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How to use the new Bing search engine powered by ChatGPT
By Hamish Hector published 1 day ago
Here's how to use the new Bing Chat search tool

Quick steps
Go to Bing.com
Click the Chat option
If you haven't got access to the new Bing, you'll have to join the waitlist first
Using the Bing app and making Bing your PC's default search engine should give you access to the new Bing quicker (according to Microsoft)
Microsoft has seemingly done the impossible: it’s finally got us to care about Bing by upgrading it with the ChatGPT AI. But the big question is, how do you use it?

Bing’s ChatGPT integration looks set to greatly improve the search results you get – rather than simply being fed a long list of links to web pages that might help you, Bing will apparently be able to chat with you, and feed you more in-depth responses that directly answer your queries.

Unfortunately, you might not be able to use it right now unless you have access to 'the new Bing'. Here's how to check if you can use the new Bing chat feature, and how to join the waiting list if you can't.

HOW TO USE THE NEW BING CHAT AI
Go to your internet browser of choice and head to bing.com.
Once you arrive at the Bing homepage click on Chat. It's at the top of the page, just off to the left, next to a line of search options including Images, Videos, and Shopping.
A red arrow point to the Chat option in Bing search

If you have access to the new Bing you can then go right ahead and ask its AI for help with various tasks. If you aren’t a new Bing user yet you should instead be greeted by a window that tells you “Chat mode is only available when you have access to the new Bing.” To gain access you’ll want to hit the “Join the waitlist” button, or “Learn more” if you want to look into the service more before you sign up.
When you click to join the waitlist you will need to sign into your Microsoft account (or create an account if you don’t have one). Once you’ve done this you’ll be all signed up. Now you just have to wait to be given access by Microsoft.
You can also download the Bing smartphone app and set Bing as your PC’s default search engine if you want to “get ahead in the line,” though neither of these seems to grant you instant access.

FINAL THOUGHTS
As we mentioned above, the main advantage of the Chat tool is that rather than simply spitting out a list of website links, it’ll be able to present the information in a more digestible way – and by chatting with Bing more you can refine its results to get exactly what you need.

Bing search results with ChatGPT integration

In one of the examples Microsoft provides, using Chat you can ask Bing to create a menu that will serve six people who have specific dietary requirements. In response, Bing can outline some recipes for starters, mains, and desserts that fit your specifications. You can then either get links for the recipes or refine the options; perhaps you have an ingredient you specifically want to use in your main course, or you want the dessert to be quick and easy to make – you can tell Bing this, and get new options that more closely match what you’re looking for.

We expect Chat won’t be perfect right away – as impressive AI tools are, they still make plenty of mistakes – but this exciting new option has the potential to shake up the search engine space. It might even see Google lose its number one spot – unless, that is, its own Bard AI can help it fend off the competition.

Microsoft is ready to make your Internet Explorer separation complete
By Cesar Cadenas published about 1 hour ago
Internet Windows will no longer work on Windows 10

If Internet Explorer (IE) wasn’t dead before, it most certainly is now. Microsoft is releasing a new Edge update that will permanently disable the older browser on most versions of Windows 10.

The following changes will go live as the patch rolls out over the course of the week. Visual references to Internet Explorer, like icons in the Start menu and taskbar, will remain for now. However, if you try to launch IE, the Edge browser will appear in its place alongside a new window informing you of the changes.

Be aware Microsoft plans to scrub Windows 10 clean of those references in an upcoming Windows security update scheduled for June 13 on Patch Tuesday. If you want to get rid of those references even earlier, you can download the preview “C” release scheduled for May 23. And if you’re worried about losing data, don’t be. In the Tech Community post announcing these changes, all browsing data will automatically move over to Edge.

Permanently killing off Internet Explorer will undoubtedly have widespread ramifications for companies slow on the uptake. To help them out, Microsoft is asking those organizations to open a support ticket and check out the Internet Explorer Retirement Adoption Kit.

All is not lost as the spirit of Internet Explorer will continue to live on. Of course, Microsoft Edge has IE Mode so users can visit legacy websites that won't function on newer browsers; although that feature also has an expiration date. Support for IE Mode (more specifically, the MSHTML rendering engine) is slated to end in 2029, so there’s still a while left to go. The company states it’ll remind people that the feature is ending in 2028 to give users enough time to prepare.

Specific versions of Windows 10 will continue to house Internet Explorer. Just to name a couple, you have the Chinese Government Edition and Windows 10 Enterprise multi-session, which coincidentally just had its end-of-service date set for May 9.

With that, we think it's safe to finally say goodbye to Internet Explorer after nearly two years of doing so – barring very specific versions that continue to shamble on. It’s hard to say exactly how many people will be affected by the sudden switch-off as Microsoft doesn’t publish those numbers. Looking at recent numbers from Stat Counter, Internet Explorer makes up less than a percent of the total browser market share worldwide.

Yes, that is still millions of people, but by and large, the world has moved on. The browser was great when the internet was young but it wasn't built to last or be used forever.

An AI-generated image has won a photo contest, and it's just the beginning
By Timothy Coleman published about 17 hours ago
The photography world needs to adapt to a new reality




Drone shot of a beach at sunrise with waves crashing around two surfers
A full-size version of Absolutely AI's image (Image credit: Absolutely AI)

It's the golden hour on a beach somewhere, and sun-kissed waves are crashing around two surfers as they venture into the ocean. The scene is captured in a captivating aerial photo taken with a drone by 'Jane Eykes', and the image, a cropped version of which you can see above, won a photography contest hosted by Australian photo retailer digiDirect.

But all is not as it seems. It was not Jane Eykes who took the photo, nor is this even a photograph at all, as we know it – it's an entirely AI-generated image created by Australian company Absolutely Ai (under that pseudonym).

Using Midjourney, an image-generation program in the mold of Dall-E, fed with with simple prompts such as ‘two surfers, sunrise, beautiful lighting, drone shot, wave crashing’, Absolutely Ai entered the resulting image into the competition as a test of how far AI-generated images have come. Pretty far, it turns out.

“The surfers in our image never existed. Neither does that particular beach or stretch of ocean,” Absolutely Ai says. “[the image is] made up of an infinite amount of pixels taken from infinite photographs that have been uploaded online over the years by anyone and everyone, and what you’re left with is a new, entirely convincing award winner.”

This story adds a new thread the snowballing conversation around AI in art. I spoke with Absolutely Ai's founder Jamie Sissons, an award-winning professional photographer – in the documentary genre, ironically – about the significance of AI-generated imagery for the organizers of and entrants to photography competitions, and for the wider photography world.

Just how good are AI-ggenerated images right now?
In the 24 hours after digiDirect shared the image as the winner of its ‘Summer Photo’-themed contest on Instagram, there were plenty of complimentary comments about it. Put simply, no one thought the image was suspect.

Absolutely Ai then publicly confessed its experiment to digiDirect and forwent the prize money, and the story made the news across Australia. Now that it's in the spotlight, the winning image has come under intense scrutiny, especially from photographers. That scrutiny is less about its aesthetic quality – it’s a lovely looking drone shot – but whether it is convincing or not.

“I say it is a convincing image because no one had the reason to think otherwise”, Sissons told me. “There are things that don’t look right with it – I’d say it’s over-saturated, the wave doesn’t quite crash the right way, the run-off, the lines through the waves aren’t quite right. But even when you’re having a good look at it, it’s a convincing image.”



Drone shot of a beach at sunrise with waves crashing around two surfers
(Image credit: Absolutely AI)

And that's really the point – 95% of people do not have the critical eye for image detail and the time and/or inclination to pore over an image in great detail. We swipe our screens, pause for a moment when an image catches our eye, double-tap to like it, then scroll some more.

But this story pushes another button, especially for photographers, because the image should have been spotted as a ‘fake’. After all, this was a photography contest, judged by photography professionals, that awards photographers for their creative endeavors, and the professionals were taken in by an image that took a few word prompts to create (and from a huge pool of photos from almost entirely unknown sources, which is a whole other issue).

And this is only a taste of what's to come. “These are still the very first iterations of what we will see from AI tech,” says Sissons. “A lot of these platforms and apps are still in testing phases, so in a year, two years, five years, who knows what it will look like?”

Should photographers be worried about AI-generated images?
AI images are not perfect. One known pitfall is hands – how many people do you know with six fingers? And AI can struggle to create a realistic image when the prompts are really specific' Jamie uses 'the queen playing badminton with a polar bear' as an example. Keep the prompts broad, however, and AI is already a frighteningly effective tool.

“For my winning image, the prompts were general and could be portrayed in a million different ways,” Sissons explains. “AI is also great at doing ideas: A lonely person – it will come up with something that really fits the bill. But if you go specific – a lonely child sitting on a bench, it’s raining, the bus is late – the more it will struggle. The wider you keep it, the better the result.”



AI generated black and white portrait of grandparents with grandchild
An AI-generated image of grandparents with a grandchild (Image credit: Absolutely AI)

General ideas presented through images are bread-and-butter marketing and social media for businesses with an insatiable appetite for new content. “There will still be a need for photographers to cover specific ideas, but the work around broader themes in photography is under threat,” adds Sissons. ” I’d be worried if I was one of the big stock libraries.”

Indeed, when it comes to stock libraries, Getty is fighting back, suing AI image generator Stable Diffusion for $1.8 trillion(opens in new tab)for what it believes is to be "brazen" intellectual property theft on a "staggering scale" after its watermark began appearing on Stability AI-generated images.

Man vs machine: the next chapter
Technological advances in photography – think digital photography, Adobe Photoshop and the iPhone – have historically been met with mixed, and often highly emotive, reactions, and it's no different with AI. I contacted the World Photography Organisation for comment about how AI-generated images could impact photography competitions, and received the following statement from Founder and CEO Scott Gray:

“As a medium photography has always been at the forefront: constantly adapting and evolving, it has a singular ability to transform itself and push boundaries. We are interested in photography as an art form, and within the Sony World Photography Awards we have our Creative Categories in the Professional and Open Competitions which welcome photographers to experiment and explore the dynamism of the medium.

“With technological advancements, a wider audience of creators are engaging with lens-based work and we look forward to seeing how this can expand the reach and impact of photography.”

Ai generated portrait of three muscular men

An AI-generated image of three muscular men (Image credit: Absolutely AI)
After Absolutely Ai revealed the true nature of its contest-wining image, digiDirect publicly acknowledged(opens in new tab) that it had indeed mistakenly awarded its prize to an AI-generated image, and chose a new winner.

For future photography contests, the photo retailer will request that winning entrants submit the raw image of their edited entries, which includes metadata about the camera used, as a guarantee of authenticity – this is already established practice for high-profile contests like the World Photography Organisation's Sony World Photography Awards.

Upping the ante, digiDirect announced a new competition that will accept photo or image submissions. The prize money has been increased, and an expert panel of photographers will judge the entries, without knowing if the submissions have been created by humans using a camera, or artificially. It’s man versus machine – and as a photographer, I know who I’m rooting for.


The End Is Nigh .. :greetings-clappingorange:

:laughing-rolling:

Microsoft calls for calm after Windows 11 driver update panic
By Darren Allan published 1 day ago

Microsoft assures us that driver update failures won’t harm the PC

Windows 11 has been annoying some users with driver update failures, and lots of them in some cases, but Microsoft has advised us that these errors are nothing to worry about.

If you recall, the bugged updates are affecting those on Windows 11 22H2 across a number of PCs – including Microsoft’s Surface devices in particular, going by reports – and they’re causing installation failure for a range of hardware drivers. Those failures are accompanied by an ‘0x80070103’ error, which isn’t very helpful, failing to inform the user of what has gone wrong.

The good news is that Microsoft has informed us of what’s happening here, and apparently there’s nothing to fret about. As Windows Latest(opens in new tab) reports, Microsoft posted an official response to the issue and noted that it “shouldn’t impact your general usage.”

The company explained that the error is showing because the driver update(s) in question have actually already been installed.

The only negative impact of this bug, then, is seeing the installation failure errors themselves, and there are no ramifications beyond that, so your PC should not be affected in the slightest. That’s the theory, anyway, although Microsoft does couch its above message with a ‘shouldn’t’ which leaves the tiniest room for a sliver of doubt, perhaps.

This has doubtless been a worrying one for some folks given the sheer volume of the errors in some of the reports we’ve seen. The illustrative example that turned up on Twitter when we wrote the original story on this showed no fewer than 15 driver update failures, and when you’re confronted with a small avalanche of apparent bugs like that, it’s bound to cause concern.

At least Microsoft has cleared things up now, and the official advice is simply to ignore the errors which should go away on their own. Windows Latest notes that Microsoft is continuing to monitor the situation.

If you’re really bothered by the errors continually popping up, you could always try the Windows Update troubleshooter, as this may banish the errors out of existence. This was Intel’s previous advice on the subject of this error message, you may recall.

Quite why Windows 11 is attempting to install drivers that are already on the PC is another question, and presumably this is one of those very odd bugs in the OS that creeps in from time to time. Hopefully it’ll creep out rather sharpish.


Hotmail's epic spam fail is the latest headache for Microsoft
By Christian Guyton published about 22 hours ago

Spam sandwich with a side of, uh, spam

According to recent reports, Microsoft Hotmail (now officially known as Microsoft Outlook) has been having some issues with its junk email filtering systems, opening the floodgates to allow heaps of spam into users’ inboxes.

Users have taken to Twitter to voice their frustrations, but it’s unclear right now what is causing the problem. While Microsoft has reached out to some affected individuals on social media with invitations to DM to discuss the issue, there’s yet to be an official response declaring this to be the fault of a specific known bug or glitch.

While we don’t have any exact numbers on those affected, we can confirm that the problem is widespread – members of the TechRadar team (myself included) have been getting bombarded with spam emails all day long.

Hotmail is now trending on Twitter too, which must be making some Microsoft execs particularly annoyed since these tweeters aren’t even using the proper name.

Microsoft has been having quite a year so far. The big-ticket event for the company was the reveal that the AI tool ChatGPT has been integrated into the Bing search engine (as well as the Microsoft Edge browser), but it took less than a week for the chatbot to start sending unhinged messages to users.

Now the tech giant is in trouble again, with users fuming at the torrent of dodgy emails landing in their inboxes. People are already posting memes about the supposed failure of the junk filter, with some speculating that somebody at Microsoft accidentally hit a switch they shouldn’t have – we feel the need to say that’s almost certainly not how it works, but it’s still an amusing thought.

In any case, there’s no proper fix available yet, but we’ll be sure to let you know when Microsoft sorts things out. Normally, Outlook/Hotmail allows you to set a specific level of junk filter protection; set it high and the automated system will aggressively target potential spam emails, although this does run the risk of sending actual legit emails to your junk folder.

Outlook (like most secure email providers) also has the option to mark specific domains as spam sources, though this is rarely a helpful tool since email spammers typically use domain generators to bypass such filters. The spam filter issues are disrupting Outlook’s ‘focused inbox’ setting too, which is supposed to only show high-importance emails.

We’ve reached out to Microsoft for comment and will update this story when we receive a response.


Microsoft wants more people to use this unloved Windows 11 feature
By Darren Allan published 5 days ago

Latest preview build is working to improve snap layouts

Windows 11 is getting better on the multi-tasking front courtesy of a new preview of the OS that comes with improvements for snap layouts, and some very useful changes in terms of accessibility, too.

Preview build 25300 is just out and puts a fresh spin on snap layouts for those in the Dev channel (the earliest test versions of Windows 11).

Microsoft has made it so that snap layouts now incorporate the icon of the app windows you’re currently using, so you can clearly see where that’s going to go in the snapped layout – and a descriptive title may be provided, too.

Only certain testers may see some of these new ideas, as Microsoft is still toying with the concepts in the early stages, and so wants feedback to ascertain how these changes are received.

Furthermore, Microsoft notes that it’s shortening the time you have to hover the cursor for the snap layouts flyout to appear when mousing over the restore button (top-right of the app’s window).

It’s also good to see new accessibility features, which are led by Microsoft making live captions available in more languages. To date, these have only been available in English (US), but now there are further English variants, and a bunch of other languages. Namely Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese (Brazil), and Spanish.

In addition to that, the voice typing feature now syncs its settings across all your devices, assuming you’ve signed into your Microsoft account on those pieces of hardware. This capability started rolling out in an earlier build, so some folks may have already seen it, but now all testers in the Dev channel will have access.

Elsewhere, there are the usual bug fixes and known issues, all of which are documented in the usual blog post(opens in new tab) from Microsoft.

Microsoft has not let up with its focus and continued work on accessibility with Windows 11, which is good to see, and automatically syncing voice typing (and control) settings will be an obvious time-saver for those who use this functionality. (Ourselves included, and we’ve found that it’s a really nifty implementation of voice dictation; not surprising as it’s based on Nuance’s Dragon tech, software that we’ve long used and admired).

The changes to snap layouts look like useful additions to make everything a little, er, snappier, with that decrease in time for the actual snap flyout to appear. Also worth noting is that separately on Twitter, @PhantomOfEarth (a Windows tester and leaker) spotted(opens in new tab) that a new ‘suggestions’ feature appears to be underway for snap layouts, though it’s not clear exactly how this will work. Watch this space…

Snapping is an underused feature in many respects, but those who do utilize snap layouts can be found singing considerable praises for the functionality, and perhaps those numbers will increase down the line – certainly if Microsoft has anything to do with it. If you’re interested, we’ve got a guide to snapping away on Windows 11.




Happy Ice Storms .. Again

:handgestures-thumbdown:

Google cans the Chrome Cleanup Tool – here's how you can protect your PC
By Allisa James published about 10 hours ago

Google retires the obsolete Chrome Cleanup Tool

Google is finally trashing one of its longtime Chrome browser applications, the Chrome Cleanup Tool, alongside another feature that scans Windows PCs and laptops for security threats.

According to The Verge, the Cleanup Tool will be removed upon the release of Chrome 111. After that, users will no longer be able to scan their PC with the tool through either the Safety Check feature or the browser’s ‘Reset settings and cleanup’ option in Windows.

Though it’s a useful tool, the Cleanup Tool was never meant to be a comprehensive one. There are plenty of other tools and applications that serve its function better like Google Safe Browsing and the built-in Chrome virus protection. And, according to Google, user reports of unwanted and malicious software have declined over the years. Apparently, only 0.06% of Cleanup Tool scans in February actually yielded software concerns.

Back in 2020, Google and cybersecurity firm ESET confirmed they would continue their partnership, which included working with Chrome Cleanup Tool. The technology was specifically employed by Google to inform users of potentially harmful software attempting to access their devices, with the Cleanup Tool then being used to rid the machine at risk of said software. Now that Google is ridding its browser of the tool, it's unclear if and where the partnership with ESET will go from here.

We reached out to Google for comment concerning the full reasons why the Cleanup Tool was retired and will let you know if and when we hear back.

Why retiring Cleanup Tool is not a bad thing
Google claims that the Chrome Cleanup Tool has performed over 80 million cleanups since its release in 2015, recovering systems affected by unexpected settings changes and removing extensions violating Google’s Unwanted Software Policy.

However, one of Google’s main reasons for finally retiring the program — other than due to overlap with other applications that perform the same function — is that new phishing and malware trends continue to emerge and evolve. Malicious software, judging by the less than one percent statistic the tech giant provided, is simply not the same threat as it was before and it makes sense to focus budget and time on enhancing and maintaining security measures that focus on current trends.

Automatic Safe Browsing, anti-malware tools, and enhanced system protections, as well as Adblock and other browser extensions, are clearly more than capable of protecting your Windows machine from threats. It’s vital that security measures evolve with the times, and that we lay to rest programs that are effectively obsolete.

:x

Android 14: latest news, rumors and everything we know so far
By James Rogerson published about 17 hours ago

Android 14 is on the way and already in preview


With each new year we get a new version of Android, and this year it’s Android 14’s turn. So you can expect a major upgrade to your phone, with new features and potentially a new look, once Android 14 – or Android Upside Down Cake as it’s codenamed – rolls out.

We’ve probably got a while to wait until it does formally arrive, but the operating system update has already been announced, and a Developer Preview of it is now available. We’re expecting that public betas will likely launch soon too, and with them, we'll likely learn a lot more about what’s in store.

Below, you’ll find details of when Android 14 might launch in both beta and finished forms, along with all the other information we have about Android 14 so far; both rumored and confirmed. As soon as we hear anything new we’ll also add it to this article, so check back soon for updates.

Cut to the chase

What is it? The next version of Android
When is it out? Probably August or September
How much will it cost? It will be a free upgrade

Continues here >> https://www.techradar.com/news/android-14

AMD motherboards are about to get a massive memory upgrade
By John Loeffler published about 11 hours ago

We'll soon be freed from the tyranny of neat binary numbers


AMD motherboards are about to get a major BIOS update that will introduce 24GB and 48GB DDR5 RAM module support, upended decades of memory capacity allocation, and break the brains of math nerds everywhere.

Traditional RAM modules have long followed the power of 2s capacity scheme, so 2GB, 4GB, 8GB, 16GB, 32GB, and so on. This is tied to the way computers store data using binary numbers — the classical 0s and 1s of the digital age — but this has long been more of a convention for memory capacity than it is some kind of hard requirement. Some of the best SSDs have capacities of 500GB, which is 12GB less than the clean 512GB you'd get from a pure binary representation.

Of course, it's always been possible to combine some RAM modules to get 12GB, 24GB, and such of total system memory, but it has rarely been offered on a single RAM module outside of high-end workstation PCs. Now, as our buddies at Tom's Hardware(opens in new tab) note, the possibilities for some truly epic PC builds are possible like a small-form-factor PC build with a mini-ATX board with two 48GB DDR5 modules for 96GB of memory.

More memory is always the best upgrade you can make for your PC
While the best processor and the best graphics card money can buy are going to have your PC humming along nicely, for most people the single best upgrade you can make to your PC is to add more memory.

The best RAM nowadays offers fantastic speed that can free up bottlenecks in your everyday workflows better than pretty much any other upgrade. Every program needs memory to run, and the more memory you have, the more room they have to operate without getting bogged down by limits placed on them by your OS.

Additionally, most motherboards only have four DIMM slots to put the memory into, and some smaller boards only have two slots available. That means that being able to cram more memory into a single slot is a huge deal since it raises the upper limit of what's possible on any given system.

With four 48GB DDR5 RAM modules, you can get a staggering 192GB RAM, which is professional workstation levels of memory on a consumer motherboard.

While most people will never need that much, two 24GB modules will pretty much eliminate any system latency caused by insufficient memory that users will experience for the rest of the decade (two 24GB modules will be better than a single 48GB module due to the nature of dual-channel memory).

All in all, this is a great move by AMD and the fact that nobody has to upgrade from their existing AM5 motherboards is huge.

:confusion-shrug:

AMD motherboards are about to get a massive memory upgrade
By John Loeffler published about 11 hours ago

We'll soon be freed from the tyranny of neat binary numbers


AMD motherboards are about to get a major BIOS update that will introduce 24GB and 48GB DDR5 RAM module support, upended decades of memory capacity allocation, and break the brains of math nerds everywhere.

Traditional RAM modules have long followed the power of 2s capacity scheme, so 2GB, 4GB, 8GB, 16GB, 32GB, and so on. This is tied to the way computers store data using binary numbers — the classical 0s and 1s of the digital age — but this has long been more of a convention for memory capacity than it is some kind of hard requirement. Some of the best SSDs have capacities of 500GB, which is 12GB less than the clean 512GB you'd get from a pure binary representation.

Of course, it's always been possible to combine some RAM modules to get 12GB, 24GB, and such of total system memory, but it has rarely been offered on a single RAM module outside of high-end workstation PCs. Now, as our buddies at Tom's Hardware(opens in new tab) note, the possibilities for some truly epic PC builds are possible like a small-form-factor PC build with a mini-ATX board with two 48GB DDR5 modules for 96GB of memory.

More memory is always the best upgrade you can make for your PC
While the best processor and the best graphics card money can buy are going to have your PC humming along nicely, for most people the single best upgrade you can make to your PC is to add more memory.

The best RAM nowadays offers fantastic speed that can free up bottlenecks in your everyday workflows better than pretty much any other upgrade. Every program needs memory to run, and the more memory you have, the more room they have to operate without getting bogged down by limits placed on them by your OS.

Additionally, most motherboards only have four DIMM slots to put the memory into, and some smaller boards only have two slots available. That means that being able to cram more memory into a single slot is a huge deal since it raises the upper limit of what's possible on any given system.

With four 48GB DDR5 RAM modules, you can get a staggering 192GB RAM, which is professional workstation levels of memory on a consumer motherboard.

While most people will never need that much, two 24GB modules will pretty much eliminate any system latency caused by insufficient memory that users will experience for the rest of the decade (two 24GB modules will be better than a single 48GB module due to the nature of dual-channel memory).

All in all, this is a great move by AMD and the fact that nobody has to upgrade from their existing AM5 motherboards is huge.

The world’s fastest x86 CPU won’t be coming to your next laptop - not yet, anyway
By Desire Athow published about 4 hours ago

AMD spills beans on what’s next, and there's some big news on the way


AMD has had, by any metrics, quite a good period of late, with the tech company, once referred to as Chipzilla, surpass its archrival Intel in terms of market capitalization.

At the time of writing, AMD is worth about a third more than its nemesis at just over $133 billion, and that’s despite a lukewarm, post-COVID hangover that saw other many hardware-first tech companies suffer from a perfect storm.

The cost of living crisis, disruption in global supply chains, rising tensions between China and the US and of course, the war between Russia and Ukraine means that fewer people are buying laptops and desktops and hyperscalers are increasingly lengthening the average lifecycle of their server parks. All this has a knock off effect on spending and revenue for AMD and Intel.

With that backdrop in mind, I spoke to Matthew Unangst, senior director for the company's commercial client PC and workstation business unit to find out more about AMD’s plans for 2023 and beyond.

(Note that the interview was carried out at the end of January 2023 and things may have changed in the meantime.)

1. Matt, let’s start by finding out what's your outlook for 2023 in terms of opportunities and headwinds?

Over the next several years we see one of our largest growth opportunities in AI, which is in the early stage of transforming virtually every industry, service and product. We expect AI adoption will accelerate significantly over the coming year and are incredibly excited about leveraging our broad portfolio of CPUs, GPUs, and adaptive accelerators, in combination with our software expertise, to deliver differentiated solution that can address the full spectrum of AI needs in training and inference across cloud, edge, and client. Our new Ryzen 7040 mobile processors represent the first integration of our AI technology into processors, and we are working with the entire ecosystem to enable and deliver new, exciting experiences!

2. Post-COVID, has AMD seen a resurgence of the business desktop PC market, or are business laptops the way to go in a hybrid world?

We have more than 250 ultrathin, gaming and commercial notebook design wins spanning our full family of Ryzen 7000 series processors on-track to launch this year, an increase of 25 percent year-over-year, with the first notebooks planned to go on-sale in February (ed: they’re already here). Specific to desktops, while we did see a dip in the overall desktop business during COVID, there continues to be strong demand for business desktops, and we expect that to continue into the future. As far as how the hybrid world shapes our computing needs, we certainly see that business laptops are the ideal solution for many. But we expect desktops to continue to be a valuable tool, depending on the specific use case or preference of the user.

3. Let's talk about Threadripper, shall we? Your competitor lumps its workstation SKU with its server CPU family. Why did AMD choose to do the opposite (i.e. shouldn’t it be called EPYC Threadripper).

The Ryzen Threadripper PRO processors are optimized for professional workstation workloads, while AMD EPYC processors are optimized for server workloads. Whilst they share similar features, there are differences in things like clock speeds, TDP, and socket types. Ultimately, our Threadripper PRO processor products deliver a leading set of capabilities, and we work closely with our customers to deliver the right solutions for their needs, across our entire Ryzen, Ryzen Threadripper, and EPYC processor portfolio.

4. Many analysts have claimed that 2023 will be the worst year for global PC shipments for a decade. What trends impacting the commercial PC (desktop/laptop) and workstation market can you foresee from your vantage point?

As we have addressed in our earnings calls, the industry is working through an inventory correction within the PC industry. But as we look forward, the new demands for AI integration into applications will drive new demand for PC products, and we expect a strong continued demand in areas around High Performance Computing, and continued investments in products that improve the productivity of companies' workforces. Our Ryzen and Ryzen Threadripper PRO processor products are well positioned to take advantage of those trends.

5. Why is it taking so long for Threadripper to come to the world of mobile workstations? I know it is about TDP but surely it would make sense to have a rival to Intel’s Xeon?

We launched our latest generation Ryzen 7000 series notebook processors earlier in January, which includes our 16-core, 32-threads Ryzen 9 7945HX mobile processor (ed: Remember that this processor supports ECC RAM, albeit only expensive DDR5 models). This processor offers up to 22% faster single-threaded performance and up to an incredible 123% faster multithreaded performance over the Ryzen 6900HX CPU to deliver a huge leap in what’s possible for mobile creators. For now, the Ryzen Threadripper PRO processor is only offered in Professional Pedestal workstations (ed: So no underclocked version of the Threadripper PRO 5995WX for now, unless you want a transportable laptop).

6. There's exactly two Threadripper Pro products available from the top three workstation vendors globally. HP has yet to release one despite a clear performance advantage. What is AMD doing to convince its biggest partners to launch more TRP products beyond the lone halo product.

AMD has always been watching the ever-evolving desktop & workstation processor market and will continue to do so. We expect to have more partners introduce AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 5000WX processor-based platforms.

7. Peering into your crystal ball, how do you see tech in (a) commercial/enterprise computing (b) workstation evolve (e.g. heterogeneity, unified memory, ubiquitous GPU etc)

As we look at the market, we expect AI to become pervasive, and increasingly become a part of the everyday computing experience, whether in the cloud, at the edge, or on the endpoint device. We believe we are just at the beginning of delivering the experiences and enabling increases in productivity with this technology, and will continue to evolve and expand our capabilities in AI. This is true in both the Commercial PC space, as well as workstation, and even Server. While the specific use cases and workloads will differ depending on the specific product, the utilization of AI acceleration will be seen across the board.

Windows 11 updates are coming to make your PC more stable
By Allisa James published about 9 hours ago

Plenty of fixes and improvements coming soon

Insiders in the Microsoft Windows 11 Release Preview Channel will be treated to a new Windows 11 update that focuses on stability rather than new features, according to an official Windows blog post.

A brand new update for the OS, called Windows 11 Build 22000.1757 (KB5023774), has been shipped out to those in the Release Preview Channel, which consists of a lengthy list of stability improvements. This channel is considered the most stable of the Insider build channels, which then follows why the latest update focuses on bug fixes rather than rolling out brand-new features.

Some of the stability improvements include fixes to various program applications, Notepad, Microsoft PowerPoint, Remote Procedure Call Service, Windows Search, some printers including USB ones, and even Xbox subscribers. It seems this update runs the full gamut of issues and affected software, but then again it’s never a bad thing to be thorough.

If you’re looking for more radical and experimental changes, however, then Microsoft’s brand new Canary Channel might be for you. Recently, Canary has been testing new code that could be the foundation for the upcoming Windows 12 release. And Microsoft has been sending out free flash drives to some testers with what’s very likely to be an early Windows 12 build. There have been plenty of rumors and leaks surrounding the new operating system, which was further exacerbated by Intel leaking the name by accident.

For the full list of updates, be sure to check out the patch notes from Microsoft here.

Microsoft pushes down stealth updates too
Microsoft makes plenty of changes to Windows 11 publicly and out in the open, including the introduction of brand-new features to the OS and to the Edge browser. One such feature was the introduction and integration of ChatGTP to the browser, while another will upscale low-resolution videos right in the browser itself.

Lately, Microsoft has been adding in stealth features or making changes to OS settings without telling users upfront. In beta build 2262x, the ‘Recommend’ section in the Start menu was renamed to ‘For you’ but details of this were hidden in testing. The Voice Access commands help page was completely overhauled to actually be functional and presence-sensing privacy settings were added, but none of this was listed in the preview build notes.

Then there was the recent discovery that Windows was stealth-nerfing graphics cards by turning back on a security feature in a recent OS update – even if users previously disabled it. That feature is called VBS (Virtualization Based Security) and it can interfere with GPUs, even the RTX 4090, causing performance and framerate decreases.