Tag: Recall

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“Windows Recall” feature postponed days ahead of launch

Windows Recall is (was) a new AI powered feature, exclusive for Copilot+PCs that can capture snapshots of your screen every few seconds allowing the user to essentially rewind back to a point in time to back track on work, application state and documents being worked on,

Recall overview (Microsoft)

Announced as the headline feature for the new generation of Copilot+PCs, this new flagship Windows Recall will now arrive at a later date, with a wider public  preview coming soon for Windows Insiders.

There has been many questions, concerns and clarity demanded from the public and tech pros about this new feature since it was announced in May, with concerns over whether Microsoft had “gone too far” in finding a use for AI and the new NPU powered Copilot+PCs. The fact this has not been through the usual process of testing my Microsoft’s loyal Windows Insider testing community was also surprising for such a huge new feature.

The first of the new Copilot+PCs are launching next week (June 18th), and in an expected update have said that their headlining “Windows Recall” feature will not be shipped at launch and  now arrive a few weeks later in an update.

Is Windows Recall too much?

Recall was heavily criticised after sourced said that recall stored it’s Recall  data in an unencrypted state, raising huge concerns among IT experts, users and anti-Windows fans!

Last week, Microsoft released a blog and announcement to try to alleviate these concerns by reassuring people that Windows Recall would encrypt data and require the user to be physically present at the device (via multi factor authentication) to access recall. They were clear however, that not only was Recall safe but they it would ship next week with the arrival of the Copilot+PCs.

The Cisilion Fireside Chat suspected so much.

Just this week, I hosted a fireside chat, and we discussed the view of Recall from a security and privacy violation.

There’s a link to the episode here if you’d like to hear the views of a number of IT leaders…but the view of my customer panel ahead of (the now postponed) launch include:

“We’ve gone to extraordinary lengths to protect our data and here we are Tada you can now just have a look at what Kim was sharing three minutes ago.” [link]

“It undermines years and years and years of work and unless they can work out a way there’s no way I’m letting this anywhere near my en.” [00:08:25][Link]

“You are the attack surface… we have to remind the the owners of the business that ultimately it’s their heads on the Block if things go wrong.” [00:45:32]

In short, our panel, beleived that Recall might face significant challenges before its implementation, possibly leading to its postponement or modification, especially in enterprise environments. They highlight the need for clear communication, education, and possibly policy changes to address the concerns raised – looks like this is exactly what happened.

Microsoft committed to trust and privacy but is it enough?

Just earlier this week, Microsoft had said that all images are encrypted, stored and analyzed locally, using on-device AI capabilities to understand their context. When logged into your Copilot+ PC, you can easily retrace your steps visually using Recall to find things from apps, websites, images, and documents that you’ve seen, operating like your own virtual and completely private “photographic memory.” You are always in control of what’s saved. You can disable saving snapshots, pause temporarily, filter applications and delete your snapshots at any time.

The question still on people minds is is this enough, how does this work if viewing content other people are sharing on screen when Recall is being used and what happens if a device is compromised or user subject to ransomware or phishing attack and get access to this device…

Postponed not cancelled?

Perhaps to ensure the backlash over recall doesn’t impact Copilot+PC sales, these new devices will not ship with Recall initially. Microsoft have said that Windows Recall will be added in a future Windows update, but has not given a timeframe for when this will be. This will give their huge Windows Insider Community time to test this with Microsoft and provide the much needed feedback, tuning controls and more.

The updated Microsoft blog post states the following:

“Recall will now shift from a preview experience broadly available for Copilot+ PCs on June 18, 2024, to a preview available first in the Windows Insider Program (WIP) in the coming weeks. Following receiving feedback on Recall from our Windows Insider Community, as we typically do, we plan to make Recall (preview) available for all Copilot+ PCs coming soon“

Copilot+PCs still get loads of new AI Goodness.

Of course, Recall wasn’t the only AI infused feature that Copilot+PCs will include, and the other rest of the AI features that Microsoft showcased will still be available to use. These include live captions and translations across all apps, new Windows Studio Effects for meetings and video, new. Image creation and generation tools across the stock Windows Apps including paint and photos.

Time will tell

Time and testing wil tell whether this feature gets simply delayed, hugely altered or scrapped all together. What do you think?

Microsoft June 13 2024 Blog Post: https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2024/06/07/update-on-the-recall-preview-feature-for-copilot-pcs/

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Balancing Act: Microsoft’s “Recall” Feature

The day before Microsoft Build 2024, Microsoft unveiled the future of Windows and the PC with what they dubbed “Copilot+ PC”. The build conference (as expected) has unveiled a plethora of innovations aimed at developers and of course AI has at heart of everything.

One of the key pieces of innovation announced at Build and at the Copilot+PC launch was the new AI-powered ‘Recall’ feature which will be coming soon to Windows 11 and will be enabled on devices with the new Copilot+PC powered by the new SnapDragon Elite processors.

This new AI powered feature promises to revolutionise how we interact with our digital histories, but it also raises important questions about privacy.

What is Microsoft Recall?

Recall is designed to transform searchability and predictive search within Windows 11 by recording / snapshotting user activities on their device. It captures snapshots of your screen every five seconds, allowing you to search and retrieve past activities, including app usage, communications in live meetings, and websites visited – giving you (and it) the ability to rewind time to any point (subject to configuration) to help you find what you need or pick up from where you left off. Your snapshots are then locally stored and locally analysed on your PC.

Microsoft Recall – Image (c) Microsoft

Recall’s analysis allows you to search for content, including both images and text, using natural language. Nothing is shared with other users or used to train their AI models. Privacy, Microsoft say is key!

The Promise of Recall

The benefits of Recall are immense. Imagine being able to revisit any moment of your digital life (work or personal), retrieve information from a past meeting, or recall a website or document you reviewed yesterday, last week or last month. This could significantly boost productivity and ensure no detail is ever lost in the digital ether. To “recall” this information, you simple “describe how you remember” using natural language, and Recall will retrieve the moment you saw it. In Microsoft’s blog post around this, they use this example:

“Trying to remember the name of the Korean restaurant your friend Alice mentioned? Just ask Recall and it retrieves both text and visual matches for your search, automatically sorted by how closely the results match your search. Recall can even take you back to the exact location of the item you saw.”

Do we need Recall – what is wrong with search and history?

Recall does sound awesome and very clever – but are Microsoft is creating a solution for a problem that isn’t really there?

Microsoft said in the announcement “We set out to solve one of the most frustrating problems we encounter daily – finding something we know we have seen before on our PC. Today, we must remember what file folder it was stored in, what website it was on, or scroll through hundreds of emails trying to find it.”

Personally, I think search works pretty well on Windows 11 anyway and Edge has a great history, favourites and collections feature to help me find stuff I was browsing (they even work across devices). So why do we need recall?

Well…Recall will definately build on this make it much mich easier to find things and “go back in time”, essentially giving Windows 11 a “photographic memory,” as Microsoft explains it. The reason I think this will be a really awesome feature is less because I can never find something, but is more about the experience I want and am starting to expect from AI.

A webpage, image or document we are looking at doesnt paint the whole picture and with search these things are isolated. Recall brings this all together. Maybe I was researching a trip or a topic – with recall it can colate the whole story, bringing together context, images, notes, documents, searches, websites together.

Privacy Concerns

Recall’s powerful capability to record and store every action poses significant privacy concerns and social media has been rife with this (no such thing as bad press right). The thought of someone else accessing this data is unsettling, yet Microsoft assures us that the data remains fully encrypted, local, and linked to that user’s profile. It is not shared with anyone, accessible by anyone or used to train their Large Language Models or dor advertising purposes.

Of course, despite this, the potential for misuse cannot be ignored, especially if sensitive information like passwords or financial details appear on-screen so people I guess are rightfully concerned and since this is not actually “available” yet many of the concerns, assurances etc., are not yet “proven” either way.

Microsoft has a FAQ section that explains how Recall works. This is something everyone panicking about Recall should read.

Microsoft’s Safeguards

The integration of Recall into Windows 11 by Microsoft is designed to keep user data secure and private. Personally and knowing how Microsoft always put the user in control of what is and is not enabled in Windows 11, I am personally not concerned, but understand why some might be initially.

Secondly, Recall works on-device and not across the cloud. This means, no data leaves the PC to Microsoft’s servers. Microsoft will not improve its large language models using this particularly sensitive data. Microsoft say that they will also not use the data for targeting advrtisments. Recall data isn’t available to other applications.

To mitigate these concerns, Microsoft has implemented several safeguards:

  • Recall will not capture InPrivate browsing or DRM-protected content.
  • Users can pause, stop, or delete captured content at any time
  • Users can exclude specific apps or websites from being recorded
  • Users can disable recall and not use it at all.

I also wanted to share directly from Microsoft’s post around this – their approach around privavcy and responsible AI

“Microsoft has been working to advance AI responsibly since 2017, when we first defined our AI principles and later operationalized our approach through our Responsible AI Standard. Privacy and security are principles as we develop and deploy AI systems. We work to help our customers use our AI products responsibly, sharing our learnings, and building trust-based partnerships. For more about our responsible AI efforts, the principles that guide us, and the tooling and capabilities we’ve created to assure that we develop AI technology responsibly, see Responsible AI.

Recall uses optical character recognition (OCR), local to the PC, to analyse snapshots and facilitate search. For more information about OCR, see Transparency note and use cases for OCR. For more information about privacy and security, see Privacy and security for Recall & screenray“.

The Future of Recall

As we move forward, the Recall feature will likely evolve, based on feedback from the Window Insider Community and MVPs. Microsoft will need to continually balance AI innovation with user trust, ensuring that privacy is not sacrificed for convenience and that users are given choice with regards features that record and track usage and interactions. The conversation around Recall is just beginning, and it will be fascinating to see how it shapes the future of digital interaction and privacy.

In conclusion, Microsoft’s Recall stands at the crossroads of technological advancement and privacy. It’s a powerful tool that promises huge benefits but also requires careful consideration and management of privacy concerns. As with any new technology, it will be up to both Microsoft and its users to navigate these waters responsibly.

Would love to hear your views on this? What do you think, excited for this new feature (on the new Copilot+PC hardware) or will you be turning it off or jumping OS!! 🙂 

For more detailed information on the feature and its capabilities, please refer to the official announcements and resources provided by Microsoft.

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