Technology News

Microsoft Copilot. Image DALL-E3 (Bing).

Artificial intelligence (AI) continues to sparkle millions of pixels and whet the appetites of very voracious investors. In this context, sometimes punctuated by painful hallucinations, we dared to try Microsoft Coplilot Pro, a kind of assistant integrated into Word, Excel, Outlook, Powerpoint and OneNote.

You have to want it. In fact, you have to go to the Microsoft page where you can manage your Office subscription. We see that in addition to the almost 110 francs per year for the Microsoft 365 family, another 21 francs per month per user must be added. Yes, you read that right, that's 84 francs for a family of 4.

This amount may be added to other software costs to benefit from AI for other tasks. Remember that ChatGPT or Perplexity charge around twenty francs per month for relatively equivalent services, since these two AIs allow the creation of images.

And what do we get for this price? An “integration” into the above software with different notable functionalities in each of these applications. Copilot Pro thus makes it possible to summarize texts, theoretically to facilitate their creation, to correct them, etc. Sometimes you have to update the license manually so that the Copilot icon appears.

Microsoft Copilot: an insane price!

Generation by copilot

At this point, I asked Microsoft Copilot Pro the following question using a small icon that appears on the left side of the Word document: “What features does Copilot offer in Microsoft 365?” Here is his answer below in italics:

Copilot presents itself as an intelligent assistant that can help you write, edit and improve your documents in Microsoft 365. It is available for Word, PowerPoint, Outlook and Excel applications and works with artificial intelligence based on OpenAI's GPT-3 language model.

With Copilot you can access different functions depending on the app you use:

— In Word, you can ask Copilot to summarize a text, create a text based on a keyword, proofread a text, rephrase a sentence, generate titles or introductions, or even find relevant sources for your document.

— In PowerPoint, you can ask Copilot to create slides from text, generate graphics tailored to your presentation, suggest transitions or animations, or even revise your speech.

— In Outlook, you can ask Copilot to compose an email based on a subject, personalize your message based on the recipient, check the politeness and tone of your email, or even schedule an appointment or meeting.

— In Excel, you can ask Copilot to create a table or chart from data, calculate formulas or statistics, sort or filter your data, or find external data relevant to your table.

Copilot is designed to save you time and make your life easier, but you also need to be careful and check its suggestions before validating them. Copilot is not foolproof and may sometimes produce errors or inappropriate content. You must therefore maintain a critical spirit and not blindly trust your assistant.

First attempt with Copilot Pro

For now, I would like to point out that I haven't managed to test Copilot on macOS in OneNote yet. Previously, Copilot had generated this text for me, also in italics, obviously inspired by various keywords entered under the paragraph in question:

But does Copilot keep its promises? We tested some of its features in Word and the results weren't very convincing. For example, when asked to summarize a text, Copilot simply copies and pastes the first few sentences without extracting the main ideas.

When asked to create text based on a keyword, Copilot generates sentences that are often incoherent or off-topic. When asked to correct text, Copilot does not detect all spelling or grammatical errors and sometimes suggests incorrect or inappropriate corrections.

In short, Copilot is not a reliable or effective assistant, but rather an expensive and disappointing device. We expected something better from Microsoft, which, however, has considerable resources when it comes to artificial intelligence. Maybe in 30 years Word will be more stable and smarter…

Microsoft Copilot: botched integration in Word.

sloppiness; Microsoft trademark

My comment? I won't go that far. Microsoft Copilot Pro exceeded my expectations. Still, I see that Microsoft has actually done a poor job, which is almost a hallmark considering it took almost twenty years to stabilize a program like Word… Not to mention the Windows bugs.. .

At this point I will continue my experiments. But when you consider what generative AIs like ChatGPT (available as a plugin for Word) or Perplexity.ai do, the asking price seems excessive to me. Finally, integration with Microsoft 365 programs can really be improved. Copilot Pro, for example, doesn't necessarily integrate its suggestions directly into the text… I canceled that subscription immediately.

Xavier Studer

P.S
The 4:3 image above was generated directly in Microsoft's Bing image generator. The request was as follows: “Can you create an extended 4:3 format image for me to illustrate a test of Microsoft Copilot?”

Copilot Pro in Word.

I like this :

I would like to load…

Put an end to accidental touches on your PC's touchscreen by simply disabling this interface.

If you have a newer PC, it probably comes with a screen that supports touchscreen navigation. In certain cases, especially if it is a hybrid device that can be used as a tablet, the touch interface makes sense. In general, it is enough to detach the screen if possible or to open it completely by sticking the back of the screen to the bottom of the laptop to use it as such.

However, some PCs are equipped with a touchscreen but can only be used as a normal machine because the hinge of the screen limits the opening of the latter. In this case, support for touchscreen navigation, which is much less practical in this use, could prove to be an isolated case. In most cases, users prefer to use their device in the traditional way with the built-in trackpad or a mouse and end up never using the touch interface. The only problem is that it is not uncommon to accidentally touch the screen and thus unintentionally click on certain areas of the screen.

To avoid this, you can simply disable the touch interface. The maneuver takes no more than a few seconds and does not require any special technical knowledge.

1. Open Device Manager

First, open the Windows 11 Device Manager. There are two ways to do this. The first, by carrying out a Right-click the Start menuand then click on the menu Device Manager.

© 01net.com

The second option is to use the shortcut Windows + Rthen enter and confirm the order devmgmt.msc in the Run window.

© 01net.com

2. Locate the user interface device

In the Device Manager window that appears, find the line User interface devices. Once you find it, press the arrow to the left of the line Expand menu tree.

© 01net.com

3. Disable the touch interface

Browse through the various options in the UI Devices menu and find the appropriate line HID touch screen. Do one Right click above and select Deactivate device.

© 01net.com

A warning window indicates this Disabling the device will stop its operation., is displayed. Click on the button Yes to confirm your choice.

© 01net.com

Deactivating your PC's touch interface generally occurs immediately, without the need to restart the device. Note that this manipulation is obviously reversible. All you have to do is repeat the exact same process and select Enable Device to make the touch interface functional again.

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Opera One – AI-powered web browser

From: Opera

Published on January 22, 2024 at 07:54. / Modified on January 22, 2024 at 07:55.

This is rare enough to notice: since December 26th, it has been possible to buy the latest Apple Connected Watches in Switzerland, even though they are not available in the US. The two models that Le Temps tested at the beginning of the year – the Apple Watch Series 9 and the Ultra 2 – are actually at the center of a conflict between the Californian giant and the Masimo company.

The latter, which has an antenna on the heights of Neuchâtel, accuses Apple of poaching several of its engineers and copying certain technologies without licensing agreements. Latest development, last week: The American media revealed that Apple is considering the possibility of removing the controversial functionality – measuring oxygen levels in the blood – from its watches in order to resume sales of its latest models on American territory.

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After testing the Corsair Dominator Titanium 7600 MT/s CL36 memory kit, today we'll focus on a model from the same series but clocked at 8000 MT/s in the CL38. This has the special feature that it is not available in 2 x 16 GB, but in 2 x 24 GB. It is equipped with the new Hynix M-Die chips like the Teamgroup T-Force Xtreem 8200 MT/s CL38 kit that we recently tested. Our example of the day has the times 38-48-48-98 and requires a voltage of 1.40 volts to operate. This is also the fastest kit currently available in the brand's catalog. It is available directly from the Corsair website at a price of 304.99 euros.

As a reminder, our test platform has evolved into the Maximus Z790 APEX ENCORE motherboard and our i9-13900KS, which has an excellent IMC. Our previous tests are still available, but we have decided to initially just re-run some kits at reference frequencies. The idea is to have at least one kit per frequency to have a sufficient panel. I will add the other kits I have already tested in the coming weeks.

In addition, the frequencies have increased significantly since a few months and the introduction of the Hynix A-Die chips as well as the new Hynix M-Die, which requires a test configuration that supports these XMPs and of course overclocking.

Don't hesitate to ask us your questions if you encounter any configuration problems, be it in comments or on our social networks. You can also join our community via Discord. We would also like to take this opportunity to thank Corsair France for their support and provision of this 2 x 24GB Corsair Dominator Titanium 8000 MT/s CL38 kit.

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We take stock of the kits available to us:

Since this is an article in which we will be doing comparison testing, we thought it would be interesting to take another look at the different kits we own. This way you can know the characteristics of each one in detail. You can also take a look at the section where our latest memory kit tests are available and find the one that interests you. Don't forget that as of today our testing platform is evolving and therefore we will have new performance tables.

President and CEO

Published at 0:00

Canon Canada Inc, a leading provider of digital imaging solutions, is pleased to announce the appointment of Mr. Mikio Takagi as President and CEO.

Mr. Takagi began his career at Canon Inc. in 1989. Over the past 35 years, he has worked in various regions and held increasingly senior positions. He has worked for Canon companies in Japan, Hong Kong, China and the United States. In 2019 he became President of Canon Mexicana and since 2021 he has been President and CEO of Canon Mexicana, Canon Panama and Canon Latin America, North Zone.

Mr. Takagi holds a bachelor's degree from Aoyama Gakuin University with a focus on international politics and emerging market economics.

“I am excited to join Canon Canada’s talented and dedicated team,” said Mr. Takagi. “For 50 years, Canon Canada has been providing innovative solutions to consumers and businesses across the country. I look forward to contributing to the company, which already has a solid foundation. These are exciting times for the digital imaging industry. We are ready to embrace this new wave of innovation and explore new opportunities for Canon Canada.

Mr. Takagi succeeds Mr. Isao “Sammy” Kobayashi, who has assumed the role of President and CEO of Canon USA.

A rendering of the “Huawei P70”. (Source: Digital Chat Station via Weibo)

The P70 and its siblings are expected to be Huawei's next XMAGE flagship smartphones and so have so far been discussed mainly in terms of their supposedly state-of-the-art rear cameras. But the technical characteristics of the series were finally given special attention in Huawei's latest prank. It suggests fairly generous proportions for the screen and battery of future high-end phones.

Huawei P70 leaks are back on legendary tipster Digital Chat Station, although this time the Weibo account provides more details on various aspects of the alleged successors to the P60 series.

The leaker now claims at https://weibo.com/6048569942/NCGlhEe0S?pagetype=profilefeed that the next Huaweis in 2024 may or may not have “micro-curved” or “regular” (flat?) variants.

1.5K and diagonals around 6.7 inches were also mentioned, which is currently by no means unusual in the smartphone sector, although these displays could be supplied with a new version or a Kirin processor update or update.

Additionally, Digital Chat Station hints at 5,000mAh batteries (or possibly more) for new Huawei devices.

Again, this is still a P70 series of the P70 series, which means that the camera specifications must come into play at one point or another: the new devices are apparently again linked to a camera with a variable aperture the 50MP Omnivision OV50H camera for a potentially improved close-up experience compared to the Mate 60 or P60 series.

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Screenshot of Palworld in game (Source: Palworld on Steam)

With a peak of 1,291,967 concurrent players so far, Palworld has secured the top spot on Steam for this weekend, ahead of Counter-Strike 2's 1,008,813 players. However, there are still four spots left to conquer in the historical rankings where Dota 2 and Lost Ark is at the top with fewer than 30,000 players.

Yesterday, Palworld received 12,738 comments on Steam, 92% of which were positive. Today it has 33,103 reviews and 93% positive ratings. However, the most interesting number is 1,291,967, which shows the impressive popularity of this early access title. Thanks to this huge crowd playing it at once, Palworld is the most played game on Steam this weekend, ahead of Counter-Strike 2, Dota 2 and PUBG.

However, things change when we look at the ranking of the most played games of all time. Here Palworld surpasses Dota 2 and Lost Ark (1,295,114 and 1,325,305 concurrent players, respectively). The top two spots aren't that close, as Counter-Strike 2 reached 1,818,773 players and PUBG reached an impressive 3,257,248 concurrent players. There are currently 846,095 Steam users playing Palworld, 599,883 playing Counter-Strike 2, and 414,465 playing Dota 2.

This game allows players to “live peacefully alongside mysterious creatures called Pals” or face “a ruthless poaching syndicate” by using Pals to fight or have them work on farms and factories. Although it doesn't offer a top-notch graphical experience, the game offers a consistent refresh rate even on less powerful computers. The minimum requirements for Steam users are quite modest: Intel Core i5-3570K 16 GB of RAM and 40 GB of hard drive space and GeForce GTX 1050 with 2 GB of VRAM. However, the list of recommended hardware items is as follows: Intel Core i9-9900K, 32GB of memory and GeForce RTX 2070 with the same storage requirements.

The 15 most played games of all time on Steam (Source: Steam Charts)

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Codrut Nistor, 01/22/2024 (Update: 01/22/2024)

RedGamingTech (Paul Eccleston) is back with a new potential Nintendo Switch 2 specs video, detailing a whole list of specs that make the rumored upcoming hybrid console seem a bit light. The Switch 2 specs listed (see screenshot below) appear to come from a mix of a United Daily News (UDN) report published a few weeks ago and the YouTuber's own sources. It is worth mentioning that the specifications listed in the UDN article were based on rumors.

The Nintendo Switch 2 has apparently been downgraded to the point where it can only offer 10 SM (streaming multiprocessors), 8 GB of RAM and a meager 64 GB of eMMC storage. On the positive side, there is better battery life and support for 120Hz refresh rate is also reported in the UDN Money section. RedGamingTech also adds more details, such as a 7-inch OLED panel, and controversially lists “a Switch-like OLED design” to keep in mind since the Switch launched in 2017 and the OLED model came onto the market in 2021 (available). currently available on Amazon for $348).

Interestingly, this Switch 2 spec leak appears to have some flaws, such as mentioning A78AE cores in the expected T239 SoC. AE (“Automotive Enhanced”) cores could unnecessarily limit the performance of a next-generation console, while the often-rumored A78C () cores would offer more performance. The much-rumored A78C would offer more work space for developers. Significant design changes are also expected, and it has been stated that the Nintendo Switch 2 will likely feature an LCD screen instead of an OLED screen. However, Eccleston and his sources believe a Switch 2 Pro model could address gamers' disappointment over the release of such a lukewarm base console.

Apparently a Nintendo Switch 2 Pro could have 12GB of RAM and 12 SM thanks to the T239 features fully enabled in this particular model. It's not impossible that Nintendo will release multiple variants of the Nintendo Switch 2 Pro and multiple variants of its next-gen console, but it would be surprising if a base model with just 64GB of eMMC storage and reduced processing capabilities were part of the lineup, especially when the starting price is around $400. Competition from handheld devices is only getting stronger and there are more and more competitors, so Nintendo needs to make sure it stays ahead of the game with the Switch 2, despite the legions of fans preparing to buy it.