Latest news with #DavidNield
WIRED
17-05-2025
- WIRED
How to Reduce the Battery Drain Caused by Your Web Browser
May 17, 2025 8:00 AM Your browser can suck up a lot of battery life if you're not careful. Tweak those settings to surf on your laptop longer. Photo-Illustration:When you're using your laptop away from its charging cable, every bit of battery life matters—it can make the difference between just managing to finish that important email or essay, or not. One of the ways you can make sure you eke out as much time between charges as possible is to look at your browser settings. The web browser is most probably where you're going to spend most of your computing time, so any battery life savings you can make here will quickly add up. There are a number of tricks to try to reduce the energy demands from loading up all those web pages, videos, social media feeds, and web apps. Applying just one or two of these tricks—together with some more general battery-saving tips—can give you a significant boost in battery life and make sure you get to the end of the working day without needing a recharge. Google Chrome You can enable Energy Saver in Chrome's settings. Courtesy of David Nield Google Chrome comes with a dedicated Energy Saver setting, which turns off some background tasks to reduce the load on your laptop. Browsing might be slightly slower in some circumstances, but there's a positive trade-off in battery life. Click the three dots in the top-right corner of any Chrome tab, then choose Settings > Performance. You can toggle the Energy Saver feature on and off from this screen. You can also instruct Chrome to turn it on automatically, either whenever your laptop is unplugged or whenever your laptop's battery life drops below 20 percent. There's another toggle switch here: Memory Saver. Enabling this reduces the memory load of inactive tabs until you switch back to them. While it's not as directly related to battery life as Energy Saver, it can also reduce the demands of Chrome on your system. Microsoft Edge You have two levels of Efficiency Mode to choose between. Courtesy of David Nield Microsoft Edge has something similar to Chrome's Energy Saver in the form of Efficiency Mode. Its primary function is to snooze inactive tabs that you've haven't visited in a while, which then means Edge is hogging fewer system resources, and from there drawing less energy from the battery. Click the three dots in the top-right corner of any Edge tab, then click Settings. Open the System and Performance tab, and you'll see an Efficiency Mode toggle switch. Alongside it are some related settings, including how long Edge should wait before putting tabs to sleep, and whether or not you want Efficiency Mode to kick in automatically whenever your laptop is running on battery power. There's also a Maximum savings option you can switch to, if you want to prioritize battery life savings over everything else. Edge doesn't specify exactly what additional actions are taken, but notes that "you may experience some visible slowdowns" when browsing if you turn on Maximum savings. Opera Opera comes with a built-in Battery Saver feature. Courtesy of David Nield The Opera browser isn't quite as well known as Chrome or Edge, but it does offer plenty of useful features, including a handy Battery Saver mode. With this mode enabled, the browser is more selective when it comes to allowing background tasks to run. Opera says you can expect up to an hour of extra battery life with Battery Saver enabled. You can find it on Windows by clicking the Opera button (a red O) in the top-left corner of the browser, then choosing Settings. On macOS, open the Opera menu, then pick Settings. The Battery Saver toggle switch is under the Features tab, and you can also opt to have the mode kick in automatically whenever you're on battery power, or whenever your laptop's battery drops below a certain point. Farther down the same settings screen is a Snooze inactive tabs to save memory toggle switch: While this isn't strictly part of the Battery Saver feature, it can help reduce the demands of the browser a little more. Other Browsers You can also turn on dark mode for certain browsers, including Firefox. Courtesy of David Nield There are no dedicated battery saving modes in the other popular web browsers—perhaps their developers would rather not fess up to the issue of significant battery drain—but there are still a couple of ways you can maximize battery life while navigating the web, and they apply to pretty much any browser you might use. First and foremost, keep your open tabs to a minimum. Every tab your browser has to open adds to the work it has to do and the demands on your laptop's battery. If you find you're not great at managing this yourself, enlist the help of an extension to organize your tabs: something like Tab Stash for Firefox or OneTab for Chrome. Switching to dark mode in your browser can also help cut down on the energy use of your display. By default, browsers will usually follow the lead of your operating system when choosing how to display content, but several browsers have a separate setting too. In Firefox, for example, click the three-line menu button (top right) in Windows or the Firefox menu in macOS, then choose Settings to find Automatic, Light, and Dark options.
WIRED
27-04-2025
- WIRED
How To Use Gemini AI To Summarize YouTube Videos
Looking for the highlights of a lengthy YouTube video? This Gemini feature could be worth a try. Photograph:The big AI companies are continually promising that their tech will save us time and boost our productivity—albeit with big questions about copyright abuse, illegal content, and skyrocketing energy use hanging rather inconveniently around in the background. But if you're looking to put more time back into your busy schedule, AI can be a useful tool, and maybe in some ways you haven't even thought about. One of those might be summarizing YouTube videos. AI has already shown it can be a fairly reliable summarizer (although not always ), and if you just need to extract a few salient points from a series of videos that are 15 or 30 minutes long, the time saved can quickly add up. Google Gemini has a new AI model, Gemini 2.0 Flash Thinking Experimental, which can plug into Google apps including Google Search, Google Maps, and YouTube. The model is available to all Gemini users, paying or not, and we tested it out on a selection of clips using Gemini's web interface. How to Find the Feature The new model is available to all Gemini users. Photograph: David Nield If you open up Gemini on the web, start a new chat, and go to the model picker in the top left corner, you should see one labeled 2.0 Flash Thinking (experimental). This is the one with the Google app connections built in, though most of the time you need to specify which app you want to use (when looking up a place on Google Maps, for instance). The model isn't difficult to find in the Gemini apps for Android or iOS either: If you tap the drop-down menu at the top of a new conversation (which should be labeled with the model you're currently using), you'll see the 2.0 Flash Thinking (experimental) option available for selection. You'll probably find the feature a little easier to use on the web, where you can drag YouTube URLs between browser tabs for analysis, but you can get to it on mobile too. Besides analyzing YouTube videos, you can search for new content: Try asking for YouTube for videos about baseball highlights or science explainers, for example. Summarize Match Highlights Gemini didn't get everything right about Super Bowl LIX. Photograph: David Nield To begin with, we put Gemini to work on a highlights package of last year's Super Bowl LIX highlights—almost 20 minutes of action—to see what the AI would make of it. To begin with we just asked 'What's happening in this game?' and in a few seconds we had details of the teams and who won (which the AI got right), and some key highlights. A follow-up question about the final score was answered correctly, but Gemini got the name of the scorer of the first touchdown wrong: The AI suggested it was Johan Dotson. Dotson was shown getting a touchdown in the highlights with the scores at 0-0, but it was ruled out—an example of the nuances that AI doesn't necessarily pick up on. Gemini did successfully identify when the Kansas City Chiefs got their first points, and even included a timestamp linking straight to the touchdown in the YouTube clip. It also got the name of the scorer right. It seems Gemini is heavily reliant on the commentary for sports clips, which isn't surprising. Summarize Video Contents The AI can pick out video details—if they're mentioned in the audio. Photograph: David Nield Next, we tried putting Gemini up against a behind-the-scenes featurette for The Grand Budapest Hotel, directed by Wes Anderson. The clip runs to four-and-a-half minutes, and Gemini fired back some replies almost instantly: It identified the name of the film being talked about, and the main beats of the clip's narrative. However, it's all reliant on the audio (or the transcript) again—there doesn't seem to be any analysis of the actual video contents. The AI couldn't say who the talking heads were in the video, even though their names were shown on screen, and wasn't able to say who the director was (even though this was also mentioned in the video description). On the plus side, Gemini did do an impressive job of summing up the audio of the video. It correctly identified some of the filmmaking challenges that were mentioned throughout, and provided timestamps to them — from looking for a set to represent the Grand Budapest, to filling it with extras. Summarize Interviews Gemini can provide timestamps for the specified video. Photograph: David Nield Finally, we tried Google Gemini with an interview: Channel 4 in the UK speaking to Charlie Brooker and Siena Kelly about the latest series of Black Mirror (perhaps appropriate for an article on AI). Gemini proved itself very capable at picking out the talking points, and adding timestamps, though of course the whole video is mostly talking. Again though, there's no context about anything outside of the audio or the transcript. Gemini AI couldn't say where the interview took place, or how the participants were acting, or anything else about the visuals of the video—which is worth bearing in mind if you use it yourself. For videos where the answers you want are in the audio of a YouTube video, and its associated transcript, Gemini works really well at summarizing and providing accurate answers (provided the commentators mention when a touchdown is ruled out, as well as when one is scored). For any kind of visual information, you're still going to have to watch the video yourself.
WIRED
15-04-2025
- WIRED
There's AI Inside Windows Paint and Notepad Now. Here's How to Use It
AI tools have arrived in two of the most basic and long-serving Windows utilities. Here's what they do and how you can turn them off if you prefer. Tech companies aren't holding back when it comes to stuffing artificial intelligence capabilities into every app and piece of hardware they can, and even the most basic software tools are getting their own AI upgrades—such as the long-serving Windows utilities Paint and Notepad. These two programs cover the two main bases of the generative AI revolution: image generation and text generation. If you need some AI-powered assistance in these venerable Windows apps, here's how you can access it. AI in Windows Paint Copilot will imagine anything you want in Paint. Courtesy of David Nield Windows Paint has traditionally stuck to the basics when it comes to image creation and image editing, but if you load up the application in Windows now, you'll see a Copilot button that leads you to three AI options: Image Creator (for generating new images), Generative Erase (for erasing parts of an image), and Remove Background (for taking away the background behind the main subject in an image). Choose Image Creator from the list, and you get a text prompt box you can use to describe what you want to see: anything from a giraffe on a beach to a spaceship in the shape of a pineapple. The more detail you include in your prompt, the better the match is likely to be. When your prompt is done, pick an image style from the drop-down menu, and click Create—then choose one of the AI generated thumbnails to apply it to the current image. Pick Generative Erase from the Copilot menu, and you can wipe objects and people out of your picture—maybe a pole that's ruining a view, for example. Select the + (plus) button to add to the selection, and the - (minus) button to take away from it, and use the slider on the left to change the size of your selection brush. When the selection is complete, click Apply—Paint will try to remove the selection using the surrounding pixels as clues for what the background should look like. Finally, there's the Remove Background option from the Copilot menu. This simply turns everything white, besides the main subject of your image—there are no tools or settings to play around with in this case. As you would expect, it works better for images where the main subject is more obvious, but the results can be impressive—and can save you a lot of manual image editing time. Note that while Generative Erase and Remove Background can be used for free, Image Creator uses up AI credits associated with your Microsoft account. You can't buy these separately, they come as part of a subscription to Microsoft 365 or Copilot Pro subscriptions, so use them wisely. You can read more about AI credits and how they work here. AI in Windows Notepad Get some Copilot help with your compositions in Notepad. Courtesy of David Nield Notepad is perhaps better known as a code editor than a word processor, but in recent years Microsoft has added more features in the way of formatting and auto-save. If you open it in Windows, you'll see these features as well as a Copilot button in the top-right corner of the interface. You can't use Copilot inside Notepad to generate new text, as you can in Copilot on the web or in other tools like ChatGPT. Instead, the feature lets you rewrite and tweak what you've already written—so before you click on the Copilot button, you need to put some text into Notepad and then select it. With the selection made, click the Copilot button, and you get a range of options: Make shorter and Make longer can obviously be used to change the length of the selected text, and you've also got a Change tone option if you want to make the text more inspirational, formal, casual, or humorous. There's also Change format, which lets you put the selected text into a different structure: A list, marketing speak, or poetry, for example. You can also choose Rewrite from this menu for a more comprehensive set of options—and to see previews of the rewritten text before it's applied. A new pop-up window appears, giving you more options for changing the length, tone, and format. You also get different variations to choose between in each case. When you find something you like, click Replace to swap it out for the existing text. At the time of writing, it seems Notepad is giving everyone a few AI-powered rewrites for free—but as with Image Creator in Paint, you're going to need some AI credits with a Microsoft 365 or Copilot Pro subscription to use this extensively. Of course, if you'd rather not use these AI tools and don't want to see the Copilot button hanging around, you can turn it off altogether: Click the gear icon (top right), then turn off the Copilot toggle switch.
WIRED
04-04-2025
- WIRED
Opera's Latest Browser Is Here to Make Your Internet Experience Less Stressful
Apr 4, 2025 8:00 AM Stay well on the web with Opera Air, a browser that plays soothing ambient music and encourages you to take breaks. It's all too easy to lose time on the internet. Scrolling through social media, falling down algorithm-led rabbit holes on YouTube, and clicking on bad news story after bad news story. We know too much screen time is bad for us, but acknowledging the problem and doing something about it are two different things. Browser maker Opera has an idea for cultivating a healthier relationship with the web and our computers, and it's a new browser called Opera Air. Now available for Windows and macOS, its reason for being is to 'actively improve your well-being' by encouraging breaks, exercises, and meditations. The Opera Air Ethos When it comes to improving your user experience, Opera Air starts with the basic building blocks of the browser interface: It's all round corners and frosted glass effects, and Opera itself describes it as a "minimalist Scandinavian design." (Opera is headquartered in Oslo, Norway.) It's all designed to be as relaxing and as gentle as possible—though the amount of relaxation you'll feel does still to some extent depend on the sites you choose to look at. "The web is beautiful, but it can be chaotic and overwhelming," says Mohamed Salah, the senior director of product at Opera. "We decided to look at science-backed ways to help our users navigate it in a way that makes them feel and function better." Even the wallpaper inside the browser is designed to be calming. Courtesy of David Nield To that end you've got a choice of background sounds and a choice of exercises to work with, both easily accessible from the main browsing screen. You can also set up reminders to take a break at regular intervals, and it's likely Opera will add more over time—the current version of the browser is labeled 'early access.' To research the need for a calming tool like Opera Air, the company conducted a survey of 7,000 people across seven countries. It found that 58 percent of respondents 'sometimes feel overwhelmed or stressed while browsing the web,' while 83 percent of respondents said they would like a 'web browser made them feel better as they went about their day.' Running Opera Air The initial setup for Opera Air won't take you long to work through. You'll need to choose a wallpaper backdrop, and there are a variety of soothing images and looping videos to pick from. You're also able to import data such as bookmarks and browsing history from another browser. After that, you get to the Speed Dial quick links page borrowed from the main Opera browser. If you've used Opera before, you'll notice some of the browser's distinctive features: The choice of workspaces on the left, for example, where you can separate groups of tabs, and the integrations with the Aria AI, Facebook Messenger, and WhatsApp. Boosts are customized sounds to help you work. Courtesy of David Nield The two key well-being tools in Opera Air are on the left sidebar. Explore Boosts (the flower icon) leads you to a series of binaural background beats, with names like Emotional Navigation, Focused Calm, and Creativity Boost. Pick the one that matches the mood you're looking for. For each selection, you can click the three dots to tweak the mix. You're able to choose the frequency of the beats, the ambient sound, and the music track that all work together to produce the sounds you're listening to. (There are a multitude of combinations to go through.) You can also set a fixed time for the boost audio before clicking Start. Breaks are guided exercises you can use regularly. Courtesy of David Nield The other main feature here is Take a Break, which is the icon that looks like three wavy lines. You've got four options: Breathing, Neck Exercise, Meditation, and Full Body Scan (which "tunes you into your body and surroundings"). You'll be talked through each step of each exercise, and they take between three and 15 minutes to complete. Click the three dots to the top right of the Take a Break screen and you can pick the voice you want to use for the narration. You can also turn break reminders on or off; Opera Air can nudge you to take some time away from the web at regular intervals of between 45 and 180 minutes. What's more, if you have a webcam, there's the option to use it for some of the exercises to make sure you're stretching correctly. Opera doesn't make any specific reference to a privacy policy when it comes to this feature, but we can't see any indication that any kind of permanent recordings are made, and generally speaking, Opera is a privacy-focused browser.
WIRED
31-03-2025
- WIRED
ChatGPT's Projects Feature Brings Order to Your AI Chaos
Mar 31, 2025 7:00 AM Subscribers can now organize their conversations with the AI assistant into neat little folders. Photo-Illustration:OpenAI isn't slowing down when it comes to building extra functions and add-ons into its ChatGPT AI bot, and one of the newest features to roll out—exclusive to paying users, for now—is ChatGPT Projects. This is a major step forward for keeping conversations and data organized in ChatGPT: It gives you the ability to put your discussions with ChatGPT in separate spaces, like folders in a filing cabinet, complete with uploaded documents, web searches, custom instructions, and whatever else you've added. You can have one project for researching birthday present ideas, for example, and one for analyzing the current state of the movie industry. (Bear in mind, as always, that generative AI can get things wrong.) It's up to you how you use them, but Projects can make a genuine difference to workflows in ChatGPT. Get Started With ChatGPT Projects Projects can include conversations, files, and instructions. David Nield The instructions here are for the ChatGPT web app, though projects are also available through the navigation pane in the ChatGPT mobile app too. Click New project in the navigation pane on the left. (If you can't see the navigation pane, click the icon in the very top-left corner to reveal it.) If you already have projects in place, click the + (plus) icon to create a new one. Straightaway you'll be prompted to give your project a name to identify it. Note that existing chats can be moved in and out of projects, and between them, if needed—just click on the three dots next to a chat in the navigation pane to find these options. It means you can decide to start some conversations first, then move them into a project later, rather than starting with the project. Once ChatGPT puts you in your clean, new project, you get several options onscreen: You can start a new chat, Add files to the project, or Add instructions. Any files or instructions you add (such as "respond to me as if I'm a novice in this subject") will be carried over across all the project chats, saving you from having to repeat yourself or keep on uploading the same files each time. And that's just about all there is to getting started with ChatGPT Projects. There are no real options to speak of for individual projects, but if you click the three dots in the top-right corner of any project's front page, you can rename it or delete it. (Deleting it will also delete all the conversations inside it.) Your projects and chats stack up on the left of the screen as you create them, with individual conversations nested inside projects. There are a few limitations to bear in mind: You don't get the option to add files from Google Drive or Microsoft OneDrive in projects, like you can in normal ChatGPT conversations, and projects can't be shared with other users (at least for now). How to Make Use of ChatGPT Projects You can write out instructions that persist across the project. David Nield There aren't really right or wrong ways to use ChatGPT Projects. Just like labels in Gmail, it's up to you how you make use of the feature. You could build a project to help you complete a novel or to plan a switch in career or to store a collection of strategies for mindfulness and meditation. Say you're planning a weekend away with the kids. You can use the instructions part of the project to explain where and when you're going and how old your kids are, to save you having to repeat this each time. As far as files go, you could upload any existing plans you've made or any information you've got about your destination, which ChatGPT can use alongside its own training data and web searches. Or maybe you want to use a project to create a finely tuned music recommendation engine. You can type in your preferences and tastes in the instructions part of the project, then upload files cataloging all the music you've listened to. (Yes, we know you're out there.) Each individual chat could then dive deep for playlist recommendations based on a theme or artist. You can make changes to the files you've uploaded and the instructions you've given at any time, though these modifications won't retroactively affect any of the conversations you've already had with ChatGPT. Every time you submit a prompt, the AI bot will use the information available at that time. If needed, you can attach specific files for specific chats inside projects using the paperclip icon—and you can access other tools (such as the image generator) by clicking the toolbox icon underneath the text prompt box. This gives you access to the ChatGPT Canvas interface, which is more similar to Google Docs than Google Chat.
