Microsoft is testing new features in Windows Recall: Screenray and Topics

It appears that Microsoft is not yet done with Recall. The A.I. tool, which was postponed due to some concerns regarding the quality and security, is getting some new features.

You could say that Recall was, you know, recalled. For those unaware, Recall is a tool that was designed to capture the screen of Windows devices, once every five seconds. These are essentially screenshots of everything you do on your computer, except private mode in browsers and DRM-protected data. The data the tool saves is then processed by A.I. which the user can interact with using natural language, to search for their activity. If that doesn’t raise privacy concerns, I don’t know what will.

And it did, security experts and users criticized Microsoft for hastily bringing Recall to Windows PCs, calling it unnecessary and intrusive. The complaints pointed out the fact that it was an opt-out feature, i.e. it was enabled by default on Copilot+ PCs. Martin pointed out several concerns about Windows 11 Recall on Chipp.in.

Now, you would think that Microsoft would at least try to make some efforts to improve the security of the app, or better yet, toss it in the bin. But that’s not happening, we got to have A.I. in everything.

Windows Recall adds two new features: Screenray and Topics

According to Albacore on Tom’s Hardware, the most recent Canary Build (26236.5000) of Windows 11 in the Insider Preview Program, brings two new features to the controversial tool. The first of these is called Screenray. As the name suggests, Screenray instantly analyses the content on the screen. Since it works in real-time, so you could ask questions about the content immediately, and Recall will provide the information. The app allows you to select text, links and images. It could be used to translate text from one language to another. Screenray can be accessed by the Win + Shift + D hotkey, and it opens a tool that works independently, i.e. it does not require you to open Recall.

Topics is the other feature that is coming to the Recall app. It changes the way how the tool works. Instead of creating a new snapshot when it is run, Recall will display existing snapshots in a grid format. While the A.I. tool will take screenshots in the background, users can manually capture a snapshot with the Now button, that has been placed in the top right corner of the window. Recall automatically adds tags to snapshots, to make it easier to search for text or visual content, which will then let you search for a specific tag. You can create Topics manually. Topics are collections of a set of results that are tagged under the same name. Saving a Topic will display a grid of relevant results, a search filter. Users will be able to access Topics from the home page in the Recall app.

Windows Recall adds two new features Screenray and Topics

The report also mentions that Copilot support has been added to Recall. The menu that appears when you click on content in a snapshot now has an option that lets you ask Copilot about it, e.g. to describe an image, find similar images, or even create a similar image.

On a side note, Samsung is the latest to join the Copilot+ bandwagon. The electronics giant has launched the Galaxy Book4 Edge, and the laptop which is powered by a Snapdragon X Elite processor, ships with Windows 11 and Copilot+.

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