Search the Community

Google Bard now requests your actual location for better answers by Paul Hill Google has pushed out another update for its generative AI chatbot, Bard. This time, it has added the ability for users to allow access to their location so that Bard can use this and provide more relevant results. One popular Google Search query is “What time does X close?”, you’ll typically see the searched-for business in your Search results with a list of closing times. You can now do this in Bard with the location update and it will give you the closing times of the local stores you asked about. Google didn’t really expand too much on what else the precise location would enable you to do, but Bard itself says you can get location-specific information on places like coffee shops and restaurants, get directions from your current location, find events that are happening near you, and get local weather information. Having tested the weather forecast, Neowin can report that it works well but there is a small grievance. In the UK, where a hodgepodge of imperial and metric measurements are used, the main unit for measuring the temperature is Celsius. Despite knowing that the query was coming from the UK, Bard still decided to put out its response in Fahrenheit, a quick clarification swiftly resolves this though. To see which location Google Bard has for you, just look in the bottom-left corner and you should see a blue dot if you’ve given permission for it to use your location, followed by your town or city. You can also press update location if it’s now out of date due to travelling. OpenAI took an early lead in the generative AI race but while it still gets updates, its knowledge is still stuck in 2021 and it cannot do as much now as Bard, such as accessing your location or grabbing relevant pictures from the web and inserting them into your query results (at least on the free tier). We are still early on with regards to the maturity of these generative AI projects so we should see a lot more new features arriving over time. It’s so early that Google still refers to Bard as an experiment.

Google Bard can now bring in images from Search by Paul Hill Google has updated Bard again today, this time it has enabled the ability to bring in images from Search. For example, you can now say to Bard “Show me a dog” or something more advanced like “Show me a red dog chasing a stick”, both of which yield acceptable results. While Google Bard supports English, Japanese, and Korean, the image support only works with English requests right now. If any of the results rendered are interesting to you, and you’d like to follow them up, the source is attached to the image and you can click through to it. According to the company, it has added image support because the medium can help communicate ideas more effectively. It said that “They can bring concepts to life, make recommendations more persuasive and enhance responses when you ask for visual information.” Ever since Google I/O at the start of the month, updates have been coming to Bard on a regular basis. It has added a new PaLM 2 LLM under the hood, an export option, dark mode, and more useful summaries and source information. To be clear, this latest update is just fetching relevant images from Search. Bard cannot yet generate its own images via Adobe Firefly, but that should arrive sometime in the coming months. When you ask for images from Bard, it can display several images separately. After a bit of experimenting with different queries, it seems that it can create a gallery of images with left and right buttons to scroll through the images. It usually provides a small description of the image underneath so you can better understand what you’re looking at. Keeping on top of all the new capabilities of Bard can be a bit tricky. An easy way to see what it can do is by heading to the Updates tab on the left-side menu. There, you’ll find all the major updates to Bard, when they were added, and why they have been added.

Surprising no one, Google will reportedly use generative AI for ads and customer service by John Callaham Google gets the vast majority of its money from ads created via its Search engine, along with YouTube ads and more. So it's not a shock to learn that the company's efforts into developing the new and hot generative AI services like its Bard chatbot and its PaLM 2 large language model will also be extended into its ads business. CNBC reports that, based on viewing internal documents from Google, the company plans to use generative AI to automate ads. It will also be used to automate ad-based customer services. CNBC says: Certain groups within Google are now planning to use PaLM 2-powered tools to allow advertisers to generate their own media assets and to suggest videos for YouTube creators to make, documents show. Google has also been testing PaLM 2 for YouTube youth content for things like titles, and descriptions. For creators, the company has been using the technology to experiment with the idea of providing five video ideas based on topics that appear relevant. In addition, Google's documents state that generative AI chat models could automate service inquiries from its ad customers, including suggesting ad plans for those users. More info on those plans could be revealed on May 23, which is when the company will hold its annual Google Marketing Live online event.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman tells US Senate panel generative AI needs regulation by John Callaham OpenAI founder and CEO Sam Altman found himself in Washington DC, addressing a US Senate panel on the rise of generative AI and its possible effects on many different industries. Altman told the panel that such AI systems, like his company's own ChatGPT, need to be regulated by the government. Reuters reports that Altman believes the government should require some kind of licensing and testing requirements for AI systems. He also stated that the use of AI to interfere with upcoming elections by users who may create realistic-looking false images or video is a "significant area of concern." That was brought home during the start of the hearing by US Senator Richard Blumenthal. Bloomberg posted a video of Blumenthal who played a recording of his voice talking about the effects of AI. However, he revealed that the recording was actually made by an AI that replicated his voice that was trained via his previous US Senate speeches. Even that recording's remarks were written by an AI program. CNN reports that after that recording was made, Blumenthal said that AI replicated voice could have also created false "endorsement of Ukraine’s surrendering or Vladimir Putin’s leadership." Altman also said at the panel that businesses should have the right to ban their content from being used by AI training models. He also stated that he preferred AI use a subscription model, like OpenAI's own ChatGPT Plus, rather than an ad-based model, which is being used by Microsoft's Bing Chat.

Google Bard now gives better summaries and more useful source info by Paul Hill It has been five days since Google opened Bard up to most of the world and added Japanese and Korean but Google has already pushed out another update. This time, the company is promising better summary info to help you get the gist of a topic quickly and more helpful sources. One of the issues with Bard before today was that it would output its lengthy answer and included sources at the bottom. Unfortunately, you didn’t know which parts of the answer were from the sources; this changes today. In the latest update, Google is now putting numbers alongside the response to show which parts are taken from the source links at the end of the answer. With regards to better summaries, Google said it wants to help you get the gist of an answer more quickly but that it won’t always get it right. If Bard’s response seems weird or is just plain wrong, don’t hesitate to give the response a thumbs down so that Google can have a look. If you’d like to check back through the latest Bard updates, just open up Bard and press the Updates option on the left-hand side. It will open a new tab with dated release notes.

Google Bard AI chatbot is not available in the European Union over potential GDPR concerns by Tushar Mehta Google kicked off the in-person I/O 2023 conference by showcasing some oddball AI experiments. The keynote that followed was brimmed with AI-centric announcements, and a much broader availability of Google Bard was definitely among the crucial ones. Dropping the waitlist, Google rolled out Bard to over 180 countries across the globe but missed one significant geopolitical region — the European Union (EU). Google publishes an exhaustive list of 180 countries and regions where Bard is now available for preview. The support page also confirms you can interact with the chatbot in three languages: US English, Japanese, and Korean, with 40 more to be added soon. But the list does not include any country from the EU, as pointed out by TNW. Without clearly acknowledging its absence from the EU, Google says it will "expand to more countries and territories in a way that is consistent with local regulations" on the same support page. But despite a clearly stated reason, it is easy to associate the decision with strict regulations around user privacy in the EU, especially the General Data Protection Regulation or GDPR. We asked Bard what might be the reason! Google's caution is warranted, especially given Italy's recent temporary ban on Bard's celebrated competitor — ChatGPT. Italy cited a ChatGPT data leak from March 2023, which prompted its data protection watchdog to share concerns over the unlawful collection of users' data. Although Italy allowed ChatGPT to resume in the country with certain conditions, the move has inspired other countries in the EU to frame regulations around the responsible and lawful use of AI tools. It is also worth noting that the state of California has its own set of privacy laws under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), but users do not face similar restrictions with Bard. Likewise, the UK has its own version of the GDPR that was created after Brexit, but Bard is accessible in the country as well. Besides privacy, generative AI tools like ChatGPT and Bard have also raised concerns about the unauthorized reuse of intellectual property. In response, the EU has commenced work on new rules to penalize copyright violations owing to the use of AI, Reuters notes. Although Google has announced it will clearly define AI-generated content, the actual application might be a more challenging task than it seems. This is probably why Google wants to be cautious instead of inviting another multi-million dollar penalty in the region. Apart from countries in the EU, Google will also make users in Canada wait longer before they can try Bard, as 9to5Google notes. In addition to the dedicated search engine, Google also brings AI quirks to other services, including Search, which gets AI-powered snapshots, as well as Gmail, Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides, all of which get features that enhance your workflow. Update: This article was updated on May 12, 2023, at 4:15 AM EDT to include information about how the UK's own version of GDPR and the CCPA in the state of California do not affect Bard's availability in the respective regions.

Google Bard chatbot AI is now available without a waitlist, and it uses the new PaLM 2 LLM by John Callaham As expected, the Google Bard chatbot that was first announced earlier in 2023 was a big part of the company's Google I/O 2023 keynote address today. The company confirmed earlier rumors that it will use its new PaLM 2 large language model, and it also revealed it has ditched its waitlist. It is now available in 180 countries and territories, and more will be added in the future. It has also added support for Japanese and Korean languages, and will soon add support for 40 languages. The company also announced some upcoming features coming to Bard. One will allow it to create AI-generated images. Google stated: In the coming months, we’ll integrate Adobe Firefly, Adobe’s family of creative generative AI models, into Bard so you can easily and quickly turn your own creative ideas into high-quality images, which you can then edit further or add to your designs in Adobe Express. The chatbot has also added dark mode and will add the ability for responses to questions to include images. It will also add a way to create documents and have them exported to Gmail and Docs for final edits. Some other upcoming features include: Source citations: Starting next week, we'll make citations even more precise. If Bard brings in a block of code or cites other content, just click the annotation and Bard will underline those parts of the response and link to the source. “Export” Button: We've heard that developers love the export to Colab feature, so coming soon, we're adding the ability to export and run code with our partner Replit, starting with Python. Stay tuned as we will be posting more news and announcements from Google I/O today.

Google Bard rolls out Dark theme and export feature [Update] by Paul Hill It appears that Google has rolled out a Dark theme for its Bard generative AI. The company has not yet mentioned it on its Experiment updates page yet. To enable it just tap the option in the bottom left. It will turn most of the page a solid black except for the main chat area which uses various dark greys to distinguish various elements. The Dark theme obviously doesn’t add an ability to Bard’s skills but it’s a nice addition so that you don’t get blinded in the middle of the night. It’s not clear if the theme is enabled automatically based on your browser or operating system settings but you can quickly toggle between Light and Dark. In recent weeks, Google has also spruced up the send message button in Bard so that the send arrow flies past several of those Bard stars. It’s a nice addition, but again, doesn’t really add to the ability of the Bard model itself. Stay tuned to Neowin’s coverage of Google I/O where we expect plenty of AI and Bard-related news to drop. Update: Google has updated its Bard release notes to mention the new Dark theme. Also, you can now export responses to email and Google Docs, just tap the upload button to the left of the Google it button.

Your next hamburger combo drive thru order at Wendy's could be taken by a Google AI chatbot by John Callaham In the newly released Work Trend Index report from Microsoft, it says that employees were hoping to use new AI features to be more productive in their jobs. An example of how AI could do just that was just revealed by the fast food restaurant chain Wendy's. The Wall Street Journal reports that Wendy's has been working with Google on an AI chatbot that would take orders from drive-thru customers. The chatbot is likely a modified version of Google's Bard. This new chatbot for Wendy's will be able to recognize words that might only be used at the drive-thru, such as ordering a Frosty (Wendy's version of a milkshake). It will also be designed to get customers to upsize their orders, or state some daily specials. The ultimate goal is for the chatbot to reduce the wait time at the drive-thru and thus get more sales. The article says this drive-thru chatbot will be set up at one of Wendy's company-owned locations in Columbus, Ohio in June. If it does its job right, customers won't know the difference between a human taking an order and the chatbot. Wendy's says this will not replace any workers in their locations but rather will allow them to concentrate on other jobs. There's no word on when this technology might find its way to other Wendy's locations.

Google rumored to announce PaLM 2 LLM and more AI updates at I/O 2023 by John Callaham We already know Wednesday, May 10 will be a huge day for announcements from Google during its I/O 2023 keynote address. Now some more details about what could be revealed may have leaked beforehand. According to CNBC, the company will reveal its new PaLM 2 large language model during Google I/O on Wednesday. This will be the follow-up to the original PaLM LLM which is now used in Google's Bard chatbot. The article states: PaLM 2 includes more than 100 languages and has been operating under the internal codename “Unified Language Model.” It’s also performed a broad range of coding and math tests as well as creative writing tests and analysis. The article added that Google has been working on updates to Bard, including a version called “Multi-Bard" that's designed to handle more complex coding and math problems. The story also claimed Google is testing other versions called “Big Bard” and “Giant Bard" but it didn't offer any information on the features of these versions. In addition, the article says Google will be announcing more AI features for its Workplace apps during I/0 2023. It's already testing generative AI features for its Docs and Gmail services for some outside users. However, CNBC says Google will also show off how AI can create templates for Sheets users, along with image generation for its Slides and Meet online products. Google is also expected to reveal a number of hardware products on Wednesday. It has already confirmed it will announce the Pixel Fold foldable smartphone, which will likely be Google's most expensive phone it has ever released.

Google I/O 2023: How to watch it and what will and could be revealed by John Callaham In the past, Google I/O has concentrated mostly on software announcements and focused on the developer community. However, the company has been using the conference to make consumer hardware announcements in the past few years. For Google I/O 2023, that trend will go into overdrive, with multiple hardware announcements and reveals that might even include one or two surprises. Here's the info you will need about Google I/O 2023, including how to watch it online and what we expect will be revealed at the conference. What is Google I/O? Google I/O is the company's annual developers conference, similar to Microsoft Build and Apple's WWDC. Google started the conference in 2008 and has held it ever since, except for 2020 when it was canceled due to the Covid 19 pandemic. When and where is Google I/O? This year, the event is only being held on one day, Wednesday, May 10. It's the first time that the conference has only been held on a single day. The keynote events are being held at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, California, but all of the conference is also being held via live stream from its official web site for free. How can I watch the big keynote events? The keynote address, which will be the place to watch all the big reveals from Google, will be held starting May 10 at 10 am Pacific time (1 pm Eastern time) and will be live streamed on YouTube. The developer keynote will also be live streamed on YouTube starting at 12:15 pm Pacific time (3:15 pm Eastern time). What will and could be revealed at Google I/O 2023 Here's what we definitely think will be shown off at the conference and some speculation on what could get revealed Google Pixel Fold The company has already teased us that this phone will be revealed on May 10. It will be Google's first foldable phone, with its second-gen in house Tensor processor inside. The phone is expected to launch later this year, but with a high price tag, as high as $1,799. Google Pixel Tablet First revealed at last year's I/O event, Google will definitely confirm the Android tablet's hardware specs, prices, and launch date on May 10. Google Pixel 7a This is also set for a reveal on Wednesday. It will be Google's latest, and possibly last, entry in the budget smartphone market. More info on Android 14 Google will offer up some more info on the next version of its Android mobile operating system at I/O, and will likely release the second beta of the OS on Wednesday as well. Possible preview of Google Pixel 8 phones and Pixel Watch 2 We could also get a preview of Google's plans for the Pixel 8 series of phones, which could be the first products to use the third-gen Tensor chip. A recent report also claims that we could see the Pixel Watch 2 launch alongside the Pixel 8 phones, so we may get a preview of that smartwatch as well on Wednesday. Possible more info on Bard and other AI services Bard has been front and center in Google's news updates for the past couple of months. We could get more info on plans to improve and expand the AI chatbot at Google I/O. We could also get more info on some of Google's other AI projects, including its plans to launch an AI image generator and even an AI-based video creator. Possible more info on new and improved Google services The I/O keynote will also almost certainly will reveal improvements to many of Google's software and online services like Docs, Photos, Maps, and others. Wild cards Google is known to have a surprise or two in its I/O keynotes. In the past it has revealed experimental projects like Starline, which showed off realistic 3D video conferencing, and Duplex, which created AI-based two way conversations for business use. We will be covering Google I/O on Wednesday and will report on all the big revealed at the keynote.

Google Search reportedly is getting a makeover with more videos, forum links, and AI chat by John Callaham A few days ahead of the company's Google I/O developers conference on May 10, we may be learning more about what Google will reveal at the event. A new but unconfirmed report claims we may hear about a Google Search makeover to attract more younger users. According to The Wall Street Journal, Google wants to move away from the traditional list of website links that are normally displayed after a search inquiry. Instead, they want to incorporate features like showing short videos, similar to social media outlets like TikTok and Instagram. Indeed, the article says that back in July 2022. Google senior vice president Prabhakar Raghavan stated that 40 percent of young people use those social networks when they want to find restaurants. Google obviously wants those people to search for that kind of content on its platform. The article says that Google might also link more to online forum discussions in future search results and will also add chatbot AI features like Bard to its search engine. Microsoft has already done that, incorporating Bing Chat in its Bing search engine. It will be interesting to see how Google can remake its Search results, while at the same time not getting rid of the more traditional web links that many sites are depended on for traffic and income.

Google Bard is now open for Workplace accounts in its latest update by John Callaham Until today, the Google Bard chatbot was only available for people who had personal Google accounts. Now that situation has changed. Bard's latest update now supports Google Workspace accounts as well. This new feature was announced on the Bard update page today. It stated: What: Google Workspace admins can now enable Bard for their domains, allowing their users to access Bard using their Workspace accounts. Why: You can now use Bard to help with work, research, or other business needs, when signed into your administrator-enabled Google Workspace account. This should open up Bard to be used by a larger number of users. It should also enable Bard to assist in more serious business and enterprise tasks. Google seems to be a bit slower in adding more features to Bard compared to Microsoft with its Bing Chat chatbot. Microsoft posts weekly updates to its Bing Blog about new features, and this week it went even further with a big list of new and upcoming features. By contrast, this new update is the first in two weeks for Bard. It was last updated on April 21, when it added the ability to write code in 20 languages. Hopefully we will get more info on Bard's plans next week as part of the Google i/O dev conference on May 10.

Google is reportedly working to add Bard to its Pixel phones via a widget by John Callaham Google's Bard is still trying to catch up with OpenAI's ChatGPT and especially with Microsoft's Bing Chat for generative AI development. Today, a new report says that Google is developing a way for its Pixel phones to access Bard without having to go through a web browser. 9to5Google reports that it has examined code from an unnamed app from Google that shows the company is working on an Android-based homescreen widget for Bard. There's no word on what kind of form this widget could take, although the article speculates it could be a stand-alone app, or one that's incorporated into the Google Search app. The article adds that the new Bard widget would be an exclusive feature for its own Pixel smartphones and the upcoming Pixel Tablet. Of course, Microsoft has already added Bing Chat to its mobile Bing app, along with Bing Chat functionality in Skype and Edge. Google's efforts would simply bring Bard close to what Microsoft has in place for Bing Chat. Keep in mind that this information has not yet been confirmed by Google so take it with some grains of salt. We will almost certainly learn more about Google's plans for Bard, and a ton of other stuff, next week at the Google I/O dev conference on May 10.

AI systems from Microsoft, Google, OpenAI, and others to be tested at DEFCON 31 in August by John Callaham The rise of generative AI is causing many people to be concerned that they won't behave in ethical and responsible ways. Indeed, one of Google's highest-ranking AI researchers, Geoffrey Hinton, recently left the company so he could be free to warn the world about the potential dangers of AI. Today, US Vice President Kamala Harris will be meeting with the CEOs of four of the leading companies in AI development: Microsoft's Satya Nadella, Google's Sundar Pichai, OpenAI's Sam Altman, and Anthropic's Dario Amodei. The White House says the participants will discuss the growing use of AI and "the importance of driving responsible, trustworthy, and ethical innovation with safeguards that mitigate risks and potential harms to individuals and our society." The Biden Administration also announced that those four companies, along with Hugging Face, NVIDIA, and Stability AI, have all agreed to have their AI systems tested at the annual DEFCON hacking conference. DEFCON 31 is scheduled to be held in Las Vegas from August 10-13. The White House press release stated: This independent exercise will provide critical information to researchers and the public about the impacts of these models, and will enable AI companies and developers take steps to fix issues found in those models. Testing of AI models independent of government or the companies that have developed them is an important component in their effective evaluation. In addition, the US Office of Management and Budget will create a draft document for a policy on how the US government should use AI, and will offer it for public comment. Also, the National Science Foundation will add $140 million for funding of seven new National AI Research Institutes, which will bring the number of those groups to 25.

Samsung is banning its employees from using chatbots like ChatGPT due to security leak by John Callaham More companies are cracking down against the use of generative AI chatbots like ChatGPT, Microsoft's Bing Chat, and Google's Bard. The latest business to ban the use of these kinds of chatbots is Samsung. Bloomberg reports that the company sent out a memo to all employees last week, barring them from using chatbots at work or on devices they use for work. According to the report, Samsung discovered that some of its workers had uploaded secret company source code to ChatGPT. There's no word on exactly what kind of data was leaked. While Samsung employees are allowed to use chatbots on devices they personally own, and they can use them outside of work, the company's memo did ask its workers to not submit any company info to chatbots, nor upload any personal info that could result in a leak of Samsung's intellectual property. The memo added: We ask that you diligently adhere to our security guideline and failure to do so may result in a breach or compromise of company information resulting in disciplinary action up to and including termination of employment. The report says that Samsung is developing its own AI software that will do some of the work that chatbots can do, such as summarizing reports, writing software, and translation. This latest development by a major tech company to ban the use of chatbots at work shows that more and more businesses are becoming concerned about how generative AI could lead to more security issues. This week, Microsoft outlined how it will implement responsible AI practices in its products.

ChatGPT rival Google Bard launch was delayed over safety concerns by Ishtiaqe Hanif Google had been secretly working on an AI-driven virtual assistant since mid-2021, well before late 2022, when rival ChatGPT was released according to former Responsible AI team member Blake Lemoine, who discussed about Bard in a recent interview . Bard is a conversational generative AI bot based on LaMDA LLM. Blake told Futurism that OpenAI's offerings are not pushing Google around. What Google has in store is far more advanced in terms of technology, and its trajectory is not being affected. He also said he thinks Google is doing things in ways it believes are safe and responsible. OpenAI turned out to have released their ChatGPT before the curtains on Bard were lifted. Without putting a product name on it, Google has been working on Bard for a couple of years. Blake said, "They were on the verge of releasing something in the fall of 2022. So it would have come out right around the same time as ChatGPT, or right before it. Then, in part because of some of the safety concerns I raised, they deleted it." According to him, Google could've released a product similar to Bard's two years ago. Creative accuracy, and preventing gender, racial, and political bias are important for the Alphabet subsidiary. This has surfaced amid a report claiming Google is rushing out Bard and other AI products with poor ethical guards. Source: Futurism

Geoffrey Hinton, the "Godfather of AI", has departed Google to speak about AI's dangers by John Callaham One of the pioneers of modern artificial intelligence development who has been called the "Godfather of AI" is raising the alarm about the dangers of letting this technology get out of control. That person is Geoffrey Hinton. Until recently he worked at Google on AI projects, but not anymore. As The New York Times reports, Hinton has departed Google, where he worked since 2013. Before his time at the company, he co-authored a paper in 1986 that proposed an algorithm for neural networks. He is considered one of the leading developers of deep learning, and, along with two other researchers, won the 2018 Turing Prize for his work. However, Hinton is now concerned about how AI development has gone much further and faster than he previously predicted. The sudden launch of chatbot AI programs like ChatGPT, Microsoft's Bing Chat, and Google's own Bard could be the first step in AI becoming truly more intelligent than the humans that programmed it. He stated: "The idea that this stuff could actually get smarter than people — a few people believed that. But most people thought it was way off. And I thought it was way off. I thought it was 30 to 50 years or even longer away. Obviously, I no longer think that.” In the immediate future, Hinton believes AI could make realistic-looking "deep fake" imagery that could cause problems with people not being able to tell what's fake and what's real. Down the road, he thinks AI could not only eliminate jobs but even get rid of humanity itself, if AI learns to read and write code on its own, without human intervention. The New York Times reports that Hinton spoke to Google CEO Sundar Pichai last week before his official departure, but there's no word on what they discussed. In the NYT today, Cade Metz implies that I left Google so that I could criticize Google. Actually, I left so that I could talk about the dangers of AI without considering how this impacts Google. Google has acted very responsibly. — Geoffrey Hinton (@geoffreyhinton) May 1, 2023 In a Twitter post today, Hinton stated that he is not trying to criticize Google, which he believes has "acted very responsibly" in regard to AI development. Rather, he felt that leaving the company would allow him to "talk about the dangers of AI without considering how this impacts Google." Jeff Dean, who was recently named Google's chief scientist, responded to the article by saying the company is "committed to a responsible approach to AI."

Microsoft Weekly: Windows security, Edge leakage, and the end of Windows 10 by Usama Jawad It's Saturday, which means that it's time yet again to recap all the important news of the past few days from the world of Microsoft. This was an absolutely jampacked news week as you'll soon find out with items about Windows security, Microsoft Edge, and the end of Windows 10. Find out more in our latest digest covering April 23 - April 28! Windows security Windows security was a hot topic in our news coverage this week. Microsoft released various PowerShell scripts to help IT admins identify if recent patches have mitigated security flaws in their Windows 10 and 11 environments. It also shared a timeline covering the next few months of Windows hardening for various protocols including Netlogon and Kerberos. However, the firm continues struggling with existing security issues in its operating systems. It confirmed yesterday that the latest Patch Tuesday update has broken Local Account log-in on both Windows 10 and Windows 11, a workaround has been issued. It has also cautioned about interop issues in its Local Administrator Password Solution (LAPS) but has recently fixed most, if not all of them, too. IT admins can also leverage an unofficial third-party GUI tool to manage both versions of LAPS, at their own risk. Another problem related to Local Security Authority (LSA) protection in Windows Defender has been patched too. Additionally, Microsoft revealed more details about the security features present in its revamped Teams desktop app. It might interest some of you to know that the firm is considering unbundling Teams from its Office suite of apps to appease EU regulators and also empower Teams users on Android to disable automatic firmware updates. And if you like to mess around with Windows installations, you might want to check out AtlasOS, which is a third-party, lightweight version of Windows 10 that's supposedly better for gaming. It received updates during this week and is set to get back Windows Defender soon too, with the developer making a seemingly tall claim that AtlasOS will be even more secure than the official Windows 10. But if you'd rather mess with your existing installation at a smaller scale, you can check out Wintoys for Windows 11 instead. Edge leakage Edge and Microsoft's other browser-related efforts found themselves in the news a lot throughout this week, for both good reasons and bad. For starters, someone made a rather startling discovery that Edge is apparently leaking all the websites you visit in the browser to the Bing API, even if you don't use Bing. Microsoft is still investigating this claim and has promised swift action once its findings are complete. Brave has also decided to stop using the Bing API to serve search results and its search index is now 100% independent. We also learned that Microsoft has started to insert ads for the new AI-powered Bing in the search bar if you visit Google Bard through Microsoft Edge. Bing Chat itself received a few updates this week to further decrease the disengagement rate and improve answers for traveling and cooking questions. Talking more about browsers, Windows 11's Mica effect is slated to arrive in Chrome soon. Moreover, the latest Edge Dev 114 update has added several fixes and a shortcut for toggling Sidebar. A recent Canary build is also making it easier to tweak Windows 11-style rounded corners in Edge. In fact, Microsoft has announced that Edge users will soon be able to disable some unnecessary features as well. There were other items to cover in the Microsoft 365 sector too. All Microsoft 365 apps and services will begin using the more neutral "cloud.microsoft" domain soon. Microsoft has also been improving its Microsoft 365 apps and services themselves in recent days. It has detailed all the improvements it made to Excel in April, added the Accessibility ribbon to Outlook for Windows, integrated the Today tab in the latest Skype Insider build, and is implementing a way to make it easier for Outlook mobile users to reply to emails on time. Meanwhile, Microsoft Loop can now be tested via personal accounts on iOS and Android while Microsoft Designer is now available in full via a public preview. Something that will displease Windows Weather app customers though is that Microsoft has decided to infest it with MSN news content, which is ludicrous, to say the least. The end of Windows 10 Microsoft announced earlier this week that version 22H2 is the last version of Windows 10. What this means is that while customers using the OS will continue receiving minor improvements and security updates until October 14, 2025 (and beyond if you're an LTSC customer), there will be no more feature updates. In addition, Microsoft has also announced that the LTSC version of Windows 11 will arrive in the latter half of next year. Windows 10 recently received April's non-security preview update with lots of improvements too. Another thing being discontinued is Microsoft-branded mice, keyboards, webcams. The remaining accessories will only be sold until current supplies last, after which Microsoft will focus only on Surface-branded accessories. In more end-of-support news, the Steam client has started "End of Life" alerts for some users as it will be dropping support for Windows 7, 8, and 8.1 on January 1, 2024. Roughly 2% of Valve's user base utilizes these three operating systems, which means that the vast majority won't be affected. Windows 11 continued to be Microsoft's focus of attention when it came to operating system releases this week. Apart from the expected April non-security preview updates for Windows 11 version 21H2 and 22H2, there were a few Insider releases too. Windows 11 Beta build (KB5025303) fixed LAPS and ReFS issues, and added new Widgets. Meanwhile, Canary build 25352 brought a new widget picker experience. Some may also find it interesting that Microsoft is looking to make Rust a part of the Windows 11 kernel due to the numerous advantages it offers in writing safer and more optimized code. But in terms of what's available generally right now, we have Phone Link for iOS and guidance for how to get Windows 11 updates faster. And if you're still on the fence about giving Windows 11, make sure to try out the Redmond tech firm's latest evaluation virtual machines for the OS. Git gud Microsoft faced probably its biggest roadblock yet in its bid to purchase Activision Blizzard when the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) decided to block its deal, citing potentially reduced competition in the cloud gaming space. As Activision stock tanks, Microsoft has decided to appeal the decision, with president Brad Smith calling this initial outcome "bad for Britain". Although another report claimed that Microsoft may close the deal without the U.S. Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) approval, that rumor was based on the UK CMA giving its blessing in the first place. Now that this hasn't happened, it's unlikely that the purchase will close anytime soon. For now, Microsoft's acquisition has been approved in Ukraine and the firm has signed yet another 10-year cloud gaming deal with a European firm too (Nvidia GeForce Now will continue to get Xbox games despite this setback too). Activision's CEO Bobby Kotick fully expects the CMA's decision to be reversed following the appeal. In other gaming news, there have been a few Xbox Insider builds to fix game art issues and other bugs. And if you're eagerly awaiting Redfall, you can build themed Xbox controllers based on the game through Xbox Design Lab. Similarly, if you reside in London or NYC, you might want to check out the dedicated gaming zones that Microsoft has built with Samsung. Coming over to game updates, Flight Simulator World Update XIII is now available, it targets Oceania and Antarctica. Quantum Break fans will also be pleased to know that the title is back on digital storefronts and is available on PC Game Pass for the first time too. Meanwhile, Grounded players can tackle wasps as a new foe, with the game also being Steam Deck verified now. And in a major win for accessibility, Turn 10 Studios has announced that it is working on tons of accessibility options for the next Forza Motorsport, allowing blind players to enjoy the game as well. Finally, talking about the deals and promotions currently going on, Xbox Free Play Days is offering four games, namely Crusader Kings III, Hell Let Loose, Don’t Starve Together, and Leap. May's Games with Gold have also been announced and they are Hoa and Star Wars Episode I Racer. And if you're on the lookout for games on the cheap, check out the latest Xbox Deals with Gold and this Weekend's PC Game Deals, curated by our News Editor Pulasthi Ariyasinghe. Dev Channel Microsoft's Q3 2023 results show growth but Windows, Xbox, and Devices numbers continue to decline Rufus 4 is out with improvements and a default 64-bit executable Rufus alternative WinToUSB has received "Windows 11 Lite" support Latest WingetUI has a new UI, faster loading performance, and lots more Microsoft has decided to continue working with private Russian companies not under sanctions Fluent Emoji Gallery app is now available with access to Microsoft's three emoji styles Apple Music Preview for Windows has finally netted media keys and lyrics support Microsoft-backed BSA has called for federal rules and guidelines on AI You can now create Power BI reports directly in Jupyter Notebooks Under the spotlight News Reporter John Callaham took a look back at Windows Server 2003, which launched 20 years ago this week. It was the server version of Windows XP and is reportedly still being used in some enterprise environments. Read more about its interesting, but brief, history here. John took another trip down memory lane this week as he reminisced about Microsoft's first PC game, simply called Microsoft Adventure. Meanwhile, News Reporter Taras Buria penned a guide about how you can use a Windows laptop or a tablet as a secondary monitor. Finally, forum member Adam Bottjen published his latest Tech Tip Tuesday guide explaining how you can quickly fill an online form with ease. Logging off Our most interesting news item for this week involves someone building a ChatGPT client in Java that is capable of running on Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP, Vista, 7, 8, 10, and 11. It's called JavaGPT and weighs in at just 6MB. While it's doubtful that it has any real-world use considering that you can just access the service from a browser, it's interesting to see experiments like these from time to time. Find out more details about the open-source Java utility here. If you'd like to get a weekly digest of news from Neowin, we have a Newsletter you can sign up for either via the 'Get our newsletter' widget in the sidebar, or through this link. Missed any of the previous columns? Check them all out at this link.

Microsoft tries to steal users with Bing ads when they visit Google Bard in Edge by Taras Buria The great war of AI-powered search engines is raging on, and after a rushed and botched launch, Google is at a clear disadvantage compared to Bing. Microsoft understands it has a once-in-a-lifetime chance to beat Google, so it uses all possible methods to make users stick to Bing and avoid using Google's Bard. As spotted by Vitor de Lucca on Twitter, Microsoft is now showing large Bing banners when people use Google Bard in the Edge browser. Vitor spotted the banner in Microsoft Edge Dev, as did we in the Canary Channel, despite still being on the waitlist to access Bard. The prompt offers to compare Bard's answers with Bing, and clicking the ad opens Bing Chat in a split-screen tab (a new feature Microsoft introduced earlier this year). Tactics like this are not new, and Google is also guilty of using aggressive user-poaching methods. However, this time, Microsoft's approach at least seems reasonable since it allows users to compare two products and decide which is better. It is far better than the shameless ad Microsoft placed on the Google Chrome website several months ago (and fortunately ditched shortly after). What do you think about Microsoft's latest tactic to promote its search engine? Share your thoughts in the comments section.

Google Bard can now write code in over 20 programming languages by John Callaham Google's Bard chatbot has been playing catch up with Microsoft's Bing Chat since it first launched as public "experiment" one month ago today. Today, Google announced a major new update for Bard, as it can now generate programming code with text prompts. In a blog post, Google states: Starting now, Bard can help with programming and software development tasks, including code generation, debugging and code explanation. We’re launching these capabilities in more than 20 programming languages including C++, Go, Java, Javascript, Python and Typescript. And you can easily export Python code to Google Colab — no copy and paste required. Bard can also assist with writing functions for Google Sheets. The new feature also lets users get explanations from Bard about the code it has created, and it can also help debug both existing code and code that Bard itself has generated. Google says it will even cite the source of any code that comes from an open-source project. As usual, the company has put in a disclaimer that says Bard could generate some mistakes in its code creations. Of course, both ChatGPT and its cousin, Microsoft's Bing Chat, have had the ability to generate code as well, but it now seems like Bard is closing the gap quickly in terms of its features. Bard has also revealed a smaller update, stating it will now offer a "wider range of more distinct drafts" for people who want to use it to create text documents.

Google merges its two AI teams, Brain and DeepMind, to form Google DeepMind by John Callaham Google is finally merging its two AI teams into one group. Google's internal Brain team, which was part of the Google Research division, is merging its operations with DeepMind, the UK-based company that was formed in 2010, and which Google acquired in 2014. In a blog post today, Google CEO Sundar Pichai stated that Brain and DeepMind will now be one group, called Google DeepMind. He stated: Their collective accomplishments in AI over the last decade span AlphaGo, Transformers, word2vec, WaveNet, AlphaFold, sequence to sequence models, distillation, deep reinforcement learning, and distributed systems and software frameworks like TensorFlow and JAX for expressing, training and deploying large scale ML models. Combining all this talent into one focused team, backed by the computational resources of Google, will significantly accelerate our progress in AI. Demis Hassabis, the leader of DeepMind, will now be the CEO of Google DeepMind. Jeff Dean, the head of the now former Google AI division, will now be Google’s Chief Scientist and will report to Pichai. Google has been playing catch up lately to Microsoft in terms of AI innovations. In March, it announced its chatbot AI called Bard. However, its launch was not without controversy, and this week a new report claimed that Google rushed Bard's public launch against the objections of some employees, including many of its AI ethical team. Google is also working on its own AI art and video generators.

New report claims Google is rushing out Bard and other AI products with poor ethical guards by John Callaham On Sunday, CBS News devoted the majority of its latest 60 Minutes episode to looking at Google efforts into AI technology. That included a chat with the company's CEO Sundar Pichai, who stated that there was a pressing need for regulations for the use of AI. However, a new report from Bloomberg claims Google rushed out new AI products like Bard with little efforts to put in ethical guardrails for its information. The company was reportedly threatened with the sudden rise of ChatGPT, and the AI ethics team at Google was allegedly ignored when it decided to rush out Bard. The article states: The group working on ethics that Google pledged to fortify is now disempowered and demoralized, the current and former workers said. The staffers who are responsible for the safety and ethical implications of new products have been told not to get in the way or to try to kill any of the generative AI tools in development, they said. The article says that before Bard was launched to the general public, Google employees were asked to test it. Some of their responses were very critical: One worker’s conclusion: Bard was “a pathological liar,” according to screenshots of the internal discussion. Another called it “cringe-worthy.” One employee wrote that when they asked Bard suggestions for how to land a plane, it regularly gave advice that would lead to a crash; another said it gave answers on scuba diving “which would likely result in serious injury or death.” In the end, Google launched Bard as an "experiment", telling users that it could make mistakes in its answers. However, it also shows that AI still has a long way to go before it offers answers that are truthful. A Google spokesperson responded to Bloomberg's request for a comment, stating, "We are continuing to invest in the teams that work on applying our AI Principles to our technology,”

Google CEO Sundar Pichai calls for global AI regulations in 60 Minutes interview by Paul Hill Google had been sitting on its generative AI tools for a while before ChatGPT forced its hand to release Bard as an experiment. Google’s reluctance to put generative AI out to the public is a bit more clear now. In a recent interview with 60 Minutes, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said there need to be global AI regulations. In the interview clip, he said that AI will pose a threat to national security and over time it will be used by most countries. This will be one area in which Pichai predicts global treaties will be developed over time. In a longer version of the interview, CNBC reports that society needs to adapt to artificial intelligence as it will even disrupt the employment of knowledge workers including writers, accountants, architects, and software engineers. Pichai is quoted as saying: “This is going to impact every product across every company. For example, you could be a radiologist, if you think about five to 10 years from now, you’re going to have an AI collaborator with you. You come in the morning, let’s say you have a hundred things to go through, it may say, ‘these are the most serious cases you need to look at first.’” It’s very important to notice the language that Pichai uses during the interview. He does say jobs will be impacted, but not necessarily that they’ll be lost. Anyone who has used one of these generative AIs knows that they blurt out rubbish sometimes so a more likely application will be that workers use them to complement their work to boost their productivity. Source: CNBC

Google shows off upcoming text-to-video AI program on 60 Minutes Overtime by John Callaham Google is trying to show the world that it is all in on AI research and products. Some of the company's current and upcoming efforts were showcased on Sunday night during two segments of CBS News' 60 Minutes program. However, CBS News showed off even more content from that segment on its 60 Minutes Overtime video clips on its YouTube channel. One of those clips demonstrated a couple of unreleased generative AI services. One of them was called "MediaGen" and it will be Google's version of an AI art generator, similar to other programs like Midjourney and Microsoft's Bing Image Creator. However, Google also showed off an upcoming text-to-video program. The 60 Minutes Overime clip showed that it was called "Google Phenaki". The brief clip showed the program generating some fairly crude animation when it was asked to create a video showing a dog with wings walking in a field. The Google Research division has been working on this Phenaki model for a little while, but it has not gotten a lot of media attention until now. The 60 Minutes Overtime video does say that the new service will not create videos that use humans, for fear of it creating "deep fakes" of people. The main 60 Minutes segment only briefly mentioned Microsoft's own Bing Chat. Aside from those few seconds, the entire story revolved around Google's current AI efforts, which included a visit to the company's robotics labs. One interesting thing about the story centered on Google Bard is that when asked about how to deal with returning inflation in advanced economies, Bard listed five books to learn more about the subject. The only problem is that all five books didn't exist. In that instance, Bard had an "hallucination" and made up the titles, authors, and descriptions in the list.