Microsoft just launched a free Copilot app for Android, powered by GPT-4

If you're keen to play around with some generative AI tech on your phone, you now have another option: Microsoft has launched an Android app for its Copilot chatbot, and like Copilot in Windows 11, it's free to use and powered by GPT-4 and DALL-E 3.

As spotted by @techosarusrex (via Neowin), the Copilot for Android app is available now, and appears to have arrived on December 19. It's free to use and you don't even need to sign into your Microsoft account – but if you don't sign in, you are limited in terms of the number of prompts you can input and the length of the answers.

In a sense, this app isn't particularly new, because it just replicates the AI functionality that's already available in Bing for Android. However, it cuts out all the extra Bing features for web search, news, weather, and so on.

There's no word yet on a dedicated Copilot for iOS app, so if you're using an iPhone you're going to have to stick with Bing for iOS for now if you need some AI assistance. For now, Microsoft hasn't said anything officially on its new Android app.

Text and images

The functionality inside the new app is going to be familiar to anyone who has used Copilot or Bing AI anywhere else. Microsoft has been busy adding the AI everywhere, and has recently integrated it into Windows 11 too.

You can ask direct questions like you would with a web search, get complex topics explained in simple terms, have Copilot generate new text on any kind of subject, and much more. The app can work with text, image and voice prompts too.

Based on our testing of the app, it seems you get five questions or searches per day for free if you don't want to sign in. If you do tell Microsoft who you are, that limit is lifted, and signing in also gives you access to image generation capabilities.

With both Apple's Siri and Google Assistant set to get major AI boosts in the near future, Microsoft won't want to be left behind – and the introduction of a separate Copilot app could help position it as a standalone digital assistant that works anywhere.

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Hark! A VR headset powered by Linux that you can maybe buy one day

The thing you didn't even know you wanted is here: SimulaVR have been working hard on bringing Linux to the VR world and the result is the SimulaVR One and, well, it actually looks pretty cool. 

Now, you might be thinking, do we need Linux in a VR headset? It's a good question and the answer, in our view, is why not. The year of Linux has been coming for a while and SimulaVR might have just found the missing piece. 

According to SimularVR's technical preview, Intel's NUC is being used by Simula as the guts of the One, specifically an 11th-gen Intel NUC with a four-core i7,  Iris Xe integrated graphics, Wi-Fi 6, and 3-4 USB ports, Thunderbolt, and two DisplayPorts, although the IO is still under discussion. 

SimulaVR One

(Image credit: SimulaVR)

On the actual VR side, Sharp has provided two 2448 x 2448 panels, which, when paired with an innovative three-lens design, offers 100-degree field of view and 36.2 pixels per degree (PPD), which SimulaVR is quick to note beats the Valve Index and Oculus Quest 2

The year of Linux, here at last  

But let's get into the meat: the SimulaVR One is, above all else, a Linux-toting VR headset and it runs Simula, a desktop environment that runs on the Godot game engine. The OS is capable of running any desktop app, which is pretty neat. 

You can install Simula OS, available for download on Github, on other VR headsets, including the HTC Vive and Valve Index. 

We've attached a GIF below to show you how this looks in practice. Without actually using the headset it's hard to say how good choosing Linux over other OSes will be, but it's certainly interesting. 

SimulaVR One

(Image credit: SimulaVR)

If you want to buy the SimulaVR one then sadly you're out of luck for now, as the company has yet to put a release date on the device and we don't expect to see it any time soon. Making VR work is really hard – just ask Oculus – and we applaud SimulaVR's tenacity, so hopefully we'll get to try it out soon.

Via Tom's Hardware

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