Vue normale

Il y a de nouveaux articles disponibles, cliquez pour rafraîchir la page.
Hier — 6 juin 2024Flux principal

'Microsoft Has Lost Trust With Its Users and Windows Recall is the Straw That Broke the Camel's Back'

Par : msmash
6 juin 2024 à 16:41
In a column at Windows Central, a blog that focuses on Microsoft news, senior editor Zac Bowden discusses the backlash against Windows Recall, a new AI feature in Microsoft's Copilot+ PCs. While the feature is impressive, allowing users to search their entire Windows history, many are concerned about privacy and security. Bowden argues that Microsoft's history of questionable practices, such as ads and bloatware, has eroded user trust, making people skeptical of Recall's intentions. Additionally, the reported lack of encryption for Recall's data raises concerns about third-party access. Bowden argues that Microsoft could have averted the situation by testing the feature openly to address these issues early on and build trust with users. He adds: Users are describing the feature as literal spyware or malware, and droves of people are proclaiming they will proudly switch to Linux or Mac in the wake of it. Microsoft simply doesn't enjoy the same benefit of the doubt that other tech giants like Apple may have. Had Apple announced a feature like Recall, there would have been much less backlash, as Apple has done a great job building loyalty and trust with its users, prioritizing polished software experiences, and positioning privacy as a high-level concern for the company.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Xbox Game Pass : les 6 nouveaux jeux à découvrir en juin 2024

6 juin 2024 à 15:24

À quelques jours de sa conférence estivale, Microsoft lève le voile sur la première fournée de jeux intégrant le Xbox Game Pass en juin. Il y a de quoi s'occuper si l'été est pluvieux.

À partir d’avant-hierFlux principal

Microsoft Reopens Windows 10 Beta Testing For 'New Features' and Improvements

Par : msmash
5 juin 2024 à 14:40
Microsoft is ending support for Windows 10 in October 2025, but the company is now taking the unusual step of reopening its beta program for Windows 10 to test new features and improvements. From a report: Windows 10 already got the AI Copilot feature that was originally exclusive to Windows 11, and it may well get other features soon. "To bring new features and more improvements to Windows 10 as needed, we need a place to do active feature development with Windows Insiders," explains Microsoft's Windows Insider team in a blog post. "So today, we are opening the Beta Channel for Windows Insiders who are currently on Windows 10." Microsoft hasn't revealed what additional Windows 10 features it plans to test next, but Windows Insiders can opt into the beta channel to get them early. Crucially, the Windows 10 end of support date of October 14th, 2025 is still unchanged. "Joining the Beta Channel on your Windows 10 PC does not change that," says Microsoft.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

This Hacker Tool Extracts All the Data Collected by Windows’ New Recall AI | WIRED

4 juin 2024 à 18:04
Désastre en sécurité en approche : Recall est UNE FOIS DE PLUS une foutue FBI (Fausse Bonne Idée) de Microsoft. Comme l'autorun. Comme le fait de masquer les extensions de fichiers. Comme ouvrir les ports 135/445 par défaut sur toutes les IP.

Démonstration avec loutils : https://github.com/xaitax/TotalRecall
(Permalink)

Is the New 'Recall' Feature in Windows a Security and Privacy Nightmare?

Par : EditorDavid
2 juin 2024 à 19:03
Slashdot reader storagedude shares a provocative post from the cybersecurity news blog of Cyble Inc. (a Ycombinator-backed company promising "AI-powered actionable threat intelligence"). The post delves into concerns that the new "Recall" feature planned for Windows (on upcoming Copilot+ PCs) is "a security and privacy nightmare." Copilot Recall will be enabled by default and will capture frequent screenshots, or "snapshots," of a user's activity and store them in a local database tied to the user account. The potential for exposure of personal and sensitive data through the new feature has alarmed security and privacy advocates and even sparked a UK inquiry into the issue. In a long Mastodon thread on the new feature, Windows security researcher Kevin Beaumont wrote, "I'm not being hyperbolic when I say this is the dumbest cybersecurity move in a decade. Good luck to my parents safely using their PC." In a blog post on Recall security and privacy, Microsoft said that processing and storage are done only on the local device and encrypted, but even Microsoft's own explanations raise concerns: "Note that Recall does not perform content moderation. It will not hide information such as passwords or financial account numbers. That data may be in snapshots that are stored on your device, especially when sites do not follow standard internet protocols like cloaking password entry." Security and privacy advocates take issue with assertions that the data is stored securely on the local device. If someone has a user's password or if a court orders that data be turned over for legal or law enforcement purposes, the amount of data exposed could be much greater with Recall than would otherwise be exposed... And hackers, malware and infostealers will have access to vastly more data than they would without Recall. Beaumont said the screenshots are stored in a SQLite database, "and you can access it as the user including programmatically. It 100% does not need physical access and can be stolen.... Recall enables threat actors to automate scraping everything you've ever looked at within seconds." Beaumont's LinkedIn profile and blog say that starting in 2020 he worked at Microsoft for nearly a year as a senior threat intelligence analyst. And now Beaumont's Mastodon post is also raising other concerns (according to Cyble's blog post): "Sensitive data deleted by users will still be saved in Recall screenshots... 'If you or a friend use disappearing messages in WhatsApp, Signal etc, it is recorded regardless.'" "Beaumont also questioned Microsoft's assertion that all this is done locally." The blog post also notes that Leslie Carhart, Director of Incident Response at Dragos, had this reaction to Beaumont's post. "The outrage and disbelief are warranted."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft's Satya Nadella Worried About an OpenAI-Apple Deal, Report Says

Par : msmash
30 mai 2024 à 20:03
Microsoft seems to be concerned about some of OpenAI's business dealings. From a report: Satya Nadella recently met with Sam Altman to discuss an apparent deal between OpenAI and Apple, The Information reported [hard-paywalled]. According to the outlet, the OpenAI CEO recently reached an agreement with the iPhone maker to incorporate some OpenAI services into Apple products. Nadella was reportedly concerned about the potential impact of a deal on Microsoft's product ambitions, per the report. Apple was said to be considering both Google and OpenAI for the deal, which could be worth billions. If OpenAI has indeed reached an agreement with Apple, it would be a much-needed win for Altman. The tech boss has faced heightened scrutiny after former employees and board members publicly criticized him. Helen Toner, a former OpenAI director, recently accused Altman of lying to the board "multiple" times and "withholding information."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is Coming To Xbox Game Pass On Its Release Day

Par : msmash
28 mai 2024 à 16:48
An anonymous reader shares a report: Just before Microsoft closed its acquisition of Activision Blizzard, it said that it would take some time to bring the publisher's titles to Game Pass. We've only seen one such addition so far in the form of Diablo IV, but the company has announced another, somewhat notable one. Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 will be available on Game Pass on its release day later this year. Microsoft is banking on the debut of a new Call of Duty title on its subscription service leading to a significant bump in the number of Game Pass members. It's a bit of a gamble, as for nearly every year in recent memory, the latest Call of Duty release has been the best-selling game. Microsoft is likely to see lower direct sales of Black Ops 6 on Xbox and PC, though it will still generate revenue from Game Pass and the PlayStation version (and perhaps even a Nintendo Switch release), as well as through microtransactions.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft's Automatic Super Resolution Arrives To Improve Gaming Performance

Par : msmash
27 mai 2024 à 22:30
Microsoft has announced Auto SR, an AI-powered image upscaling solution for Windows 11 on Arm devices. The feature, exclusive to Qualcomm's Snapdragon X CPUs, aims to enhance gaming performance on ARM-based systems. Auto SR, however, comes with notable restrictions, including compatibility limitations with certain DirectX versions and the inability to work simultaneously with HDR.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

VBScript's 'Deprecation' Confirmed by Microsoft - and Eventual Removal from Windows

Par : EditorDavid
26 mai 2024 à 11:34
"Microsoft has confirmed plans to pull the plug on VBScript in the second half of 2024 in a move that signals the end of an era for programmers," writes Tech Radar. Though the language was first introduced in 1996, Microsoft's latest announcement says the move was made "considering the decline in VBScript usage": Beginning with the new OS release slated for later this year [Windows 11, version 24H2], VBScript will be available as features on demand. The feature will be completely retired from future Windows OS releases, as we transition to the more efficient PowerShell experiences. Around 2027 it will become "disabled by default," with the date of its final removal "to be determined." But the announcement confirms VBScript will eventually be "retired and eliminated from future versions of Windows." This means all the dynamic link libraries (.dll files) of VBScript will be removed. As a result, projects that rely on VBScript will stop functioning. By then, we expect that you'll have switched to suggested alternatives. The post recommends migirating applications to PowerShell or JavaScript. This year's annual "feature update" for Windows will also include Sudo for Windows, Rust in the Windows kernel, "and a number of user interface tweaks, such as the ability to create 7-zip and TAR archives in File Explorer," reports the Register. "It will also include the next evolution of Copilot into an app pinned to the taskbar." But the downgrading of VBScript "is part of a broader strategy to remove Windows and Office features threat actors use as attack vectors to infect users with malware," reports BleepingComputer: Attackers have also used VBScript in malware campaigns, delivering strains like Lokibot, Emotet, Qbot, and, more recently, DarkGate malware.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Thursday's Bing API Outage Took Down DuckDuckGo, Copilot, and ChatGPT Search

Par : EditorDavid
25 mai 2024 à 19:34
Thursday long-time Slashdot reader mschaffer reported that "Microsoft's search engine isn't working correctly, and many alternative search engines that rely on it are down, too." Bing started "having issues" around 1:30 a.m. EST, reports SearchEngineLand (citing Downdector.com, and sharing screenshots of Bing.com searches failing — even on partner sites like DuckDuckGo). By Thursday morning search capabilities for ChatGPT, Copilot, DuckDuckGo, and other platforms had stopped working, reports the Verge, saying the issues "appeared to be linked to Bing's API and any service that relies upon it." While Microsoft's own web search engine, Bing, was also seemingly affected, according to TechCrunch, it came back online eventually. By 11AM ET, OpenAI posted a note indicating the issue had been resolved, saying, "Between around 10:10 PM PT yesterday and 6:50 AM PT today, we experienced a partial outage affecting ChatGPT's web-browsing capabilities due to Bing being unavailable." DuckDuckGo posted that "we're coming back up" at around 10:30AM ET, and so did Ecosia, which is "the search engine that plants trees." Copilot users experienced "a loading loop that prevented users from accessing the service," according to the article, while ChatGPT users attempting a web search got error messages instead. Ars Technica adds that it also stopped searches from Microsoft's Edge browsers (that hadn't changed their default search settings). But they also had a disturbing observation for people worried that web search is dominated by Google: "most of your other major options were brought down by a single API outage... The overwhelming majority of search tools offering an alternative" to Google are using Google, Bing, or Yandex... Yandex, being based in Russia, is a non-starter for many people around the world at the moment." But their article digs deep into the alternatives, starting with this list compiled by undergraduate CS major Rohan Kumar of search sites with their own indexes — including Mojeek, Stract, and Right Dao and Yep...

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

La panne de Bing rappelle que Qwant et DuckDuckGo ne sont pas si indépendants

23 mai 2024 à 14:10

En panne pendant plusieurs heures le jeudi 23 mai, le moteur de recherche Bing a entraîné dans sa chute plusieurs services concurrents, comme Qwant, DuckDuckGo et Ecosia. Un bon rappel de leur véritable nature : aucun de ces services ne dispose de son propre moteur.

Le patron de Microsoft désavoue les délires d’OpenAI sur la voix de Scarlett Johansson

23 mai 2024 à 13:25

Scarlett_Johansson

Le patron de Microsoft, Satya Nadella, n'aime pas trop la tendance de l'IA à aller vers l'anthropomorphisation. La récente trajectoire prise par OpenAI, un très proche partenaire, est indirectement critiquée.

Microsoft Is Making File Explorer More Powerful With Version Control and 7z Compression

Par : BeauHD
21 mai 2024 à 23:00
Sean Hollister reports via The Verge: At Build, Microsoft now says it's adding native version control to File Explorer by integrating systems like Git, letting you see new changes and comments directly from the app. Here's a cropped and zoomed version of the provided screenshot so you can get a better look. [...] Microsoft says it's also letting File Explorer natively compress files to 7-zip and TAR; currently, the right-click context menu has a "Compress to ZIP file" option, but ZIP is thought to be a bit antiquated in terms of how much compression you get.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft Edge Will Dub Streamed Video With AI-Translated Audio

Par : msmash
21 mai 2024 à 16:41
Microsoft is planning to either add subtitles or even dub video produced by major video sites, using AI to translate the audio into foreign languages within Microsoft Edge in real time. From a report: At its Microsoft Build developer conference, Microsoft named several sites that would benefit from the new real-time translation capabilities within Edge, including Reuters, CNBC News, Bloomberg, and Coursera, plus Microsoft's own LinkedIn. Interestingly, Microsoft also named Google's YouTube as a beneficiary of the translation capabilities. Microsoft plans to translate the video from Spanish to English and from English to German, Hindi, Italian, Russian, and Spanish. There are plans to add additional languages and video platforms in the future, Microsoft said.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

En Bref : Non, Copilot+ n’est pas réservé aux puces ARM

21 mai 2024 à 14:49

Minimachines.net en partenariat avec TopAchat.com

En très bref, Microsoft n’est pas fou. 99.99% du marché actuel du PC portable est composé de PC x86 signés par des puces AMD et Intel. Il y a fort a parier que cette situation continue sur cette lancée pour les années à venir. Ne pas lancer des PC Copilot x86 serait se tirer une balle dans le pied.

Minimachines-05-2024

Si la présentation de l’IA maison de Microsoft se fait autour des puces Snapdragon X de Qualcomm, cela n’est pas un pré requis. Des PC Copilot x86 vont également très vite arriver.

Microsoft ne va pas cautionner le développement de son IA, point névralgique d’une énorme bataille technique et commerciale pour les années à venir à la condition d’un achat d’un PC équipé d’une puce occupant 0.01% de parts de marché actuel. Même avec beaucoup de chance et d’excellents retours, au vu des prix annoncés pour les futurs PC sous SoC Qualcomm et de l’ambiance assez morose actuellement, je doute que les parts de marchés de cette gamme dépasse les 1 à 3% à la fin de l’année 2024. Autrement dit, cautionner le succès de Copilot+ à ARM serait suicidaire pour toute la stratégie commerciale autour de l’IA chez Microsoft. Ce qui ne serait pas bien malin puisque son rapprochement avec OpenAI semble avoir laissé Google et Facebook comme des lapins pris dans les phares de Chat GPT. Cela faisait longtemps que Microsoft n’était pas dans un tel rapport de force.

Du reste, jamais le papa de Windows ne précise que son IA maison nécessite la présence d’une puce ARM. Les prérequis affichés sont clairs. Pour avoir la certification Recall par exemple, il faudra au minimum :

  • Un PC Copilot+
  • Un processeur avec 8 cœurs logiques
  • 16 Go de mémoire vive
  • 256 Go de stockage

Mais ce PC Copilot+ pourra aussi bien être équipé d’un SoC Qualcomm qu’une puce Intel ou AMD. Sans aucun distinction du moment qu’il suit les préconisations de la présence d’un NPU et du bon nombre de cœurs.

Microsoft le dit lui même en clair sur son site. Une note de blog détaille très bien l’arrivée de PC Copilot+ sous processeurs Intel et AMD. Il est déjà temps de tordre le coup à cette idée reçue. Microsoft n’est pas idiot, il ne va pas engager son avenir en terme d’IA avec une gamme de produits dont personne ne connait le succès en terme de ventes à l’avenir.

Donc oui, il va bien y avoir des PC Copilot x86.

Microsoft annonce Copilot+, une IA intimement mêlée à Windows

En Bref : Non, Copilot+ n’est pas réservé aux puces ARM © MiniMachines.net. 2024.

Windows Returns – Stratechery by Ben Thompson

21 mai 2024 à 14:04
Je note juste le lien vers cet article pour une information précise : Même si l'IA de Microsoft - CoPilot - tourne localement sur votre ordinateur, elle communique quand même avec les serveurs de Microsoft pour s'assurer que la demande faite à l'IA est "safe".
Ce qui confirme bien qu'on peut se torcher avec les promesses de Microsoft sur le fait que l'IA sera totalement locale et qu'elle respectera notre vie privée.

Donc voilà comment Microsoft va rendre CoPilot/ChatGPT rentable : Déporter le coût du matériel (CPU/GPU/NPU) et de l'énergie (électricité) sur le client au lieu de faire tourner ça sur leurs serveurs, puisque les frais de fonctionnement sont astronomiques (Rappel : 700 000 dollars PAR JOUR pour ChatGPT).
(Permalink)

« C’est un épisode de Black Mirror » : la dernière idée de Microsoft avec Windows 11 alarme

21 mai 2024 à 09:48

Microsoft AI

Microsoft a fait plusieurs annonces autour de l'intelligence artificielle lors de sa conférence Build. L'une d'elles, appelée Recall, a suscité une certaine agitation sur les réseaux sociaux. Elle vise à avoir une IA locale, qui va se nourrir de tout ce qui se passe à l'écran.

❌
❌