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Google wants you to send AI-generated poems using its strange digital postcards
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Google has redesigned its little-known Arts & Culture app introducing new features plus an improved layout for easier exploration.

We wouldn’t blame you if you weren’t aware that Arts & Culture even existed in the first place. It is a pretty niche mobile app aimed at people who want to learn more about the art world and its history. It looks like Google is attempting to attract a bigger audience by making the Android app more “intuitive to explore… [while also] creating new ways to discover and engage with culture.” Leading the charge so to speak is the AI-powered Poem Postcards tool. Utilizing the company’s PaLM 2 Model, the tool asks you to select a famous art piece and then choose from a variety of poetic styles (sonnets, limericks, ballads just to name a few) in order to create an AI-generated poem.

Poem Postcards on Google Arts & Culture

(Image credit: Google)

After a few seconds, you can share your generated work with friends or have the AI write up something new. We should mention you can access Poem Postcards on your desktop via the Arts & Culture website although it appears to be “experimental”. So it may not work as well as its mobile counterpart.

Endless art feed

The other major feature is the aforementioned Inspire section which utilizes an endless scrolling feed akin to TikTok. It brings up a series of art pieces with the occasional cultural news story and exhibition advertisement stuffed in between. The app doesn’t just focus on paintings or sculptures either as the feed will throw in the occasional posts about movies, too. 

In the bottom right-hand corner of Inspire entries is a “cultural flywheel”. Tapping it opens a menu where you can discover tangentially related content. Google states it is “always investigating new ways to connect cultural content” meaning the flywheel will see its own set of updates over time.

As for the layout, the company has added buttons on the Explore tab for specific topics. If you want to look for art pertaining to sports, science, or even your favorite color, it’s all at your fingertips. There’s also a Play tab on the bottom bar where you enjoy games like the adorable Return of the Cat Mummy.

Arts & Culture new layout

(Image credit: Google)

The redesigned Arts & Culture app is currently available on Android through the Google Play Store with an iOS version “soon to follow”. The company says Poem Postcards is only available “in select countries”. We reached out to the tech giant for clarification. This story will be updated at a later time.

Be sure to check out TechRadar's list of the best drawing apps for 2023 if you ever decide to scratch that artistic itch.  

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Microsoft wants to put Windows PCs fully in the cloud – but what will that mean for you?
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Microsoft wants to put its Windows operating system fully in the cloud, or at least that’s the suggestion – going by recently-revealed information from a company presentation that took place last year.

That 'state of the business' presentation from June 2022 has just come to light as part of the FTC vs Microsoft hearing that’s currently underway, The Verge reports. It includes a lot of talk about the cloud relating to business and gaming, but also to consumers who use Windows.

And as part of its ‘Modern Life’ consumer space, Microsoft is planning for a long-term opportunity to move “Windows 11 increasingly to the cloud”, and to use the “power of the cloud and client to enable improved AI-powered services and full roaming of people’s digital experience”.

In short, this suggests that rather than letting you install future versions of Windows on a drive nestling inside the PC on (or under) your desk, Microsoft wants your copy of Windows installed on a machine in a big data center somewhere, probably many miles away from you.

The overall aim is to build on “Windows 365 to enable a full Windows operating system streamed from the cloud to any device”, we’re told.

Analysis: Clouds on the horizon

It’s no secret that Microsoft sees the cloud as its future. After all, the software giant already makes an absolute stack of cash from its cloud services, which are expansive, to say the least.

In the business world, Windows 365 is a service that offers a streamed Windows installation to devices. That’s likely to be the future for consumers, too, certainly going by this presentation. As The Verge points out, there’s already a move to introduce Windows 365 Boot for Windows 11, which will allow a computer to log into a cloud PC instance rather than the local version of Windows (installed on the drive).

In the future, rather than such a choice (local or cloud dual boot, effectively), there may be no local installation at all, and all you’ll do is log into your cloud instance. Although it’s important to note that the presentation materials don’t specifically talk about doing away with local copies of Windows entirely – so it’s something of a jump to reach that conclusion (admittedly not a particularly large one).

At any rate, the cloud offers benefits and drawbacks for any service based in it. Broadly speaking, you’re getting a whole lot of flexibility and convenience, but trading that off against security concerns (and privacy worries, plus issues around control of your data).

File Explorer tabs in Windows 11

(Image credit: TechRadar)

With a fully cloud-based Windows PC, you’ll be able to go anywhere, and as long as you can get online, you’ll be able to log onto your Windows installation and work away from any device – with all your files and apps immediately to hand, wherever you are. The convenience of this is a major and undeniably attractive facet of the experience here.

As long as you have an internet connection being the key caveat, and the most obvious weak point for an entirely cloud-based PC. Can’t get online? Then you can’t get onto your PC (whereas with a physical desktop PC, you can use it offline, of course).

The other main concerns for users will be security and privacy as mentioned. With your files, data, and preferences in the cloud, you’ll be reliant on Microsoft to look after it, and keep everything safe from hackers and breaches. And those who get paranoid about Windows telemetry and monitoring are clearly going to have a fit when it comes to the privacy issues around having a cloud PC, with everything you do on that PC happening in the beating heart of Microsoft’s servers.

The further worry here might be the cost of a cloud PC – is this an ideal opportunity for Microsoft to bring in a monthly subscription charge for consumers using Windows? It feels that way, and that’s bound to be an angle the more cynical focus on. Or, Microsoft might offer a choice between payment and adverts in some manner, with the possibility of cheap cloud-connected systems implemented along such lines being an idea floated late last year.

One way or another, the future of Windows for consumers is likely to become just as cloudy as it is for businesses already, with pros and cons around that. The key aspect really will be whether local installations will still be facilitated (and dual boot options offered, cloud or local), or if that’s something Microsoft is hoping to entirely push to one side eventually.

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Apple wants the Vision Pro to be the world’s most expensive in-flight accessory
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The first beta for the Apple Vision Pro headset’s operating system – visionOS – has launched and we’re finding out a bunch of interesting details about the Apple VR headset, including that Apple wants it to be the ultimate travel companion.

Apple’s Vision Pro isn’t expected to launch until next year, but that hasn’t stopped Apple from releasing the OS early so app creators can start bringing their software to the system. This way, by the time the headset is publicly available it should have a solid library of content that’ll help justify its exceptionally high price of $ 3,499 (around £2,800 / AU$ 5,300). But the beta isn’t just giving us an idea of what third-party developers are working on for the Apple headset, it’s giving us a clear picture of the direction Apple wants to take the Vision Pro.

Previously (in our round-up of six Vision Pro details the visionOS beta has revealed) it was discovered that Apple isn’t keen for people to use its headset for VR fitness – with its guidance for app makers being they should “avoid encouraging people to move too much.” Now we’ve learned that the Vision Pro will have a dedicated Travel Mode designed for using the headset on an airplane (discovered by MacRumors).

The Apple Vision Pro headset on a stand at the Apple headquarters

(Image credit: Future)

Travel Mode is more than just the typical airplane mode you’d find on your smartphone. Instead, it apparently adapts how the Vision Pro operates so that the experience is better suited to being crammed like a sardine next to people in Economy. According to code found in the visionOS beta, the headset will do this by switching off some of its awareness features and asking you to stay stationary while in Travel Mode.

Both of these make sense. The Vision Pro’s awareness features alert the wearer if a person or an object gets close to them while they’re wearing the headset. On a plane, where people are around you all of the time this could make the sensors go haywire and be a major distraction to your in-flight VR movie. As for moving around, if you have people sitting on either side of you then they likely won’t appreciate it if you start flailing your arms around.

So you won’t be getting the full Vision Pro experience during your flight, but the idea of making your travel better with VR certainly sounds appealing. The beta code doesn’t go into much more detail, but we can turn to the Apple Vision Pro introduction video shown at WWDC 2023 to get an idea of how Travel mode functions. TL;DR, you can use your headset as a private movie theatre and enjoy a 4K film of your choice (that you likely had to download before you boarded) on a massive virtual display – a much larger and higher-quality image than a plane’s built-in video screens.

A model wearing the Nreal Air glasses, looking cool

The Nreal Air AR Glasses (Image credit: Nreal)

That said, if you don’t want to splash out $ 3,500 for a piece of travel tech, there are much more budget-friendly AR glasses that can achieve a similar effect to the Vision Pro’s private movie theatre. The Xreal Air AR glasses (formerly Nreal Air) won’t offer you 4K visuals and have a fair few faults – namely, we feel they’re pricey for what you get and the battery life leaves something to be desired – but if you’re a frequent flier these could be just what you need and they only cost $ 379 / £400 (around AU$ 570). And when the Xreal Beam launches it looks like many of the AR glasses’ faults could be solved. 

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Google wants to help provide faster AI photo editing for all
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Top AI photo editng app PhotoRoom has formed a new partnership with Google Cloud that it says could seriously speed up image generation while keeping costs down. 

The software, dubbed “the fastest generative AI provider in the commerce space” by the company, is designed to let businesses create and edit product images for ecommerce platforms.

Announcing its intention to power-up AI performance with Google’s A3 ‘supercomputers’, the company said the pairing will cut product photography production times for small businesses and entrepreneurs “from days to less than an hour – without compromising accuracy or quality.”  

Product, production & photo editing 

Like most commercial content creation, product photography demands high-quality visuals produced at high velocity. Not only do items need to look their best, websites need to cover variations from color to size if it’s to be added to a shopper’s basket.   

Read more

> Google Cloud is building its most powerful supercomputer to date

> The best laptops for photo editing tested

> Nvidia's latest AI model could revolutionize games development 

It’s a process that takes time – and the space that PhotoRoom, founded in 2019, occupies. The photo editor streamlines image manipulation, letting firms enhance product shots and add unique, AI-generated backgrounds, while free photo editor tools include a background remover and object remover. 

Highlighting the major growth in genAI usage, Matthieu Rouif, PhotoRoom CEO,.said “We're already processing 2 billion images per year, and we expect that to double in 2024, as more businesses adopt PhotoRoom's generative AI technology. Google Cloud provides the ideal foundation for our continued success with its capacity to scale, its flexibility, and its sustainable infrastructure.” 

The use of Google Cloud A3 instances is a compelling choice. Unveiled in May 2023, the next-generation GPU supercomputers are designed to train and deliver what Google called “the most demanding AI models” for generative AI and LLMs. However, the partnership benefits Google as much as PhotoRoom, strengthening the search giant’s clear B2B focus when it comes to rolling artificial intelligence to the masses. 

“We're thrilled to offer Google Cloud's industry leading infrastructure, foundation models and AI tooling to PhotoRoom so the company can build, train, and deploy AI creatively, reliably and at scale,” said  Mark Lohmeyer, vice president and general manager of Google Cloud. 

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Microsoft wants to help you build a website with Copilot AI
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Microsoft has added AI enhancements to its low-code website building offering, Power Pages.

Announced at its Microsoft Build conference, Copilot in Power Pages lets website developers leverage AI capabilities for copywriting and form building.

The new update to Microsoft  Power Pages tool looks  to speed up the time it takes website builders to generate text, build detailed forms and chatbots, using intelligent suggestions.

AI site building 

Available in public preview now, albeit in North America only, Copilot in Power Pages aims to cut down website development time with features such as auto-generated tables in Microsoft Dataverse to create corresponding forms.

Also available in public preview, the update also includes a virtual table and Power Automate integration in Power Pages that enables cloud flow from web page events.

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> Microsoft is bringing AI to Microsoft 365

> Microsoft Copilot lands on Viva

> Microsoft powers-up AI in free design app

Developers will be able to leverage these AI-enabled enhancements in Power Pages to jump-start their journey of ideation and building of impactful, secure external website-based services to better respond and serve their customers.

First revealed at Build 2022, Power Pages also includes the integration of Copilot chatbot activation that includes generative answers within the setup workspace.

“You also have the flexibility to adjust, add, or fine-tune fields using natural language input. It’s a more streamlined approach to form creation,” Sangya Singh, Vice President of Power Pages, noted in a blog post.

“For your website visitors, this feature enhances their interaction with your site, allowing them to ask natural language questions and receive concise responses complete with relevant links to optimize both administrative functionality and website engagement experiences.”

Microsoft is working on adding other AI capabilities including page creation, site theming, and image generation, which is predicted to be available in summer 2023.

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Microsoft Edge for Business wants you to ditch Google Chrome for work
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The browser wars could be set for a new battle in the enterprise space following a raft of new updates from Microsoft Edge.

The browser has unveiled a host of new additions at the company's Microsoft Build event, including a new “experience” that is targeted purely at workplace users.

The new Microsoft Edge for Business experience comes with a whole new look and feel to the browser itself, as well as boosted security protections and even some useful productivity apps to help you get the most out of your working day.

Microsoft Edge for Business

“To more fully realize our mission to deliver the best browser for business, we’re evolving Microsoft Edge to have a dedicated work experience,” the company noted in a blog post.

“With the rich set of enterprise controls, security, and productivity features that you’re already familiar with, Edge for Business is designed to help meet the evolving security landscape while empowering users to work effectively.”

Microsoft says its new approach also looks to solve problems created by hybrid work, where people may use the same device for personal and business use, raising potential security issues for IT teams. 

This can often lead to the need for supporting multiple browsers on such devices, increasing the risk of cyberattacks and also causing a drop in performance.

Microsoft Edge for Business automatically separates work and personal browsing into dedicated browser windows, each with their own separate caches and storage locations, so information stays separate. 

This means that work-related services such as Microsoft 365 apps or sites requiring your work login will automatically open in the work browser window, whereas other popularly-used sites will open in the personal window. 

Users can switch between the two windows thanks to a button on the taskbar, meaning a change is just a click away.

These options can be changed at any time, and admins can also enforce certain restrictions if need be.  Microsoft Edge for Business is launching in preview for managed devices now, and will be coming to unmanaged devices soon.

Elsewhere, the company also revealed the general launch of Microsoft Edge Workspaces, which allow teams of co-workers to collaborate on projects or content in a specially-defined location.

Microsoft Edge for Business button bar

(Image credit: Microsoft)

The service allows Edge users to share multiple groups of tabs and favorites with colleagues that can be built to accommodate numerous projects and teams.

Microsoft Edge Workspaces has only been in preview for some business users up til now, but the company says it will be generally available to all users within the next few months.

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TikTok wants you to build your own AR – if you own a Mac
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TikTok is opening its Effect House tool as a public beta for all creators and developers to try out and create their own filters. 

The service was originally launched back in Fall 2021 as a closed beta with around 450 TikTok creators adopting it. That relatively small group published their own created effects, which have gone on to be used in 1.5 billion videos garnering over 600 billion views.

Learning as you create

Creating AR filters does require a certain level of technical knowledge. TikTok has provided a series of guides that people can follow to learn how to create a filter. There’s a guide on creating a Face Mask, Segmentation effects, and 3D Face textures.

And there’s even a guide on how to do effective lighting and shadows. It’s all pretty comprehensive, and the best part is that it’s all free.

When you’re done, you can submit the filter for the Trust and Safety team to look it over and approve it. TikTok has implemented a set of Effect Guidelines that everyone must follow when creating a filter.

The company doesn’t want any negative or controversial content. Examples include no threats of violence, drugs, sexual content, or hateful behavior.

Hardware requirements

You can download Effect House right now to begin creating, but there’s a catch: the app is currently only available for Mac computers. Downloading on your PC will not work and if you try to get Effect House on your Android phone, the website will tell you to use your Mac.

At least the Mac hardware minimum requirements aren't too high. To give an example, you’ll need a Mac that has an Intel Core i3 2.5Ghz processor and Nvidia GeForce 710 graphics cards. That's a relatively low-powered CPU, which leads us to believe that the discrete graphics is doing most of the heavy lifting here.

Some of the hardware listed by TikTok has been out for almost a decade, so as long as you have a relatively recent Mac computer, you’re good to go and ready to start creating.

There’s a good chance that Effect House will release outside on at least one mobile platform. In the Effect guidelines page, it mentions the technical requirements for the Android version. However, TikTok didn’t say when other versions will release.

And because Effect House is in beta, TikTok is asking its community to offer feedback if there are any bugs or problems.

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TikTok wants you to build your own AR – if you own a Mac
  • No Comments

TikTok is opening its Effect House tool as a public beta for all creators and developers to try out and create their own filters. 

The service was originally launched back in Fall 2021 as a closed beta with around 450 TikTok creators adopting it. That relatively small group published their own created effects, which have gone on to be used in 1.5 billion videos garnering over 600 billion views.

Learning as you create

Creating AR filters does require a certain level of technical knowledge. TikTok has provided a series of guides that people can follow to learn how to create a filter. There’s a guide on creating a Face Mask, Segmentation effects, and 3D Face textures.

And there’s even a guide on how to do effective lighting and shadows. It’s all pretty comprehensive, and the best part is that it’s all free.

When you’re done, you can submit the filter for the Trust and Safety team to look it over and approve it. TikTok has implemented a set of Effect Guidelines that everyone must follow when creating a filter.

The company doesn’t want any negative or controversial content. Examples include no threats of violence, drugs, sexual content, or hateful behavior.

Hardware requirements

You can download Effect House right now to begin creating, but there’s a catch: the app is currently only available for Mac computers. Downloading on your PC will not work and if you try to get Effect House on your Android phone, the website will tell you to use your Mac.

At least the Mac hardware minimum requirements aren't too high. To give an example, you’ll need a Mac that has an Intel Core i3 2.5Ghz processor and Nvidia GeForce 710 graphics cards. That's a relatively low-powered CPU, which leads us to believe that the discrete graphics is doing most of the heavy lifting here.

Some of the hardware listed by TikTok has been out for almost a decade, so as long as you have a relatively recent Mac computer, you’re good to go and ready to start creating.

There’s a good chance that Effect House will release outside on at least one mobile platform. In the Effect guidelines page, it mentions the technical requirements for the Android version. However, TikTok didn’t say when other versions will release.

And because Effect House is in beta, TikTok is asking its community to offer feedback if there are any bugs or problems.

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A new iOS to-do app wants to get rid of the stress of completing tasks
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There are countless to-do apps on both Apple's App Store and the Google Play Store, but there's never been apps in this category that have focused on the basics – the jobs that are most important for the day ahead.

This is where Bento comes in, an app available for iOS for $ 5.99 / £4.99 / AU$ 6.99, and its creators want you to have this either as a companion to popular apps Things 3 and OmniFocus, or as a quick go-to app for the tasks you have for the next few hours.

The app focuses on the Bento methodology – three steps of Pack, Flow, and Focus to help you complete what you need to do. These are then compartmentalized into Bento Boxes, which can help lay out the time needed to achieve the tasks.

Created by the team at Keep Productive, a well-informative YouTube channel for advising you in improving your workflow, the group clearly wants to make sure that it makes an impact in its looks and how it follows the Bento methodology.

With this in mind, we tried it out this week to see how it acted as a companion app for the day.

Doing less in style

Bento app for iOS

(Image credit: TechRadar)

Once you launch the app, you're greeted with a helpful introduction to what the Bento method is, followed by a helpful article by the team on using the app further.

The app has a colorful layout that makes it a prime candidate to be both an iPad app, and a screensaver for an Apple TV. Some of the backgrounds you can choose from are animated, adding some extra personality to help make those three tasks more appealing to achieve.

Using Bento over the course of a day, we used it to do a job that we would have otherwise used Things 3, Reminders, or Notes for. It can be confusing to set a timer on some tasks, as when we tried to, we more often than not arrived at the screen where we would change our Bento, when trying to activate it. If a toggle was here, it could help make the timer more obvious that you can tap something to count down.

But otherwise, it does what it says on the tin, or the Bento box. While there's an Android version on its way, it would be great to see widgets in a future iOS or iPadOS update to better see your Bento boxes.

The design and its color scheme would look great on an iPad Pro, and with its simplicity, a Bento box contained in a widget feels like the natural next step for the team.

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Microsoft Viva wants to make work training less painful at last
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Microsoft is looking to take some of the strain out of learning on the job with a new expansion to its Viva platform.

In a new entry on the Microsoft 365 roadmap, the company revealed that users will soon be able to discover Viva learning content directly through SharePoint, Office.com and Bing.

Previously, users had only been able to access such content through the video conferencing platform Microsoft Teams, with the move now opening up a whole new range of opportunities.

Microsoft Viva expansion

Microsoft says that the new update is an integration between Viva Learning and Microsoft Search, meaning actually being able to find the right content that is applicable to your workers should also be a lot quicker and easier now.

The roadmap entry notes that the feature is still in development for the moment, but Microsoft has said it hopes to issue a release in March 2022. When complete, the feature will be available for all Microsoft Viva web users around the world.

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> Microsoft Teams will make it easier to learn new skills at work

> Microsoft's latest acquisition wants to help your company hit all its goals

> Microsoft 365 review – Still the best when it comes to workplace productivity, collaboration, and communication

Launched in February 2021, Microsoft Viva integrates with Teams and other Windows software tools to operate as a kind of intranet that brings together knowledge, learning, and communication services.

The platform was launched with remote working policies in mind, and is made up of four main pillars, one of which is Viva Learning. Microsoft says the offering is geared towards employee development and allows members of staff to share, assign, and learn from an organization’s training material, helping speed up onboarding and training processes.

Asides from learning and training, Viva also looks to support employee wellbeing and combat issues such as loneliness and burnout.

Microsoft also revealed a series of guided meditations and mindful exercises for the platform which users will be able to access via Microsoft Teams as it looks to help workers de-stress and become more productive.

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