"On an up-to-date Windows PC with Copilot enabled, you can currently do the same thing by pressing Windows + C. For PCs without Copilot enabled, including those that aren't signed into Microsoft accounts, the Copilot key will open Windows Search instead" Just tried Windows + C on my Win 10 machine; it brings up a dialog that helpfully informs me "Cortana in Windows as a standalone app is deprecated."
Copilot key will eventually be required in new PC keyboards
211–220 of 260 posts
Re: Copilot key will eventually be required in new PC keyboards
#212Earlier quoted context omitted.
They do have enough weight in the PC market to create some kind of “Made for Windows” program which would stand a good chance of swaying the keyboard manufacturers, who would no doubt love an excuse to get everyone to buy a new keyboard.
I wonder if there's some deal attached to the use of the Windows logo on the Super key - to put a Windows logo on one, you have to put the Copilot logo on the other. I also wonder how wired Windows users are to the Windows logo on the key. Being a Mac guy, I actually don't know the history of the Windows key.
I grew up using Windows and switched to Linux in my late teens. I've hopped back and forth for personal desktop while servers have always been Linux too.
I honestly use the windows key 1000 times a day and I don't understand comments in here saying they don't.
So many keyboard shortcuts. Plus it opens the task and search to launch programs.
I'm pretty keyboard heavy, I can go hours sometimes without touching the mouse.
Re: Copilot key will eventually be required in new PC keyboards
#213Great way to mess up muscle memory again. The original addition of the windows (or meta, if you're so inclined) key wasn't too bad, as most keyboards had a blank space there. But then people pushed the Fn. And the menu key. And the bottom row became a mess. With some keyboards having Fn>Ctrl>Win>Alt, while others have Ctrl>Fn>Win>Alt, or a permutation without an Fn key. None of my keyboards have a menu key. And none…
Just don't buy them?
Re: Copilot key will eventually be required in new PC keyboards
#214Earlier quoted context omitted.
And they have no useful levers to pull, so they invent a useless one and yank it as hard as they can. We all know exactly what's causing this, and we all know exactly how it'll turn out. How do we collectively tell them to knock it off? The industry needs some mechanism to stage an intervention, perhaps once they've cooled down a little from their present mania.
>And they have no useful levers to pull, so they invent a useless one and yank it as hard as they can. From my understanding, Bing hasn't stolen any marketshare from Google since integrating ChatGPT. I think this could. Pressing a key is easier than typing in Google.
If I wanted a keyboard with an "internet button", I could buy one, all the way back to the beige era.
I don't.
Re: Copilot key will eventually be required in new PC keyboards
#215Earlier quoted context omitted.
Microsoft's goal is to have copilot present and monitoring everywhere you input data & interact with Windows (CP is always ready to help!) This will provide an unprecedented layer telemetry gathering for Microsoft, including personal and sensitive data that wasn't as reliably available before. Achieving one of the Gold Rings of surveillance is a powerful motivator.
Whatever harvesting your specific personal creative written output for profit without compensation is called, that’s not telemetry. Telemetry is usage statistics. This is bulk theft of your copyrighted works at scale.
I don't relaly disagree with the sentiment that it is vvery unsavory, buuuttt to play devil's advocate:
1) copyright infringement is not theft 2) ai training is probably going to be rendered fair use
Re: Copilot key will eventually be required in new PC keyboards
#216Earlier quoted context omitted.
It hasn't been an "Apple key" since 2010 or so. On all recent machines, it's just labeled as "Command", with the ⌘ symbol.
Ah yes, the well-known U+2318 Place of Interest Sign :D
They've been using that symbol on the Command key for the last 40 years. It's probably safe to call it "well-known" by now.
(Early Apple keyboards didn't have an Apple logo on the command key either! That was added in 1986 on the first ADB keyboard -- it was added for compatibility with the Apple IIgs.)
Re: Copilot key will eventually be required in new PC keyboards
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Just tried Windows + C on my Win 10 machine; it brings up a dialog that helpfully informs me "Cortana in Windows as a standalone app is deprecated." smirks I'm sure this button will share the same fate come 2030, 2034. That said, I'm curious what GNOME and MATE will do with it -if anything.
Maybe Space Cadet style modifiers will make a comeback!
Or a DE-wide dialog for Unicode support with current day UX (please I just want to hit a key and search/choose a symbol to enter, not having to remember thousands of possible codes, or having to open a lackluster character map application, or having to use a convoluted and hardly intuitive compose key).
Re: Copilot key will eventually be required in new PC keyboards
#218Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Also Microsoft did not invent the Super/Meta key aka Windows key AFAIK the Windows key generates a CTRL + ESC - so not a modifier key like Super/Meta.
This doesn't seem to match what I sparsely remember about USB HID; At least on my computers I remember Super generating SUPER_L (wayland) or VK_LWIN (w32) - E0 5B scancodes. At least on Linux you can have bindings CTRL + ESC and SUPER_L be different things if you want.
This does seem to work and is news to me. Windows 11, Leveno laptop. Control+ESC does in fact open the start menu. But none of the other windows key shortcuts work - control+ESC+D did not bring me to desktop, but bookmarked current page in the browser I had open.
So maybe not so cut and dry.
Re: Copilot key will eventually be required in new PC keyboards
#219Earlier quoted context omitted.
looks like it takes the place of the menu key?
I'd rather they take the right Win key. Sometimes I'm able to do quite a bit of work without using a mouse, and having the Menu/right-click key is useful. There's got to be cases were menus are only available via right-click.
You can turn on mouse keys which let's you move move and click the mouse (left and right) using the numpad.
Re: Copilot key will eventually be required in new PC keyboards
#220The way Microsoft is pushing AI literally everywhere now feels reminiscent of circa 2001 when literally everything was branded '.NET'. Eventually they scaled it back, but it was complete overkill and diluted what the brand was supposed to represent.
I wonder if we'll see a point in the next few years where we have a keyboard key that only works if you have a subscription to Microsoft to access their AI, which I'm guessing we'll have to do at some point because all of this costs a boat load of computing resources.