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Is this the return of Google Glass? Magic Leap and Google team up could be bad news for Meta and Apple
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We already knew Google was making at least a tentative return to the world of extended reality (XR, a catchall for VR, AR, and MR) with the announcement it’s helping to make the Samsung XR headset. But it could also be looking for another try and with one of its most high-profile flops: Google Glass.

This speculation follows an announcement from Magic Leap that it is partnering with Google to “bring Magic Leap Augmented Reality (AR) expertise and optics leadership together with Google’s technology platforms and collaborate on Extended Reality (XR) solutions and experiences.”

This is hardly a Google Glass confirmation, but it follows a few rumors that Google wants to have another crack at AR specs – including what might have been an accidental leak from its own Google I/O presentation. It also comes after Meta teased its AR glasses project, and with Apple testing the waters with the Vision Pro it would seem the entire industry is chasing an AR trend.

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Even though this partnership is seemingly set in stone we shouldn’t get our hopes up that Google Glass 2 is coming soon. LG and Meta announced plans to partner on XR technology, only for rumors to come out weeks later that they had already parted ways – rumors LG refused to dismiss.

Much like Meta and LG reportedly butted heads in several ways, Google and Magic Leap could also disagree on how best to create an AR device which could lead to their relationship breaking down. 

What could a ‘Google Glass 2’ look like? 

Assuming this partnership does bear fruit, what do we expect to see from Google Glass 2 – or whatever Google wants to call it?

Well design-wise we imagine it’ll look a lot more like a typical pair of specs. While Google Glass’ space-age design might have charmed some, it’s not at all subtle. The obvious camera freaked people out, and it painted a target on wearers as they were clearly wearing expensive tech that would-be thieves could rip from them. And when the battery dies, they’re useless.

Modern smart and AR glasses have some signs they’re more than meets the eye – like thicker arms, and a light that makes it clear when the camera is in use – but in general you wouldn’t know the specs were anything but regular shades unless you’re well-versed in tech. With prescription or shaded lenses, they’re also something you can wear all the time even when they run out of charge.

Orange RayBan Meta Smart Glasses in front of a wall of colorful lenses including green, blue, yellow and pink

The Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses (Image credit: Meta)

As for its features, obviously, AR aspects would be included. To us, this means a HUD with an overlay showing you things like directions pointing you towards your destination, and apps that have you interact with virtual objects as if they’re in the real world.

But the other big feature will most likely be AI. We’ve already seen how the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses can leverage cameras and its AI to help you identify objects, find recipes, translate signs, and generally answer questions you might have by simply talking to your specs. Google also has a generative AI – Gemini – and while its recent attempts at AI search haven’t been the best, we’d be shocked if this tech wasn’t incorporated into Google Glass 2.

We’ll have to wait and see what Google’s next AR device has in store for us if and when it launches. You can be sure we’ll be ready to give you the lowdown as soon as we have it.

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Windows 11’s Recall feature is already running on unsupported CPUs – and it shows why this is a bad idea
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Windows 11 enthusiasts are already playing with the new – and controversial – Recall feature the OS now has in preview (for 24H2), and have got it running on current Arm-based CPUs by fudging things.

While Recall is present in the recently released preview of the Windows 11 24H2 update, Microsoft makes it clear that the feature won’t work on current PCs, as it requires a Copilot+ PC (the new name for the ‘AI PC’).

In other words, Recall needs a device with a powerful enough NPU to run it (and other new AI features in 24H2), which is currently only the new Snapdragon X chips (and AMD plus Intel CPUs further down the line).

Even those Snapdragon laptops aren’t available just yet (they will be next month), but leaker Albacore has still managed to tinker under the hood of Windows 11 24H2 and get Recall working on a current Arm processor.

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You can see a video of Recall being summoned on a standard (non-Copilot+) Windows 11 PC in the above post on X (formerly Twitter). As Albacore says, it shows ‘screenray’ in action which refers to the context-sensitive mode entered when you find something using Recall and select it.

As you can see, if the search result you want is a text file, screenray presents options pertaining to what you’ll need to do – copy and paste text. Or if it’s an image, you’ll get choices to copy the picture or open it for editing in an app.

Analysis: Working as not intended

It’s pretty cool to see this feature working on a processor without the necessary strength in terms of a powerful NPU (like the new Snapdragon X silicon sports), but at the same time, it illustrates why that NPU is needed. As you probably noticed, the interaction with Recall and screenray therein looks a bit laggy here – what the NPU does is provide specific AI acceleration to ensure this process runs more smoothly.

Furthermore, the feature is still in testing within a preview build here, and that won’t help either.

Albacore even sounds hopeful about getting Recall working not just on current ARM chips, but also on existing AMD and Intel (x86) CPUs, which also can’t officially run the feature. (Again, even current-gen processors from Teams Red and Blue lack an NPU with enough raw grunt).

If that happens, we can expect a similar experience to what we see here – but it’s not possible yet anyway, as Microsoft has only provided the machine learning model bundles for Arm to laptop makers. These don’t exist for AMD or Intel CPUs yet (as there’s no need for them – Lunar Lake and Strix Point, which will drive Copilot+ PCs, are still some way off launching, but they are fully expected to debut before 2024 is out).

Ultimately, this is an interesting fudge for now, but it’s likely a bad idea to be trying to get Recall up and running on a PC it’s not intended for. Simply because there may well be scenarios where it truly bogs down – such as when you have a larger, sprawling library of snapshots piled up – and there are doubtless good reasons why Microsoft has the mentioned NPU requirement in place.

Mind you, not everyone wants Recall, anyhow: certainly not those more privacy-conscious Windows 11 users out there who have already made their feelings clear. Indeed, a privacy watchdog in the UK is already investigating Recall before Microsoft even has the functionality officially live. The result of that enquiry will certainly be interesting, and Microsoft may be worried about another scenario where a big Windows 11 feature is blocked in Europe due to more stringent data regulations.

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Watch this: Marvel’s first trailer for its immersive Apple Vision Pro app just landed
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Have an Apple Vision Pro and wish you could fight alongside Marvel superheroes and potentially battle against villains like Thanos? Well, Marvel Studios is granting you your wish and will allow you to open portals with a twist of the hand and even take part in battles.

What If…? – An Immersive Story, which combines augmented and mixed reality, arrives on the Apple Vision Pro as an app on May 30, 2024. Furthermore, it will be free for a limited time, and we’re all getting our initial look at it courtesy of the first trailer drop. 

If you’ve watched What If…? on Disney Plus or have seen a Marvel film, you’ll likely be right at home. As the trailer shows, “The Watcher” will be life-size in your living room, asking for your help to battle variants from across the Marvel universes and even search for various Infinity Stones with the help of myriad spells courtesy of Master Wong. 

Thanks to vibrant, clear 4K displays on the Apple Vision Pro and the advanced camera setup, you’ll be transported and fully immersed into worlds from the Marvel universe, as well as see elements like portals and characters appear in your home space. The teams at Marvel Studios and ILM Immersive have also tapped into the various capabilities of Vision Pro and will employ eye and hand tracking.

From the trailer, the experience looks quite fun. It will likely be a major hit with Marvel fans who have the Apple Vision Pro headset – plus, it’ll be free for a limited time. As What If…? – An Immersive Story is the first immersive story from Disney Plus, it will feature characters, storylines, and even locations from the show and introduce new ones.

The story will last a full hour, and there might be some replayability as it seems to be taking the path of a choose-your-own-adventure, with various storylines you might end up playing through.

Pricing and Availability

Marvel Studios What If…? – An Immersive Story will launch on May 30, 2024, exclusively for the Apple Vision Pro. 

It'll be a separate app to download from Disney Plus and will be “a free app for a limited time,” according to the release. You'll need the $ 3,500 (around £2,750 / AU$ 5,270) spatial computer from Apple as well, of course.

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OpenAI’s big launch event kicks off soon – so what can we expect to see? If this rumor is right, a powerful next-gen AI model
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Rumors that OpenAI has been working on something major have been ramping up over the last few weeks, and CEO Sam Altman himself has taken to X (formerly Twitter) to confirm that it won’t be GPT-5 (the next iteration of its breakthrough series of large language models) or a search engine to rival Google. What a new report, the latest in this saga, suggests is that OpenAI might be about to debut a more advanced AI model with built-in audio and visual processing.

OpenAI is towards the front of the AI race, striving to be the first to realize a software tool that comes as close as possible to communicating in a similar way to humans, being able to talk to us using sound as well as text, and also capable of recognizing images and objects. 

The report detailing this purported new model comes from The Information, which spoke to two anonymous sources who have apparently been shown some of these new capabilities. They claim that the incoming model has better logical reasoning than those currently available to the public, being able to convert text to speech. None of this is new for OpenAI as such, but what is new is all this functionality being unified in the rumored multimodal model. 

A multimodal model is one that can understand and generate information across multiple modalities, such as text, images, audio, and video. GPT-4 is also a multimodal model that can process and produce text and images, and this new model would theoretically add audio to its list of capabilities, as well as a better understanding of images and faster processing times.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman attends the artificial intelligence Revolution Forum. New York, US - 13 Jan 2023

(Image credit: Shutterstock/photosince)

The bigger picture that OpenAI has in mind

The Information describes Altman’s vision for OpenAI’s products in the future as involving the development of a highly responsive AI that performs like the fictional AI in the film “Her.” Altman envisions digital AI assistants with visual and audio abilities capable of achieving things that aren’t possible yet, and with the kind of responsiveness that would enable such assistants to serve as tutors for students, for example. Or the ultimate navigational and travel assistant that can give people the most relevant and helpful information about their surroundings or current situation in an instant.

The tech could also be used to enhance existing voice assistants like Apple’s Siri, and usher in better AI-powered customer service agents capable of detecting when a person they’re talking to is being sarcastic, for example.

According to those who have experience with the new model, OpenAI will make it available to paying subscribers, although it’s not known exactly when. Apparently, OpenAI has plans to incorporate the new features into the free version of its chatbot, ChatGPT, eventually. 

OpenAI is also reportedly working on making the new model cheaper to run than its most advanced model available now, GPT-4 Turbo. The new model is said to outperform GPT-4 Turbo when it comes to answering many types of queries, but apparently it’s still prone to hallucinations,  a common problem with models such as these.

The company is holding an event today at 10am PT / 1pm ET / 6pm BST (or 3am AEST on Tuesday, May 14, in Australia), where OpenAI could preview this advanced model. If this happens, it would put a lot of pressure on one of OpenAI’s biggest competitors, Google.

Google is holding its own annual developer conference, I/O 2024, on May 14, and a major announcement like this could steal a lot of thunder from whatever Google has to reveal, especially when it comes to Google’s AI endeavor, Gemini. 

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Tired of ads in Windows 11? This free, straightforward third-party app might be just what you need to cut down the number of ads on your PC
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If you’re a Windows 11 user who isn’t quite ready to leave the operating system behind but would like a break from seeing ads all over the place, I have some news that might make you feel better. There’s a free app that cuts out ads to make your Windows 11 experience a little less frustrating – it’s called OFGB, which amusingly stands for ‘Oh Frick Go Back.’ 

OFGB makes use of your system’s Windows Registry to disable all kinds of ads, including File Explorer ads, Lock Screen tips and tricks, Settings ads, “Finish Setup” ads, “Welcome Experience” ads, personalized ads, “Tailored Experiences, and Start Menu ads. It’s easy to use, and you can pick and pick and choose which of these you’d like to turn off by simply ticking the appropriate boxes (frankly, I’d recommend turning them all off).

How to get your hands on OFGB

You can download OFGB from its official GitHub page, and there are two versions: a self-contained (but larger) version and one that isn’t self-contained (meaning it depends on external software components to run). If you’re not familiar with coding and are unsure which version to get, I’d recommend the first version (OFGB-Deps.exe). 

Also, make sure you get one of the versions of the Source code files (I’d recommend the .zip file). Download these files, and click OFGB-Deps.exe to begin the installation. 

Oh frick, this is perfect

OFGB was created by Arch Linux user (Arch is a customizable version of Linux) xM4ddy on GitHub, who herself has had enough of Windows ads being injected in every nook and cranny of the OS. She gave the following quote about her frustrations with Tom’s Hardware: 

“Windows lost me a long time ago by adding more and more telemetry, ads, and the lack of easily configurable options.”

You can also see a demo and read more from the creator in her Reddit post publicizing the new app.

OFGB joins an existing platoon of third-party workarounds that enable you to make automated edits to the Windows Registry so that you see fewer ads. There’s also Wintoys, an app that recently saw a major update, and Tiny 11 Builder, a tool for creating your own slimmed-down version of Windows 11, which also recently got an upgrade. 

OFGB looks like a clean, straightforward solution if the ads are something that bothers you, but only if you’re confident about trying custom third-party apps – if you’re not, it’s best to stick to using Windows as it comes. 

That said, you might be looking to take the leap, and you wouldn’t be alone – Windows 11 is reportedly losing market share to its predecessor Windows 10, which is set to no longer be supported by Microsoft next year, and many people have been expressing their anger at Microsoft’s ramping up and insistent ads in Windows 11 for a good while now. I wonder if third-party apps like OFGB will continue to work, because I could see Microsoft making every effort to push ads through – as it clearly isn’t paying much attention to the chorus of existing complaints. 

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This Windows 11 installation setting can cut your SSD performance in half. Here’s how to disable it.
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BitLocker, which is Microsoft’s software encryption for SSDs, has run into its fair share of issues over the years since its release. And now there’s another potential problem looming over Windows 11 users with the upcoming version 24H2 update.

There’s a new report that Windows 11 version 24H2, also called the 2024 update, “may enable BitLocker by default during installation” across various versions of Windows including Home edition, according to German news outlet Deskmodder (reported on by Neowin). Why is this considered bad news? For several reasons.

What's the problem?

The first is that using BitLocker for encryption can seriously slow down your PCs’ performance by up to 45% in Windows Pro, and would most likely affect other versions of the OS similarly. This occurs due to Windows 11 constantly prompting encryption and decryption processes with data on your SSD while your computer carries out read and write operations.

The second issue is that a user unfamiliar with encryption in general or this specific issue with BitLocker could encrypt their data without knowing and then not be able to decrypt and recover their data due to misplacing or not saving the needed key.

There’s also a third issue with BitLocker in terms of security as well — according to YouTuber Stacksmashing, its encryption can be cracked remarkably easily. Their video demonstrates that if you’re using either a Windows 10 or Windows 11 Pro device with a dedicated external Trusted Platform Module (TPM), your encrypted data can be decrypted and read. You only need a $ 10 Raspberry Pi Pico, physical access to the target endpoint, and the knowledge of how to do it.

How to fix it

Of course, there is a simple way to fix this auto encryption. You only need to disable Device Encryption inside Privacy & security in Settings. Thankfully users have that option, but many casual Windows 11 users, especially those with Windows 11 Home, may not be aware of the situation, let alone how to fix it.

Hopefully, if this report is true, Microsoft will disable auto-encryption before the update launches. It’s not necessary and causes more problems than it really solves.

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Watch this: Adobe shows how AI and OpenAI’s Sora will change Premiere Pro and video editing forever
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OpenAI's Sora gave us a glimpse earlier this year of how generative AI is going to change video editing – and now Adobe has shown off how that's going to play out by previewing of some fascinating new Premiere Pro tools.

The new AI-powered features, powered by Adobe Firefly, effectively bring the kinds of tricks we've seen from Google's photo-focused Magic Editor – erasing unwanted objects, adding objects and extending scenes – to video. And while it isn't the first piece of software to do that, seeing these tools in an industry standard app that's used by professionals is significant.

For a glimpse of what's coming “this year” to Premiere Pro and other video editing apps, check out the video below. In a new Generative panel, there's a new 'add object' option that lets you type in an object you want to add to the scene. This appears to be for static objects, rather than things like a galloping horse, but it looks handy for b-roll and backgrounds.

Arguably even more helpful is 'object removal', which uses Firefly's AI-based smart masking to help you quickly select an object to remove then make it vanish with a click. Alternatively, you can just combine the two tools to, for example, swap the watch that someone's wearing for a non-branded alternative.

One of the most powerful new AI-powered features in photo editing is extending backgrounds – called Generative Fill in Photoshop – and Premiere Pro will soon have a similar feature for video. Rather than extending the frame's size, Generative Extend will let you add frames to a video to help you, for example, pause on your character's face for a little longer. 

While Adobe hasn't given these tools a firm release date, only revealing that they're coming “later this year”, it certainly looks like they'll change Premiere Pro workflows in a several major ways. But the bigger AI video change could be yet to come… 

Will Adobe really plug into OpenAI's Sora?

A laptop screen showing AI video editing tools in Adobe Premiere Pro

(Image credit: Adobe)

The biggest Premiere Pro announcement, and also the most nebulous one, was Adobe's preview of third-party models for the editing app. In short, Adobe is planning to let you plug generative AI video tools including OpenAI's Sora, Runway and Pika Labs into Premiere Pro to sprinkle your videos with their effects.

In theory, that sounds great. Adobe showed an example of OpenAI's Sora generating b-roll with a text-to-video prompt, and Pika powering Generative Extend. But these “early examples” of Adobe's “research exploration” with its “friends” from the likes of OpenAI are still clouded in uncertainty.

Firstly, Adobe hasn't committed to launching the third-party plug-ins in the same way as its own Firefly-powered tools. That shows it's really only testing the waters with this part of the Premiere Pro preview. Also, the integration sits a little uneasily with Adobe's current stance on generative AI tools.

A laptop screen showing AI video editing tools in Adobe Premiere Pro

(Image credit: Adobe)

Adobe has sought to set itself apart from the likes of Midjourney and Stable Diffusion by highlighting that Adobe Firefly is only trained on Adobe Stock image library, which is apparently free of commercial, branded and trademark imagery. “We’re using hundreds of millions of assets, all trained and moderated to have no IP,” Adobe's VP of Generative AI, Alexandru Costin, told us earlier this year.

Yet a new report from Bloomberg claims that Firefly was partially trained on images generated by Midjourney (with Adobe suggesting that could account for 5% of Firefly's training data). And these previews of new alliances with generative video AI models, which are similarly opaque when it comes to their training data, again sits uneasily with Adobe's stance.

Adobe's potential get-out here is Content Credentials, a kind of nutrition label that's also coming to Premiere Pro and will add watermarks to clarify when AI was used in a video and with which model. Whether or not this is enough for Adobe to balance making a commercially-friendly pro video editor with keeping up in the AI race remains to be seen.

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Microsoft targets another corner of Windows 11 with – you guessed it – adverts, and we’re getting a bit fed up with this
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Microsoft is testing adding a fresh batch of ads to the Windows 11 interface, this time in the Start menu.

Recent digging in preview builds had suggested this move was in the cards, and now those cards have been dealt to testers in the Windows 11 preview Beta channel with a new build (version 22635).

The ads are being placed in the ‘Recommended’ panel of the Start menu, and consist of highlighted apps from the Microsoft Store that you might want to try.

These promoted pieces of software appear with a brief description in the Recommended section, alongside the other content such as your commonly-used (already installed) apps.

As Microsoft makes clear in the blog post introducing the build, this is only rolling out in the Beta channel, and just in the US. Also, you can turn off the app promotions if you wish.

Testers who want to do so need to open the Settings app, head to Personalization > Start, and switch off the slider for ‘Show recommendations for tips, app promotions, and more.’

Analysis: Just trying stuff out…

As mentioned, this idea was already flagged up as hidden in test builds, but now it’s a reality – at least for a limited set of testers in the US. In fact, Microsoft clarifies that it is “beginning to roll this out to a small set of Insiders [testers]” so it sounds like the firm is really being tentative. On top of that, Microsoft writes: “We regularly try out new experiences and concepts that may never get released with Windows Insiders to get feedback.”

In other words – don’t panic – we’re just trying out this concept a little bit. It probably won’t ever happen – move along, there’s nothing to see here. Anyway, you get the idea: Microsoft is very aware it needs to tread carefully here, and rightly so.

Advertising like this, wrapped up as suggestions or recommendations, is becoming all too common a theme with Windows 11. Prompting of one kind or another has been floating around in the recent past, whether it’s to encourage folks to sign up for a Microsoft Account, or to use OneDrive as part of a backup strategy, or slipping ads into Outlook is another recent example. Or indeed recommendations for websites to visit, in much the same vein as these app recommendations in this Beta build.

In this case, the idea appears to be driving traffic towards the Microsoft Store – which Microsoft has been making a lot of efforts with lately to improve performance (and the store has come on leaps and bounds in that regard, to be fair).

We don’t want to sound like a broken record, but sadly, we’re going to, as we’re of the firm belief that you can monetize a free product with advertising – no one can argue with that – but when a product is already paid for, shoving in ads on top – particularly with an OS, where you’re cluttering the interface – is just not on.

Microsoft may argue that these recommendations could prove useful, especially if they’re targeted for the user – though there could be privacy issues therein if that’s the way this ends up working – but still, we don’t think it’s right to be inserting these bits of adverts into the UI, no doubt turned on by default. Yes, you can turn them off – thankfully – but you shouldn’t have to in a paid OS.

It’s up to testers to feed back on this one, and let Microsoft know how they feel.

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Microsoft continues to shove Copilot down our throats, this time on our tablets
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If you’re a Windows user, you’ve probably been embracing (or running away from) Microsoft Copilot being integrated into your operating system. The AI-powered tool has been added to Microsoft Edge, Microsoft 365, and the Windows 11 taskbar. Now, it seems like the AI companion is making its debut on Windows tablets – in the most annoying way possible. 

Zac Bowden from Windows Central discovered that swiping from the right on your tablet now opens Copilot instead of your notification center – disrupting a core gesture that users have grown accustomed to. Bowden posted a video on Twitter (sorry, X)  showing this change in action, swiping to open notifications and instead being greeted by an unwelcome Copilot. 

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Bowden also adds that the notification panel has apparently simply disappeared. You would think that if Copilot had been moved to the right, the notification panel would have been relocated, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Now, it seems that if you miss a notification it’s simply gone with the wind – you have nowhere to catch up on anything you miss. 

Give it back! 

Almost all modern devices have some kind of notification center that’s easily accessible. iPhone and Android mobiles have the swipe down from the top gesture, which is also translated to larger touchscreen devices like iPads or Galaxy tablets. Even your Windows PC has a notification center on the right side of your taskbar. So, it’s incredibly peculiar for Windows tablets to have that crucial feature removed. 

If you’re worried about your tablet being affected, don’t panic – so far this change has only been implemented on tablets that are running on the latest Windows 11 version (24H2). It was first spotted in Microsoft Windows Insider Dev and Canary channel and now seems to have broken out to a wider array of devices – so if you want to avoid this, just hold off on updating to version 24H2 for now.

Hopefully, this is a temporary change that’ll be reversed soon. While Microsoft’s Copilot is an objectively impressive tool, there’s no doubt that not everyone will be happy to have these changes shoved in their faces like this. Especially if you’re not a big fan of AI chatbots in the first place – I’d be pretty upset if I lost access to my notifications for something I’d never use.

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