[HN Gopher] Introducing Copilot+ PCs
___________________________________________________________________
Introducing Copilot+ PCs
Author : skilled
Score : 269 points
Date : 2024-05-20 17:27 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (blogs.microsoft.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (blogs.microsoft.com)
| theshrike79 wrote:
| But is it a normal Windows PC that supports normal Windows
| software or the weird abomination they had last time that
| supported a few specific apps and nothing else?
| goosedragons wrote:
| It's normal Windows, just on ARM. Windows on ARM already
| supports x32 and x64 emulation. Pretty much the only stuff that
| doesn't work is hardware drivers (to be expected) and games
| with kernel level anti-cheat (also expected). They've also
| announced a new 20% faster x64 emulation layer. Recently
| there's been a big push of apps getting native ARM ports too,
| Chrome for example.
| TiredOfLife wrote:
| For the last 5 years starting with Windows 10 (Snapdragon 835
| based devices) you could run any x86 software (that doesn't
| require driver/drm rootkit) and 64bit emulation was added with
| Windows 11 (when intel patents ended).
|
| Sometimes it feels like the commenters on HN are being kept in
| suspended animation for 10 years then revived for a couple of
| days to comment then put back to sleep.
| thesuitonym wrote:
| Again?
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| This time it has AI in it
| bithavoc wrote:
| It's Windows 8 AI Edition
| sockaddr wrote:
| AI is now that crusty squirt bottle full of mystery beige
| sauce they squirt all over everything at the food truck. Yum.
| Just drench my whole OS in this.
| jsheard wrote:
| Yeah I was going to say. The very first Surfaces in 2012-2013
| were ARM-based (using Nvidia Tegra), then they switched to
| Intel, then they tried ARM again in 2019-2020 (using Qcom
| Snapdragon) then went back to Intel again. Third times the
| charm?
|
| At the very least they seem to have decent x86 emulation
| performance this time.
| TiredOfLife wrote:
| The last consumer Surface tablet before this was Surface Pro
| 9 with ARM and it came out less than 2 years ago.
| hehdhdjehehegwv wrote:
| Wow, I'm continually floored by how bad Intel shit the bed.
|
| I remember not too long ago the only computer you would see is a
| "wintel" with a few esoteric graphic designers in Mac.
|
| I guess it's now "warm"?
| coliveira wrote:
| And Apple was forced to move the Mac to X64. Intel was
| completely dominant 15 years ago.
| hehdhdjehehegwv wrote:
| Not only that, it probably saved Apple!
| DamnYuppie wrote:
| The iPod saved Apple, the iPhone made it the powerhouse it
| is now. Everything else seems like marginal impact. The new
| chip is nice and helps them have more control over and
| lower prices but as of yet doesn't seem to be an immediate
| game changer.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| Intel (and AMD) are also going to be part of this line of
| computers:
|
| >We look forward to expanding through deep partnerships with
| Intel and AMD, starting with Lunar Lake and Strix. We will
| bring new Copilot+ PC experiences at a later date.
|
| I'm not blaming Microsoft for skipping Meteor Lake, it's been
| an awkward generation to say the least. Of course, if Lunar
| Lake sees delays then Intel really has shat the mattress.
| jacobgorm wrote:
| I hope the Snapdragon D3D12 drivers come with actually working
| H265 video support, unlike on AMD where this is broken and no one
| seems to bother to fix it.
| dr_ wrote:
| If they're true to the demo, the new Surface devices look
| impressive, with the Surface Pro clearly pushing in the direction
| that most have wanted the iPad Pro to go for some time. Microsoft
| has clearly been baking AI into their laptops and the updated
| Windows 11. Will be interesting to see what Apple has up their
| sleeves next month.
| rychco wrote:
| > Microsoft calls the new Laptop a "Copilot Plus PC"
|
| I'd rather have a reliable ARM device, sans Copilot - which MS
| hasn't proved they're capable of yet.
|
| > Whether these computers can match or outdo Apple's custom
| silicon remains to be seen
|
| I would be shocked if this were ever the case.
| srameshc wrote:
| Big news here is Qualcomm's Snapdragon is now for PCs.
| RobotToaster wrote:
| Could be good if any software can use it for other offline models
| like stable diffusion.
| rcarmo wrote:
| They literally demoed a Stable Diffusion equivalent with
| ControlNet-style guided drawing.
| Animats wrote:
| Will this run locally, or is part of the work outsourced?
|
| With "Recall", can law enforcement ask your laptop "Has your user
| done anything suspicious lately"?
| soapdog wrote:
| Coverage on Windows Central says it is all local. As for the
| law enforcement question, it doesn't matter. If they want to
| get info from your computer, they will and they don't need AI
| to help.
| mlindner wrote:
| > As for the law enforcement question, it doesn't matter. If
| they want to get info from your computer, they will and they
| don't need AI to help.
|
| This is a poor take. Law enforcement needs a warrant to seize
| your computer to get your data normally. Law enforcement only
| needs a compliant and willing corporate person to willingly
| give over your data to law enforcement. It's about who owns
| it and where is it located and the protections around it.
| croes wrote:
| Getting a warrant isn't that hard either.
| milkshakes wrote:
| getting a warrant requires probable cause, and a judge to
| approve it. maybe that's not hard, maybe it is, but i'd
| personally prefer more steps being required to access
| what data i have.
| croes wrote:
| In Germany it's the same in theory, in reality even bogus
| causes are approved by the judges who neither the time
| and knowledge to really check the inquiry.
| __loam wrote:
| In the United States, protection from unlawful search and
| seizure has been in our constitution since the very
| beginning through the fourth amendment. This is a
| critical component of what we believe are human rights,
| so we will continue to insist that law enforcement should
| "get a fuckin warrant" if they want to dig through our
| personal data, regardless of your opinion on how easily
| that warrant will be granted.
| bitwize wrote:
| Indeed. It's the difference between already having
| substantive reason to believe you committed a crime, and
| surveilling you willy-nilly looking for a crime to pin on
| you. The less arbitrary access law enforcement has to
| your data, the more difficult the latter becomes.
| freedomben wrote:
| Exactly. There are some judges that will rubber stamp
| warrants without even looking at them closely, but there
| are still plenty who don't and there's a paper trail as
| well that provides some protections. When you just go to
| where no warrant is required, it won't make a difference
| when the police want to get a specific person, but it
| will make a big difference on whether they are able to
| surveil wide swathes of the population and how easy it
| all is for them.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| > If they want to get info from your computer, they will and
| they don't need AI to help.
|
| They wouldn't be continuously trying to ban encryption
| worldwide if that was true. There's plenty of things everyone
| can do to protect themselves.
| gigel82 wrote:
| They made a big deal of saying how private and secure it is,
| all running locally. However, nothing prevents that from
| changing in the future.
|
| And for the law enforcement, I presume if they can log into
| your account, they can likely extract and view everything if
| you have the feature enabled.
| pompino wrote:
| >can law enforcement ask your laptop "Has your user done
| anything suspicious lately"?
|
| The logging already exists. Whether the interface is AI or a
| command line tool is not so interesting.
|
| Besides the "suspicious" stuff has other touch points like
| Google, ISPs, AWS, etc, etc. Those logs have been easy to get a
| hold of (with legal backing) - historically speaking.
| Hamuko wrote:
| Can I call an AI expert as my witness to explain what
| "hallucination" is?
| nerdjon wrote:
| Even if it is run locally, does it sync between your devices?
|
| Considering we seem to be putting safety largely out the
| window, I can see someone saying "yeah I want to be able to ask
| my other computer what I did on a different computer" or
| whatever. Thats valuable! Ignoring the risks that involves.
|
| Also, even if it is run locally that likely means that some
| sort of additional logging (possibly screenshots given the
| mention of "photographic memory") on top of what is already in
| the system logs to achieve this.
|
| Windows 11 LTSC, which will hopefully have these features
| ripped out, can't come soon enough.
| WillAdams wrote:
| Windows 11, if one has OneDrive turned on backs _everything_
| up in terms of data/files.
|
| I bought a second computer recently which was the same as my
| Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro 360 --- after setting up Windows I
| found that it had downloaded _all_ of my files onto the new
| computer, but the wallpaper wasn't the same --- went to my
| old one, figured out where the file was and copied it to the
| desktop. While I was trying to figure out how I'd copy the
| file over, the file appeared on the desktop of my new
| computer.
| MangoCoffee wrote:
| Locally, it is supposed to take advantage of the new "NPU" that
| comes with Intel/AMD
| richdougherty wrote:
| A few details here: "Recall leverages your personal semantic
| index, built and stored entirely on your device. Your snapshots
| are yours; they stay locally on your PC. You can delete
| individual snapshots, adjust and delete ranges of time in
| Settings, or pause at any point right from the icon in the
| System Tray on your Taskbar. You can also filter apps and
| websites from ever being saved. You are always in control with
| privacy you can trust."
|
| https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2024/05/20/introducing-copi...
| delusional wrote:
| The AI is the least interesting part of this announcement.
| Microsoft is giving ARM another try with a special branding
| that's supposed to guarantee some level of performance and
| quality. That's possibly huge news.
| jsheard wrote:
| It's also notable that Qualcomm is officially upstreaming
| kernel support for the Snapdragon Elite platform that Microsoft
| is pushing, so those systems may actually not suck at running
| Linux.
| user_7832 wrote:
| In the past a few Snapdragon 8 Gen x chip dev kits have had
| Linux support if I recall correctly. I'd love to have built a
| device out of them but they seem quite expensive
| unfortunately for consumers ($800-1000, often from grey
| market sources). It's nonetheless good to see Linux support.
| akr4s1a wrote:
| Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 chip laptops are only just getting
| there. Last time I tried to daily it maybe 6 months ago,
| they didn't even have hardware rendering on the GPU,
| everything was rendered on the CPU. Ubuntu and Armbian have
| custom images for the x13s, no idea about the Volterra but
| it's much worse than the windows on ARM experience for that
| laptop and that's saying something.
| jwells89 wrote:
| Yeah, "ARM-based Linux laptop with 22h battery life" is much
| more interesting to me than "Windows 11 ARM-based AI PC". If
| the TPU can eventually be utilized by open models under Linux
| that's just a cherry on top.
| estebarb wrote:
| Personally agree. But let's be honest: the big shift to ARM
| in desktop will only happen with Windows.
| akr4s1a wrote:
| Lenovo claimed 28h on their last arm laptop, real world was
| more like 10 for light tasks and 2 to 4 for heavier work
| like development
| pentagrama wrote:
| Yes, and Lenovo is releasing a new Qualcomm-powered ThinkPad,
| which are known to be a Linux-friendly laptops.
|
| > The ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 is, of course, business-focused. It
| will have the same Snapdragon chip, storage capacity, and
| webcam but will support up to 64GB of memory and one of three
| 14-inch display options: an IPS with up to 400 nits of
| brightness; an IPS touch display; or an OLED that covers 100
| percent of the DCI-P3 color gamut, also with 400 nits of
| brightness.
|
| >Lenovo expects the Yoga Slim 7x 14 Gen 9 to start at $1,199
| and the ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 to start at $1,699. Both will be
| available in June.
|
| Source: https://www.theverge.com/2024/5/20/24160819/lenovo-
| qualcomm-...
| trelane wrote:
| They might be "known" (recent experience may vary. mine
| sure did) but if you can't get support for the pre-
| installed Linux, you're just asking for pain.
| JohnFen wrote:
| Hmm. The first thing I do when I buy any new machine is
| to format the hard drive so I can install my own OS on
| it. I don't really trust any manufacturer to get that
| right.
|
| So, if it's so hard to get Linux running that you need to
| have it preinstalled for you, then it's not really a good
| Linux machine in my view.
| zamadatix wrote:
| It's not as much "How do I install Linux?" as it is "The
| manufacturer supports these Linux images but my hardware
| isn't working right with it so I can call them and
| they're supposed to have an answer as to making it
| actually work". Otherwise you're just as good to buy any
| random laptop and try to make sure everything is
| supported yourself (not a horrible option, just not the
| premise of these kinds of laptops).
|
| I had decent luck with Dell (though it was an n=1
| interaction so I'm not sure how it indicates overall) ~5
| years back on this where there was some issue with the
| dual GPU nature of the 7730 where on this model you could
| actually completely bypass the iGPU (it wouldn't even
| show up as a PCIe device anymore) for the main screen but
| it was causing some sort of display desync after a few
| minutes on Linux but not Windows. Loaded up the official
| image, reproduced, opened a ticket, they sent a firmware
| patch, it worked.
| trelane wrote:
| That and that the manufacturer has worked to ensure that
| at least _some_ version of Linux works on it well, i.e.
| has done the systems integration work. Otherwise it can
| be a death of a thousand paper cuts, where things kind of
| mostly work, sorta, occasionally.
| wilsonnb3 wrote:
| Lenovo has been selling a Qualcomm laptop, the Thinkpad
| x13s, for several years already with questionable at best
| Linux support so I wouldn't expect the new ones to be much
| better.
| mmcnl wrote:
| But that's only one device. This is an entire generation
| of laptops all running the exact same chip.
| temac wrote:
| I thought Microsoft requires UEFI + secure boot for Windows,
| and with no disabling option in the firmware setup, for
| Windows Arm PC? Or maybe it was "only" Microsoft Secure Boot
| and you can actually use a Linux distro? If this is the
| latter case, can you build and run the kernel you want or
| not?
| spookie wrote:
| You can use secure boot on select distros. Coincidentally,
| they're the better ones as well (Debian, Fedora, openSUSE,
| etc...)
| superb_dev wrote:
| You should also be able to enroll your own keys to boot
| any distro under secure boot
| wmf wrote:
| Secure boot can now be disabled on ARM.
| dingle_thunk wrote:
| Microsoft has been consistently trying to give ARM a try since
| the surface RT. Consumers are not going to bite. marginal power
| saving is not meaningful.
| jsheard wrote:
| The first iteration of Windows ARM didn't have any x86
| emulation layer, so that one was doomed from the start. The
| second iteration did, but it initially couldn't run 64bit
| apps and the performance was poor. They do have 64bit support
| now and it sounds like the emulation performance has come a
| long way.
| nerdjon wrote:
| Here is my question though, comparing how this works on
| Mac.
|
| Will Windows have the opposite? ARM running on x86?
|
| I continue to wonder how Microsoft expects to work long
| term. Are they expecting that every developer is just going
| to keep x86 and ARM based app perpetually or users be stuck
| always using that emulation layer if they are running ARM?
|
| Microsoft won't be able to 100% transition to ARM like Mac
| did. At some point all Intel Mac's will be old enough to no
| longer get the latest version of Mac and for developers to
| stop targeting and they drop Intel support.
|
| I just don't see many developers bothering with an ARM
| native Windows version when doing so means they have to
| support both or risk annoying customers later.
| jsheard wrote:
| I think the official line from Microsoft would be that
| most software should be using .NET anyway, and in that
| case the same binary should Just Work on either
| architecture. In reality there is still a lot of native
| software though, so who knows how that will play out.
| Games in particular will always be native.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| If it's like their previous ARM Windows attempt, existing
| native software won't work in any event because the
| entire platform is locked down.
| adastra22 wrote:
| Windows 11 ARM isn't locked down at all. I run it on a
| daily basis.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| You can run any legacy Win32 .EXE on it that you want? I
| didn't know that. Good to hear if true.
| adastra22 wrote:
| It's actually kinda annoying once I started paying
| attention, as many software vendors just detect "Windows"
| and give you a x86/x64 installer, even when the company
| offers a ARM64 build that would presumably be faster or
| be more energy efficient. I installed a bunch of stuff
| that were Intel binaries without even knowing that I
| wasn't running native. But I haven't noticed any
| performance issues, and yeah everything just works.
| jabroni_salad wrote:
| In 2018 that lockdown situation morphed into "S Mode"
| which you can turn off in the control panel. The only
| trick is that you can't turn it back on. It's just that
| the ecosystem isn't there, both in terms of developers
| and performant devices.
|
| Hopefully today's announcement is a turning point for
| that but atm windows on ARM is about on the same tier as
| a pre-carplay infotainment system.
| ravetcofx wrote:
| Does Microsoft even push or care about .net anymore? They
| seemed to move on after UWP and now that seems to be
| forgotten in focus of more web apps.
| MangoCoffee wrote:
| Microsoft care about .Net. It runs the Corporate world
| like Java
| electroly wrote:
| You have to understand that Windows comes from a separate
| division than .NET and they have no overlap. Microsoft
| isn't a cohesive company. .NET comes from the developer
| division (DevDiv) and UWP comes from the Windows division
| (now Server & Cloud). The Windows folks always hated .NET
| and the developer division has been lukewarm about UWP.
|
| The Microsoft panel of this comic sums it up nicely:
| https://bonkersworld.net/organizational-charts
| chucke1992 wrote:
| I think the idea is to all apps and developers gradually
| transition and develop with ARM support - after all even
| the mobile devices will be running on ARM sooner or later
| so future apps, games will be developed with ARM in mind
| anyway. x86 apps will be supported - with some paid
| support for example.
|
| But it all depends on the market share of ARM at one
| point. But you can run DOS apps still so with emulation
| layer - and the increasing performance of ARM - one way
| or another old apps will be able to run on ARM. For those
| who will need to those.
|
| Unlike Mac, Microsoft just can't drop past generations
| and call it a day.
| nerdjon wrote:
| > But it all depends on the market share of ARM at one
| point.
|
| Right thats kinda my point, unless I have missed it I
| have yet to see any real talk about ARM on custom built
| machines and I doubt gamers are going to give that up
| anytime soon.
|
| Apple was able to force the transition to happen. I
| highly doubt Microsoft is going to risk actually dropping
| x86 from Windows on any reasonable timescale and there
| has to be something for ARM to x86.
|
| Unlike when Apple announced that all of Mac was
| transitioning, there isn't a reason for a developer to
| think that anytime soon they can drop x86, so why
| complicate what they have now by adding ARM?
| chucke1992 wrote:
| > Right thats kinda my point, unless I have missed it I
| have yet to see any real talk about ARM on custom built
| machines and I doubt gamers are going to give that up
| anytime soon.
|
| A lot of gaming these days is running on mobile phones
| and portable PCs - and now laptops - will highly likely
| leverage ARM sooner or later. Add to that some eGPU with
| Nvidia cards and you get a monster.
|
| Intel is in a deep trouble.
|
| >Unlike when Apple announced that all of Mac was
| transitioning, there isn't a reason for a developer to
| think that anytime soon they can drop x86, so why
| complicate what they have now by adding ARM?
|
| ARM is the future as there is a desire to have long
| battery life and performance increase. Microsoft right
| now does have x86 emulation layer and app support right
| now is much better already than it was before (in RT era
| where it did not even have the emulator).
|
| Devs are developing apps across all the devices and ARM
| based Mac is already requires you to develop ARM
| compatible apps.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| >I have yet to see any real talk about ARM on custom
| built machines and I doubt gamers are going to give that
| up anytime soon.
|
| The vast majority of gamers game on smartphones and
| tablets with ARM processors.
|
| Some of the biggest gaming hits recently have also been
| cross-architecture _and_ cross-platform, namely _Genshin
| Impact_ and _Honkai: Star Rail_. Native ARM and x86
| releases, runs on Windows, Android, and iOS. There are
| also gaming hits like _Fate /Grand Order_ that don't have
| an x86/Windows release at all due to not even considering
| desktops/laptops.
|
| The future is already here.
| nerdjon wrote:
| > The vast majority of gamers game on smartphones and
| tablets with ARM processors.
|
| Those are clearly not the gamers I am talking about. The
| gamers I am referring too are not switching to playing on
| mobile phones. If they are switching to handheld devices
| they are going with x86 devices like the Steam Deck.
|
| There is a massive market out there of games that do not
| support those platforms. That are only just now
| scratching the surface with games like Death Stranding
| releasing on iPhone and Mac.
|
| Except for Nintendo the 2 main AAA consoles are x86
| based, and I have seen no rumors of that changing.
|
| So great, there are large mobile games but lets not
| pretend that there is not a huge market that the future
| is not already here for and shows very little signs of
| actually changing anytime soon.
|
| https://steamcharts.com/ that is what I am talking about.
| Which unless I am mistaken the only one of those in the
| top list that actually runs on mobile is PUBG.
|
| > There are also gaming hits like Fate/Grand Order that
| don't have an x86/Windows release at all due to not even
| considering desktops/laptops.
|
| That is nothing new, Pokemon GO came out in 2016. That
| isnt a sign that gaming is changing but that gaming is
| expanding to include new types of players. But the
| "hardcore" AAA gaming market still very much exists, and
| is firmly on x86 right now.
| jsheard wrote:
| > Which unless I am mistaken the only one of those in the
| top list that actually runs on mobile is PUBG.
|
| Even in that case it's "kind of but not really". PUBG
| Mobile is a distinct game from regular PUBG, they have
| similar core gameplay but they are developed
| independently of each other.
| nerdjon wrote:
| Good to know, thank you. I figured they went the Fortnite
| route and it was the same game.
|
| But I don't play PUBG, so my main point stands. None of
| the top steam games support ARM.
| jsheard wrote:
| Fortnite is the outlier there, being the exact same game
| across every platform. COD Mobile and Apex Mobile
| are/were also officially sanctioned clones of the
| original game, similar to PUBG Mobile.
| comex wrote:
| Porting a game from x86 Windows to ARM Windows may take
| some effort, but for most games, nowhere near as much as
| porting to a different operating system. There just isn't
| that much assembly code or even SIMD intrinsic use in
| your average game. And thanks to Microsoft's Arm64EC ABI,
| the conversion from x86 to ARM can be done piecemeal. If,
| say, the game depends on some proprietary third-party
| library that isn't willing to offer an ARM version, that
| library can be run in emulation while the rest of the
| game is compiled natively for ARM.
|
| The AAA game world is very conservative, so I can't
| guarantee that PC game developers will port their
| codebases to ARM. It really depends on the size of the
| audience and how well the x86 emulator works as a
| substitute. Even if ARM takes over on Windows laptops,
| I'm not sure laptops are enough, when laptop users are
| already accustomed to not being able to run AAA games
| well.
|
| But if the audience gets large enough, it's hard to
| believe that developers won't try recompiling. It's just
| not the same level of effort as a port to Mac or Linux.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > The AAA game world is very conservative, so I can't
| guarantee that PC game developers will port their
| codebases to ARM.
|
| Unreal, Unity, CryEngine and Godot all support ARM, so -
| testing and third-party binary libraries aside - there
| shouldn't be any reason to not have an ARM port.
| comex wrote:
| Indeed - though many AAA games use in-house engines.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| >Those are clearly not the gamers I am talking about.
|
| You specified _gamers_ , you should have explicitly
| specified _PC gamers_ if they are who you referred to.
|
| Note that PC gamers are, as much as they deny it, a
| minority of out of all gamers as a whole. The vast
| majority of gamers play on mobile or consoles, and of
| those mobile far outnumbers consoles too.
|
| Consoles can also switch processor architectures with the
| changing forces of the wind, they don't _have_ to support
| backwards compatibility unlike x86 and Windows. If
| Windows ends up becoming more ARM dominant than x86,
| consoles will likely follow suit to make subsequent
| Windows ports (and then also mobile ports?) easier.
|
| Going on a tangent, I find it very annoying that PC
| gamers despite being the minority somehow want to claim
| gamers aren't gamers. PC Master Race is a meme, not
| reality.
|
| >Which unless I am mistaken the only one of those in the
| top list that actually runs on mobile is PUBG.
|
| Stardew Valley at #10 also has mobile ports.[1][2]
|
| >But the "hardcore" AAA gaming market still very much
| exists, and is firmly on x86 right now.
|
| The games I cited are AAA games, FSVO AAA; they are
| developed and/or published by big, established studios
| and/or publishers. Frankly, I find the AAA moniker
| worthless these days, but I digress.
|
| [1]: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/stardew-
| valley/id1406710800
|
| [2]: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ch
| ucklefis...
| jsheard wrote:
| > Right thats kinda my point, unless I have missed it I
| have yet to see any real talk about ARM on custom built
| machines
|
| You can buy an ATX motherboard with an Ampere ARM server
| chip on it, I wonder if those will be able to boot
| Windows...
|
| https://www.newegg.com/asrock-rack-
| altrad8ud-1l2t-q64-22-amp...
| TylerE wrote:
| Gaming is barely aa blip in the overall market these
| days, and they're pretty much the only people who want
| X86 at this point.
| sys_64738 wrote:
| > I just don't see many developers bothering with an ARM
| native Windows version when doing so means they have to
| support both or risk annoying customers later.
|
| The market dictates what developers do. If Windows on ARM
| is the new shiny and it hits the three key laptop
| parameters of no fan noise, long battery life, cool case,
| then people will buy it and developers will build for it.
| TiredOfLife wrote:
| Also this time the cpu is actually fast. The previous ones
| were netbook slow.
| dboreham wrote:
| I'm a Windows ARM user (Surface Pro X). For me the benefits
| (fanless, battery not running down randomly in your backpack,
| phone charger compatibility, integrated LTE, 16G RAM in that
| envelope), are worthwhile.
| andersa wrote:
| No one cares for power saving. Turn it into higher
| performance at same power usage and people will bite. Of
| course it has to actually be a real upgrade like the Apple
| Silicon chips were.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| >No one cares for power saving.
|
| I bought a MacBook Pro just to have 20 hours battery life,
| even if I don't like macOS too much.
| andersa wrote:
| Hm true, it does matter a great deal on laptops.
| diego_sandoval wrote:
| People care about fan noise.
| TylerE wrote:
| Said like someone who's never actually owned an efficient
| machine, frankly. Not having a jet turbine under your desk
| is kinda life changing, actually.
| neverokay wrote:
| Think it's worth mentioning that their Qualcomm exclusive
| windows laptop deal ends soon and this should allow AMD and
| NVIDIA to ramp up (arm) windows laptop cpus soon within the
| next few years.
| dr_ wrote:
| Really? The Recall feature is pretty interesting and
| potentially quite useful. I see their AI implementation as V
| 1.0 of bigger things to come.
| chucke1992 wrote:
| The huge news is indeed that this time vendors support
| Microsoft's ARM efforts.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| Not quite. Hidden at the very end of Microsoft's
| blognouncement[1] is this tidbit (emphasis mine):
|
| > We look forward to expanding through deep partnerships with
| _Intel and AMD, starting with Lunar Lake and Strix._ We will
| bring new Copilot+ PC experiences at a later date.
|
| So it's less Microsoft pivoting to and giving ARM a try again
| but rather testing the waters and distributing the risks by
| introducing ARM into a line of laptops and tablets that will
| still be fundamentally x86. Arguably, the only reason ARM is
| first to store shelves is because Qualcomm released this
| generation first before Intel and AMD.
|
| This isn't as significant as Apple throwing Intel out to
| pasture and converting to ARM wholesale, not yet anyway.
|
| [1]: https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2024/05/20/introducing-
| copi...
| genewitch wrote:
| apple never wanted to use intel hardware, they were forced to
| by motorola/IBM et al; whoever was selling them the PowerPC
| chips told them to pound sand because the xbox and
| playstation needed way more PPC chips than apple. Apple made
| a _business_ decision to switch to intel, which caused a bit
| of a to-do in the community at the time. That apple switched
| off intel at their earliest possible chance - that which took
| time to "design" their own ARM cpu - doesn't really mean
| anything, in my opinion.
|
| I wonder how many people remember all of the hardware
| platforms that NT 3.51 and NT 4 ran on (Sparc, etc)
| cyberax wrote:
| IBM didn't want to design a power-efficient PowerPC chip.
| And then they switched from Intel once Intel stopped being
| able to design new power-efficient chips.
| macintux wrote:
| Microsoft has no courage. They have to keep catering to every
| possible audience, so they're not willing to pull the plug on
| x86, which means ARM will always play second fiddle.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| Microsoft and Windows (and by extension x86) achieved their
| desktop market dominance by respecting that most people
| want backwards compatibility.
|
| Everything that has tried to go or is going against that
| tide either failed (eg: Itanium, Windows RT) or never had
| market share to lose in the first place (eg: MacOS, Linux
| in the consumer space).
|
| Microsoft would be stupid to be "courageous" and drop
| backwards compatibility, that would even trump Apple's
| courage abandoning the headphone jack. It also makes
| business sense to keep your eggs in multiple baskets,
| assuming those baskets are each commercially viable.
| rcarmo wrote:
| I don't think the Intel or AMD chips will be (literally) as
| cool. AMD mini-PCs are _close_ to what an M1 can do, but
| still too power-hungry and slow.
| CharlesW wrote:
| > _Microsoft is giving ARM another try with a special branding
| that 's supposed to guarantee some level of performance and
| quality._
|
| I hope so. I've been a happy Windows for Arm user (via
| Parallels on Apple Silicon) for a year+ and it's been good.
| Based on that, I think drivers are going to be the biggest PITA
| for ARM-based PC users for the first couple years -- for
| example, Google Drive doesn't work for that reason.
| abdusco wrote:
| I tried Windows on UTM (based on qemu, I believe) and the
| graphics were choppy. I attributed that to the lack of
| graphics acceleration. Is it also the same on Parallels?
| temac wrote:
| Parallels has excellent graphics acceleration.
| rcarmo wrote:
| Yep. Both Parallels and VMware have good graphics
| acceleration, but Parallels is better. I too have been
| running a Windows ARM VM for work for a year or so.
| joshuakogut wrote:
| 'AI' is frequently the least interesting part of any
| announcement.
| kyriakos wrote:
| Unfortunately announcement was very thin on actual details. For
| example is the new surface fanless? How's the battery etc?
| Marsymars wrote:
| As a fan (heh) of fanless PCs, it's remarkably difficult to
| filter based on that info.
| mmcnl wrote:
| Exactly. They're now aggressively competing with Apple with
| supposedly better performance and better battery life. That's
| huge. Apple was years ahead with the introduction of the M1 but
| it appears competition has finally caught up. All of this has
| to be proven in real life though, but so far all the newly
| announced ARM devices [0] look like impressive MacBook
| competitors on their own.
|
| [0] So far it seems this are the devices that have been
| announced.
|
| Microsoft: Surface Laptop 7, Surface Pro 11
|
| Dell: XPS 13, Inspiron 14 and 14 Plus, Latitude 5455, Latitude
| 7455
|
| HP: OmniBook X and Elitebook X
|
| Lenovo: Yoga Slim 7 and ThinkPad 14s Gen 6.
|
| Samsung: Galaxy Book4 Edge
|
| Acer: Swift 14
| bdavbdav wrote:
| AIUI the snapdragon x elite they're based on benches between
| the M3 and M3 pro for CPU.
| wslh wrote:
| I am excited on having an ARM on a PC with Linux support but
| I never see Windows as an OS optimized for batteries beyond
| if they use ARM or x86. The Apple advantage continues to be a
| complete control of the device from hardware to the operating
| system, while the bloatware of Microsoft Windows makes an
| arbitrary use of resources.
|
| This is not to say that Microsoft Windows is not an advanced
| OS, the problem is that it is not laser focus optimized.
| mmcnl wrote:
| I guess that's true but you can't make a leap like Apple
| did with their transition to ARM every few years. So it's
| good to see the competition catch up. And I'm perfectly
| happy with Windows laptops trailing Apple by a close margin
| instead of a 4 year gap.
| hulitu wrote:
| > Microsoft ... to guarantee some level of performance and
| quality.That's possibly huge news.
|
| Only when you lived on a remote island, with no access to news.
| /s
| akr4s1a wrote:
| I still won't believe it until reviewers get hands on. In
| October 2022 I wanted an efficient laptop for web development
| but didn't want to grab a mac, so I bought a Lenovo Thinkpad
| X13s with the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3, which Qualcomm made similar
| promises about and it lived up to exactly 0% of them. The main
| draw, the battery life was worse than my old Blade 14 that ran
| Fedora, windows on ARM and their current emulation continues to
| suck, every so often core services would just not work. The
| Linux support is only just barely getting there, Ubuntu and
| Armbian have custom images, where a lot of stuff still doesn't
| work. The camera will never work because of proprietary blobs
| and the battery life is way worse than windows, no suspend,
| audio barely works, etc. And those aren't just problems of
| Lenovo or that thinkpad it stems from the platform. I ended up
| buying a macbook a few weeks ago and it was 2 years late,
| should have got it in the first place.
| 201984 wrote:
| Does anyone know if these chips will have SVE/SME?
| candiddevmike wrote:
| Is Microsoft Copilot and GitHub Copilot the same thing?
| delusional wrote:
| No. Microsoft aren't even clear with their own copilot branding
| in the core MS products. In MS-land, anything to do with AI is
| just labeled Copilot right now.
| Handy-Man wrote:
| Copilot is Microsoft's branding for all things AI for their
| products.
| adastra22 wrote:
| Except when it is actually Copilot, in which case they call
| it "Github Copilot."
| yett wrote:
| No. It's more like ChatGPT
| RedShift1 wrote:
| Yesn't, just like Teams and Teams are the same thing.
| andyp-kw wrote:
| Teams, Teams and Skype.
| bitwize wrote:
| Don't forget .NET, which simultaneously referred to an
| abstract machine runtime, an SOA strategy involving SOAP
| and XML, rebranded versions of Microsoft services intended
| to align with this strategy, and even Microsoft's
| centralized authentication service (called .NET Passport at
| first). It wasn't until later years that Microsoft
| associated the brand more or less strictly with the
| runtime.
|
| Not to pick too much on Microsoft, Sun had previously done
| the same thing with Java, sticking Java stickers on
| anything and everything they could get away with. Arguably,
| it worked: Java was the buzz of the industry in the late
| nineties and table stakes for greenfield enterprise
| development in the early 2000s -- unless you were using
| .NET.
| arcanemachiner wrote:
| Come again?
| pwarner wrote:
| There is also Microsoft 365 Copilot, Microsoft Copilot for
| Sales and I'm sure several more. Copilot is really great
| branding, and also really confusing
| gmueckl wrote:
| This is another example of MS branding that is clear as mud.
| Skype vs. Skype for Business, Visual Studio vs. Visual Studio
| Code vs. Visual Studio for Mac, OneNote vs. OneNote for Windows
| 10...
|
| To my knowledge, each one of the products in this list is a
| completely different beast despite naming similarities.
| TonyTrapp wrote:
| And Surface initially was an interactive table (now called
| PixelSense) before they reused the name for their tablets.
| Which made it really difficult to find relevant information
| on developing software for the old Surface after the tablets
| were announced!
| adastra22 wrote:
| Oh man, what a fail. I loved the idea of the Surface, and
| was bummed out when they coopted the name for their
| PC/tablet line, as I assumed that meant the original
| product was dropped. I had no idea about PixelSense and I
| could have been a user.
| DaiPlusPlus wrote:
| Oblig: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZrr7AZ9nCY
|
| -----
|
| As an aside, when I was at MSFT in Building 40 in 2013 we
| had a Surface table in the lobby; it never worked as well
| as the demo videos made it look: the table-top wasn't
| glass but had a rough rubberised protector layer on-top
| that ruined it, the built-in WPF-based demo apps that we
| played with were all somewhat janky: you'd get 12-15fps
| not 60fps, touch drag latency was also abysmal, and most
| of the demo apps' rendered scenes didn't use global
| lighting, so pinch-rotating two objects in different
| directions would just look bad.
|
| (Pre-teamroom) campus building lobbies were where once-
| cool hardware goes to die; another building at the other
| end of campus (where the Direct3D people were) had a
| widescreen rear-projection TV running Windows Media
| Center 2005 until well into 2015 IIRC.
| semi-extrinsic wrote:
| Nope. They are not even included in the same subscription. At
| my dayjob we had GitHub Copilot for the developer team for some
| months before everyone got MS Copilot. I had to spend quite
| some time explaining to central IT what the difference between
| these two things are, and do quite some digging into MS
| documentation to show them that the subscriptions are strictly
| disjoint.
| mlindner wrote:
| My only question is how much of the models is being run offline
| and how much is the computer just siphoning up all the actions
| you do and feeding it into the cloud. Microsoft has a very bad
| history with user privacy, especially lately.
| jmclnx wrote:
| Well I know which model to avoid should I need to pick up new
| hardware. But to be honest, more then likely I would pick up an
| old Thinkpad.
| skilled wrote:
| There is an official link now so hopefully it can be changed as
| it has more clear details,
|
| https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2024/05/20/introducing-copi...
| dang wrote:
| Changed now from
| https://www.theverge.com/2024/5/20/24160486/microsoft-
| copilo.... Thanks!
| sturza wrote:
| Microsoft's Strategy and Products:
|
| Microsoft is shifting away from Intel chips, favoring Qualcomm's
| latest Snapdragon X Elite processors. The new Qualcomm chips
| boast better performance, power efficiency, and battery life,
| aiming to compete with Apple Silicon. Microsoft is launching
| Copilot Plus PCs, featuring built-in AI hardware for enhanced
| performance.
|
| Surface AI Announcements:
|
| Major updates to the Surface lineup. Introduction of a new era of
| AI-driven PCs.
|
| Asus Vivobook S 15 (S5507):
|
| Powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon X-series processors. Features 45
| TOPS of neural processing power for AI-driven programs. Thinner
| chassis and display bezels compared to previous models.
|
| DaVinci Resolve AI Features:
|
| Uses Copilot Plus PCs' neural processing unit for AI color
| corrections. CPU and GPU offload tasks to the NPU.
|
| Acer Swift 14 AI:
|
| Powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon processors. Supports new AI
| features in Windows 11. Configurable with up to 32GB of memory
| and 1TB of SSD storage.
|
| HP Laptop Lineup:
|
| Streamlining of product lines to OmniBook (consumer-focused),
| EliteBook, and ProBook (corporate-oriented).
|
| Dell Qualcomm Laptops:
|
| Announcing five Qualcomm Snapdragon laptops, including XPS 13
| (9345), Inspiron 14, and Latitude models. Offers multiple display
| options and up to 64GB of memory.
|
| Lenovo Laptops:
|
| Introducing Yoga Slim 7x 14 Gen 9 and a new ThinkPad with
| Snapdragon processors. Features include up to 32GB of memory, 1TB
| SSD storage, and a 14.5-inch OLED touch display.
|
| Adobe Creative Cloud on Arm64:
|
| Full Creative Cloud suite available for new Copilot Plus laptops.
| Native Arm64 versions of Photoshop, Lightroom, Firefly, and
| Express.
|
| Microsoft Real-time Translation:
|
| New translation feature available across any video calling or
| entertainment app. Demonstrated real-time translation
| capabilities.
|
| New Surface Pro:
|
| First Surface Pro with an OLED display. Capable of producing
| perfect blacks and HDR output. Powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon X
| processors, up to 90% faster than previous models.
|
| Surface Laptop:
|
| Arm-based Surface Laptop with Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite or
| Plus chip. Configurable with up to 64GB of RAM and 1TB SSD
| storage. Available in multiple colors.
|
| Copilot Plus PCs:
|
| New branding highlighting built-in AI hardware and support for AI
| features across Windows. Supported by major laptop manufacturers
| including Dell, Lenovo, Samsung, HP, Acer, and Asus.
|
| Copilot Assistant:
|
| Upgraded to GPT-4o. Demonstrated guiding a player through
| Minecraft using GPT-4o for real-time interaction.
|
| Recall Tool:
|
| AI-powered tool that logs and retrieves everything you see and do
| on your PC. Can track activities in apps, meetings, and web
| research.
|
| Opera Browser for Windows on Arm:
|
| Native version for Snapdragon-powered Windows devices. Promises
| over double the speeds of emulated versions.
|
| Dell's Future XPS Plans:
|
| Confidential document leak reveals detailed specs and future
| plans for XPS 13 variants. Includes multiple display options and
| Snapdragon X Elite chips.
|
| Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus Processor:
|
| Entry-level laptop chip with 10 cores and 45 TOPS NPU for AI
| applications. Competes with Apple, Intel, and AMD on speed.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| Huh did Acer take over HP's laptop line? Elitebook and probook
| were their trademarks.
| chucke1992 wrote:
| Well right now aside Qualcomm nobody else is offering the
| comparable ARM chip.
| theropost wrote:
| What are TOPs exactly? Are we using INT? Float? Just trying to
| grasp the comparison to a TFLOP for instance
| whitehexagon wrote:
| > Can be configured with up to 32GB of memory
|
| From my experience running 'AI' locally I would have expected
| 32GB to be the minimum spec machine. Assuming memory
| unification if they try to compete with Apple.
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| My 32GB machine is remarkably not all that useful for testing
| and using AI models. It can use some good models, but I'm
| frequently disappointed by how many I can't even come close
| to running.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| Came here to say the same. I would expect that you'd want to
| be able to expand to at least 64GB and probably even more if
| you want to target the AI market.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| they're not running any LLM locally, the NPU so far is just
| an accelerator for OCR (for rewind.ai (oops I mean Recall))
| and webcam background replacement without a GPU
| chucke1992 wrote:
| Actually the event was pretty cool. Would be neat if everything
| works as stated.
| ffhhj wrote:
| And Microsoft sends all that info to their servers for better
| telemetry right?
| NotYourLawyer wrote:
| Everything Microsoft does to Windows these days just makes me
| want Apple hardware.
| arrty88 wrote:
| Do these qcom powered ARM systems have better battery life for
| laptops versus intel?
| brcmthrowaway wrote:
| M$ giving Apple a run for its money.
| LogHouse wrote:
| I know HN has a large Apple following but as a Windows lover (yah
| yah, I know), I am very excited about these announcements!
| adastra22 wrote:
| I recently got back into the Windows ecosystem, and I gotta say
| it's pretty nice. I'm excited too!
| aquir wrote:
| The only issue is that these all run Windows...bloated, annoying,
| privacy intrusive in-your-face OS
| binkethy wrote:
| That is true. I do not use windows anymore. None of my servers
| ever ran windows.
|
| One can only pretend that closed source operating systems ate
| acceptable for so long before one has to address the lack of
| configurability, in a deep sense.
|
| I found it odd that your comment was greyed out.
|
| I find this disturbing, to be frank.
| resource_waste wrote:
| I cannot imagine building on Microsoft in 2024. They have
| aggressively thrown their weight around doing anti-consumer
| moves. These are the warning signs they don't need to care
| about their customers and can fully exploit their market
| monopoly.
|
| I still have ads after an update in windows 11 pro.
|
| Not to mention I have file explorer bugs and one note path
| hijacking annoyances.
|
| Legacy software is why we still use windows. There is nothing
| better about windows than say, Fedora.
| wilsonnb3 wrote:
| > Legacy software is why we still use windows. There is
| nothing better about windows than say, Fedora.
|
| Except, of course, the legacy software support.
| NotYourLawyer wrote:
| And hardware support.
| whalesalad wrote:
| They've been doing this for over 30 years.
| binkethy wrote:
| I suspect that there will be a LOT of TPU e-waste in about 3-5
| years. One can call me reactionary, but I see a greater benefit
| in providing SIMD primitives for known bottlenecks, co-processing
| for known inner loops, than to continually jump through the hoop
| of committing passing trends to hardware.
|
| I suspect thst Microsoft will implement brilliantly on a bad
| idea, but that it still won't gain much traction, as Co-pilot is
| not the code assistant we need.
|
| But since hammers are in fashion, expect attempts to shoehorn the
| world into nails.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| If vendors will go for strictly on-die TPUs, then maybe.
| However, I expect these machines to be quite capable without
| the AI hype.
|
| I hope ar least some laptop vendors will use PCIe cards for
| their TPUs so that there's an upgrade path of sorts, and
| reusing older cards for simpler models remains possible.
| stanleykm wrote:
| LLMs aside I would guess we may see more modest use cases for
| TPU/NPUs on PC. Phones have been coming with them for several
| years now - granted with stronger use cases around AR, photo
| retouching, and voice assistants. Maybe you are right though.
| tk90 wrote:
| The "Recall" part is interesting - I wonder if they're running
| RAG locally to achieve that? Interested to see how it works under
| the hood...
| amai wrote:
| I also would be interested about this. Because I somehow expect
| that this screen logging feature is ripe for a security
| disaster. This is not just your browser history. Imagine a
| video of everything you ever did on your PC ending up in the
| internet.
| andyp-kw wrote:
| I can't remember seeing Qualcomm CPU's before. The name makes me
| think of WiFi cards.
|
| With Intel stock taking a dive recently, I can't help but feel
| that the processor landscape is changing.
| adastra22 wrote:
| Qualcomm makes the CPUs in most android devices, as well as
| VR/AR (e.g. Meta's Quest line). Qualcomm probably makes more
| CPUs (and GPUs) than any other vendor.
|
| https://www.pcgamesn.com/intel/qualcomm-snapdragon-x-elite-b...
| re-thc wrote:
| This is Nuvia, whom Qualcomm acquired earlier. They came from
| Apple before that.
| TiredOfLife wrote:
| They have been making cpus for windows for 11+ years
| roschdal wrote:
| What do we need it for?
| 999900000999 wrote:
| 1300$ for the 16GB Asus laptop.
|
| That's actually not bad, I'm gonna toss a 4TB M2 in one of these.
|
| I doubt it'll actually clear 18 hours of battery life, but I'd be
| happy with 10.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| I bet Intel is not happy.
| MangoCoffee wrote:
| Why? It runs on Intel/AMD's NPU. it's the new buzz "AI" PC in
| Copmputex 2024
|
| CNBC talking about AI PC:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEoStisYAVo
| r1chardnl wrote:
| Is this is it or did they already lock down "their" hardware so
| you wouldn't be able to install alongside or solely another
| operating system? It seems that it's something we shouldn't take
| for granted as of now that the separation of OS and hardware
| allows you to install Linux or any other homebrew operating
| system on "your" computer.
| phkahler wrote:
| To really be an AI PC, I'd want to be able to run something like
| llama 3 70B locally, and that's going to need a lot of RAM. Even
| running a 7B will take 14GB if it's fp16. So these really just
| need to be able to run a few MS AI apps. A quick googling tells
| me things like the Gen-AI in photoshop is actually done in the
| cloud, so that should still work but doesn't really require a
| special "AI PC".
| coder543 wrote:
| No, 7B LLMs only need about 4GB of RAM.
|
| There is _extremely little_ quality loss from dropping to 4-bit
| for LLMs, and that "extremely little" becomes "virtually
| unmeasurable" loss when going to 8-bit. _No one_ should be
| running these models on local devices at fp16 outside of
| research, since fp16 makes them half as fast as q8_0 and
| requires twice as much RAM for no benefit.
|
| If a model is inadequate for a task at 4-bit, then there's
| virtually no chance it's going to be adequate at fp16.
|
| Microsoft has also been doing a lot of research into smaller
| models with the Phi series, and I would be surprised if Phi3
| (or a hypothetical Phi4) doesn't show up at some point under
| the hood.
| Tankenstein wrote:
| The original commenter mentioned 70B, not 7B.
| coder543 wrote:
| I had already read the comment I was responding to, and
| they actually mentioned both.
|
| Here's the exact quote for the 7B:
|
| "Even running a 7B will take 14GB if it's fp16."
|
| Since they called out a specific amount of memory that is
| entirely irrelevant to anyone actually running 7B models, I
| was responding to that.
|
| I'm certain that no one at Microsoft is talking about
| running 70B models on consumer devices. 7B models are
| actually a practical consideration for the hardware that
| exists today.
| imiric wrote:
| You're not the intended market for this product. This is aimed
| at the general consumer who is interested in a fully tailored
| experience powered by "AI", and doesn't care whether the magic
| happens locally or in the cloud, not at someone who wants to
| run arbitrary models locally and tinker with the experience.
| Whether these machines can be repurposed for what you want to
| do, and whether the experience will be worth it, is yet to be
| seen.
| wmf wrote:
| These laptops have up to 64 GB RAM which should be enough to
| run 70B models (quantized).
| drevil-v2 wrote:
| Being the designated "tech" person for my extended family and
| friends circle, I don't think I could recommend this to any of
| them because of the privacy nightmare.
|
| At least with Apple you have a single vendor who is vertically
| integrated and makes a huge song and dance about data privacy.
| Even if you discount their PR and marketing spin, IMHO you are
| still miles ahead of the likes of Microsoft + (pick one) HP,
| Asus, Lenovo and the rest of them.
|
| There is no way I would trust any of them not to take advantage
| of the data gold mine.
| resource_waste wrote:
| >At least with Apple
|
| > Even if you discount their PR and marketing spin,
|
| It doesnt seem like you were able to do that.
| lolinder wrote:
| Are they actually collecting new data to enable these features?
| Or is all of this data collected no matter what version of
| Windows you have installed?
|
| It seems to me that what you just said is an argument against
| Windows in general, not against these new features.
| onemoresoop wrote:
| It's probably easier for MS to just collect that no matter
| what so I doubt they'd stop themselves from doing it.
| rogerthis wrote:
| As it has been said so many times, tech privacy aware people
| are the minority. It won't make any difference for my non-tech
| neighbor (in fact, he will probably be delighted if it helps
| him with something).
| grugagag wrote:
| Not if you tell them beware, all this will be used against
| you in some way in the future.
| frde_me wrote:
| The problem is that there's no concrete thing to point to
| as to why this would be used against them in the future
|
| (I agree with the point, but it's just not trivial to make
| people aware of this)
| ptero wrote:
| Unless there is a specific, believable, near term risk
| people will just ignore it.
|
| Most would submit genetic material to 23andme and similar
| organizations with no restriction on its use. Yes, if could
| theoretically backfire not just on them, but also on their
| kids. But unless they see it as a near-term likelihood they
| will not care enough. My 2c.
| pquki4 wrote:
| Doesn't the fact that lots of people use Facebook daily
| despite the scandals say something?
|
| It's abundantly clear that most people don't care about how
| their data are used. Here "most" means people outside HN.
| onemoresoop wrote:
| Lots of people I know completely stopped used Facebook.
| Some are still on IG though...
| nvtop wrote:
| The whole point of NPU-enabled devices is to run models
| locally, so they your data never leaves your device. This is a
| huge privacy win.
| jsheard wrote:
| Although the line can get fuzzy when they want to ship a
| feature that's too big to run locally. Android has run into
| that, some of the AI features run locally, some of them run
| on Googles servers, and some of them might run locally _or_
| on Googles servers depending on which device you happen to
| have.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| They're trying to have it both ways and it's not clear to me
| as a consumer what is local and what is cloud. (As a
| developer, I can tell they're doing a few things locally like
| OCR and webcam background blur on the NPU, but they are not
| running ChatGPT on an a laptop anytime soon)
| wmf wrote:
| The whole point of enshittification is that companies don't
| need your data but they take it anyway.
| cjk2 wrote:
| I was speaking to someone at the weekend about this. She said
| "but why would I need this"?
|
| I suspect most people aren't putting AI into any purchasing
| decisions. Most people really actually don't give a shit about
| it. They just want things to work exactly how they did before
| without people moving stuff around because they just want to
| get stuff done.
| shmerl wrote:
| Privacy oriented users are already using Linux.
| dymk wrote:
| As a desktop operating sytem? Not the ones that value their
| time.
| shmerl wrote:
| Yes, as a desktop operating system. Nothing else respects
| privacy really that would require less time. Or may be you
| have a suggestion?
| hhh wrote:
| macOS
| shmerl wrote:
| Nah, why would you trust Apple - they see you as a
| product they want to lock-in.
| kemayo wrote:
| The way Microsoft keeps pushing ads into the start menu doesn't
| make me incredibly trusting here, no...
| Eldar_ wrote:
| That's a bubble
| MangoCoffee wrote:
| "AI PC", it's a new buzz in Computex 2024 event.
| sylens wrote:
| Looking at the landing page for the new Surface devices
| (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/surface) the top third of the
| page looks really amateurish in terms of web design. Clicking one
| of the "Meet the new" buttons really drives it home.
| jamesdepp wrote:
| Looks like they're relying on system fonts instead of serving
| them over the web. It uses Segoe UI (a Windows font) by
| default. I tried accessing the page via Fedora and iOS and
| neither load the font correctly.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| >Looks like they're relying on system fonts instead of
| serving them over the web.
|
| This is a good thing. Using system fonts means less bandwidth
| consumed, more privacy (presumably), faster rendering, and
| better consistency with the rest of the user's environment.
|
| The only failure could be not serving a web font as a
| failsafe, but I'm not going to count that against them
| because I hate the idea of web fonts.
|
| Edit: Actually, nevermind all that. Microsoft is serving
| Segoe UI as a web font in addition to referring to the system
| copy.[1] If that's not rendering properly, either Microsoft
| got the URL wrong or something is fubar on the browsers
| concerned.
|
| [1]: https://blogs.microsoft.com/wp-content/themes/ms-
| blogs/style...
| haunter wrote:
| Apple will do this in ~3 years or so and everyone will call it
| the biggest leap ("visionary") in the history of computers
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| they've been doing it already since the M1...
|
| on device OCR and photoshop filters using onboard NPU cores
| jamesdepp wrote:
| I am honestly not excited about the "AI" tech here--I'm excited
| about the battery life improvements that will come from using ARM
| chips. Battery life was the reason I chose an M1 laptop over the
| alternatives. Hopefully we can get some more competition in the
| space with these new chips!
| sys_64738 wrote:
| Are they secure boot locked or can we crowbar Linux aarch64 onto
| them?
| f6v wrote:
| The thing is that everything I need just works on my ARM Mac and
| it's been so for couple years already. Yet I keep hearing that
| "MS is committing to ARM".
|
| Don't get me wrong, I'd love myself a Surface that's super fast,
| responsive, has many app and good battery life. But I just can't
| get myself to buy one whenever I try it in the store. So MBP+iPad
| it is, year after year.
| dvt wrote:
| It's clear that AI can be the catalyst for creating a lot of
| customer-facing value. (Though I still contend that the current
| incarnation of large language models ain't it yet.) Requiring a
| powerful (and power-hungry) GPU in all devices is non-tenable, so
| having a dedicated NPU is a pretty sleek way forward (that, to be
| fair, Apple spearheaded).
|
| I'm very curious to see what APIs will be open to developers,
| because I think "next billion-dollar startup"-style value-
| generation won't be found in the generative aspect of these
| models, but rather the promise of automation, synthesis,
| summarization, agent invocation, and so on.
| wayeq wrote:
| > It's clear that AI can be the catalyst for creating a lot of
| customer-facing value.
|
| It clearly will be a catalyst for creating a lot of shareholder
| value... I'm less sure about the customer facing value of a lot
| of these products.
| adastra22 wrote:
| Minimum RAM requirements of 16GB. Hopefully this will force Apple
| to move from 8GB/16GB consumer models to 16GB/32GB.
| resource_waste wrote:
| Different consumer base.
|
| Enterprise/high end use vs front end or SSH. I don't see why
| you'd ever need more than 4-8GB for a Macbook.
| adastra22 wrote:
| Base macOS uses more than 4GB, or close to it, on a fresh
| install right after booting. 8GB really is a minimum for
| macOS. But tons of consumers use their computers in ways that
| require more resident pages in memory, like having hundreds
| of open tabs in Chrome or Safari. 8GB is getting really
| constricting even for casual use.
| josefresco wrote:
| Are these suitable gaming laptops? I run local LLMs (Ollama)
| using my NVIDIA graphics card but I can't tell if these ARM chips
| are suitable for gaming.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| I hope you realize that most of the _gaming_ world runs on ARM
| CPUs and iGPUs today. Smartphones and tablets far outnumber
| gaming PCs.
| bibanez wrote:
| I intuit parent was referring to PC gaming, which is far more
| demanding than mobile gaming. Also, most PC games are
| compiled to x86_64, which means there will need to be a
| virtualization layer for non-native games (the majority),
| which will add latency.
| tredre3 wrote:
| You're made that same comment several times in this thread.
| But:
|
| - All gaming PCs are x86 - PS5 and Xbox are x86 - Handheld
| PCs (Steam Deck, Legion, etc) are x86
|
| This is the market people are talking about when they say
| "gaming" and you know it.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| Just because most gamers game on mobile and consoles do not
| make them any less of gamers. PC gamers are a minority, not
| the majority; PC Master Race is a meme and not reality.
|
| If anyone wants to refer to PC gamers, refer as such.
| "Gamers" with no additional descriptors by definition is
| anyone who games, and that includes gamers who play on
| mobile and consoles.
| TiredOfLife wrote:
| In a FAQ https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/copilot-plus-
| pcs?r=1... they list these games as supporting the new
| upscaling thing coming to these laptops:
|
| 7 Days to Die, BeamNG.drive, Borderlands 3, Control, Dark Souls
| III, Dying Light, The Forest, God of War, Resident Evil 2,
| Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Skyrim SE, Sons of the Forest,
| Totally Accurate Battle Simulator, Unturned, Warframe, and The
| Witcher 3
|
| But you will get much better experience and longer battery life
| with using something like Geforce Now
| glutamate wrote:
| > The new Flex Keyboard, which costs $450 and comes with a Slim
| Pen... [0]
|
| At that price, I would expect a Generously Voluminous Pen and a
| whole lot more...
|
| [0] https://www.theverge.com/2024/5/20/24160707/microsoft-
| surfac...
| deergomoo wrote:
| They have surely just looked at the price of an iPad Magic
| Keyboard + Apple Pencil and thought, "yeah we can probably get
| away with that too".
|
| Not sure how well that will go given that even the most ardent
| Apple fans will concede that a keyboard case costing
| approximately the same as one whole entry-level iPad is a bit
| much.
| chickenWing wrote:
| The real danger of AI is it will annoy us all to death as
| companies keep jamming it into everything.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| People even coined a term for Microsoft-Intel symbiosis: Wintel.
| Most often Windows meant Intel and Intel meant Windows.
|
| I wonder how this will fare for the future of x86. Maybe Intel
| will focus on the server market.
| tempaccount420 wrote:
| 40 TOPS is not that impressive, an iPhone 15 Pro has 35 TOPS.
| callalex wrote:
| These kind of stats really need a "for 30s" and "for 10m"
| qualifiers. I strongly suspect that an iPhone will start
| throttling within seconds of not minutes compared to a laptop
| with a fan.
|
| (Although there are definitely laptops with fans that still
| throttle within minutes, and they usually have a fruit on the
| side of them.)
| layer8 wrote:
| "TOPS" isn't a standardized measure, you can't compare them
| like that.
| isoprophlex wrote:
| Their "copilot" brand is so weird and... muddled.
|
| There's the AI code assistant thing that github actually started,
| there's the horrible chatbot maker GUI demoware, there's AI stuff
| you might be able to do with your sharepoint (if only you could
| get hold of the right ms sales rep to take your money), there's
| an app that does genai things on your personal MS account... And
| now there's a Surface rebrand?
|
| That org chart meme about Microsoft being little fiefdoms
| pointing guns at eachother never stops being relevant.
|
| [1] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-
| copilot/microsoft-...
|
| [2] https://www.microsoft.com/en-
| us/microsoft-365/blog/2023/05/0...
|
| [3] https://copilot.microsoft.com/
|
| And [4] the meme itself, as you really can't convince me the
| above is the result of a coherent company-wide strategy
| https://i.insider.com/51dfec8469bedd5e19000017
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| The original [4]: https://goomics.net/62/ (and its sequel:
| https://goomics.net/329/).
| isoprophlex wrote:
| That sequel is (also) just wonderfully accurate!
| dweinus wrote:
| 100% accurate. Impressive
| chatmasta wrote:
| Their first co-pilot (which still exists) was about pairing a
| second Xbox controller to your console.
| udp wrote:
| Ah but is that the Xbox 1, the Xbox One, the Xbox One X or
| the Xbox Series X?
| voiceblue wrote:
| This is the naming convention you get when you hire
| engineers based off of "edit distance" Leetcode problems.
| Jenk wrote:
| No, it is the branding you get when you recycle your
| marketing team every product iteration.
| grepfru_it wrote:
| The two seem to go hand-in-hand
| frankchn wrote:
| Engineers named the Xbox One X "Scorpio", which is a much
| cooler name.
| pelagicAustral wrote:
| See the hellish naming and branding they've done with the .NET
| ecosystem... It is so convoluted, even people actively
| developing on their stacks would have and issue figuring out if
| they are downloading the right stuff.
| Atotalnoob wrote:
| Not really. It was a little confusing when they renamed .net
| core to .net, but most people have moved past it
| neonsunset wrote:
| You see, that just doesn't lend itself as nicely to tribal
| parroting of worse than mediocre developers here in the
| comments (if such people are able to code at all).
| gardenhedge wrote:
| Is it not currently asp.net core?
| monocasa wrote:
| It was very confusing, and for a while there every team
| inside Microsoft started adding .NET to their name for some
| internal visibility points regardless of any connection
| with the common language runtime.
|
| That's how you ended up with names like Windows .NET Server
| 2003.
| neonsunset wrote:
| These events have little to do with .NET of today, 21
| years later.
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| > Their "copilot" brand is so weird and... muddled.
|
| Microsoft can't brand anything cleanly and unambiguously.
|
| "MSN Messenger" / "Windows Messenger" / "Windows Live
| Messenger" / "Microsoft Lync"
|
| "Internet Explorer" / "Windows Explorer" / "MSN Explorer"
|
| Windows 95 email client "Exchange" / email server platform
| "Exchange"
|
| "Outlook" / "Outlook Web Access" / "Outlook Web App" /
| "Outlook.com" / "new Outlook for Windows"
|
| "Microsoft Teams" / "New Microsoft Teams"
|
| "Office Communicator" / "Microsoft Lync" / "Skype for Business"
| / "Skype" / "Skype for Business Online" / "Skype for Business
| for Microsoft 365"
|
| The most guffaw-inducing branding, to me, was the recently-
| announced remote desktop client called "Windows App". That's
| going to be an easy one for users to search for.
|
| (For guffaw-inducing I suppose there's also the Windows 98-era
| "Critical Update Notification Tool"[0])
|
| [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Update#Critical_Update...
|
| (Edit: Yikes. I didn't even consider .NET. Windows.NET server.
| .NET Framework. ASP.NET. .NET Core. Ugh...)
|
| More editing because I can't stop myself:
|
| "Great Plains" / "Navision" / "Solomon" / "Axapta" / "Dynamics
| AX" / "Dynamics GP" / "Dynamics SL" / "Dynamics NAV" /
| "Dynamics 365" / "Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations" /
| "Dynamics 365 Business Central"
|
| More editing because I was egged-on... >smile<
|
| "Windows Defender" / "Microsoft Defender" / "Windows Defender
| Antivirus" / "Windows Firewall" / "Windows Defender Firewall" /
| "Microsoft AntiSpyware" / "Microsoft Security Essentials" /
| "System Center Endpoint Protection"
|
| Oh, ugh... then there's the whole "Microsoft Proxy" /
| "Forefront" / "Federated Identity Manager" nightmare.
|
| Then there's "System Management Server" / "System Center" and
| that whole train of products.
|
| Edit: Forgot SharePoint
|
| "Microsoft FrontPage" / "Site Server" / "Site Server Commerce
| Edition" / "Office Server" / "SharePoint Portal Server" /
| "Windows SharePoint Services" / "Microsoft Office SharePoint
| Server" / "SharePoint Foundation" / "SharePoint Server" /
| "SharePoint Standard" / "SharePoint Enterprise" / "SharePoint
| Online" / "SharePoint Designer"
| brazzledazzle wrote:
| Let's not forget Azure AD is now Microsoft Entra.
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| "Office 365" / "Microsoft 365", too... >sigh<
| aragonite wrote:
| From Wikipedia: [1]
|
| > Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps (formerly Windows
| Store apps, Metro-style apps and Modern apps)...
|
| Ironically, that list misses another former name, "Windows
| App" (different from the "Windows App" you guffawed at). That
| name was used around 2017 and used extensively in the 7th
| edition of Windows Internals.
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Windows_Platfor
| m_a...
| dark__paladin wrote:
| To add to this, I have always found the Xbox naming
| conventions to be confusing, personally. "Xbox One" is the
| third one, not the original "Xbox" and the two newest models
| are named almost identically; "Xbox Series X" vs "Xbox Series
| S".
| mikebenfield wrote:
| I always thought calling it Xbox One was the most bizarre
| choice in the history of branding and marketing. Given how
| common it is to retroactively refer to the first item in a
| series as "One" (Rambo 1, Rocky 1, Playstation 1, etc), it
| seems intentionally designed to cause confusion.
| Narishma wrote:
| I find that name even more baffling when the reason they
| apparently branded the previous one Xbox 360 was so that
| they wouldn't go against the PS3 with an Xbox 2. Somehow
| it was now fine for an Xbox One to go against a PS4.
| LelouBil wrote:
| For the latest ones it's fair because the S is a lower tier
| to the X
| pfist wrote:
| Sure, but the problem is S and X sound very similar when
| spoken, causing more confusion. Try clarifying which one
| you are talking about in a loud room at a conference.
| johnfernow wrote:
| To make it even more confusing, the Xbox One had the mid-
| generation updates called Xbox One S (slimmer, a few
| additional features) and the Xbox One X (more powerful.)
|
| So from oldest to newest it's
|
| - Xbox
|
| - Xbox 360
|
| - Xbox One - Xbox One S - Xbox
| One X
|
| - Xbox Series X and Series S (released simultaneously: S is
| smaller, X is more powerful)
|
| So for a period of time in stores you might see a One S, a
| One X, a Series S, and a Series X. If you aren't a gamer,
| it's a complete mystery which is the newest and most
| powerful. I'm sure some kids got the wrong console for
| Christmas, as the One X was at times more expensive than a
| Series S, despite being an older console that would later
| not support many games that the Series S supports. This
| would be even more likely to happen if the Series X was out
| of stock (so the most expensive Xbox console at the store
| might be a discontinued model that won't support all the
| new games.)
|
| In contrast, it's pretty obvious that a PlayStation 5 is
| going to be better than a PlayStation 4. Yes, a quick
| search will show which is the newest and most powerful
| Xbox, but if people have to do research to find out which
| is your best console and they don't have to do that for
| your competitor, then you have a confusing naming scheme.
| bingo3131 wrote:
| Rumour has it (not sure if this was ever confirmed) that
| one of the big reasons the second Xbox was called the Xbox
| 360 was to avoid unfavourable number comparisons with Sony.
| The Xbox launched vs the PS2, which meant the "Xbox 2"
| would compete against the PS3. As 3 is bigger than 2, it
| would make the second Xbox look bad. Hence, Xbox 360. Both
| have a 3, no number issues. For what it's worth, Robbie
| Bach (former Chief Xbox Officer) is on the record as saying
| one of the potential names for the second Xbox was just
| "Xbox 3" to catch up the PS3.
|
| While officially the meaning of the "Xbox One" name was
| something about it being an all-in-one entertainment
| system, I would put money on it being chosen as some kind
| of subliminal naming scheme as it sounds like "Xbox Won".
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| Steve Ballmer was hoping people would call it "the one".
| This was also around the time that SkyDrive had to be
| renamed to OneDrive due to trademark issues with Sky.
|
| I always judge corporations whenever they resort to "One"
| as a brand because it signals a total lack of creativity
| and is likely the result of executives fighting each
| other and settling on the most mundane and inoffensive
| concept to represent "it does everything".
| ackfoobar wrote:
| "Azure Active Directory" (now "Entra ID") and "Active
| Directory" caused me a great deal of confusion.
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| "Active Directory" / "Active Directory Domain Service" /
| "Active Directory Application Mode" / "Active Directory
| Lightweight Directory Services" / "Azure Active Directory"
| / "Entra Id" / "Active Directory Federation Services" /
| "Active Directory Certificate Services" / "Active Directory
| Rights Management Services"
|
| Ugh... and don't even get my started about the
| pronunciation of "Azure" (or the fact that, somehow, they
| took a project code-named "Red Dog" and named it after the
| color blue. Then there's the JEt Red and Jet Blue database
| engines, one of which was used by Active Directory...)
| tanseydavid wrote:
| Don't forget "Azure Active Directory B2C".
| Peanuts99 wrote:
| You're forgetting Azure Active Directory Domain Services,
| which is presumably now named Entra AD Domain Services
| which is different from Azure AD/Entra AD because it's a
| managed domain controller in Azure...
| zaat wrote:
| You've missed Defender there
|
| Edit: you updated defender, but you missed the depth of the
| rabbit hole. There's defender for office 365, there's
| defender for IoT, for Containers, for cloud, for cloud apps,
| for identity. There's one for gramma too
| flyingswift wrote:
| Team Foundation Server -> Visual Studio Team Services ->
| Azure DevOps
| pjob wrote:
| One team I was on had a bug where the product name was so
| long that it was being truncated in the about dialog. It was
| something like:
|
| Microsoft Dynamics(r) CRM 2011 for Microsoft(r) Office
| Outlook(r) with Offline Access
| whalesalad wrote:
| microsoft is KING of doing this sort of thing.
| onemoresoop wrote:
| The great king of klusterfuck, I agree
| bastawhiz wrote:
| Copilot is the new Watson
| runevault wrote:
| dotnet for me is the most obvious example of how terrible they
| are at branding. First there was .NET framework which was
| windows only (note I'm ignoring Xamarian because it was
| originally not owned by MS).
|
| Then they decided to do a reboot with cross platform support
| and named that Dotnet Core. This was honestly fine. But then we
| reach late in the 3.x timeframe and they declare for real and
| for true that Framework is a dead end, and Dotnet Core will be
| the one true Dotnet moving forward. And to indicate this, the
| next version will remove Core from the name, skip 4 because it
| would be too confusing with Framework, and just call it Dotnet
| 5.
|
| I wish they'd stuck with the Core name, if no other reason so
| if they decide in another 15 years to do a major rebuild again
| they can just come up with another new descriptor the way Core
| described the transition away from Framework and towards real
| cross platform support from MS itself.
| bn-l wrote:
| Watch how they change it again next year to dotnet (all lower
| case) AI core.
| tcpudp1 wrote:
| This is not branding, this is "fire and motion"[0], and
| judging by the fact that you followed and remember all those
| twists and turns, it worked exactly as planned: making you
| busy and distracted in order to keep you inside Microsoft
| bubble.
|
| [0] https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/01/06/fire-and-
| motion/
| jonathankoren wrote:
| > Their "copilot" brand is so weird and... muddled.
|
| It's Watson.
|
| Ha ha, only serious. You're right. It feels like an umbrella
| brand they're just tossing around, because AI -- and Copilot in
| particular -- is hot in Redmond.
|
| I find the new Copilot key funny, because it feels like a
| pantomime of the Windows 95 keys[0], but with Logitech
| characteristics.
|
| [*] Okay, it's been 30 years. I haven't used a Windows computer
| in almost as long, and so I ask. Do people who use Windows
| actually use any of those keys? It always seemed weird that
| you'd need the start menu at a single button press, and the
| right click menu at a keyboard press felt even weirder. I think
| I only used the Windows key as a meta under Linux, and I don't
| think I ever hit the context menu key out of anything but
| curiosity.
| isaacdl wrote:
| I use the "Windows" key pretty extensively, including to open
| the start menu (and then type in a search term, i.e. a
| program on my computer to launch).
|
| I also use it extensively for "Windows" (operating system)
| level shortcuts: Win-R to open a run dialog, Win-E to open
| Explorer, Win-<left arrow|right arrow> to move/resize
| windows, etc.)
|
| That being said...I use it in basically the same way on
| Linux, and use the Command (Apple) key on Macs for
| essentially the same purposes.
|
| I don't think I've ever used the "right click menu" key for
| anything, though. Most modern Windows keyboards don't include
| it, or have it hidden behind a manufacturer-specific function
| key.
| jonathankoren wrote:
| Huh. You're right. Some keyboard have both windows and the
| menu key, and others have only one menu key. I don't know
| if this means Microsoft relaxed their "Made for Windows"
| standards, or higher profile manufacturers don't care.
| JohnFen wrote:
| > Do people who use Windows actually use any of those keys?
|
| I only use Windows at work, and there, I use the Windows key
| to lock my screen on demand, and to make cropped screenshots.
| That's about it.
|
| At home, I never use that key for anything.
| vel0city wrote:
| I use it a lot. Win and start typing to launch just about any
| app or open any document is really handy. Win and a number
| key launches or switches to that app pinned at that position
| on the taskbar. Win+L locks the screen whenever I get up from
| my desk. Win+Shift+S starts the screen clipper.
| Win+Left/Right snaps an app from one side to the other,
| win+shift+left/right switches between desktops, Win+Tab lets
| me drag apps from one desktop to another and see what's open
| where if needed, Win+E opens a new explorer window, Win+.
| opens the emoji keyboard. Those are just the ones I use
| almost every day, I probably use a few others a lot as well.
| michaelbuckbee wrote:
| It's a real shame as well since the Surface line of PCs started
| as such a clean break and has devolved into a confusing mess.
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| That name was cursed from the start, too. The original
| "Microsoft Surface 1.0" was tabletop platform that got
| renamed "PixelSense"[0] years before there was a "Surface"
| tablet computer.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_PixelSense
| Findecanor wrote:
| I recall it was renamed to PixelSense right when the
| Surface tablets arrived.
|
| Then they named an entire input device line "Surface" as
| well. When you search for "surface keyboard" you will get
| results for desktop keyboards _and_ type-covers for
| tablets.
| TylerE wrote:
| Do you expect anything else from the company that introduced
| "Plays For Sure" branding over a wide ecosystem, only to kill
| the ENTIRE thing (not just the branding) less than 5 years
| later? (as in, all purchased content became unplayable)
| partiallypro wrote:
| I don't find it all that confusing, most of them work similarly
| and I don't see how you could call them different things. I
| just hate that their logos aren't uniform. The Windows & Bing
| logo is a rainbow color (looks awful), and the Edge version is
| blue and green (looks way better). It's not remotely comparable
| to their other branding flubs (Teams, .NET, etc). I wish they
| would have kept the Cortana and Continuum brands. Recall is
| basically what Continuum should have been, why not just keep
| the name? Co-pilot works for naming in some cases, but when you
| look at the GPT 4o voice demo that seems like the Microsoft
| white labelled version should be Cortana.
|
| Cortana's biggest fault was mostly that it wasn't very good,
| and the things it was good at required the Cloud...but with the
| new AI chips, some of that can be offloaded and work much
| faster. It's like when they added Cortana to Xbox and killed
| the other voice commands. Then it just became a very slow
| process when the old on-board model was way faster. Even the
| voice commands became longer "Xbox on" to "Hey Cortana, turn on
| my Xbox" then having to wait for it to ping a server and come
| back to your device.
| outside1234 wrote:
| Microsoft is a "student body left groupthink" company. We once
| named EVERYTHING "Active" something, then EVERYTHING ".NET"
| something. This is just the latest in a long line of tradition
| of groupthink.
| orph wrote:
| It made sense when I named GitHub Copilot, since that product
| was a passive addition to your regular workflow.
|
| The name was sticky enough that they've run with it,
| misunderstanding or ignoring that fundamental metaphor.
| nxobject wrote:
| I await Copilot+ .NET Plus! 365 Home Professonal Plus.
| abraae wrote:
| Perhaps borrowing from IBM's Watson strategy of flooding the
| zone with marketing shit.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| The thing about Copilot is that outside of the developer niche,
| nobody knows the term. The vast majority of Microsoft's
| customer base will recognise neither the Xbox feature nor the
| Github product.
|
| In the same way, their .NET naming has never bothered anyone
| they actually care about selling stuff to. It's a tad annoying
| for developers, but nothing more than that.
|
| I find the way they renamed their Office products every five
| years much more baffling. Consumers probably don't care beyond
| "office" but I'd expect them to protect their business clients
| from their ever changing names for office products at least.
| jetrink wrote:
| It's not a terrible name either. Assistant would be better,
| but they can't use that name[1] of course... I'm having a
| hard time thinking of something else that instantly
| communicates this idea of an intelligent subordinate aide
| that doesn't have negative associations.
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Assistant
| Atotalnoob wrote:
| It's not just negative associations. I believe GitHub had a
| blog post where they went into why they chose copilot.
|
| The answer was more of subtly conveying its output needed
| to be checked
| jeroenhd wrote:
| Personally, I think Microsoft wastes the name "Cortana" on
| their mediocre Google Assistant competitor. I haven't
| really seen Copilot do much copiloting, it mostly seems to
| answer questions and follow instructions. Maybe Windows 12
| will be different, but I kind of doubt it.
| accidbuddy wrote:
| I agree, and it's strange to see 'Copilot' everywhere. By the
| way, does anyone know how the development/update of GitHub
| Copilot is going? I tried to look for a blog from the
| engineering team or something similar, but I can't find
| anything.
| wslh wrote:
| > Their "copilot" brand is so weird and... muddled.
|
| Again the .NET effect, unsearcheable for decades. The COM[1]
| could be just bad luck.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Component_Object_Model
| thomasjudge wrote:
| (posted before) Microsoft on Microsoft marketing (from 2006ish)
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUXnJraKM3k
| lallysingh wrote:
| Windows Surface Copilot for Workgroups 360.Net
|
| It's kind of like those cryptographic keys they use a
| dictionary for: a nonsense noun phrase representing a number.
| Perhaps they're just encoding a SKU?
| themagician wrote:
| Copilot is a game-changer in coding, helping developers with
| real-time suggestions and code snippets. However, it's
| controversial because it relies on large datasets scraped from
| public code repositories. This raises intellectual property
| issues and concerns about algorithmic bias, as Copilot's
| suggestions are influenced by that data. Despite that, it's
| super useful, but Microsoft needs to address the legal and
| ethical issues around data usage and bias to keep it on the
| right track.
| MangoCoffee wrote:
| Its a new buzz "AI PC".
|
| Company like Intel is happy that this is happening, it run on NPU
| from Intel/AMD. This AI PC buzz is supposed to help sell more
| x86/Windows.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| Oh joy, Pluton is back.
| gigel82 wrote:
| What do you mean back? Pluton has been shipping in all
| mainstream CPUs for at least 1 year.
| beretguy wrote:
| I hope gaming on Linux keeps getting better. I don't see myself
| using anything beyond windows 10.
| __loam wrote:
| Same. Our household has one pc from 2019 running windows, 3 on
| Linux, and one Mac, plus two macs from work. The only thing
| keeping me on windows is league of legends and stone art
| programs and I might get a mac to do that.
| branon wrote:
| League runs on Linux easy, all you need is patched Wine:
| https://github.com/GloriousEggroll/wine-ge-
| custom/releases/t...
|
| It's easiest to use this via software like Lutris or Bottles.
| paranoidxprod wrote:
| I don't believe there is a workaround for Vanguard (Riot's
| kernel level anti-cheat) meaning there's nothing you can do
| on Linux.
|
| See https://lutris.net/games/league-of-legends/
| notJim wrote:
| > X runs on Linux easy, all you need is patched Y
|
| Glad to hear some things never change
| freedomben wrote:
| We've been linux-only now for quite a few years, and I've
| been really pleased with how much we can get done without
| Windows (or Mac). All the Windows only games we play work
| great on Proton (disclaimer: we don't do any games with anti-
| cheat though). The only thing that I still must have Windows
| for is a Cricut machine that my wife has. I've got it working
| in a KVM VM though with USB pass through.
| redml wrote:
| its pretty much peaked at this point. works with every game
| i've ever tried, new and old titles.
| alecsm wrote:
| Unless it requires a kernel level anti cheat. I don't play
| those games but if someone does, it's a thing they should
| know.
| davidgerard wrote:
| tl;dr yes: https://brodybrooks.com/posts/2024-linuxgamedev/
| cjk2 wrote:
| If the following does not happen in 2 years I will eat my hat:
|
| They will have performance problems. They will have compatibility
| problems. They will have poor repairability and zero repair
| network and support. The software will be abandoned and
| completely useless within 18 months. They will fail very early
| but just outside a standard 1 year warranty. This will be a lot
| of e-waste. Regulatory or national bodies will step in and force
| privacy regulations which make all of this unworkable.
| gigel82 wrote:
| Wait, are you the other guy that bought a Windows Surface RT?
| :)
|
| We should make a club.
| cjk2 wrote:
| Um, err, yeah :(
| genewitch wrote:
| If in 18 months anyone feels that their ARM laptop isn't
| cutting it, i'll gladly pay $0.15/$1.00 for them. I know lots
| of people who could definitely benefit from a laptop that
| cannot afford them, and IME ARM runs linux just fine.
| cjk2 wrote:
| I suspect they will be locked down like the RT devices
| were...
| Marsymars wrote:
| Why would you suspect that, given that _already released_
| Windows on ARM devices are not at all locked down like RT
| devices were?
| stetrain wrote:
| They've been selling ARM Surface devices for a while now. Not
| sure why these would suddenly fall over and stop working.
|
| Even if the AI stuff doesn't pan out that doesn't make it
| e-waste, that just makes it a normal PC that could do
| everything previous PCs could do anyway.
| cjk2 wrote:
| Mostly implied by that large pile of dead Surface machines we
| had which weren't even remotely repairable and lasted 12-18
| months...
| joshstrange wrote:
| There are a number of aspect of this I find very interesting if
| only so that Apple has to come up with an answer to them (which
| I'm sure we will see some of at WWDC) but the "Copilot" brand is
| clear as mud... It's like that period they added ".NET" to bunch
| of things but way worse.
| golergka wrote:
| How much ads would I expect on this out of the box? A banner in
| the start menu, ad notifications, what else?
| askonomm wrote:
| I heard that they are even experimenting with full-screen ads!
| jarjoura wrote:
| The coordinated launch of real ARM laptops across 4 different
| companies, Dell, Lenovo, HP and Samsung is quite an achievement
| for Microsoft after a decade of failed ARM launches. This seems
| uniquely different to me because, there is a real and marketable
| limitation to what you can find in Intel/AMD (the lack of NPU).
|
| Before Microsoft pushed ARM as an option for "all day battery
| power" however, the huuuuuge tradeoff was compatibility with your
| existing tools and very underwhelming performance.
|
| However, can I just complain for a moment?! Why are these laptops
| shipping with fixed options at exactly 1TB of storage and only 16
| GB of memory with no way to specify different configurations? So
| with all this cross-company coordination and opportunity for
| eyeballs on this renewed ARM push, they still felt the timid 16
| GB would be more than enough to generate excitement?
|
| Yes, yes, I know, it's fine for a generic office product, but am
| I the only one who is thinking this is a red flag, and this is
| going to be just another failed launch and huge missed
| opportunity at wider ARM adoption?
| winwang wrote:
| Does AMD lack NPUs on mobile still? It should be coming quite
| soon, apparently 40 TOPs.
| wmf wrote:
| Ryzen 7000 had a slow (not Windows-certified) NPU and Ryzen
| 8000 has a full-speed NPU.
| OnionBlender wrote:
| > "Easily find and remember what you have seen in your PC with
| Recall"
|
| I can't even get Windows File Explorer to reliably search for a
| file by name. It frequently freezes or shows no results.
| Findecanor wrote:
| You're lucky to get that far. I got a tablet with 32-bit
| Windows 10, which doesn't get updates any more. When I tap the
| search box, the on-screen keyboard appears ... and then
| immediately closes again.
| TiredOfLife wrote:
| Exactly my experience using Steam Deck desktop mode
| nenadg wrote:
| <spoiler> productivity goes 1000+% wages not so much </spoiler>
| JaneLovesDotNet wrote:
| There's a little mention that's easy to miss:
|
| > With a powerful new emulator, Prism, your apps run great,
| whether native or emulated.
|
| Curious to hear more about what strides they've made there.
|
| UPDATE: Found more details here ->
| https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/05/microsoft-says-prism...
|
| 10-20% faster emulation
| genewitch wrote:
| I ran windows under qemu, with a GPU, and a dedicated
| soundcard, and multi-monitor for _years_ - even though
| ostensibly there was a 10-15% "overhead" due to
| emulation/virtualization. I had exactly zero issues, and to be
| quite frank i couldn't tell any difference in framerates,
| especially compared to my windows laptop running the same games
| with roughly equivalent GPUs.
| user_7832 wrote:
| Could you share a little more about your setup? I assume a
| linux host, and perhaps 2 GPUs with one per OS? I'm guessing
| it's a desktop build and not a laptop (iGPU+dGPU)?
|
| I've really wanted to switch fully to linux, but I still use
| some "power" features in MS Office which apparently don't
| play nice on linux. Dualbooting Fedora is decent... when I
| can understand what's happening and don't need to go 4 layers
| deep every time I have a problem, unfortunately.
| llsf wrote:
| I cannot wait to see Apple's response. While Microsoft
| announcement seems rush and products half backed/thought, there
| are on to something. I would hope Apple would learn from it, and
| find the right path.
|
| I would really like to have a AI companion that runs locally, on
| my dev laptop, tailored for my developer's needs. Something
| optimized for the hardware, and yet with tight privacy.
|
| Apple... your turn!
| jerlam wrote:
| Apple WWDC is in three weeks. I am not sure they can change
| anything based on the Microsoft announcement.
| KeplerBoy wrote:
| I am sure Apple is not surprised by any of this and they are
| not too worried.
|
| They have had competent arm chips for years and will board
| the ai hypetrain in time.
| llsf wrote:
| Just cannot wait to see what they have been cooking :)
| llsf wrote:
| I agree that it might not arrive at WWDC unless Apple was
| already working on it for several years...
|
| Nonetheless, I see this Microsoft initiative as a canary in
| the AI coal mine. I would hope Apple would learn from it.
| ppeetteerr wrote:
| I don't know if this is the case for others, but I'm seeing
| missing images on their laptop and tablet marketing pages. The
| new product line feels very rushed.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| These don't run LLM locally
| dweinus wrote:
| Genuinely curious: do any of the features/use cases they market
| here sound appealing to people? I am struggling to imagine
| wanting to use any of them. I can, however, easily imagine the
| sound my cooling fan will make while the NPU is running 24/7.
| DariusKocar wrote:
| I find this useful as a productivity tool. For example, this
| can give me my standup update summary. It knows what I worked
| on and can summarize it for me.
|
| AI/LLMs are great at staying organized over huge amounts of
| data and this is the perfect application.
|
| disclosure: I am the founder of Perfect Memory AI
| https://www.perfectmemory.ai/ that does something very similar
| today.
| chx wrote:
| Until the day it submits something to standup you don't want
| to and don't tell me you will always carefully filter it and
| then in _best case_ you get fired. Worst case, you get
| _criminally prosecuted_.
|
| Jesus, you people never learn.
| PKop wrote:
| Not in the least. I'm looking forward to when this trend dies
| and all of these worse than useless features hopefully get
| scrapped. Meanwhile there is now extra hardware being put
| inside new laptops. I wonder if we'll be able to buy CPU's
| without NPU's?
| keyringlight wrote:
| My feeling is much of this client AI hardware push is to dodge
| the power cost. They're looking at spending $100B on a 5GW
| 'Stargate' datacenter for AI, and paying back that investment
| will go better without the ongoing (forever?) costs of running
| the resulting models centrally.
| kotaKat wrote:
| Can we stop forcing this on the consumers, Microsoft? Please? For
| once? Can you take "no" for once?
| AdamH12113 wrote:
| Billions of dollars to cram "AI" down our throats, but they can't
| be bothered to get Excel back up to the level of quality and
| performance it had 20 years ago.
| AdamH12113 wrote:
| In retaliation for this comment, Excel glitched out and deleted
| fifteen minutes' worth of carefully-formatted graphs when I
| tried to save.
| teitoklien wrote:
| Words have consequences
|
| -- Bing Chan, from Redmond, Washington.
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| One thing that has continued to baffle me about Excel is the
| fact that they force worksheet tabs and the scrollbar to co-
| exist in the same pane. Why in the world can I not have a full
| horizontal scrollbar _and_ a full width tab collection?
| _diyar wrote:
| I believe this is only the beginning of the modern OS with a
| user-interface that is based around AI. Imagine the platform
| lock-in from a lifetimes worth of meta-data around interactions
| with an AI agent, which obviously will not be transferable
| between vendors.
| onemoresoop wrote:
| The modern OS that nobody asked for. This could backfire pretty
| badly if it doesn't succeed. We're still in a hype bubble. When
| the bubble bursts some thing will stay but many will be washed
| away
| beoberha wrote:
| No chance id want to use these features for personal use for
| pretty much your exact reason. But for work - man I can't wait.
| ilikeitdark wrote:
| Someone convince me that Microsoft isn't just some giant
| practical joke.
| butterlesstoast wrote:
| Just came here to say. This has become my all time favorite HN
| thread.
| afiodorov wrote:
| >Live Captions now has live translations and will turn any audio
| that passes through your PC into a single, English-language
| caption experience, in real time on your screen across all your
| apps consistently. You can translate any live or pre-recorded
| audio in any app or video platform from over 40 languages into
| English subtitles instantly, automatically and even while you're
| offline.
|
| Wow that's an amazing feature!
| beoberha wrote:
| I work for Microsoft, so take what I say with a grain of salt. I
| could not be more excited for these AI productivity features
| built into the OS. "Recall" is almost exactly what I've been
| dreaming of since the AI boom. I didn't catch it in the release,
| but something that can "record" my work life and do things like
| auto-manage my todo list or answer a question I had about how I
| did something a year ago is the killer AI product I've been
| waiting for. Not sure I'd want this as a personal device, but
| would be amazing for work.
| mellosouls wrote:
| Possibly, but instant-find software already exists (eg copernic
| desktop search), and the extra functionality posited by Recall
| sounds like a potential surveillance nightmare in workplaces
| given Microsoft's form in the corporate arena.
| michaelteter wrote:
| I'd like to know what their battery life estimates are with
| Outlook and Teams running. My guess is ~2 hours.
| bn-l wrote:
| What I don't understand about this that they tried it by
| shoehorning it into windows updates (without asking if you wanted
| it) and it was (in my bubble at least) universally loathed. Does
| anyone know anyone actually using and enjoying the windows 11
| "copilot" update?
| bambax wrote:
| > _We set out to solve one of the most frustrating problems we
| encounter daily - finding something we know we have seen before
| on our PC. Today, we must remember what file folder it was stored
| in, what website it was on, or scroll through hundreds of emails
| trying to find it._
|
| It is indeed frustrating that one still cannot search effectively
| a local device, but it doesn't need AI to solve. It needs a
| proper search engine, and Microsoft has resisted that, for some
| mysterious reason, for 30+ years.
| fassssst wrote:
| Search engines use language models.
| relyks wrote:
| Not all do and the ones intended for desktop search likely
| shouldn't. Something like an inverted index would be a much
| better solution imo
| JohnFen wrote:
| It's really baffling, isn't it? A part of me wonders if
| Microsoft is simply unable to figure out how to make a good
| Windows search and so is looking for AI to do it for them.
|
| But it seems like shooting a mosquito with an elephant gun.
| paxys wrote:
| Anyone remember Google Desktop? Did the job perfectly 20 years
| ago.
| mktemp-d wrote:
| It always baffles me how long it takes for Windows to search
| for a file while the GNU's `find` command churns through
| filenames and paths like it's nothing.
| threePointFive wrote:
| Work locks me into Outlook but god I wish I could just grep
| my inbox
| yread wrote:
| What there are still people who don't install Voidtools'
| Everything on all Windows PCs and assign it a global shortcut?
| Since I have it I don't even bother organizing stuff
| outside1234 wrote:
| Sounds like the ActiveX of PCs
| fusspawn wrote:
| ok but what about desktops and non oem silicon
| brap wrote:
| I feel like we're at the "3D TV" phase of AI right now.
| victor106 wrote:
| Thanks but no thanks,
|
| Not buying or requesting another Windows pc ever again.
|
| Its full of adware and spyware at this point. even though I do
| like Satya's MSFT better than Balmer's.
| srid wrote:
| Would I still be able to run Ubuntu in WSL when using these
| Copilot PCs running an ARM processor?
| dstaley wrote:
| You can already do that today with existing ARM-powered Windows
| devices (well, most of them anyway).
| throw7 wrote:
| "You are always in control with privacy you can trust."
|
| Sure Jan. Maybe Microsoft should start with proving to us they
| can actually can keep their private keys secure for starters.
| moskie wrote:
| A "Creativity" slider.
| paxys wrote:
| Still waiting for an actual use case for these things. And no,
| "easily generate AI images" is not one of them, no matter how
| much Microsoft likes to push it.
| munchler wrote:
| Running high-powered AI locally seems like a pretty good use
| case to me. Cloud-based AI, like OpenAI sells, is expensive and
| provides inadequate privacy. I want a truly personal computer,
| not a dumb client.
| layer8 wrote:
| Running high-powered AI locally is not a use case, it's
| something one has to provide use cases for.
| dustedcodes wrote:
| The word Copilot has been used for so much shit now by Microsoft
| that it's literally vomit inducing at this point. Say one more
| time Copilot and I'm gonna lose it.
| redml wrote:
| the last few years focused on short term conversion metrics for
| bing and edge have already done their damage, its going to be an
| uphill battle for them
| davidgerard wrote:
| meanwhile, Windows 11 is so awful that a game developer can find
| Linux to be a better desktop for game dev:
| https://brodybrooks.com/posts/2024-linuxgamedev/
| wslh wrote:
| VS Code optimized would be a better catch, just saying...
| TiredOfLife wrote:
| Arm 64 version of VS code came out 4 years ago
| tornadron wrote:
| reading all of these comments, reminded me of the old "Microsoft
| iPod" video, had to dig it up and still kinda relevant---it's 18
| years old (!!!)
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUXnJraKM3k
| mirkodrummer wrote:
| "New era" everywhere
| mirkodrummer wrote:
| Can I click the Copilot button and ask the os to debloat himself?
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