Latest news with #CopilotPlus
CNET
23-05-2025
- CNET
Note, Paint and Snip With AI: Microsoft Adds New Features, but Not for Everyone
Three longtime staples of the Microsoft ecosystem are getting artificial intelligence enhancements, but they won't necessarily be available to all. With the updates, Notepad users will be able to use generative AI to write text; Paint users now can create AI-generated stickers; and Snippet users can deploy a "perfect screenshot" feature. The catch, however, is that the Notepad AI update will only be available to Microsoft 365 or Copilot Pro subscribers and Paint's new AI features will only work on Copilot Plus PCs. Everyone will be able to use the new Snippet enhancements, however.
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Business Standard
23-05-2025
- Business Standard
HP OmniBook 5 review: Productivity-focused laptop with balanced performance
The Copilot Plus PC range in India is expanding beyond Qualcomm-powered PCs. Among the new entrants is the HP OmniBook 5, a 16-inch productivity-focused laptop powered by AMD's new Ryzen AI platform. Designed to take advantage of Microsoft's Copilot Plus features, it also comes with HP's own AI enhancements – all packed into a solid all-rounder that aims to balance performance, usability, and everyday value. But in a market increasingly crowded with AI-powered machines, does the OmniBook 5 manage to stand out? Let's find out: Design and ports The first thing you notice about the HP OmniBook 5 is its commanding presence, largely due to its expansive 16-inch display. While the laptop occupies a considerable footprint on a desk, it doesn't feel overly bulky. At 1.79 kg, it's certainly on the heavier side, but still manageable for daily commutes in a backpack. In terms of aesthetics, the OmniBook 5 sticks to HP's signature design language, featuring a minimalist aluminium chassis with a polished, rounded HP logo on the lid. The build mostly delivers a premium in-hand feel, though a few design choices – such as the contrasting grey plastic keyboard and matte plastic bezels around the display – slightly detract from the otherwise sleek finish. Up front, there's a fullHD IR webcam housed in the slightly thicker top bezel, which also includes a physical privacy shutter. Port selection is solid. On the left, the laptop features a USB Type-A port and a 3.5mm headphone jack. On the right, you'll find two USB-C ports (both supporting Power Delivery and DisplayPort 2.1), an HDMI 2.1 output, and a second USB Type-A port. While it's convenient that the laptop supports USB-C charging, having both USB-C ports placed on the same (right) side can feel a bit awkward, particularly for cable management during charging or docking. Display and audio The display is one of the standout features of the HP OmniBook 5. It sports a 16-inch IPS touchscreen with a 2K resolution (1920 x 1200), delivering sharp visuals and accurate colour reproduction. The panel also comes with an anti-glare coating, which does a good job of minimising reflections—especially useful in brightly lit office environments. What really sets the display apart is its generous size, offering ample screen real estate for multitasking. Managing multiple windows in split-screen mode feels seamless, making it ideal for productivity-focused workflows. However, the 60Hz refresh rate may feel limiting for users accustomed to smoother, high-refresh displays—particularly for tasks involving motion or media playback. On the audio front, the OmniBook 5 features dual bottom-firing speakers that provide standard laptop sound—adequate for casual listening but lacking depth or punch. While there's no support for Dolby Atmos, the inclusion of DTS:X Ultra adds a layer of spatial audio, enabling more immersive sound positioning in compatible content. Camera and microphones The HP OmniBook 5 is equipped with a 5MP IR webcam that supports 1080p video. The camera performs impressively well, capturing sharp facial details – even in low-light conditions. It also supports a comprehensive suite of AI-powered Windows Studio Effects, including automatic framing, eye contact correction, and background blur, enhancing the overall video call experience. For security and convenience, the webcam includes infrared hardware that enables Windows Hello facial recognition, allowing users to log in quickly and securely without needing a password. Audio input is handled by a pair of dual-array microphones, positioned on either side of the camera. While the mic quality isn't class-leading, it performs well in quiet environments, capturing voice clearly with decent noise suppression – making it suitable for video calls and online meetings. Keyboard and touchpad Coming to your working area, the HP OmniBook 5 features a full-sized backlit keyboard with a dedicated numeric keypad. The keys are well spaced, and the palm rest area provides ample room for your wrists, resulting in a comfortable typing experience. While the key travel isn't particularly deep, the tactile feedback is responsive and satisfying enough for extended use. The keyboard also offers a two-level backlight with a dedicated key to adjust the backlight timer. Notable additions include a dedicated function key to quickly access the emoji keyboard, and a customisable key that can be configured to launch apps like myHP or the Omen Gaming Hub, depending on the user's preferences. The touchpad is moderately sized and supports the full range of Windows 11 gesture controls. It features the same surface texture as the rest of the chassis, which may make it slightly hard to distinguish by touch—at least until you get accustomed to its placement. Despite that, it performs reliably for daily navigation and multitouch gestures. Performance The HP OmniBook 5 is powered by the AMD Ryzen AI 350 series processors. The unit I tested features the Ryzen AI 7, although a variant with Ryzen AI 5 is also available. It comes equipped with AMD Radeon 860M integrated graphics, 16GB of LPDDR5x RAM, and a 512GB SSD. In day-to-day use, the laptop performs flawlessly. Whether it's handling multiple Chrome tabs, managing split-screen multitasking, or navigating across apps, the system remains smooth and responsive. Over more than two weeks of daily use as my primary work machine, I encountered no noticeable stutter or lag. Sleep and wake times are also near-instant—closing the lid puts the device into sleep seamlessly, and it resumes instantly when reopened. While the OmniBook 5 lacks a dedicated GPU and isn't built for heavy gaming, it handles casual titles reasonably well. I tested F1 23 on the laptop, and it consistently delivered over 45 FPS on medium graphics settings. However, I did encounter some quirks with display scaling – the system defaults to 125 per cent scale on its large 16-inch display, which caused minor issues with full-screen rendering in certain games. Switching to 100 per cent scale manually resolved the issue and allowed for full-screen gameplay. Overall, the OmniBook 5 offers strong performance for productivity, light creative workloads, and casual gaming – making it a capable all-rounder for everyday use. Software and AI Thanks to its Ryzen AI processor with a dedicated NPU, the HP OmniBook 5 supports a range of Microsoft Copilot Plus AI features. Some of the standout capabilities include Studio Effects for video calls, CoCreate and Restyle tools in Paint and Photos for AI-assisted design tasks, and live captions that translate spoken content from audio or video into real-time English subtitles. That said, it's important to note that some newly introduced Copilot Plus features—such as Super Resolution in the Photos app and the AI-enhanced Windows Search—are currently not available on this device. These features remain exclusive, for now, to Qualcomm Snapdragon X-powered Copilot Plus PCs, though support for Intel and AMD-based systems is expected to roll out in future updates. To complement Microsoft's AI features, HP includes its own AI Companion app, which offers additional functionality. This tool allows users to create a personal knowledge library by uploading documents, then query the AI chatbot for insights based on that content. In testing, I uploaded a PDF version of a book and asked the assistant for an overview, followed by related questions. The chatbot performed efficiently, providing coherent summaries and relevant responses. Battery The HP OmniBook 5 is equipped with a 59Wh battery, which was able to comfortably power the laptop through a full workday of around 9 hours during my testing. However, by the end of the day, the battery was nearly depleted—so while it can last a typical work session, heavy users may want to keep the charger handy for longer stints. For charging, the laptop ships with a 65W USB-C adapter. HP claims that the device can charge up to 50 per cent in 30 minutes, and in real-world use, this held mostly true. I was able to charge the battery from 13 per cent to 80 per cent in roughly 45 minutes. Verdict The HP OmniBook 5, powered by the AMD Ryzen AI 7, is currently listed on the company's website for Rs 88,999, while the Ryzen AI 5 variant is available at Rs 77,999. At this price point, the laptop delivers a spacious 16-inch 2K touchscreen, making it well-suited for multitasking and productivity-heavy workflows. It also offers the performance to back it up, handling day-to-day tasks with ease. Although the design isn't the most premium in its class, the OmniBook 5 makes up for it with practical utility—including a solid port selection, a comfortable keyboard, and a reliable webcam that's more than adequate for video calls and conferencing. There are a few trade-offs: the battery life, while serviceable, isn't class-leading, and the 60Hz refresh rate may feel limiting for users accustomed to smoother displays. However, for those prioritising a large screen, responsive performance, and AI-ready capabilities, the OmniBook 5 stands out as a strong contender in the mid-range work laptop category.
CNET
22-05-2025
- CNET
Signal Will Black Out Windows Recall Screenshots to Preserve Privacy
The privacy-minded Signal messaging service is putting a blindfold on the prying eyes of the newly returned Windows Recall, Microsoft's AI-powered feature that will take a screenshot of whatever you're doing on your computer every few seconds to give your PC the "photographic memory" you never asked for. In a blog post Wednesday, Signal announced a new "screen security" feature for its Windows 11 app so that said screenshots will appear as a black screen when it tries to snap what you're doing, much like what happens if you try to take a screenshot of DRM content from Netflix and the like. Last year, Microsoft pulled Recall from new Copilot Plus PCs in response to backlash over security and privacy concerns, which continued to plague it in the ensuing months as Microsoft worked through revisions. Neither Signal nor Microsoft immediately responded to a request for comment.
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Business Standard
20-05-2025
- Business
- Business Standard
HP expands OmniBook 5 series with Snapdragon chip-powered AI PCs: Details
HP has expanded its OmniBook 5 line-up with the launch of new artificial intelligence (AI) PCs powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon X-series chips. Earlier last month, the company launched AI PCs in the OmniBook 5 line-up powered by AMD chips and now it has released Snapdragon X and Snapdragon X Plus processors-based Copilot Plus PCs. The newly launched HP OmniBook 5 AI PCs are shipped with a dedicated neural processing unit (NPU) that is claimed to deliver up to 45 trillion operations per second (TOPS) of computational power. HP OmniBook 5 powered by Snapdragon chips are offered in two display size options: 14-inch and 16-inch. The aforementioned laptops will be available for sale in the US region starting July, at the base price of $799. It is unclear at the moment when these AI PCs will be made available for purchase in India. HP OmniBook 5 Snapdragon series: Details HP has introduced its new OmniBook 5 series in two display variants—14-inch (OmniBook 5 14) and 16-inch (OmniBook 5 16). Both models are equipped with 2K (1920 x 1200) OLED displays that offer a peak brightness of 300 nits. The screens are TUV+Eyesafe Display certified to promise low blue-light emissions. Users can configure the laptops with up to an eight-core Snapdragon X Plus X1P-42-100 processor. This is paired with a Qualcomm Adreno GPU and up to 32GB of LPDDR5x RAM, along with storage options of up to 1TB via PCIe Gen4 NVMe SSDs. Branded as AI PCs, the new OmniBook 5 laptops are based on Microsoft's Copilot Plus platform, complete with a dedicated Copilot Plus key. Users gain access to AI-enhanced features such as Recall and Click-to-Do, which are currently in preview. Existing Windows features like Search and Paint's Cocreator have also been upgraded. Besides Copilot Plus PC features, it comes with a built-in HP AI Companion tool that offers local AI utilities for tasks such as document insights and performance tuning. For video calls and biometric login, both laptops feature a 1080p full HD IR webcam with Windows Hello support and a privacy shutter. Wireless connectivity is powered by Qualcomm's FastConnect 6900 modem, supporting Bluetooth 5.3 and Wi-Fi 6E. HP claims the OmniBook 5 series can drive either a single 5K external display or dual 4K monitors. For audio, the devices come with HP Audio Boost 2.0, dual speakers, and two integrated amplifiers that use AI to filter out background noise during video calls. Both variants are powered by a 59Wh triple-cell Lithium-ion polymer battery, which is claimed to charge up to 50 per cent in just 30 minutes with the included 65W adapter. HP OmniBook 5 Snapdragon series: Specifications
Digital Trends
19-05-2025
- Digital Trends
I tested Microsoft's controversial Recall tool. It evolved Windows for me.
Imagine a tool that takes an image of whatever appears on your computer's screen, saves it locally, and lets you access it all like a time machine. A magical looking glass for the computing past. That's essentially what Microsoft's Recall is all about. Yet, when it was first introduced, it stirred up a security storm. Microsoft pulled its release plans, fortified the security guardrails, and relaunched it a few weeks ago. This time around, Recall got a minor-but-amazingly practical upgrade. The best part? Instead of having you scrub through a long timeline of pictures, you can simply search through the entire activity history with words. Recommended Videos All those perks come at a steep processing price, both in terms of system resources and AI chops. So much that the only machines that support Recall need a Copilot+ branding and a processor launched within the past year, or so. The experience, however, is shockingly good. What is Recall? In Microsoft's words, Recall lets you 'quickly find and jump back into what you have seen before on your PC.' But before any of that happens, do keep in mind that it's an opt-in process, and when you enable it, you need to biometrically verify your identity (face unlock or fingerprint scan) to access the history. Next, your PC must meet the system requirements, too. For recall, you need a Copilot+ PC that has a dedicated AI chip offering over 40 TOPS output, 16GB of RAM, 256GB storage (of which 50GB must be free at the very minimum), active device encryption, and Windows Hello sign-in enabled. Recall is also tied deeply to your web browsing activity, and as such, it needs a compatible browser. Broadly, it works with Chromium-based options, such as Edge, Chrome, Opera, and Firefox. But why are browsers important when Recall is essentially saving your entire screen activity? First, it doesn't log screenshots of your incognito or private mode browsing. More importantly, you can limit it from saving screenshots of certain websites, using a system of filters. Think of your banking activities or secure communications. Likewise, you can also exclude certain apps from getting visually cataloged into a digital ledger. Those exceptions are extremely important, especially for folks who think the idea of a 'snapshot everything' tool is too risky. For the sake of privacy, I disabled Recall for WhatsApp to protect my personal chats and Adobe Reader, because I regularly handle confidential papers. You can choose to pause/resume Recall's snapshot gathering — briefly or permanently – from a dedicated shortcut in the system tray. How does it help me? Microsoft is selling the idea of Recall as a photographic memory for your PC. The idea is almost loathsome for any normal person who despises the concept of all their computing activity being recorded in the form of crisp snapshots. AI skeptics would absolutely run away from it. I, a man of forgetful ways and critic of poorly-designed apps, love this. My daily routine entails reading and writing words. Lots and lots of them. From long articles in Docs and notes in a tiny scratchpad to detailed pitches in email and daily chat with work colleagues, most of my waking time revolves around words. I believe I have a decent memory of events, but not so much with exact terms like 'Embargoed until May 16, 6AM PT / 9AM CET' or 'Microsoft meeting with John scheduled for April 9. Does 6AM ET or 5PM ET sound good?' It's not scientifically possible either to remember it all, even though I have a vague recollection of the main event. This is where Windows Recall and its image recognition come to the rescue in a very controlled fashion. I remember having a brief chat with a source named John, but couldn't quite remember where the transcripts were saved. I went back to Recall, looked up the name, and found just what I was looking for. From the looks of the snapshot, it was a browser tab, but I no longer had it active. This is where Recall offered two routes to recover it. First, it offered an outbound URL button to open the webpage in a browser. Alternatively, the Click To Do system lets me copy-paste the conversation directly from the saved snapshot. It even pulled information from a diagnostic test and directly guided me to Microsoft's official Get Help dashboard with a single click. That's impressive stuff. Depending on the content you have selected in a Recall snapshot, you will also see contextual actions such as summarizing or rewriting the text passage. You can directly choose to open it in Notepad, or pick from any app of your choice. For example, I was recently looking up a recipe and forgot to bookmark it. With Recall, I recovered it and directly moved the wall of text to Copilot, where it was neatly rewritten across headings and bullet points, like a cookbook. These impressive capabilities are driven by Optical Character Recognition (OCR), powered by the AI accelerator chip on a Windows machine. Everything you search in Recall is processed contextually, and the results you are shown are divided across text and images. The safety protocols Microsoft has also built a set of safety features around sensitive information. For example, it won't save details such as license, credit card, account, personal identification, tax filing, citizen registration, and license numbers. I tried two of my banking operators and a government website where my national identity card copies are accessible, and they didn't appear in the Recall snapshots. The list covers a healthy bunch of documents used across North America, Europe, and Asian countries, but it's not all-encompassing. For the sake of added precaution, you can open such web portals in incognito mode or private windows. Alternatively, you can simply set those websites within Recall's filters, and their snapshots will never be saved in the first place. Furthermore, the Recall app will give you an option to delete all images belonging to a certain website or app, in one go. Finally, there is an auto-delete function, where you can set the erase all snapshots at a cadence of 30, 60, 90, and 180 days. Of course, you can wipe the slate clean at your own discretion. Another huge respite for me? The poor search system in apps. From Slack to Google Drive, the search system in these platforms often leaves me frustrated. Plus, if you don't pay for a premium, the free user limits mean you lose your chat data due to the auto-delete protocols. Recall offers a fantastic way to not just overcome the poor search system in virtually any app that runs on your computer, but also does a much better job at it. It fared better at helping me find the right Docs file in a list of thousands that I have hoarded over the years and refuse to delete. Contextual understanding is a huge benefit here. For example, if you work across different apps, the search results at the top will let you narrow down the results. For example, you can only look for an item in Outlook if a match is found in the email client, among a bunch of other apps. This approach saves a lot of time. Why are experts spooked? Security experts are skeptical about the idea, and rightfully so. Nick Hyatt, Director of Threat Intelligence at Blackpoint Cyber, told me that Recall is a great idea, but also an awful one for a lot of reasons. He pointed out how the feature logs every single aspect of your digital life, from personal communications to files and what you look up on the web. The stakes are even higher for situations such as domestic abuse. 'A categorized, searchable database of every activity conducted by a user could literally result in people dying should attempts to get help be discovered,' Hyatt pointed out. Plus, the cyber threat ecosystem is an ever-evolving field, so the risks persist. 'Recall will be heavily targeted by attackers because of the goldmine of user data it contains,' Nate Warfield, Director of Threat Research & Intelligence at Eclypsium, told Digital Trends. 'The repercussions of being able to steal what is essentially a complete history of what a user does on their machine are near impossible to comprehend.' Jeff Williams, co-founder and CTO at Contrast Security, expressed confidence in the kind of security protections Microsoft has put in place for Recall. It is encrypted and lives behind biometric authentication. Even if you are running it in the background and randomly pull up the dashboard, you will only be able to see the timeline after going through the security check. 'For now, I don't see how this is much more risky than log files stored locally,' Williams pointed out, adding that only extensive penetration testing will reveal the real picture of Recall. For an average user like me, I believe Recall is a deeply rewarding feature. And yes, every layer of security that is added to the system is a welcome change. The risk of infostealers and malware with OCR capabilities will persist, but going past the Recall guardrails won't be easy, especially with safety features such as just-in-time decryption. You can always stay a step ahead and block Recall from logging your activity across specific websites and apps to be on the safe side. You can go with the auto-delete protocol, or even batch delete all snapshots from a certain website or app from Recall, in case you didn't already filter it out. In the wake of my tests, I found Recall to be one of the most practically rewarding AI features, right up there with Deep Research. What it really needs is to bring down the access walls (read: price), or wait for Copilot+ PCs to get a bit cheaper. The new 12-inch Microsoft Surface Pro is a great start, but more brands need to follow suit.
