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Microsoft to delay release of Recall AI feature on security concerns

reuters.com

181–190 of 485 posts

Re: Microsoft to delay release of Recall AI feature on security concerns

#181
post #63

In summary: the only customers that matter --corporations paying site licenses-- declared this to be an unacceptable business risk. Anyone who is still using windows in 2024 and isnt a multinational business or llc gets what they deserve.

What if you can't afford a Mac, and you're not technically literate enough to install Ubuntu ? Speaking for myself, I dual boot mint and windows because I really like playing games and making music. Both of those are absolutely subpar on Linux. Outside of our nerd bubble, most normal people don't really want to run desktop Linux. Macs are great, but I can't really game on them.

Your comment encapsulates why normies get iPads and Chromebooks in spite of the nerd rage they generate.

Re: Microsoft to delay release of Recall AI feature on security concerns

#182

I can see why they would want to hold onto this feature, since it would make their devices incredibly sticky. If you spent a year or two having an AI understand literally everything that happens on your screen, then you'd be hard-pressed to switch to a different platform that lacks that historical understanding. Assuming there's no way to port the data, this would all but guarantee that you're a customer for life. It…

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft to delay release of Recall AI feature on security concerns

#183
Unless I'm understanding this wrong, 99% of computers out there wouldn't even be able to run this anyway, since it requires a special neural processing chip that supports 40 trillion operations per second (and this can't be the GPU). So basically only Microsoft's own brand new Surface models could even use it in the first place.

Re: Microsoft to delay release of Recall AI feature on security concerns

#184
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not quite true: The other huge group of customers is simply gamers.

Genuinely asking: is that huge in terms of their install base or revenue, or is that huge in terms of PR ramifications (like, "vocal minority" type of deal)? In my younger days I'd've had a heavily skewed pro-gamer and pro-authority-of-the-gamer-rabble viewpoint, but now at this phase of my life I can't help but feel the majority of the places I see Windows are all in business and education contexts (so just business…

There is an estimate 1.86 billion PC gamers worldwide.

https://explodingtopics.com/blog/pc-gaming-stats#

Re: Microsoft to delay release of Recall AI feature on security concerns

#185
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not quite true: The other huge group of customers is simply gamers.

Genuinely asking: is that huge in terms of their install base or revenue, or is that huge in terms of PR ramifications (like, "vocal minority" type of deal)? In my younger days I'd've had a heavily skewed pro-gamer and pro-authority-of-the-gamer-rabble viewpoint, but now at this phase of my life I can't help but feel the majority of the places I see Windows are all in business and education contexts (so just business…

Windows 10 runs on > 1 billion devices.

Re: Microsoft to delay release of Recall AI feature on security concerns

#186

What a dumb feature. They had to get all that backlash to understand why everyone wouldn't want it. Is someone at Microsoft taking crazy pills to think consumers would be into that? They pulled the exact same shit 11 years ago when they launched the Xbox One as a "home media center" instead of a gaming console and it came with mandatory always-on internet connection, disc games DRM tied to a single console unable to…

Lets be honest, if Apple did it, it would be hailed revolutionary. Different customer base.

To enforce your point, rewind.ai has been doing it on mac for a while now and I havent seen anything but good reports about it.

https://www.rewind.ai/

Re: Microsoft to delay release of Recall AI feature on security concerns

#187
Recall suffered from a classic Microsoft mistake they've made time and again, but never learned from - how to correctly market and package your feature.

Microsoft always tends to "go big" with their integrations, often to their detriment, in order to increase adoption of new features. One notable time was with Windows 8. They really, REALLY wanted people to try out the new Metro UI, so they deeply integrated it into the OS, pushed it in every marketing campaign, and made it the first screen you saw on login. There were some great features in it - better performance and better search results, but it wasn't opt in. The reaction from customers who took a casual look was, "they removed the desktop!". It wasn't true, but because of how overzealous MS was to push the new feature, that became the takeaway.

The same thing is happening here - Microsoft pushed what objectively is a great tool, but they did so in a way that never gave users a choice of whether or not they wanted it. They've also framed the messaging and marketing in a way that's confusing to what is actually happening. Look at the amount of talk in this blogpost dedicated to mentioning how important security is for them, without ever actually going into what the security issues are or how they're addressing them.

Sloppy marketing + forced integration has bit Microsoft so many times now. I'm always shocked that they never learn from this.

Re: Microsoft to delay release of Recall AI feature on security concerns

#188
post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My takeaway is that Microsoft has been trying to boil the frog, but slipped and turned the temperature up too quickly. They're retreating for now, but make no mistake that Recall will slowly trickle back into Windows under another name. Every major power broker wants something like Recall to become the norm - bosses to spy on their employees, governments to spy on their citizens/enemies, and tech CEO's to collect tra…

> Every major power broker wants something like Recall to become the norm - bosses to spy on their employees... Isn't that already the norm, or at least very very common? It's just a 3rd party package totally focused on surveillance, not built into the OS and used for some user-accessible features. > ...governments to spy on their citizens/enemies, and tech CEO's to collect training data for AI and target more ads at…

>These applications would be novel, at least on a widespread basis in Western liberal democracies.

How? We already know Google trains its AI on people's private emails and Five Eyes conducts mass surveillance on Western citizens (see: Snowden). You can be sure that the people behind the PRISM program are salivating at the thought of access to the unencrypted Recall databases, and that they'll be twisting Microsoft's arm for backdoor access.

Re: Microsoft to delay release of Recall AI feature on security concerns

#189
post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ZorinOS is catching up FAST and QUICK with out-of-the-box gaming support, many thanks to Valve's bankroll into the problem with Proton (primarily) and Wine (secondarily) for the Steam Deck. I look forward to see where developments can go from here, but Zorin is pretty good for a solid amount of games... Maybe not most.

Give me a break. Its the kernel, drm, mesa, and proton. The distro haw scant all to do with it except a bunch of newbies loudly claiming "new distro" is the best because it includes one single extra package pre-installed or something. I will never stop being annoyed at conversations around distros. Ever.

I think you're underestimating how important the out-of-the-box experience is to casual users. Having Steam games "just work" and being able to do the familiar double-click of an exe file to install a Windows app in compatibility mode is valuable to those users.

Re: Microsoft to delay release of Recall AI feature on security concerns

#190

I'm a bit confused by the headline chosen for the submission (but the update doesn't do much to clarify). The original is this: Update on the Recall preview feature for Copilot+ PCs > Recall will now shift from a preview experience broadly available for Copilot+ PCs on June 18, 2024, to a preview available first in the Windows Insider Program (WIP) in the coming weeks. To be clear, it may be delayed for public releas…

The headline is correct. I have seen people believe that "indefinite" means "permanent", but it just means "undetermined". It is delayed, but we (and perhaps Microsoft) do not know for how long, so the delay is indefinite.
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