2024 has been a big year for on-device AI in consumer electronics. Both Microsoft and Apple took swings with their respective operating systems, with Microsoft debuting its “Copilot+ PC” branding for AI-capable laptops and Apple releasing Apple Intelligence. These early examples offered mixed results. Some features, like real-time translations and on-device speech-to-text, can be useful. Others, like Microsoft’s Windows Recall, have yet to prove themselves. All of this hype for AI has important implications for the new year. 2025 looks set to become the year when mainstream developers make their attempts to add on-device AI to their Windows apps, and that means you’re going to want to pay even closer attention to the AI performance of modern Windows laptops before you buy a new one. I spoke with two experts in AI research and testing to probe their brains for insights on how Windows on-device AI will grow in 2025. Big gains are coming for NPUs If you’re curious about Windows laptops’ AI performance, you’ll likely end up comparing the “TOPS” promised by each laptop model. TOPS (“Trillions of Operations Per Second”) is a measurement of an NPU’s ability to perform matrix multiplications for on-device AI tasks. (Learn more about what an NPU is and why it matters for AI.) 2024 saw big gains in the TOPS performance available from Windows laptops. To qualify for Microsoft’s “Copilot PC+” branding, a Windows laptop must have at least 40 TOPS of NPU performance. For reference, Qualcomm’s first Copilot+ PCs quoted about 45 TOPS — that’s a four-fold uplift over Intel’s “Meteor Lake” Core Ultra 7 165H, which had only quoted 11 TOPS of NPU performance. Windows Recall on a Copilot+ laptop by Samsung.Microsoft / Samsung “I think Qualcomm really woke everyone up,” said Karl Freund, founder and principal analyst at Cambrian AI Research. Freund has noted that AMD and Intel have been quick to respond with their own chips, which delivered a similar uplift. By the end of 2024, shoppers looking for a premium Windows laptop — like a Microsoft Surface, Asus ProArt, or Dell XPS — can expect a roughly three- or four-fold increase in NPU performance compared to similarly premium laptops that were available at the end of 2023. That’s a huge bump up. But will that trend continue into 2025? Ryan Shrout, president of performance testing lab Signal65, thinks it could. “It wouldn’t surprise me if we see double again, and triple again wouldn’t surprise me.” However, he expects those eventual gains to be weighted more towards the end of next year. “My guess is it will be late 2025, and probably into 2026, when we see the most significant NPU improvements.” TOPS may not stay on top for long A potential two- to three-fold improvement for on-device AI performance is significant. However, Freund and Shrout warned it’s best not to give too much credence to the TOPS performances that chip makers quote. “TOPS really stands for ‘Terribly Overused Performance Stat,`” said Freund. “It doesn’t have a lot of value.” Shrout agreed, comparing TOPS to the TFLOPS figures that AMD and Nvidia often quote when marketing GPUs. These numbers, which point to a GPU’s maximum possible computation speed, offer surprisingly little insight into actual real-world performance. Real-world AI performance is currently a bit of a wild card, in part because Windows has yet to coalesce around a single API for tapping an NPU’s AI capabilities. That’s a problem for owners of Copilot+ laptops that lack a Qualcomm chip inside. Da Vinci Resolve running on a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite laptop.Mark Hachman / IDG Though AMD and Intel have chips that qualify for Copilot+ branding, Qualcomm has enjoyed a favored status so far. Qualcomm machines were the first to receive support for Windows Recall and several popular apps, like Blender and Affinity Photo, which were recently announced to only work on Qualcomm Snapdragon X hardware. That should change through 2025, however, as Microsoft rallies support for its low-level machine learning API (DirectML) and the Windows Copilot Runtime, which includes several task-specific AI APIs (some of which have yet to be released). For now, it’s clear that Copilot+ PCs leave a lot to be desired and have lots of room for growth coming up. “I think Microsoft will have this solved in 2025,” said Shrout. “Once application developers attach to DirectML, like they did with DirectX, it will be a solved problem. And I don’t think it will be a problem for long.” Shrout compared it to the early days of 3D on the PC, which initially saw competing APIs but eventually consolidated around the leaders, with Microsoft DirectX becoming the most popular option. Proving the case for Windows AI Better NPUs and a unified API that makes it easier for Windows application developers to actually use an NPU’s full performance are both important steps forward, but they don’t necessarily guarantee that on-device AI will become commonplace. That’s because developers still have the option to turn towards companies like OpenAI and Anthropic, who make their AI models and services available to any device with internet access. And their AI models are still more capable than on-device AI models, able to do more and generate those results far more quickly. However, those AI models hosted in the cloud have a major downside that will become more relevant in 2025 — price. “The fact we can have small language models run on an NPU continuously in the background to monitor what’s happening, that’s something the cloud can’t do, or at least would be much more expensive from an infrastructure standpoint,” said Shrout. CKA / Shutterstock OpenAI’s recent release of ChatGPT Pro, a new premium tier for power users, seems to drive this point home. ChatGPT Pro provides unlimited access to the company’s new o1 model and priority access to the Sora video generator, but it’s priced at $200 per month. The per-token price paid by app developers to make o1 available to users is similarly steep. Users and developers who turn to a Windows laptop’s on-device NPU, on the other hand, can essentially use it whenever they want for free. That’s arguably going to be the final brick laid in the road towards on-device AI. Developers and users will have both the tools and incentives to rely on a Windows laptop’s NPU whenever possible to cut costs. It remains to be seen how quickly the shift towards on-device AI will happen, and to what extent it will proliferate through Windows’ software ecosystem, but it’s likely that 2025 will be a huge turning point. “I think Qualcomm had it right five years ago when they said AI would move on-device. At first, I was skeptical. But now I’ve become a believer,” said Freund. Further reading: Free AI tools that run locally on your PC Read...

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Fortinet has launched FortiAppSec Cloud, a cloud-based platform designed to enhance web application security and streamline performance management. Read...

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Google is rolling out version 2.0 of its Gemini AI model today for the web. But the real news is what Google calls “Deep Research,” which attempts to mimic how actual humans research a subject and develop a report on it. It’s yet another tool that students have available to them, and one that probably will scare teachers who worry about AI being used for cheating even more. Google AI-powered search worried content creators because it slurped up content that others had created and passed it off as its own work, with some minimal footnotes to point back at the original authors. Deep Research takes this to another level. Deep Research takes a prompt and first crafts a research plan, according to Google. Instead of immediately setting out to craft a report, it will first ask you to approve the general outline of the plan. Only then will it set out to actually craft the report, properly footnoted. An example graphic showed Deep Research basically taking the results from over 48 websites and collating them into a finished report. What’s interesting is that Google apparently revamps its report on the fly, crafting new drafts as it discovers new information. Google’s example says that the report takes a “few minutes” to finish up. “Over the course of a few minutes, Gemini continuously refines its analysis, browsing the web the way you do: searching, finding interesting pieces of information, and then starting a new search based on what it’s learned,” Google said. “It repeats this process multiple times and, once complete, generates a comprehensive report of the key findings, which you can export into a Google Doc. It’s neatly organized with links to the original sources, connecting you to relevant websites and businesses or organizations you might not have found otherwise so you can easily dive deeper to learn more.”  Although we haven’t seen the results first-hand, it sounds like Google at least can mimic the way in which students can research and report on a topic. You’ll just have to pay for it: Deep Research will be part of Gemini Advanced, Google’s $19.99/mo service that includes a Google One membership as well as access to Google’s next-generation AI models. Read...

Microsoft continues to test out new ways of showcasing Copilot within Windows. The latest? A compact view that can be opened with the Alt+Space shortcut. Microsoft is touting the new Copilot app as a “native” app, not just the Progressive Web App (PWA) that Microsoft had transformed Copilot into earlier this year. But there’s no indication that Copilot will run locally on your PC, and Windows Central discovered that the app still just calls Microsoft’s Copilot website. So what’s new? Not much. The new Copilot opens as a more compact view, and can be opened using the Alt+Space shortcut. (As Microsoft notes, however, other apps may use the Alt+Space shortcut, too, so Microsoft will simply assign the shortcut to whatever app launched first and is running in the background when the shortcut was used.) You can then expand Copilot to a larger size using another button. It’s a very minor change, although making Copilot a native application may pave the way for future innovation. Let’s hope so. Microsoft is pushing out the new version of Copilot to Windows Insiders right now. Read...

Yesterday was the last Patch Tuesday of 2024, and with it Microsoft has provided a number of security updates, eliminating 71 security vulnerabilities across various Microsoft apps and services. Microsoft categorizes 16 of these vulnerabilities as “critical” and classifies all but one of the remaining issues as “high risk.” According to the company, one of those Windows security flaws is already being exploited in the wild, so it’s crucial to patch ASAP. With 1,020 security vulnerabilities patched throughout 2024, this has been the second worst year for Microsoft as far as sheer number of security issues. It was only surpassed once, in 2020, which saw 1,250 security vulnerabilities across the year. Microsoft offers sparse details on these vulnerabilities in its Security Update Guide. Dustin Childs breaks down Patch Tuesday in a much clearer way on the Trend Micro ZDI blog, always with an eye for admins who manage corporate networks. Windows security flaws patched A large proportion of the vulnerabilities — 59 this time around — are spread across the various Windows versions (10, 11, and Server) for which Microsoft still offers security updates. Get Windows 11 Pro for cheap Windows 11 Pro Although Windows 7 and 8.1 are no longer mentioned in security reports, they could still be vulnerable. If your system requirements allow it, you should switch to Windows 10 22H2 or Windows 11 23H2 to continue receiving security updates. The Windows 11 24H2 update is available, but you might want to hold off until its widespread issues are fixed. Windows under attack in the wild According to Microsoft, there are already attacks being made on one particular security vulnerability in Windows. Known as CVE-2024-49138, this buffer overflow issue in the driver of the shared protocol file system has been identified as high risk, allowing an attacker to gain system authorization via elevation of privilege. In combination with an RCE (Remote Code Execution) security vulnerability, an attacker could gain full control of the Windows system and cause major damage. Such combinations are often seen in ransomware attacks, which are still on the rise today. Tip: Not only should you be diligently keeping your operating system up to date, but you should also be protecting your PC with reputable antivirus software and VPN software. Check out our top picks for the best Windows antivirus suites and best VPN services. Other critical Windows security flaws Microsoft categorizes a total of 16 RCE vulnerabilities in Windows as critical, with the Remote Desktop service alone accounting for nine of them. Even though there are no recorded in-the-wild exploits of these vulnerabilities yet, admins should not ignore them. The most notable is CVE-2024-49112, an RCE vulnerability in the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) that could allow an attacker to inject code without user login and execute it with elevated privileges. Microsoft recommends disconnecting vulnerable domain controllers from the internet as a mitigation measure against such attacks. Microsoft also classifies the RCE vulnerability CVE-2024-49117 in Hyper-V as critical. Code from the guest system could break out and be executed on the host system. A simple user login is sufficient for the attacker. Office security flaws patched Microsoft has eliminated eight security vulnerabilities in its Office products, including three RCE vulnerabilities. One was in Excel, one was in Access, and the third one (known as CVE-2024-49065) can be exploited via the Outlook preview for file attachments. Fortunately, according to Microsoft, the attacker can’t access user data with this vulnerability, but can prevent its availability. The first in a long line of AI vulnerabilities? Microsoft Muzic: AI vulnerabilityMicrosoft Muzic is an open-source research project by Microsoft that uses deep learning to promote the understanding and creation of music. With CVE-2024-49063, Microsoft has plugged the first of what could be many security flaws in the field of artificial intelligence. Anyone wondering what AI vulnerabilities might look like: they look like deserialization errors. An attacker can develop malicious code that would be executed when a data stream is converted into an object. As of December 2024, there’s no new Windows tool for removing malware. The next Patch Tuesday will be on January 14, 2025. Read...

Microsoft regularly changes the functions, options, and display of the Start menu in Windows. There are innovations such as a tile layout for the “All” tab. However, the menu also hides important functions, making them more difficult to access. Windows 11 Pro In this article, we look at the settings options for the Start menu and how you can customize it to suit your requirements. Customize the Start menu with Windows settings By default, you will find the on-board settings options for the Start menu in the Windows settings under Personalization > Start or via Start settings after right-clicking on the Start menu. You can access the settings for the taskbar via Personalization > Taskbar or by right-clicking on the taskbar and selecting Taskbar settings. Foundry In the upper area, you can define the general layout and control how many icons should appear in the Start menu. In the Start menu settings, you can use sliders to specify what Windows 11 should and should not display. The unsolicited tips and adverts are particularly annoying. You can switch these off by deactivating the option Show recommendations for tips, shortcuts, new apps, and more. The same applies to the display of the most recently added apps and most used apps. You can also hide these again by deactivating the corresponding options directly from the Start menu. If you also do not want to see the most recently opened documents in the Start menu, simply deactivate “Show recommended files in Start, recent files in File Explorer, and items in Jump Lists.” The jump lists are the menus that Windows 11 displays when you click on an app icon in the taskbar. Here you can see specific options, such as directly accessing the most recent web pages in Google Chrome or opening the most recently edited documents in Word. The Start menu also has a jump list. You can call this up by right-clicking on the Start button in the taskbar. Foundry Via the menu item Folders, at the bottom of Personalization > Start in the Windows settings, you can make further adjustments to which items Windows 11 should display in the Start menu. For example, you can specify here that the Windows settings, Explorer, or a shortcut to the storage location of your documents should appear directly in the Start menu. Customize the taskbar to your own requirements The taskbar settings also affect the Start menu itself in many places. Firstly, you can specify how the search field should appear in the taskbar settings (right-click on the taskbar). If you search frequently using the Windows search function, it may be useful to activate the Search field option under Taskbar items > Search. If you only search occasionally, then Search icon only is also sufficient. If you do not use the search at all, you can create space in the taskbar by activating Hide. Foundry You can also deactivate the display of widgets in Windows and the view of currently launched applications at this point. If you want to display these, you can use the Windows key+Tab key combination instead. Under Other system tray icons, you can also specify which of the applications you have installed are displayed in the taskbar when they are started. You can hide apps whose icons you do not want to keep constantly in view by deactivating the respective option. These icons appear when you click on the small arrow at the bottom right of the tray area of the taskbar. If you do not want to see this arrow either, deactivate Hidden icon menu. You can use Taskbar behaviors to specify where the Start menu should appear. With Left selected under Taskbar alignment, the Start menu appears on the left-hand side of the taskbar, as in previous versions of Windows 11. With Automatically hide taskbar, the taskbar disappears downwards and only reappears when you move the mouse to the bottom of the screen. Foundry You can also create more space here with Combine taskbar buttons…, as the individually launched apps do not take up as much space. Quit crashed programs faster with developer options The End task option in the context menu of applications in the task list is interesting. If an application crashes or no longer responds properly, you can end its process here. Previously, this was only possible directly in the Windows 11 Task Manager, which you can also start via the context menu of the taskbar or with the key combination Ctrl+Shift+Esc. However, the option only appears if you switch to System > For developers in the Windows settings and enable the End Task option here. This allows you to end the process directly if the app is no longer working properly. Foundry Customize the Start menu directly If you open the Start menu by left-clicking, you can make further customizations. Firstly, you can remove the icon from the Start menu by right-clicking on individual apps with Remove from Start. The app remains installed and can still be opened via the search and the display of all apps, but no longer appears in the Start menu. You can also move the app to the front of the Start menu, uninstall, it or call up the app’s settings if it supports this. If the app is also linked in the taskbar, you can remove this icon with Remove from taskbar. Conversely, you can display apps that do not appear on the main page of the Start menu or the taskbar by right-clicking and selecting Pin to Start or Pin to taskbar in the Start menu and in the taskbar. You can customize the order of the icons displayed in the Start menu using drag-and-drop. This allows you to move the applications to the position where you want them. Tools for the Start menu: StartAllBack, Start11, and Classic Shell With the StartAllBack tool, you can customize the Start menu with an external tool and align it with the Windows 7 design. The Start menu reappears on the left-hand side of the taskbar and is reminiscent of the Windows 7 design. If you want to use the tool permanently, you will have to expect to pay $5 per PC. However, you can use the tool completely free of charge for 100 days. Another tool in this area is Start11. This also activates the classic Windows 7 view and offers more setting options. After the test phase, the tool costs $10 per PC. You can use Start11 free of charge for 30 days, but you have to register with your email address. StartAllBack If you are keen to experiment, you can also use the Classic Shell tool known from Windows 10 in Windows 11. However, the tool has not been released for Windows 11 and is no longer being developed further. However, you can experiment with the free tool at your own risk. It generally also works in Windows 11 24H2, but should only be used by experienced users, as it can also cause Windows to crash. Read...

Some people can hardly remember the time before YouTube. The video host was founded in 2005, and year after year the platform got bigger and bigger. As early as 2006, around 100 million clips were viewed there every day. By 2010, this figure had risen to more than two billion per day. Today, users upload around 500 hours of video material every minute. No wonder, really. The largely free service offers almost endless entertainment, how-to and tutorial videos, music, and much more. Of course, users also have the opportunity to upload videos themselves, collect followers, and earn money with them. However, even passionate users often don’t know all the tricks for an optimal streaming experience. You can find such tips in this article: How to use YouTube perfectly on your PC, smartphone, smart TV and co. Further reading: I block every ad on YouTube and I’m not ashamed to admit it General YouTube tips These settings and tricks promise a better YouTube experience across all devices. Create GIFs from YouTube videos You can create GIFs from YouTube videos free of charge – flexible settings included.Foundry Did you know that you can create a compact GIF from a YouTube video with just a few clicks or swipe gestures? It’s even free: Visit the GIF generator at makeagif.com and insert the YouTube link to the relevant video. You can then specify the desired output quality (maximum medium for free use), determine the GIF length, and adjust the playback speed. Note: Free users must tolerate watermarks and a lower resolution. Use dark mode A small setting with a big effect. Dark mode makes YouTube more enjoyable, and not just in the late evening hours. It is particularly pleasant and useful to switch to dark mode when using the app for long periods of time, as it reduces eye fatigue and saves battery power. On the PC, we simply click on our profile picture and then on “Display.” Here you can now select the dark design. Dark mode is also available in the official YouTube app (Settings->General->Display). Variable playback speed In the playback options (gear icon), you can gradually adjust the playback speed of YouTube videos. This allows clips to be played back at twice the speed or up to four times slower. This is super handy if a YouTuber doesn’t want to get to the point in their videos, or if you want to watch a step in a tutorial in detail. Show subtitles If you’ve ever watched a video from the American South or a Seitenbacher advert, you’ll know the problem. Sometimes you can’t understand a word. However, the solution to such language barriers is easy to find, you can simply activate subtitles in many YouTube videos. The button for this can be found directly next to the small cogwheel below the video when using the browser, for example. More fun with YouTube on your smartphone or tablet These tricks and tips make YouTube even more fun on mobile devices. Play YouTube videos in the background on your mobile device (with Android or iOS) You can also play videos in the background on your smartphone with Firefox if you install a free plug-in.Foundry There is one small restriction on YouTube that can be really annoying. If you watch videos on your smartphone where you are only interested in the audio track (such as music or radio plays), you always have to keep the display activated and play the video in the foreground. As soon as you switch to another tab or deactivate the display, the playback also stops–quite annoying. The workaround for Android: A free plug-in is available for the Firefox mobile browser (Android | iOS): “Video playback in the background.” You can find this in the browser menu (three dots) and then under “Extensions” (see image). It also works on iPhone: First, start the video in the browser and then switch to the desktop version of the website in the settings. (You can skip this step on the iPad). Now, leave the website using the iPhone’s home button and open the quick settings using the usual swipe gesture (top right corner). Here you can now simply restart the video with the play button, it will then play in the background and you can hear the sound normally, even if the display is off. Tips and tricks for better YouTube on your PC MP3 download, keyboard shortcuts, or editing playlists together. If you enjoy browsing YouTube on your PC, you should know these practical tricks: Download YouTube music and save it locally as an MP3 You can convert YouTube videos to audio files (MP3) in a flash.Foundry Even beyond YouTube Music, the classic video host has plenty of music to offer from all genres and pretty much every decade since the invention of the sound carrier. And although YouTube itself doesn’t like it that much, you can convert such tracks with various web services in no time at all and save them locally as MP3s. You can do this here, for example. Use keyboard shortcuts There are many practical keyboard shortcuts available for YouTube videos, which promise more convenient operation and can save a lot of time, especially for frequent viewers. Note: If the shortcuts do not work, click on the video once (this will bring the player back into focus). ShortcutsShortcut functionSpace barPlay / PausekPlay / PausemMute videoleft / right arrow keyfast forward or rewind 5 secondsUp / down arrow keyVolume up or down (5 % each)jrewind 10 secondslfast forward 10 seconds.With paused video to the next frame,To the previous frame when the video is pausedShift key .Accelerate playbackShift key (Shift) ,Slow down playbackNumbers 1 to 9Jump to 10 to 90 % of the videoNumber 0Jump to the beginningfFull screen modecSelect subtitles (if available)Shift key (Shift) nNext videoShift key pPrevious videoPOS1 keyJump to the beginning of the videoEND keySkip to the end of the video Link to the exact playback position of a video You can quickly create a link to any playback position.Foundry You want to show a friend a funny moment in a YouTube video, but the clip is 15 minutes long? No problem. You can easily create a link to the exact position of the current playback. To do this, simply rewind to the point you want to link to and right-click on the video. Then click on “Copy video URL at this point” in the small window. The link will then be copied to the clipboard and can be inserted at any time by right-clicking and pasting or by pressing CTRL V. Edit playlists together with friends You can invite friends to edit playlists together.Foundry If you would like to allow friends or acquaintances to collaborate on your YouTube playlists, this is not a problem. First, open the playlist that you would like to share for editing. Note: If the list is not yet public, you still need to select/set this. Now you can select the “Invite employees” function via the Share button and generate a link that you can then forward to contacts. Make sure that the “Edit together” and “Allow new collaborators” functions are activated in the window. Play adverts 16 times faster with Chrome or Edge Gone again: This Chrome extension allows you to play adverts 16 times faster.Foundry If you’re sometimes annoyed by adverts on YouTube, we can understand that: The provider regularly places intrusive adverts in front of us before a video and often in the middle of it. Added to this is YouTube’s increasingly rigid approach to ad blockers. The solution (at least for Chrome users) is called “Ad Speedup – Skip Video Ads 16X Faster” and is available as a free extension for Chrome and Edge. It automatically plays ad sequences at 16x speed and skips them in no time at all. Useful YouTube tips for your smart TV Naturally, YouTube really comes into its own on the TV. The large display offers space for all the details and you can sink into the couch and relax while watching. These tips will make the video service even more fun on your Smart TV. Show or hide subtitles If you don’t know how to show or hide subtitles for YouTube on your Smart TV, it can be quite annoying. Fortunately, the function is very easy to access: Firstly, we pause the video and press the up button on the TV remote control. Here we now select the settings (usually on the far right; cogwheel symbol). In the following window, we can now select subtitles if they are available. In case of playback problems: Use an Ethernet cable This is not just a tip for YouTube, but a useful solution to problems when streaming is jerky or clips are slow to load (and also helps with problems with Netflix and the like). If you connect your smart TV to the internet via Wi-Fi, you sometimes have to deal with connection problems or slow data transfer, depending on the distance to the router. The solution? Lay an Ethernet cable from the router to the Smart TV, then the full bandwidth and unclouded video enjoyment is available there. Avoid adverts with YouTube Premium Google doesn’t exactly make it easy for us to install ad blockers with the app for the Smart TV – after all, this contradicts the business model of the free service. The remedy is to switch to YouTube Premium. This currently costs $13.99 per month (for individuals), deactivates all adverts, and allows uncomplicated background playback and offline music. More options: Stream to the TV via smartphone instead of the YouTube app There are a few advantages to streaming YouTube to your TV using your smartphone. You can also display comments or post them yourself (writing only on your smartphone). You can read how to set up such a stream here. For families: Activate parental control To prevent children from watching inappropriate content on YouTube on the TV (of which there is plenty), you can filter such content directly in the app. To do this, first go to the app settings on the smart TV, search for the “Restricted mode” entry, and activate the function. The majority of content that is not suitable for children should then no longer be accessible via the TV. Read...