at the same time, the more widely available this kind of tech becomes, the more impact it will have on the environment – and that's something the big AI brands need to be thinking about.

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Windows 11’s controversial Recall feature hasn’t just been ditched from Copilot+ PCs – Microsoft’s reportedly stripped it out of test builds of the OS
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Microsoft has seemingly pulled its Recall feature – the AI-powered search that screenshots your PC activity and has caused controversy aplenty – not just from Copilot+ PCs at launch, but now from Windows 11 test builds, too.

If you cast your mind back to a week ago, June 14, Microsoft came forth with an announcement that Recall had been withdrawn from Copilot+ PCs, where it was supposed to be in ‘preview’ at launch, and would instead be available to preview in the “Windows Insider Program (WIP) in the coming weeks.”

In other words, Windows test builds – but of course, the mention of the ‘coming weeks’ suggests that testing of the feature won’t happen immediately in the Canary channel (or other preview channels for that matter).

Still, as Tom’s Hardware observes, Recall functionality was present in build 26236 in the Canary channel – with well-known leaker Albacore uncovering new pieces of functionality – and then, on the day of the launch of Copilot+ PCs, that build had its rollout paused by Microsoft.

Following that, build 26241 emerged in Canary testing, and as Tom’s makes clear, it has no sign of the Recall feature – it has all been stripped out.

Analysis: Recall won’t be ready until it’s ready – and that’s a good thing

Really, then, this is to be expected. As we noted above, Microsoft has said Recall is going into testing, but only in the coming weeks, hinting it’s still a little way off reaching that point. But it’s still interesting to see that Microsoft has stripped it out completely in the Canary channel, after pausing the preview build which had the feature (albeit with changes discovered by Albacore that were hidden in the background).

To us, this indicates that it might be a bit more of a long haul than Microsoft suggests for Recall actually going live even in test builds of Windows 11. But frankly – if this turns out to be the case – we think that’s something to be grateful for, being very much of the opinion that Recall likely isn’t remotely ready yet.

If Microsoft is taking the time to pull it completely, and really get the Recall house in order, before deploying it to Windows 11 testers, that’s a good sign. It’s a kingpin AI feature for Copilot+ PCs, after all, so Microsoft needs to get Recall right, and if that takes time, all well and good as far as we’re concerned.

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A new OpenAI Sora rival just landed for AI videos – and you can use it right now for free
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The text-to-video AI boom has really kicked off in the past few months, with the only downside being that the likes of OpenAI Sora still aren't available for us to try. If you're tired of waiting, a new rival called Dream Machine just landed – and you can take it for a spin right now.

Dream Machine is made by Luma AI, which has previously released an app that helps you shoot 3D photos with your iPhone. Well, now it's turned its attention to generative video, which has a free tier that you can use right now with a Google account – albeit with some caveats.

The main one is that Dream Machine seems to be slightly overwhelmed at the time of writing. There's currently a banner on the site stating that “generations take 120 seconds” and that “due to high demand, requests will be queued”. Our text prompt took over 20 minutes to be processed, but the results (below) are pretty impressive.

Dream Machine's outputs are more limited in length and resolution compared to the likes of OpenAI's Sora and Kling AI, but it's a good taster of how these services will work. The clips it produces are five seconds long and in 1360×752 resolution. You just type a prompt into its search bar and wait for it to appear in your account, after which you can download a watermarked version. 

While there was a lengthy wait for the results (which should hopefully improve once initial demand has dropped), our prompt of 'a close-up of a dog in sunglasses driving a car through Las Vegas at night' produced a clip that was very close to what we envisaged. 

Dream Machine's free plan is capped at 30 generations a month, but if you need more there are Standard (120 generations, $ 29.99 a month, about £24, AU$ 45), Pro (400 generations, $ 99.99 a month, about £80, AU$ 150) and Premier (2,000 generations, $ 499.99 a month, about £390, AU$ 750).

A taste of AI videos to come

Like most generative AI video tools, questions remain about exactly what data Luma AI's was trained on – which means that its potential outside of personal use or improving your GIF game could be limited. It also isn't the first free text-to-video tool we've seen, with Runway's Gen 2 model coming out of beta last year.

The Dream Machine website also states that the tool does have technical limitations when it comes to handling text and motion, so there's plenty of trial-and-error involved. But as a taster of the more advanced (and no doubt more expensive) AI video generators to come, it's certainly a fun tool to test drive.

That's particularly the case, given that other alternatives like Google Veo currently have lengthy waitlists. Meanwhile, more powerful models like OpenAI's Sora (which can generate videos that are 60-seconds long) won't be available until later this year, while Kling AI is currently China-only.

This will certainly change as text-to-video generation becomes mainstream, but until then, Dream Machine is a good place to practice (if you don't mind waiting a while for the results).

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Apple just awarded these 14 apps and games one of its highest accolades
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WWDC 2024 doesn’t officially begin until June 10, but Apple is letting some news out a few days in advance, including its 2024 Apple Design Award winners, celebrating 14 apps and games that excel in design, innovation, and technical achievement. 

The 14 titles were chosen from 42 finalists across seven categories: Delight and Fun, Inclusivity, Innovation, Interaction, Social Impact, Visuals, Graphics, and Spatial Computing – as you might imagine, that last category, which was a new addition for 2024, highlights an app for Apple Vision Pro. Each category highlights one app and one game as a winner.

Scoring an Apple Design Award is a high honor for developers, and the list of winners – and indeed the list of finalists – is a great place to start if you want to find new apps  to try on your iPhone, iPad, MacBook or Mac, Apple Watch, or Vision Pro. 

Delight and Fun winners

Within the Delight and Fun category, two winners delivering engaging and satisfying experiences beat out the seven finalists. First is Bears Gratitude, a journaling app focusing on self-reflection through daily prompts and routine building.

Second is an unsurprising winner, considering the highly active fanbase that plays Wordle. NYT Games is home to many addictive puzzles and word games, including the classic crossword and Connections, all designed to keep you coming back every day.

Inclusivity winners

Apple Design Award Winner 2024, Crayola Adventures

(Image credit: Apple)

Apple has selected two Inclusivity category winners. Oko uses the onboard camera to help pedestrians with low to no vision navigate by indicating the signal of lights and other traffic signals through haptic and audio alerts. It’s even built using Apple’s VoiceOver and Dynamic Type technologies. 

Crayola Adventures is the other winner in the category and is designed for all ages with the ability to create and solve puzzles. You can adjust skin tone, body types, pronouns, and abilities within the character creation steps and get a full game narration. 

Innovation winners

A look at Apple Design Award trophy.

(Image credit: Apple)

Recently featured during Apple’s May 7, 2024, iPad-focused event, Procreate Dreams is walking away with an Apple Design Award. Described as a “marvelously designed tool” by Apple, it lets creatives design 2D animations from freehand, built-in templates, or even the Apple Pencil. Procreate even supports some of the more advanced features introduced with the Apple Pencil Pro, including haptic feedback and squeeze functionality. 

Lost in Play is an exciting and visually impressive graphic novel-style adventure game for the iPhone. The graphics are all hand-drawn, and the gameplay focuses primarily on discovery through point-and-tap. 

Interaction winners

As you might suspect, Interaction is all about a compelling, intuitive interface and application controls. Crouton is an app for recipe curation; it makes it easier to complete recipes by providing an ingredient list and step-by-step directions. 

Rytmos is a puzzle game controlled through drag gestures, with each level upping the challenge. It also pairs it with vibrant, impressive visuals that get more complex based on the level. 

Social Impact winners

Like the rest of the categories, the Social Impact category has two winners: Gentler Streak Fitness Tracker and The Wreck. The former is a fitness tracker designed for everyone, regardless of lifestyle or how much one might work out. It pairs physical fitness and mental wellbeing into one app and integrates with Apple Health. You can see TechRadar’s report on Gentler Streak here.

The Wreck is a visual novel with a story focused on navigating and reflecting on stressful situations.

Visuals and Graphics winners

Visuals and Graphics had many terrific titles, including some AAA games, in the finalists, and Apple narrowed it down to two winners. Rooms lets you play in a 3D space with immersive and highly detailed visuals throughout the experience. You start with a blank space or room and can add from there and view other users' work.

Lies of P for the Mac is a highly immersive, well-reviewed game that plays on the idea of imagination. You play as the robot Geppetto on a quest to find the marker. Developer NEOWIZ utilized MetalFX for great visuals across a range of Mac models.

Spatial Computing winners

Apple Design Award Winner 2024, Djay Pro

(Image credit: Apple)

Last but not least is the newest addition to Apple’s Design Awards, which spotlights the $ 3,500 (starting) Vision Pro. Spatial Computing first highlights djay pro, which places a DJ turntable directly in front of you in your reality or a highly immersive environment. I’ve used this one, and you can reach out to adjust volume levels, scratch the discs, adjust speed, and even mix two tracks together. 

Second in Spatial Computing is Blackbox, a puzzle game that overlays the world around you. Puzzles of various elements and even words will appear all around you. It’s a fun experience.

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Nvidia’s new G-Assist AI could just be the best party member for hardcore PC gamers
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What started as an April Fool’s prank from 2017 might actually become real tech. During Computex 2024, Nvidia revealed a tech demo for Project G-Assist, an AI assistant that can enhance how people play video games. 

The old joke was that the AI could play games for you with the push of a button. This new version isn’t as capable as its fantasy counterpart, but can still help you with your playthrough. According to the announcement post, G-Assist can answer questions about how to complete quests, find items, or help with how to beat tough bosses. 

To activate the AI, you'll simply press a hotkey or utter a wake phase. A window will appear on the screen. From there, you can type in a text prompt or speak it via microphone.

Nvidia states that G-Assist is contextually aware. Through visual models, it can provide recommendations on what a player should do next just by looking at the screen. It may suggest crafting a certain gear for your character or avoiding an on-screen enemy. The information it’ll provide depends on what you’re playing. For role-playing games, it can tell you about the lore of the surrounding world. If you’re playing a first-person shooter, G-Assist will recommend the best loadouts.

Nvidia G-Assist on PC

(Image credit: Nvidia)

Granted, all the AI's tidbits can be admittedly found through a simple Google search. It’s not like G-Assist has access to a secret treasure trove of knowledge. The main draw here is you don’t have to leave your game. A ton of important data is all a button press away. 

The source of a game’s information has us curious. Nvidia says each output will provide “context-sensitive links,” directing you to extra resources online, such as official community wikis. Whether or not that’ll include unofficial sources, like YouTube videos, remains to be seen.

Computer tune up

Besides the playthrough helper, the assistant also has a feature we think hardcore gamers will appreciate called Performance Tuning. Activating this allows the AI to “evaluate your system’s configuration… and instantly tune it for an optimal experience.” It could, for example, decide to undervolt a graphics card to increase power efficiency, enable a “safe GPU overclock,” and turn on Nvidia Reflex to reduce latency, among other things.

Nvidia G-Assist - Performance Tuning feature

(Image credit: Nvidia)

G-Assist even tracks your computer’s performance as you play, letting you know about key statistics, from a game's current frame rate to latency spikes. The corner window displays a graphical readout of a certain stat within a certain time frame. It depends on what you ask the assistant.

What’s more, the AI suggests actions you can take to improve a computer's overall performance or explain certain features. For instance, DLAA (deep-learning anti-aliasing) and DLSS (deep-learning super sampling) are a pair of graphical software that Nvidia made to improve a video game's visual fidelity. The average person may have a difficult time understanding the differences between them and what exactly they do. G-Assist can help down break tricky concepts to better educate people.

The AI is shaping itself up to be yet another killer app from Nvidia. It’s definitely something we want to try out ourselves on our favorite titles. At time of this writing, G-Assist is being exhibited at Computex. It’s unknown if and when it’ll launch or if there will be beta at some point.

TechRadar did reach out to Nvidia asking if it plans to release a public beta and if it’ll expand to non-gaming apps soon. We’ll update this story if we hear back.

Be sure to check out TechRadar's list of the best gaming PCs for 2024 if you're in the market.

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ChatGPT’s free tier just got a massive upgrade – so stop paying for ChatGPT Plus
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Following its GPT-4o announcement during its Spring Update event, OpenAI has finally made its new AI tools available for free to everyone, begging the question: Is there any point paying for ChatGPT?

With ChatGPT-4o, all users can now access more advanced tools like discussing files and photos you upload to ChatGPT. The generative AI can also conduct data analysis and create charts, and it can access the internet to inform its responses. 

However, with all of these features rolling out to everyone – even if they come with usage limits for non-paying users – there’s a big question of if people should stay subscribed to OpenAI’s premium tier for ChatGPT.

It’s not like ChatGPT Plus has become entirely obsolete. Subscribers still have exclusive features like the ability to create custom GPTs, higher usage rate limits with 4o, and first access to new features – this includes early access to Voice Mode when it launches “in the coming weeks.”

But it’s understandable why subscribers feel a little burned. They’re paying $ 20 (around £16 / AU$ 30) per month for a service that’s not that different from the free one. Unless you’re an AI power user, now’s seemingly a terrible time to sign up for ChatGPT Plus.

Thinking long term

A close up of ChatGPT on a phone, with the OpenAI logo in the background of the photo

(Image credit: Shutterstock/Daniel Chetroni)

So why would OpenAI want to make its premium service less appealing? Well, there are two prevailing theories.

The far-fetched one is that OpenAI will soon release an early version of GPT-5, or at least some kind of exciting new features that’ll be exclusive to its paid members beyond the voiced version of ChatGPT. It’s not out of the question, though this feels like something OpenAI would have mentioned during its Spring Update event on May 13, so color us skeptical.

The likely reason is that OpenAI is changing track to focus on bringing in as many users as possible, rather than paid ones, at least for now.

That’s because a report recently revealed that hardly any of us use ChatGPT and other AI tools in our day-to-day lives. If OpenAI wants people to get excited by its tools it can’t then lock the best features away behind a paywall.

What’s more, ChatGPT’s rivals – like the Meta AI and Google Gemini – are free to use and offer many of the same premium tools at no cost. If it’s already a struggle to get people to use AI when it’s free, you can bet it’s significantly harder with a paywall in the way.

We’ll have to wait and see if ChatGPT Plus gets any improvements in the coming weeks, but if you’re currently subscribed (or thinking of joining) you might want to hold off for now.

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