Pfffttt, Microsoft has been there, done this, and got a whole closet full of tee shirts for stuff like this many times over the years. In the end the users don't care and can't stop it. And they are, by in large, too lazy to change to something else to completely avoid it.
It hasn't ever affected the bottom line enough to matter to them. They will just pull this bug feature and wait for a better day. Or perhaps they will figure out a way to introduce it piecemeal to disguise it better.
Most male computer uses watch porn and would not want an AI to log that. Many women find porn sickening and don't understand it and will never understand male urges that result in watching it. The fact that this got into a finished product tells you a lot about Microsoft's corporate culture.
No one working there really cares about the company enough to bring up uncomfortable issues, they are all there just to get their paycheck and actual outcomes be damned. The culture their must be toxic for this product to have been put into a product enabled by default.
If this was a top-down decision and there was no input by others into it, it leads to questions over whether this feature was forced to be included by the government, which can easily require corporations to do anything and then issue gag orders and whether it was some sort of test to see how much intrusive spying bullshit that regular consumers will tolerate now. If this was a feature that was forced into the product, the plan may have been to turn it off by default after negative feedback, but then just keep it in the program for when governments want to turn it on. Governments may have realized it in any capacity such a terrible feature would result in outrage and may have thought this was the path of least resistance, like saying "Would you like to eat a bowl of shit? No, okay, we'll just give you these brussel sprouts"
Most male computer uses watch porn and would not want an AI to log that. Many women find porn sickening and don’t understand it and will never understand male urges that result in watching it. The fact that this got into a finished product tells you a lot about Microsoft’s corporate culture.
Excellent point. We saw exactly the same phenomenon play out with Google and Gemini. The tool created racially diverse Nazis. Even a few minutes with the tool revealed major issues. There must have been hundreds of people who witnessed the slow moving train crash in realtime, but were either unwilling or unable to speak out. I think these companies have clearly cultivated a hierarchical culture of fear and intimidation. I recently left a job in which my manager was ex-Google. The stories she would tell were appalling. Her command-and-control style was, frankly, disgusting. She permitted zero critical feedback or discussion. It was her way or "fuck off." I found that very instructive as to how these companies have morphed into shells of their formers selves. I'm not bullish on the future of these companies. They're coasting very well on the fumes of their historical successes, and I think their demise is all but assured.
The point of the first two sentences is that because there is a large gender divide on whether porn is acceptable, a lot of times men and women don't discuss porn because the subject will lead to conflict. This isn't true of all members of both genders. Since corporations often have a mix of genders, bringing up the topic of porn and how a feature could alienate porn viewers would be an uncomfortable topic that would be easier to avoid because men and women find the topic uncomfortable often for different reasons. In Microsoft's case, it seems like no one at Microsoft brought up how male porn watchers might not like AI watching their pornhub history and recording it to a file, despite it seeming like it would be an obvious concern to any male at Microsoft who watches porn, and likely many do. These means their corporate culture is so selfish on their own career protection and focused on not offending others that they let a really bad feature that many hate go to market instead of talking openly how this would be a disaster out of fear that it could cause workplace conflict.
So instead of saving millions of dollars in costs and damage to the brand, everyone at Microsoft aware of this problem just said nothing. That's a terrible corporate culture. If a product isn't going to work, even uncomfortable discussions should be had if it saves millions.
My point overall was that it's shocking this made it into the product. It's such a bad idea for a feature on multiple levels, that it seems like employees did not openly talk about this.
My other point was that if Microsoft employees didn't drop the ball, then this feature may have been forced into the project by a government order of some kind, which can and does happen in closed source software. Although hidden backdoors are often secret, the government could equally compel a large unlocked window at the front be added as well.
There needs to be a way to have an inclusive corporate culture that celebrates cultures and backgrounds but also allows brutal honesty about products without people being afraid of accidentally offending others or being too indifferent to the corporation's success to speak up.
A lot of it probably relates to how often people are fired and how short tenures are with companies. If you have a short tenure with a company or are expecting to, does it matter if Company A does well instead of Company B or Company C? It probably doesn't, and with social media capturing one wrong offensive faux paus for eternity (by which I mean until the planet becomes uninhabitable 300 years from now), workers have every incentive to let disasters like this go to market.
I am judging Microsoft employees but likely would have said nothing if I were there too. With all the layoffs in tech, why risk it to say something controversial? Even my initial post on this got down-voted into the depths of an abyss just for mentioning that men and women see pornography in different ways sometimes, which should hardly be controversial. I don't know whether the votes were from men or women, but actually I imagine more women than men down-voted it, and even this guess will probably lead to additional down-votes.
I dislike people like Elon Musk for his cruelty towards transgender people (despite his admirable intelligence), and I dislike Donald Trump for his cruelty towards those who are different in any way, but I also feel like people should be able to have discussions about actual uncomfortable subjects without it being automatically offensive. The fact I was so heavily down-voted immediately tends to illustrate my point.
I cant believe im actually supporting the sentence "buy a mac" but its far far better than what ever microsoft is doing, and if you arent computer literate enough to install linux, its a decent alternative to windows.
Yeah I don’t know what to do with this. I’m about to start to start wfh and handle a lot of data that cannot be shared and comes with big fines for mishandling. I have to have office, mainly excel. Is Apple my only option? I know Linux exists, but I’m not a power user, I struggle with my printer.
I am going wfh and I have to use their one drive to access client data. They will provide a computer, but versus my home setup it’s simply not worth it. I saw the idea about virtual windows and Linux machine. I’ve never done it but I imagine I can with some trial and error. But I’m wondering if even that is safe.
What do you mean it's not worth it? If you use the company's computer it's on them to handle all the liability. If you use your own computer then you're now on the hook. It is 100% worth it to use the company-provided computer.
That's not on you. I would communicate with management and illustrate that you can't do your job without a proper computer. If they refuse to help, get it in writing. You should not be held accountable.
I finally switched to Linux Mint a week ago. I've just had enough of Microsoft and I couldn't think of any more reasons why I shouldn't switch.
I've got Libre Office for all my productivity needs. All my Steam games work under Linux. My VPN works just fine. Firefox for web browsing. Thunderbird for email. And Wine to run those 1-2 Windows programs that I just can't do without.
Hey, I replace LibreOffice on my Linux installs every time with OnlyOffice. I don't really need a full up office suite anymore. And I find OnlyOffice is a bit simpler and easier to use. But it's not for everybody.
Plus, it keeps me away from trusting Google Docs.......
vpn with network manager is amazing. All my client's vpn solutions just work. On windows I needed 5-6 different vpn clients that bluescreen each other on Linux I need zero proprietary software.
Windows Recall, part of Microsoft's new Copilot+ PC initiative, has sparked major privacy and security concerns.
The feature uses AI to capture and store screen data locally, allowing users to search for past activities using natural language.
Despite assurances that data is not uploaded to the cloud or used by Microsoft, user trust is lacking.
Microsoft has a history of practices that have eroded user trust, including obtrusive ads, ignoring user preferences, and requiring Microsoft Accounts.
Users are skeptical, fearing future misuse of the collected data for advertising or AI training.
Windows Recall reportedly stores data unencrypted, making it vulnerable to access by third-party apps and potential malware.
The open nature of Windows amplifies these risks, unlike more secure systems like iOS and Android.
Users have compared Windows Recall to spyware, with many threatening to switch to other operating systems like Linux or Mac.
Microsoft's attempts to keep the development of Windows Recall secret did not help build trust.
Windows Recall will only be available on new Copilot+ PCs, requiring specific hardware not present in existing PCs.
Users will have the option to disable the feature, but there are concerns about it being enabled by default.
Despite security issues, the feature is effective in helping users find lost or forgotten data.
It could improve productivity if trust and security concerns are resolved.
Windows Recall does NOT require NPU hardware to run. Currently Recall has been tested on Windows 11 with only a CPU and it seems to be fully operational. Of course performance is not as good as with an NPU. I believe Microsoft will try to push AI to local computing by only enabling on computers with NPUs to begin with. In the future it will most likely be able to be enabled on PCs which does not have an NPU but with a warning of bad performance in front of it.
It is okay to be the person that always recommends Linux, especially if you are a kind person with the patience to explain things to people in approachable terms (and you don’t just scream at people SOMEBODY ALREADY ASKED THIS QUESTION USE SEARCH whenever a newbie walks in the door and asks the obvious questions a newbie would ask).
Now is the time, Linux is pulled up out front waiting to pick us up (with bags packed) and Microsoft is loudly shitting the bed upstairs, NOW is the time to walk straight out the front door, jump in the car with Linux and never look back. We owe it to Microsoft’s long relationship with consumers to leave Microsoft sitting confused on the porcelain throne wondering why they were abandoned and where all the toilet paper is (we are the toilet paper in this metaphor).
I feel like not wanting to do the work for certain Steam games is what keeps me on windows for my personal use (work makes the decision on my work machine).
I know it’s possible, I just don’t want to do the work
Good to know. I know wine can get steam going (assuming you don’t just use the Linux version). How do you get steam to download and install the game if it says it’s the wrong operating system? Sorry if that’s a dumb question
Your question isn't dumb. You just haven't been exposed to the environment. Please feel free to ask any question about this you have and, if I don't answer, someone else probably will.
If you install the Linux version of Steam, it should allow you to download any game. There's a checkbox in the Steam settings that says something like "run non compatible games through proton" (not what it says, but the general sentiment). Checking that and restarting Steam once is the extent of the setup required; after that, it's essentially the same process as running a game in Windows (with the few exceptions mentioned by another commenter). Non Steam games should be able to be run by Lutris, PlayOnLinux or adding a non Steam game to Steam, but I mostly haven't done that myself so I can't vouch for it. Sincerely, for most games, it's an easy process.
I'm no expert, but if you decide to pursue this and get stuck, please feel free to reach out to me and I'll do my best to help. The link below seems like a good starting point: https://geekflare.com/install-steam-on-linux/
How is it for racing sims ? Last time I checked it didn’t look too good in terms of wheel drivers and games running ootb on Linux, or did I just not look in the right places?
No worries, I had already given up on it for now I was just curious if someone could convince me to fully switch, or rather point me towards some open source projects I could use.
Right now I boot into win11 for gaming and into fedora for everything else.
Thanks anyway!
Go to protondb.com and search for the games you're interested in. If your profile is public, I think you can import your entire library and browse through it instead of manually searching for each individual game. Ideally you want "platinum" compatibility but I've personally never had problems with "gold" games either.
Oh no who would have guessed that screenshoting and saving them unencrypted in an unprotected area in where confidential screenshots with passwords can be grabbed by any script kiddie.
It's encrypted, but at the same level as everything else the user has access to. So, if your computer is stolen and they can't log in, they can't access it.
Basically, encrypted, just like any other user file.
I think you forgot to mention if the hard drive is encrypted than your statement is true ( in the case for example bitlocker...) but if thats not the case then anyone can just force permissions for that drive and read and write anything.
Bitlokcer would be default active on new windows 11 devices if they all had tpm 2.0 chips ( most of the windows 10 users dont have that featzre ) so bitlocker is out of that case.
The drive is encrypted on W11, if you tamper with the install to allow non TPM requirement then I don't think you can blame anybody if there are consequences. You can install a random exe from the internet, give it admin rights too, that's also on you.
This is a shit show already, no need to make things up to make it worse really.
Even if we ignore the security issues (and we shouldn't) why the hell would I want my computer taking screenshots, writing that to disk and running OCR on the image, writing results to a database and creating correlations EVERY FEW SECONDS! That's a huge amount of bloat. I want my computer to be quick and responsive.
Please, give them some credit where it's due and don't be so hard on them. You'd have to be technically sound and computer experts to have that kind of foresight!
Borrowing from something I saw elsewhere: Set up a task / cron job / whatever it is on your OS that takes a full screenshot every minute and then sends it to Microsoft's AI team.
Or save it to a drive or something, I'm not the boss here. And neither is Microsoft.
I think you misunderstand what Recall actually does. It takes images of your screen and then you can query it. Images, text, graphs, etc.
"Hey, I was working on an automation for my home assistant and it stopped working. I had an automation that worked about 6 months ago. Can you pull that automation up and show me"
"My boss showed me a slide about a month ago talking about the TPS report, can you pull that up and show me that slide deck?"
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