What Is Recall? 

The Recall feature for Windows (currently in preview status) is a new feature that’s exclusive to Microsoft’s forthcoming Copilot+ PCs. Recall takes snapshots of whatever is on your screen every five seconds (e.g. emails, and photos), while content on the screen is different from the previous snapshot. These snapshots are then stored (encrypted) and analysed using optical character recognition (OCR), which uses AI, locally on the user’s PC. The collection of snapshots is designed to give users not only a timeline of everything they’ve done and seen, but they can use voice commands to search through it for what they need, e.g. for any content (text and images) they may have been working on or seen. Microsoft says the functionality will be improved “over time” to enable users to open the actual source document, website, or email in a screenshot. 

When Recall opens the snapshot a user has requested, it enables ‘screenray’.  This runs at the top of the snapshot and allows the user to interact with any of the elements in the snapshot, so for instance, the user can copy text from the snapshot or send pictures from the snapshot (to an app that supports jpeg files). 

Won’t It Just Fill Up The PC’s Storage Space With Snapshots? 

With different screen snapshots (captured every-five-seconds having to be stored locally on the PC) you may be wondering what this will do to the storage space. Microsoft says the minimum hard drive space needed to run Recall is 256 GB (whereby 50 GB of space must be available) and that the default allocation for Recall on a device with 256 GB will be 25 GB, which can store approximately 3 months of snapshots. Users can increase the storage allocation for Recall in the PC Settings and old snapshots are deleted when the allocated storage is used, allowing new ones to be stored. 

Why Use Recall? 

According to Yusuf Mehdi, Microsoft’s executive vice president and consumer chief marketing officer, with Recall, Microsoft “set out to solve one of the most frustrating problems we encounter daily — finding something we know we have seen before on our PC”. 

Broadly speaking therefore, Recall is essentially a productivity and user experience-enhancing feature. Microsoft hopes that Recall will transform how users interact with their digital content by providing powerful, AI-driven tools for retrieving and managing past activities while maintaining a high level of control and (hopefully) privacy too.

Privacy Concerns 

While on the face of it, it’s possible to see how useful this feature could be, Recall has set privacy alarm bells ringing for some users. For example, it’s been reported that the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is contacting Microsoft for more information on the safety of the product and that Recall has been described as a “privacy nightmare” by some privacy watchdogs. Examples of some of the key concerns about the potential privacy issues of Recall include: 

– Since the feature doesn’t moderate what it records, very sensitive information including snapshots of passwords, financial account numbers, medical or legal information (and more) could be accessed and taken, presenting an obvious risk. Microsoft says: “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.” 

– With gaining initial access to a device being one of the easier elements of an attack, this is all that would be needed to potentially access the screenshots and steal sensitive information or business trade secrets. 

– Anyone who knows a user’s password could access that user’s history in more detail. 

– Recall is currently at the preview stage, but unless Microsoft assesses the data protection, and peoples’ rights and freedoms before the feature is released to the wider market, there may be some serious legal issues and consequences. 

Elon Musk also posted about the feature on his X platform saying: “This is a Black Mirror episode. Definitely turning this ‘feature‘ off.” 

What Does Microsoft Say? 

In defence of Recall and to allay the privacy concerns expressed, Microsoft points out that: 

– Recall is not enabled by default – it is an opt-in feature. Users must manually activate it to use it and can configure its settings to control what data it captures and stores. 

– Microsoft says it built privacy into Recall’s design “from the ground up”. 

– By clicking on the Recall taskbar icon after user’s first activate their Copilot+ device, they can choose what snapshots Recall collects and stores on their device. For example, users can select specific apps or websites visited in a supported browser to filter out of snapshots, snapshots on demand from the Recall icon in the system tray, clear some or all snapshots that have been stored, or delete all the snapshots from the device. 

– Microsoft says: “For enterprise customers, IT administrators can disable automatically saving snapshots using group policy or mobile device management policy. If a policy is used to disable saving snapshots, all saved snapshots from users’ devices will be deleted, and device users can’t enable saving snapshots.” 

– The snapshots captured by Microsoft’s Recall feature are stored locally on the PC but are encrypted and protected using BitLocker encryption. 

– Recall data is only stored locally and isn’t accessed by Microsoft or anyone who does not have device access. 

What Does This Mean For Your Business? 

It’s possible to see the value of the Recall feature (in the forthcoming Copilot+ PCs) in terms of offering UK businesses a potential boost in productivity and efficiency. Being able to search by voice and quickly find (and eventually click through to) anything you’ve been looking at could make it much faster and easier to retrieve and manage digital content. This could, of course, save valuable time and reduce frustration, leading to more streamlined workflows and increased operational efficiency. 

However, the elephant in the room with this feature which has piqued the attention of many commentators and the ICO is the significant risk to privacy that it could seemingly pose to businesses and individual users. For example, the unmoderated collection of everything (which could include sensitive information such as passwords, financial data, and confidential business details), raises substantial security and privacy risks. For example, if these snapshots were to be accessed and fall into the wrong hands, the consequences could be severe, including data breaches and the exposure of proprietary information. It appears, therefore, that the only thing standing between a potential bad actor and your personal/sensitive/business information is knowledge of the password for the PC. 

Microsoft’s assertion that Recall is an opt-in feature, with snapshots stored locally and protected by BitLocker encryption, may, however, provide some reassurance, as may the fact that users can control what data is captured and stored, plus enterprise customers can disable automatic snapshot saving through group policy or mobile device management. Nevertheless, despite these measures, the potential for misuse remains, especially if a device is compromised or accessed by an unauthorised individual. 

To address these privacy concerns, Microsoft will need to provide comprehensive transparency and robust security assurances to the ICO, businesses, and privacy advocates too. Demonstrating that Recall complies with data protection regulations and adequately safeguards user data will be crucial. Clearly, even though Recall is still just at the preview stage, there are serious concerns, and failure to address these could result in significant backlash, legal challenges, and a loss of trust among users. 

If / when Recall is thought to be suitable for wider release for businesses, the decision to implement it will require a careful evaluation of the trade-offs between increased productivity and potential privacy risks. Companies will need to establish clear policies and provide training to ensure that employees understand how to use the feature securely. IT departments will also need to remain vigilant, continually monitoring and managing the feature’s settings to maintain data protection standards. 

While Recall offers exciting possibilities for enhancing business efficiency, its success will depend on Microsoft’s ability to address privacy concerns and provide robust security measures, so it remains to be seen how Recall progresses though this preview stage and whether risks can be mitigated to an acceptable level.

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Embedded In Popular Apps 

Microsoft says that the Copilot chatbot has been embedded in the popular Microsoft 365 apps – Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams. Like Chat GPT, Copilot is a natural language conversational chatbot that can give the same human-like responses to questions.  

Business Chat 

Copilot is operated in Microsoft 365 by ‘Business chat’, which is the field (like that in ChatGTP) where you ask the chatbot questions and give it instructions using normal language, e.g. to generate a status-update based on the morning’s meetings, emails and chat threads, type in “Tell my team how we updated the product strategy”. 

How Will Copilot Help? 

Examples of how embedding Copilot into the main Microsoft365 apps can help users include: 

– In Word, Microsoft says Copilot can save hours in writing, sourcing, and editing by being able to write a first draft, to edit and shorten it, rewrite it, or give feedback as required, in the same way as you might write a piece using ChatGPT. 

– In Teams, Copilot can again save time and effort and make meetings more productive by summarising key discussion points of meetings, including who said what, where people are aligned and where they disagree, and suggest action items, all in real-time during a meeting. It can also recap meetings for you and send you the notes afterwards. 

– In PowerPoint, it can create whole presentations for you from a simple text prompt and add any relevant content from a document you made. 

– In Excel, Microsoft says Copilot can analyse trends and create summaries and graphs of data, all done in seconds from simple text prompts. 

– In Outlook, Copilot can save time by clearing your inbox in minutes, not hours, e.g by drafting emails for you and analysing long email threads in seconds. 

– In Power Platform, Copilot can be also used to automate repetitive tasks, even creating chatbots and go from idea to working app in minutes. 

Save Time, Increase Productivity and Uplevel Your Skills 

Microsoft’s announcement focuses on three main benefits of using Copilot, which are improving productivity, saving time, and upleveling skills, i.e. making you better at what you’re good at and helping you to quickly master new AI functionality. 

OpenAI Launches GPT4 

Microsoft’s Copilot announcement comes just days after OpenAI (the company behind ChatGPT that Microsoft has invested billions of dollars in and has been working closely with) announced the launch of GPT4, an updated version of the AI model that powers ChatGPT.  

OpenAI said GPT-4 (which was trained on Microsoft Azure AI supercomputers) outperforms ChatGPT and “can solve difficult problems with greater accuracy, thanks to its broader general knowledge and problem-solving abilities.” 

Caveat – It Can Be Wrong 

Even though ChatGPT has already become a trusted and valuable tool to businesses in just a matter of months and Copilot and GTP-4 holds even greater promise, OpenAI is covering itself by highlighting one caveat – it can be wrong because it can share disinformation. 

Not Yet 

Although the launch has been announced, Copilot will initially be available (as a pilot) to just a small number of enterprise customers, and there are no details of pricing and licensing as yet. 

What Does This Mean For Your Business? 

Copilot is another big step forward in what seems to be a conversational chatbot revolution that’s transforming the way we can work by saving time and boosting productivity. The power of Copilot will provide a way to get more out the most popular apps in Microsoft 365, adding significant value to the app and creating new opportunities for users. Copilot is another major selling point and competitive advantage for Microsoft and for businesses, Copilot offers an easy-to-use way to save time, boost productivity, get greater insights into their own business and operations to aid better decision making, plus learn more about aspects of Microsoft365. All in all, Copilot could be the next game-changing step in the AI chatbot revolution. 

The post Tech-News : Microsoft 365 Gets ChatGPT Technology Called ‘Copilot’ appeared first on Mear Technology.

Communities 

The Communities feature, for iOS and Android, allows users to connect multiple groups, e.g. schools, local clubs, non-profit organisations, and businesses together under one umbrella to organise group conversations on WhatsApp. In Communities, users can switch between different available groups to get information, plus admins can send important updates to everyone in the Community.  

More Secure Than The Alternatives? 

The Communities feature is likely to take over from Groups, and offers an alternative to platforms like Discord, Slack, and Meta’s own Messenger, with the extra selling point of “a level of privacy and security not found anywhere else”. For example, WhatsApp says about Communities: “The alternatives available today require trusting apps or software companies with a copy of their messages – and we think they deserve the higher level of security provided by end-to-end encryption.” 

In-Chat polls 

Another new feature also being launched in WhatsApp soon is in-chat polls. Tested back in April, and similar to voting polls features on other platforms like Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, in-chat polls can be used in Groups and Communities to make it easier for group members to make democratic decisions or to gather opinions of group members on specific subjects.  

32 Person Video Calling & Groups With Up To 1024 users 

WhatsApp has also announced the rollout of 32-person video calling (more than is allowed on a Discord or Slack video call), and groups with up to 1024 users which it says can be used in any group but will be particularly helpful for Communities. 

Loads Of New Features Lately 

Meta’s WhatsApp has been piling-on the new features this year to help it compete more effectively in an environment where, following the pandemic, online groups and collaborative remote working has become the norm for many. New features introduced this year include: 

– Privacy features like Leave Groups Silently, Choose Who Can See When You’re Online, and Screenshot Blocking For View Once Messages. 

– Emojis and the ability to share files within WhatsApp up to 2GB in size. 

– Improvements to voice messaging, including Out of Chat Playback, Pause/Resume Recording, Waveform Visualization, Draft Preview, Remember Playback, and Fast Playback on Forwarded Messages. 

What Does This Mean For Your Business? 

The new ‘Communities’ feature is about Meta capitalising on the fact that many non-profit organisations, as well as businesses now use WhatsApp, and that building in more engagement and loyalty among these valuable segments could also deliver competitive advantage and benefits. This follows attempts dating back to 2018 to attract more small businesses (of which there is a large number) with WhatsApp Business followed by its testing of a multi-device capability to appeal to multi-device owning (business) users. Adding features to expand the capabilities of Communities, i.e. in-chat polls, 32-person video calling and groups with up to 1024 users enable WhatsApp to both compete effectively with a raft of its rivals (Slack, Discord, Twitter, Instagram), create a successor Groups, establish WhatsApp as a leading group comms app, and fully take advantage of the post-pandemic demand for effective online group chat and information platforms.

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What, Who, And How? 

Microsoft has announced that starting in November, Office.com (the Office mobile app and the Office app for Windows) will all become part of the re-branded Microsoft 365 app. These changes will apply to everyone who uses the Office app for work, school, or personal use. Office 365 subscriptions were first re-branded as Microsoft 365 two years ago. 

The tech giant has stressed that the re-branding will have no impact on existing users’ accounts, profiles, subscriptions, or files. There will also be no changes to existing Microsoft 365 subscription plans. The only noticeable change will be that the app will update automatically with a new icon and name. 

Going, But Not Completely 

Microsoft has stressed, however, that Office is still not going away entirely because, as part of Microsoft 365, users will still have access to apps like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook. Microsoft will also continue to offer one-time purchases of those apps to consumers and businesses via Office 2021 and Office LTSC plans. 

When? 

The first changes in the re-branding will begin rolling out for Office.com in November 2022, and changes will begin rolling out for the Office app on Windows and the Office mobile app in January 2023. 

Microsoft 365 App 

The re-branding emphasises the moving of all the Microsoft apps into one mobile and desktop Microsoft 365 app, which the company says will be the “starting point” for accessing Microsoft’s tools, content, and suite of apps going forward. For example, the Microsoft 365 App will incorporate My Content, relevant content based on who users work with and what they work on work on, a new apps module, and the Create module (including templates). It will also be home to Teams, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Loop, Clipchamp, and Stream. 

What Does This Mean For Your Business? 

Existing work, school, and personal users will notice the logo change of the re-branding to Microsoft 365 in the coming months although their actual accounts, profiles, subscriptions, or files won’t be otherwise affected. The re-branding marks the next step in Microsoft shifting things into one consolidated app with Office 365 for SMEs and Office 365 ProPlus under the brand. This should simplify management and cement its position as one productivity cloud that meets the needs of many groups in one place. In terms of name changes, Office 365 Business and Office 365 ProPlus will be branded as Microsoft 365, Office 365 Business Essentials will be Microsoft 365 Business Basic, Office 365 Business Premium will be Microsoft 365 Business Standard, and Microsoft 365 Business will become Microsoft 365 Business Premium.

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The Focus 

Microsoft says that the new Windows 11 22H2 update takes account of the move to flexible work, and is focused on the four key areas of: 

1. Making the PC easier and safer to use. 
2. Empowering people to be more productive. 
3. Making Windows the best place to connect, create and play. 
4. Added security, management, and flexibility to the workplace. 

Examples 

Examples of some of better features in the latest Windows 11 22H2 update include: 

– The updated Sound Recorder App. This replacement for Voice Recorder, enables users to record a meeting or make a podcast, for example. A graphical waveform format is displayed while it is in operation (record and play audio) and users can put markers on the waveform at places of interest in the recording. The app is designed to be just a recorder, so it doesn’t have a built-in editing program, although users could use a free one, such as Audacity. The Sound Recorder App also offers Auto, Medium, High, and Best audio settings, allowing the user to choose which one is most appropriate, e.g. a higher quality setting (which takes up more space) for important recordings. 

– The ability to group program icons together in start menu folders. This time-saving feature can help users to be more organised and allows users to organise their apps in the “Pinned” section as folders, rather like the feature in Windows 10 and on mobile devices – Android and iOS. 

– A redesigned Task Manager with a more convenient sidebar menu rather than tabs, and the inclusion of an ‘Efficiency Mode’ button. 

– The ability to drag files pinned to taskbar icons. This gives users a fast, handy way to choose which program to quickly open file with.  

– The ability to drag files from the main area of the File Explorer window into the Quick Access area of the sidebar, thereby making it easier and faster reach important, and current files. 

– Greater versatility and improved touch navigation for Snap Layouts to help improve productivity, and the introduction of Focus sessions and a Do Not Disturb mode to minimise distractions. 

– The addition of Windows Studio Effects, with a new Windows Studio camera which incorporates Voice Focus (to filter out background noise), a background blurring tool, Eye Contact, and Automatic Framing, all of which can improve the quality of video calls. 

– The addition of video-editing app Clipchamp. This enables users to cut videos, add filters and templates, and export them as 1080p files, thereby giving users much more control over their videos. 

Security 

The new Windows 11 update includes a number of improvements to boost security, including: 

– Expanding the number of devices for which security is enabled by default. For example, devices with Intel 8th generation chipsets and higher will have virtualisation-based security (VBS) and hypervisor-protected code integrity (HVCI) enabled by default. Also, devices running Windows 11 Enterprise, will have Windows Defender Credential Guard enabled which uses virtualisation-based security to provide greater protection from operating system vulnerabilities. 

– Enhanced phishing protection (Microsoft Defender SmartScreen) by automatically detecting when a user types a password into any app or website, determining in real-time if that app or site has a secure connection to a trusted site, and immediately warning the user in the moment if they need to change their password. This feature also automatically reports unsafe password usage to IT admins through the Microsoft Defender for Endpoint portal so the incident can be tracked. 

– The AI-powered ‘Smart App Control’ feature, which improves security and can help smaller businesses to manage their devices and apps by preventing employees from running malicious applications by blocking untrusted or unsigned applications. 

– Updated versions of popular deployment, security, and management tools (to support the release of the update), including Windows 11, version 22H2 Security Baseline (as part of the Security Compliance Toolkit), and a free 90-day evaluation of Windows 11 Enterprise for businesses to try. 

More Features Being Added In October 

Microsoft says that it will be updating Windows 11 with even more features in October, including: 

– Enhancements to File Explorer, such as bringing tabs to File Explorer to help the user with organisation and making the new homepage in File Explorer give quick access to favourite and recent files. This will enable the pinning of important files for quick and easy access and an ‘at a glance’ view of colleagues’ actions on a user’s shared files through OneDrive and personalised suggestions based on the user’s Microsoft 365 account. 

– New photo management and aesthetic features, plus making it easier to backup to OneDrive for the Photos app. 

– Suggested Actions on Copy, such as copying phone numbers, future dates, and getting suggested actions like making a call with Teams or Skype or adding an event in the Calendar app. 

– Adding an overflow menu button to the Taskbar so users can keep the screen less cluttered and view all overflowed apps in one space. 

– The ability to share to discover and share more devices including desktops using nearby share. 

– A set of new accessibility features, which include system-wide live captions to automatically generate captions from any form of audio content on Windows 11. 

– Green features, such as scheduling updates at points in the day that could result in lower carbon emissions. 

What Does This Mean For Your Business? 

More tech commentators are now suggesting in their reviews that the improvements delivered in the Windows 11 22H2 update may enough to persuade so-far hesitant businesses that now is the time upgrade to Windows 11. The update being geared towards the needs of flexible and hybrid working and its focus on providing more tools and improvements to boost security and productivity, and to make it easier and faster for users to get things done are likely to be appealing to many businesses. Some less enthusiastic reviews of the update have suggested that it is too subtle, with some of the improvements hidden, and some expected features left out but as Microsoft has said, more features will be added in October. 

The post First Update for Windows 11 : What Does It Include? appeared first on Mear Technology.

Azure 

Microsoft Azure (formerly Windows Azure) is Microsoft’s public cloud computing platform. Public cloud refers to cloud computing services offered over the public Internet and available to anyone, i.e. the services are shared with multiple customers rather than just controlled and used by one (i.e. private cloud). Azure is the second most popular cloud provider globally, lagging behind Amazon Web Services (AWS), yet ahead of Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and IBM. It is used by over 55 per cent of all Fortune 500 companies. 

Hybrid 

Microsoft’s Azure is also a hybrid cloud – it used its on-premises datacentre (a private cloud) alongside a public cloud and allows data and applications to be shared between them. Microsoft says its “seamless” hybrid arrangement is on-premises, across multiple clouds, and at the ‘edge.’ Edge computing refers to a computing architecture and distributed computing framework where computing and data storage is done near the source of the data. 

Services 

Microsoft Azure offers users Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), Software as a Service (SaaS) and serverless cloud computing. 

Within these options, Azure offers a range of services to users which they can choose from or run existing applications in the public cloud. Some of the services that Azure offers include: 

– Compute – users can deploy and manage Virtual Machines (VM), containers and batch jobs, and support remote application access. 

– Mobile – Developers can use these products help to build cloud applications for mobile devices. 

– Web – Services supporting the development and deployment of web applications and features for search, content delivery, API management, notification, and reporting. 

– Storage – Scalable cloud storage for structured and unstructured data, also big data projects, persistent storage, and archival storage. 

– Analytics – Distributed analytics and storage services, and features for real-time analytics, big data analytics, machine learning (ML), business intelligence (BI), internet of things (IoT), and more. 

Other Azure services include ‘Networking’ (virtual networking and gateways), ‘Media’ and content delivery network (CDN) such as on-demand streaming, ‘Integration’ for backup and site recovery, ‘Identity’ to help with encryption keys and other sensitive information, the IoT, and ‘DevOps’ software development processes. Also, Azure offers ‘Development’ for app developers, e.g. code sharing, ‘Security,’ AI, and ML services, ‘Containers’ (packages all dependencies of a software component and runs them in an isolated environment), ‘Databases,’ ‘Migration,’ ‘Management’ and governance, mixed reality, ‘Blockchain,’ and ‘Microsoft InTune.’ Third-party software is also available through Azure. 

How? 

To use all the Azure services, customers sign up to a monthly, pay-as-you-go subscription for one of several different support plans ranging from basic to premier. There are also situations where there is different tiering pricing depending on requirements. 

How Does It Compare To AWS? 

Opinions vary about the comparison. Although Azure’s history of outages has been noted, it is considered to have more functionality and be easier to use than AWS, and uses familiar technologies like Windows, Active Directory and Linux. 

What Does This Mean For Your Business? 

Effective use of the cloud is now important for a wide range of businesses and offers a range of benefits. Microsoft’s Azure offers users a hybrid environment with a wide range of services. It also offers the benefit of familiar technologies and the confidence of the Microsoft brand, plus the fact that it’s the second most popular cloud provider that’s also trusted by most Fortune 500 companies. Usage of the cloud offers businesses greater scope, scalability, security, and flexibility and has become particularly valued with remote and hybrid working, so Azure can provide UK business with many of the tools they need to be more competitive. That said, it’s not the only option, with many businesses also choosing other big cloud providers like AWS, Google, and IBM. 

The post Tech Insight : What Is Microsoft Azure? appeared first on Mear Technology.

Alexa The Mimic 

Recently, Amazon announced that it was working on technology to enable its Alexa digital assistant to take on the voice of anyone, e.g. the voice of a user or any of their loved ones. It was reported that Rohit Prasad, an Amazon senior vice president, said at a Las Vegas conference that the reason was to help users to “make the memories last” following the loss of loved ones in the pandemic and that a video segment highlighted how Alexa could, in theory, read a story to a child in the voice of his/her grandmother! 

Other Voice Mimicking Options 

There are many different options available for creating a fake voice / digitally cloning a user’s own voice. Some examples include: 

– Microsoft’s Custom Neural Voice is a text-to-speech feature that allows users to create a one-of-a-kind, customised, synthetic voice for their applications, and build a highly natural-sounding voice by providing their own audio samples as the training data. Microsoft says it can “represent brands, personify machines, and allow users to interact with applications conversationally”. It also has a use in restoring impaired people’s speech. 

– Respeecher is a digital voice cloning tool which the company says is “indistinguishable from the original speaker” and has been designed for use by filmmakers, game developers, and other content creators. 

– Resemble AI, which offers custom brand voices for assistants, e.g. a user’s own voice for their smart assistant, Alexa and Google Assistant and integrates with DialogFlow, IBM Watson, or any other NLU engine. 

– Descript, which is a deepfake voice generator that can be used to create realistic voices based on transcripts or audio clips, and can create a text-to-speech model of your voice. 

– Scotland-based ‘CereVoice Me,’ which is a voice cloning system that allows users to produce a text-to-speech (TTS) version of your own voice for Windows. 

– iSpeech, a free voice cloning platform to create familiar voice interfaces for products, applications, and services. 

– ReadSpeaker, is proprietary voice cloning software that produces text-to-speech (TTS) voices that are indistinguishable from the source and offers a range of TTS engines that allow a cloned voice to speak across all a user’s audio channels: smart speaker apps, interactive marketing campaigns, advertisements, and more.

What Could Possibly Go Wrong? 

The recent announcement of Amazon’s plans to allow Alexa to mimic voices triggered long-held concerns that the cloned voices could be used to launch deep fake audio attacks on some voice authentication security systems.  

One real-life example from 2019 is when hackers were able to use AI software to mimic an energy company CEO’s voice in order to steal £201,000 from a UK-based energy company. The CEO of the company received a phone call from someone that he believed to be the German chief executive of the parent company.  The person on the end of the phone ordered the CEO of the UK-based energy company to immediately transfer €220,000 (£201,000) into the bank account of a Hungarian supplier. The voice was reported to have been so accurate in its sound, that the CEO of the energy company even recognised what he thought was the subtleties of the German accent of his boss, and even “melody” of the accent. The call was so convincing that the energy company made the transfer of funds as requested. 

Other concerns about the use of voice cloning include: 

– Issues of consent and disclosure, i.e. of the person whose voice is used, and informing the listener that the voice is fake. For example, Microsoft has now stipulated that its Custom Neural Voice AI model cannot be used to mimic a voice without that person’s consent, and software will have to disclose that voices are fake. 

– Concerns that AI (e.g. for faking voices) is advancing too far ahead of regulation, which has led Microsoft to say that existing customers must obtain permission to continue using the Custom Neural Voice tool from June 30, 2023, and new customers will have to apply to use it, with Microsoft deciding whether the intended usage is appropriate. 

– Criticism (by Rights activists) that internal company ethics committees deciding what is appropriate in the use of a voice mimicking software can’t be truly independent and their public transparency is limited by competitive pressures, and that external oversight may be necessary. 

What Does This Mean For Your Business? 

Although there are good arguments for value of software that can clone a voice, e.g. interfaces for products, applications, and services, and for use by filmmakers, game developers, and other content creators, there are concerns that they could also be used to make deepfakes for sinister purposes. For examples, this could be to get past voice authentication security systems, or to impersonate people to obtain money. There are also ethical concerns about how producers of these tools decide upon appropriate usage and matters of consent. Clearly, a balance needs to be struck and many people feel that more regulations and external oversight are needed to limit risk and potential harm. 

The post How Easy Is It To Clone Someone’s Voice? appeared first on Mear Technology.

See Which Apps Have Accessed Your Microphone and Camera 

David Weston, Microsoft’s VP for Enterprise and OS Security, highlighted the new privacy feature in a recent tweet, saying: “New Windows 11 Privacy Auditing features allow you to see history of sensitive device access like the Microphone.”

The feature has also been introduced in the Dev Channel of the Windows Insider programme. 

– The Privacy Auditing feature, which can be accessed via Settings – Privacy & security > App permissions, shows users: 

– Which apps have accessed the microphone in the last week, giving dates and times. 

– Which apps have accessed contacts, or phone call, message, location, and screenshot data. 

Phones Already Have A Similar Feature 

Phone operating systems, for example, already have a similar feature. For example, last June, it was announced that Google’s Android 12 (which was in beta) would have a camera and microphone access indicator which shows users if an app tries to access the device’s camera or microphone. Android 12 was released last October, and the access indicator gives users and indicator in the top-right corner of the status bar when the camera or microphone is in use.  Clicking on the microphone or camera indicators shows the users which apps have accessed their data.  

iOS 14 also has a similar feature. An orange dot, an orange square, or a green dot in the status bar at the top of the screen indicate when the microphone or camera is being used by an app. 

Microsoft’s Privacy Record 

Microsoft has been criticised over some aspects of its privacy record in recent years, e.g. with Windows 10 being criticised in 2015 over its default settings and personalised embedded adverts. Adding more privacy controls or features, such as the new Privacy Auditing feature is, therefore, likely to get a positive reception from users. 

What Does This Mean For Your Business? 

Users are now more aware than ever of data protection and privacy matters and value any ways that their privacy can be protected. For businesses, these are particularly important issues both for compliance, and to avoid potentially costly breaches or providing any social engineering vectors for hackers and other bad actors. This new feature adds a useful transparency element to Windows 11 which could enable users to make better choices about apps in terms of security and privacy and reduce risk to themselves and their businesses.

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Why? 

First announced in May 2021 and after 25+ years) Microsoft has announced that “Internet Explorer (IE) is officially retired and out of support as of today, June 15, 2022”. Microsoft’s blog on the subject points to how the web and other browsers have evolved to the point where incremental improvements to Internet Explorer couldn’t match the general improvements to the web at large. This led to introduction of Microsoft Edge with Windows 10 in 2015 and the phasing out and retirement of IE. Although IE had had 95 per cent of the browser market back in 2004, new dominant players in the browser have emerged – Google Chrome, Apple’s Safari, and Mozilla Firefox (and Microsoft’s own Edge as just mentioned). 

Redirected To Microsoft Edge 

Microsoft says that over the next few months, opening Internet Explorer will progressively redirect users to Microsoft Edge with IE mode. Here, users will still see the Internet Explorer icon on their devices (e.g. on the taskbar or in the Start menu) but if they click to open Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge will open instead with easy access to IE mode.  

What Is IE Mode And Why? 

IE mode has been added to Microsoft Edge because some websites only work with IE. For instance, they may have been built with old technology and may not function properly with modern browsers.  

Also, for some users, IT businesses that may be using legacy sites as part of their normal business processes, IE mode can be automated so that those pages launch in IE mode automatically for users. 

Details Imported To Edge From IE 

As part of the redirection process, Microsoft says that users will have their data, such as favourites, passwords and settings imported from IE to help the transition. If a user wants to delete or manage their data at any point afterwards, Microsoft says they can do so in Edge from the Settings menu. 

Future Windows Update Will Mean A Permanent End 

Microsoft has said that IE will eventually be disabled permanently as part of a future Windows Update, at which point the IE icons on users’ devices will be removed. 

Not All Immediately 

The first versions of Windows from which IE has been retired are Windows 10 Home, Pro, Enterprise, Edu and IoT (there is no IE in Windows 11) but IE will not be immediately removed on all these versions. Instead, there will be progressive re-directs to Microsoft Edge over the next few months. 

Also, for some versions of Windows currently in-support and used in critical environments such as in-support Windows 10 LTSC releases (including IoT) and all Windows Server versions, as well as Windows 10 China Government Edition, Windows 8.1, and Windows 7 with Extended Security Updates (ESUs), Microsoft will continue to support IE on those versions until they go out of support.   

What Does This Mean For Your Business? 

Internet Explorer played an important part in the development of the web, nevertheless the web and the browser market have changed dramatically over time. Notably, the rise of smartphones with pre-installed browsers – Apple with Safari, and Android with Google Chrome – and Mobile and tablet internet usage overtaking desktop saw Chrome rise to the top and Microsoft’s IE (and now Edge) fell behind. As Microsoft pointed out, IE was no longer up to the demands of the modern web, and Microsoft had already invested in Edge as the successor. In 2020, Microsoft upped its game in the browser wars by releasing a version of Edge based on Chromium. This may be one of the reasons why Edge has just pipped Safari to second place in the browser market with 9.65 per cent share, but this is still a long way behind Google’s Chrome. Some businesses (IT) that still need IE in some critical environments will, of course, be glad that support continues for some versions, and the use of IE mode is useful way to help with the transition from IE to Edge for many users. 

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1. Click File, select Info 
   
   
   
2. Navigate to Tools > click Mailbox cleanup…
   
   
   
3. Check the Find items larger than 250 kilobytes radio button, then click Find.
   
   
   
4. Click on Size to sort the search list by the size column, this will assist in locating the emails with the largest attachments.
   
   
   
5. Double click the email with the large attachment to open it > right click on the attachment > click Remove Attachment.
   
   
   

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