YouTube reveals powerful new AI tools for content creators – and we’re scared, frankly

YouTube has announced a whole bunch of AI-powered tools (on top of its existing bits and pieces) that are designed to make life easier for content creators on the platform.

As The Verge spotted, at the ‘Made on YouTube’ event which just took place, one of the big AI revelations made was something called ‘Dream Screen’, an image and video generation facility for YouTube Shorts.

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This lets a video creator just type in something that they’d like for a background. Such as, for example, a panda drinking a cup of coffee – given that request, the AI will take the reins and produce such a video background for the clip (or image).

This is how the process will be implemented to begin with – you prompt the AI, and it makes something for you – but eventually, creators will be able to remix content to produce something new, we’re told.

YouTube Studio is also getting an infusion of AI tools that will suggest content that could be made by individual creators, generating topic ideas for videos that might suit them, based on what’s trending with viewers interested in the kind of content that creator normally deals in.

A system of AI-powered music recommendations will also come into play to furnish audio for any given video.


Analysis: Grab the shovel?

Is it us, or does this sound rather scary? Okay, so content creators may find it useful and convenient to be able to drop in AI generated video or image backgrounds really quickly, and have some music layered on top, and so on.

But isn’t this going to just ensure a whole heap of bland – and perhaps homogenous – content flooding onto YouTube? That seems the obvious danger, and maybe one compounded by the broader idea of suggested content that people want to see (according to the great YouTube algorithm) being provided to creators on YouTube.

Is YouTube set to become a video platform groaning under the collective weight of content that gets quickly put together, thanks to AI tools, and shoveled out by the half-ton?

While YouTube seems highly excited about all these new AI utilities and tools, we can’t help but think it’s the beginning of the end for the video site – at least when it comes to meaningful, not generic, content.

We hope we’re wrong, but this whole brave new direction fills us with trepidation more than anything else. A tidal wave of AI-generated this, that, and the other, eclipsing everything else is clearly a prospect that should be heavily guarded against.

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We’re amazed at how well Windows 11 runs with 176MB of RAM – but don’t try this at home

Windows 11 running with a tiny amount of system RAM is something we’ve seen before, but this is a new low for the OS (in a good way).

NTDEV, the developer responsible for the stripped-back version of Windows 11 called Tiny11, has got Microsoft’s operating system functioning in a PC with only 176MB of system memory.

How is this possible? By removing pretty much everything the dev could, and using an “extensive trial and error” process to see which services and drivers Windows 11 required to boot (then getting rid of everything else).

Tiny11 has previously been run in as little as 196MB of RAM, the catch with that being that the OS was incredibly slow. You could do things, just about, but at glacial speeds.

With NTDEV’s successful attempt at firing up Windows 11 in just 176MB, the system runs relatively responsively, and for example Task Manager is brought up in just a few seconds. (No, that isn’t snappy, but compare it to the 15-minute wait for Task Manager to appear with the 196MB demonstration).

It’s an eye-opening difference, for sure, but there’s a big catch here, which we’ll discuss next.


Analysis: An impressive feat with a twist of a cheat

The cheat NTDEV has used to do this is that they’ve trimmed Tiny11 down even further and removed a major element – File Explorer – allowing Windows 11 to run faster because it doesn’t have to bring up the desktop.

That’s right, as you can see in the video clip above, there is no desktop, with the system booting to a command line. You then have to type manual commands (in text) to run different apps and functions, which is hardly ideal. Indeed, it’s a very clunky way of operating, but it does allow for the OS to be much faster.

To put this achievement in perspective, normally Window 11 requires 4GB of RAM to run, which is 4096MB. That’s 23x the amount the OS is seen running in here.

What’s the point of this? Well, it’s a fun exercise and nothing more, as nobody sane would want to operate Windows 11 in this manner. Much like huge overclocks on GPUs and CPUs that are completely impractical – and happen for seconds, only thanks to exotic cooling with say, liquid nitrogen – these are feats undertaken just to prove it can be done. Although in this case, the goal isn’t big numbers, but small ones – as tiny as possible.

Is 176MB a world-record low for running Windows 11 (functionally)? We think it could be, but then, technically, are you running Windows if there’s no desktop? There are still windows, of course – brought up via the command line – but without a desktop and icons, the core graphical interface, this isn’t really Windows, is it?

Still, hats off to NTDEV for what remains an impressive achievement.

Via Tom's Hardware

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Google changed its privacy policy to reflect Bard AI’s data collecting, and we’re spooked

Google just changed the wording of its privacy policy, and it’s quite an eye-opening adjustment that has been applied to encompass the AI tech the firm is working with.

As TechSpot reports, there’s a section of the privacy policy where Google discusses how it collects information (about you) from publicly accessible sources, and clarifying that, there’s a note that reads: “For example, we may collect information that’s publicly available online or from other public sources to help train Google’s AI models and build products and features, like Google Translate, Bard and Cloud AI capabilities.”

Preivously, that paragraph read that the publicly available info would be used to train “language models” and only mentioned Google Translate.

So, this section has been expanded to make it clear that training is happening with AI models and Bard.

It’s a telling change, and basically points out that anything you post online publicly  may be picked up and used by Google's Bard AI.


Analysis: So what about privacy, plagiarism, and other concerns?

We already knew that Google’s Bard, and indeed Microsoft’s Bing AI for that matter, are essentially giant data hoovers, extracting and crunching online content from all over the web to refine conclusions on every topic under the sun that they might be questioned on.

This change to Google’s privacy policy makes it crystal clear that its AI is operating in this manner, and seeing it in cold, hard, text on the screen, may make some folks step back and question this a bit more.

After all, Google has had Bard out for a while now, so has been working in this manner for some time, and has only just decided to update its policy? That in itself seems pretty sly.

Don’t want stuff you’ve posted online where other people can see it to be used to train Google’s big AI machinery? Well, tough. If it’s out there, it’s fair game, and if you want to argue with Google, good luck with that. Despite the obvious concerns around not just basic privacy issues, but plagiarism (if an AI reply uses content written by others, picked up by Bard’s training) – where do any boundaries lie with the latter? Of course, it’d be impractical (or indeed impossible) to police that anyway.

There are broader issues around accuracy and misinformation when data is scraped from the web in a major-scale fashion, too, of course.

On top of this, there are worries recently expressed by platforms like Reddit and Twitter, with Elon Musk apparently taking a stand against “scraping people’s public Twitter data to build AI models” with those frustrating limitations that have just been brought in (which could be big win for Zuckerberg and Threads, ultimately).

All of this is a huge minefield, really, but the big tech outfits making big strides with their LLM (large language model) data-scraping AIs are simply forging ahead, all eyes on their rivals and the race to establish themselves at the forefront, seemingly with barely a thought about how some of the practical side of this equation will play out.

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Windows 11 23H2 update is real, we’re told – but it could disappoint

Windows 11’s big update for later this year, known as 23H2, is reportedly real and inbound for PCs – though how much impact it’ll make is another question (that we’ll come back to shortly).

Windows Latest has been doing some digging and tells us that it has spotted references to ‘23H2’ in a couple of documents, as well as Windows preview builds.

Furthermore, those references have also been seen in Windows 11 itself, in Settings, and Winver, a command that displays the current version of Windows (and labels a test build as 23H2, presumably).

Windows Latest underlines something else in its report, namely that the 23H2 update will be triggered via an enablement package, something we’ve already heard from the rumor mill in recent times.

This means that in theory – we need to take all of this with a fair old sprinkling of salt – Microsoft will preload the 23H2 update before it comes around to release. So Windows 11 users will only need to download a small update – the trigger, or enablement package – to receive the preloaded features.

This also suggests that the update will be a more minor affair, as generally this is the approach Microsoft takes with upgrades that are, shall we say, a little less ambitious in their scope – they are effectively quick and easy updates (relatively speaking).


Analysis: Making way for Windows 12?

This also marries with what we’ve seen thus far in preview builds, namely that there aren’t any huge Windows 11 features appearing in the pipeline thus far. Don’t get us wrong, there’s definitely some solid stuff present in the preview – some key interface changes, and the revamp of File Explorer (complete with a new photo gallery feature) – but the meaty changes appear to be somewhat thin on the ground.

Now, that could change, as there’s still some time before the release of 23H2 – perhaps as much as five months even. But the reality is the upgrade will probably arrive before November, and given the time taken to test larger bits of functionality, there isn’t much breathing room left to get that kind of testing in.

It also makes sense that Microsoft hasn’t officially said anything about 23H2 yet, simply because there’s not all that much to shout about, perhaps.

In reality, as Windows Latest points out, bigger moves are at this point probably being reserved for Windows 12. After all, Microsoft needs to make a splash with a new incarnation of Windows – something in all honesty it failed to do with Windows 11, which initially felt like more of a reskin of Windows 10 than anything else. (Albeit with some good changes on the design front, no doubt – but also frustrations).

So, Microsoft will likely be saving much of the juicier stuff for Windows 12 – or whatever next-gen Windows is called – and that’s quite possibly going to turn up later in 2024, so Windows Latest suggests. And that’s a believable prospect, given that Windows 10 will be pushed out of support in 2025, plus it also aligns with other chatter from the rumor mill, too.

If true, this means that next year’s annual update for Windows 11 (24H2) will likely also be a more minor affair – given that Microsoft will have shifted its attention to Windows 12. Then it’ll only be a matter of time before Microsoft ceases any meaningful feature updates for Windows 11, which is what just happened with Windows 10.

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These were the most popular browser extensions during the pandemic

The transition to working from home during the pandemic drastically changed the way in which we use technology with the browser becoming one of the most important tools for remote work.

Now as we've reached the two-year mark of the start of the pandemic, Mozilla has published a new blog post taking a closer look at which browser extensions were the most downloaded and used during the early days of the lockdown in Firefox.

As meetings went virtual with employees relying on video conferencing software like Zoom to connect with their teams, the browser extension Zoom Scheduler saw a 1,522 percent increase in installs. This is because it integrates Google Calendar with Zoom so that users can scheduler or start their Zoom meetings directly from their calendar.

Since remote workers also spent more time looking at their work from home monitors, the Dark Background and Light Text extension, which flips the colors of webpages to make them more visible, saw a 351 percent increase in installs at the beginning of the pandemic. Likewise, the Tree Style Tab extension also experienced a 126 percent increase in downloads as it can help users deal with tab overload by opening browser tabs in a cascading “tree” format similar to vertical tabs in Microsoft Edge

Protecting our privacy and staying entertained

Cybercrime ran rampant during the beginning of the pandemic so in addition to using a VPN and antivirus software when working remotely, Firefox users also began installing privacy extensions for their browser.

Cookie AutoDelete, which eliminates unused cookies whenever you close a tab in Firefox, saw its install numbers skyrocket by 386 percent and the browser extension also averaged more than 206k installs per month between March and May of 2020.

As remote workers used Facebook's social media platform to stay connected during lockdown, Mozilla's own Facebook Container was another popular browser extension. This extension isolates your Facebook identity into a separate “container” so that the social media giant can't track your moves around the web.

Blocking trackers was also important to those working from home during the pandemic which is why the Privacy Badger browser extension saw installs jump by 80 percent globally. An interesting thing about this browser extension is that it gets better at blocking trackers the longer you use it since Privacy Badger “learns” more about the hidden trackers you naturally encounter while online.

When it came to staying entertained while in lockdown, Firefox users installed the BetterTTV browser extension to alter the look and feel of Twitch, the Watch2gether extension to have watch parties with friends and colleagues online and YouTube Non-Stop to solve the problem of the video platform's annoying “Video paused. Continue watching?” prompt.

Regardless of which browser you're currently using, browser extensions can help add to your online experience and make the software and services you depend on while working from home even more useful.

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Exclusive: We’re all far more dependent on Teams and Zoom than we want to believe

The widespread dependence on collaboration and video conferencing services brought about by the pandemic has introduced significant business risk, new research suggests.

According to data collected by software firm StarLeaf, provided exclusively to TechRadar Pro, almost all (97%) businesses say that tools such as Zoom, Webex and Teams are now essential to their operations.

More than half (57%) of the 2,000 UK-based respondents claim their company would not be able to operate for more than an hour without access to their communications tools, while 27% admitted they would struggle to function for even 30 minutes.

What back-up plan?

With a large proportion of workers still confined to their home offices by the pandemic, it is obviously uncontroversial to predict a continued dependence on cloud-based collaboration software. However, what comes as a surprise is the lack of contingency planning among organizations, most of which are now utterly reliant on these kinds of services for business continuity.

Despite this “extreme dependency”, only 32% of companies have established a back-up plan that insures against service outages, which have been relatively common in recent weeks. Among this group, a quarter said their contingency plan would involve turning to consumer apps like WhatsApp, which are ill-suited to professional use cases.

StarLeaf says the consequences of downtime would be particularly acute in sectors such as customer service and sales, with staff unable to carry out their jobs without access to communications tools. 

Respondents registered serious concerns about the consequences of a pause in service caused by an outage. Half of those surveyed suspect an incident of this kind would have a severe impact on the reputation of their company, with knock-on effects on the bottom line.

“The way of doing business now takes place predominantly using communications platforms. And while this has many benefits, such as the ability to work from anywhere and hire staff from across the world, this is also leaving companies vulnerable to major disruption. The sheer pace of digital transformation over the last two years is the reason for this liability oversight,” said Mark Richer, StarLeaf CEO.

“As we look ahead to 2022, businesses need to ensure they have a failover system so they can continue to operate, no matter what happens to their comms platform.”

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The most popular Firefox extensions of 2021 were both adblockers

Customizing Mozilla's browser with add-ons can give you a whole new experience when browsing the web though only one-third of Firefox users have installed an extension or theme.

Among the 100m+ users that did install an extension this year, adblockers were the most popular with Adblock Plus taking the top spot followed by uBlock Origin. Across the span of 2021, Adblock Plus had an average of over 6.1m daily users while uBlock Origin averaged just over 5m+ daily users over the course of the year.

While Adblock Plus led the charge at the beginning of the year, uBlock Origin was able to close the gap and if current usage trends among Firefox users continue, it may take the top spot in early 2022 according to a new blog post from Mozilla.

One of the reasons users choose Firefox as their preferred browser is to further protect their privacy online. While adblockers can stop ads from following you around the web, other popular extensions this year that protect against invasive tracking include Mozilla's own Facebook Container with 1.7m daily active users and Ghostery with 1.1m daily active users.

In addition to putting out a list of the most popular extensions each year, the Firefox Recommended Extensions program is a curated list of third party extensions that meet Mozilla's highest standards of security, utility and user experience.

For those who often find themselves drowning in a sea of open browser tabs, Tab Stash may be the perfect extension as it adds a toolbar button that when clicked, saves all of your open tabs as temporary bookmarks. If you're using Firefox Sync, the service will automatically show your Tab Stash bookmarks synced to other devices.

Another interesting extension highlighted by Mozilla is Stylebot. This extension gives you the power to dramatically alter the way any website looks from font sizes to color schemes to content layout. Perhaps you're intrigued by vertical tabs in Microsoft Edge? Then the Sideberry extension can be used to organize your open tabs in a cascading “tree” tucked away to the side of your browser.

While web browsers have certainly come a long way, extensions allow you to further customize their look and fell as well as their functionality which can help you be more productive or just have a better browsing experience overall.

We've also rounded up the best browser, best VPN and best proxy services

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