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From the editors of Computerworld, this enterprise buyer’s guide helps IT staff understand what the various business PC hardware and sourcing options are for their organizations and how to choose the right solution.

Anthropic, the AI startup that claims to differentiate itself from its peers as a responsible AI firm, launched a new AI model — Claude 3.5 Sonnet. This is the first model in its anticipated Claude 3.5 series and the company claims it surpasses current industry standards in AI intelligence.

Anthropic is offering Claude 3.5 Sonnet for free on Claude.ai and the Claude iOS app, while it would allow Claude Pro and Team plan subscribers to access it with significantly higher rate limits. Claude 3.5 Sonnet is also available via the Anthropic API, Amazon Bedrock, and Google Cloud’s Vertex AI.

This announcement builds upon Anthropic’s previous releases — Claude 3 Haiku and Claude 3 Opus.

“Claude 3.5 Sonnet is now available for free on Claude.ai and the Claude iOS app, while Claude Pro and Team plan subscribers can access it with significantly higher rate limits,” an Anthropic announcement noted.  “It is also available via the Anthropic API, Amazon Bedrock, and Google Cloud’s Vertex AI.”

More power, less cost

Anthropic claimed that Claude 3.5 Sonnet surpasses competitor models like GPT4.o and Gemini 1.5 Pro, Meta’s Llama 3 400B, and even its predecessor, Claude 3 Opus, on a wide range of evaluations. Notably, the Claude 3.5 Sonnet achieves this leap in performance while maintaining the speed and cost-effectiveness of their mid-tier model, the Claude 3 Sonnet.

“The Claude 3.5 Sonnet represents a significant advancement in large language models, featuring notable improvements across key metrics,” said Prabhu Ram, head of the Industry Intelligence Group at CyberMedia Research. “It boasts double the processing speed of its predecessor, Claude Opus, at a fraction of the cost.”

Claude 3.5 Sonnet sets new industry benchmarks for graduate-level reasoning (GPQA), undergraduate-level knowledge (MMLU), and coding proficiency (HumanEval), Anthropic said. “It shows marked improvement in grasping nuance, humor, and complex instructions, and is exceptional at writing high-quality content with a natural, relatable tone.”

The company claimed that Claude 3.5 Sonnet operates at twice the speed of Claude 3 Opus. This performance boost, combined with cost-effective pricing, “makes Claude 3.5 Sonnet ideal for complex tasks such as context-sensitive customer support and orchestrating multi-step workflows.”

As per the announcement, the new model costs $3 per million input tokens and $15 per million output tokens, with a 200K token context window.

In April the company launched Claude 3 Haiku as the most cost-effective AI solution with a fee of $0.25 per million token for input and $1.25 for output.

In terms of power and efficiency, Anthropic offers three versions of its Claude AI model — Haiku is the lightweight version while Sonnet and Opus are the middle and high-end models respectively.

Claude 3.5 Haiku and Claude 3.5 Opus are slated for release later this year, the announcement said.

Coding and vision capabilities get a boost

The announcement highlights Claude 3.5 Sonnet’s prowess in code manipulation and understanding. In an internal evaluation, the model solved 64% of problems related to bug fixing and functionality additions with open source codebases, a significant improvement over Claude 3 Opus’ 38% success rate.

“Our evaluation tests the model’s ability to fix a bug or add functionality to an open source codebase, given a natural language description of the desired improvement,” the announcement read. “When instructed and provided with the relevant tools, Claude 3.5 Sonnet can independently write, edit, and execute code with sophisticated reasoning and troubleshooting capabilities. It handles code translations with ease, making it particularly effective for updating legacy applications and migrating codebases.”

Claude 3.5 Sonnet also sets new standards for visual reasoning tasks, surpassing Claude 3 Opus in interpreting charts and graphs and accurately transcribing texts from imperfect images.

“Claude 3.5 Sonnet is our strongest vision model yet, surpassing Claude 3 Opus on standard vision benchmarks,” Anthropic claimed. This capability is particularly crucial for industries such as retail, logistics, and financial services, where visual data holds more insights than text.

Collaborative work environment gets a new name: Artefacts

Alongside Claude 3.5 Sonnet, Anthropic has launched a new feature called Artefacts on Claude.ai. This feature allows users to generate content such as code snippets, website designs, text documents, which appear in a dedicated window alongside their conversation. This creates a dynamic workspace where users can see, edit and build upon Claude’s creations in real-time, marking a significant evolution from conversational AI to a collaborative environment.

“This preview feature marks Claude’s evolution from a conversational AI to a collaborative work environment,” Anthropic stated in the announcement. “It’s just the beginning of a broader vision for Claude.ai, which will soon expand to support team collaboration.”

Soon, teams — and eventually entire organizations — will be able to securely centralize their knowledge, documents, and ongoing work in one shared space, with “Claude serving as an on-demand teammate.”

This feature marks a shift in Claude’s role, evolving from a conversational AI to a collaborative work environment.

The company is also developing new modalities and features to support more business use cases, including integrations with enterprise applications and personalized features like Memory which will enable Claude to “remember a user’s preferences and interaction history,” the announcement said.

Tables are one of the fundamental tools in Excel. Putting your data in a table makes it visually appealing and much easier to read.

Tables also make it easier to work with your data, offering built-in sorting and filtering tools as well as easy-to-use calculation features to help you get useful insights from your data. In fact, some advanced Excel features, such as its new genAI-powered data analysis, require you to put your data in table format first.

In this story, we’ll get you up and running with tables in Excel, from creating and formatting them to performing calculations on their data. Below is the sample data we will be using, if you’d like to copy and paste it into a blank Excel worksheet and follow along with the tutorial:

ItemJanFebMarchLemons$300$220$240Bananas$190$190$170Apples$220$170$120Pears$170$200$190

We’ll demonstrate in Excel for Windows with a Microsoft 365 subscription. If you use a different version of Excel, most steps will work similarly, but you may not have all the features shown here.

How to make and format a table in Excel

To create a table in Excel, go to the Insert tab on Excel’s Ribbon toolbar and select Table. The Create Table pane will pop up asking you to select the data you want to include in the table. Highlight the data you want in the table. If your data includes column headers (as our example does), click the My table has headers checkbox, and then select OK.

Creating a table in Excel.

Shimon Brathwaite / IDG

Alternatively, you can start by selecting the data you want to include in the table and then selecting Insert > Table. The Create Table pane will pop up with the data range prepopulated.

After you click OK, the table will appear in place of the plain data you selected. By default, the table will typically be formatted with a dark blue header and alternating light blue and white rows, but you can choose between several different colors and designs. To do so, click on the table you created, select the Table tab in the Ribbon, and scroll through the table design options at upper right. Click on any design, and your table’s formatting will instantly change to match. For this demonstration, we’ll select the yellow coloring.

Choose a table design from the gallery on the Table tab.

Shimon Brathwaite / IDG

And that’s it. It took all of 20 seconds to create and format a table in Excel.

How to use a Total row for quick calculations

Next, you’ll add calculations to your table. This lets you summarize information easily for viewing. To do so, click on your table, navigate to the Table tab in the Ribbon, and check the Total Row option. A row marked “Total” appears at the bottom of the table. By default it shows the sum of the numbers in the final column of your table.

Adding a Total row to the bottom of the table.

Shimon Brathwaite / IDG

What if you want to show totals for the other columns in the table — or show something other than sums in the final row? Based on the name, it would seem that you can only use the Total row for totals, but that is not true. If you click in any cell in the final row, a downward pointing triangle icon appears next to it. Click the triangle and a dropdown appears. You can calculate many different values, such as average, minimum, maximum, standard deviation, and more, and you can calculate each column.

The Total row can perform many different types of calculations.

Shimon Brathwaite / IDG

If you choose to show calculations for multiple columns in a table, you’ll want to use the same calculation for each one so they’re consistent across the Total row. You’ll also want to label the row appropriately. If you’re showing averages in the Total row, for instance, change “Total” to “Average” in the first cell.

How to sort and filter data in an Excel table

In addition to making calculations, tables allow you to easily filter or sort data so that it can be presented in the way that you like.

Sorting

To sort items by ascending or descending order, simply click the downward triangle next to any column header and select Ascending or Descending on the pane that appears. If you’ve chosen a column with text, the rows will be arranged from A to Z or from Z to A. If you sort on a column with numbers, they’ll be arranged from lowest to highest or from highest to lowest.

Sorting column A in ascending order.

Shimon Brathwaite / IDG

Sorting on a column brings the whole row along. In our sample data, for instance, sorting on column A in ascending order moves Apples to the top row — and the Jan, Feb, and March sales figures for Apples also move to the top row. This keeps all the relevant data together.

Filtering

You can also filter out some items completely to limit what is shown. This doesn’t delete any of the table data; it simply hides it so you can zero in on a subset of your data.

To do so, click the button next to the column header and then find the list of items in the column near the bottom of the pane that appears. Uncheck items until only the desired ones are left (in our case, Apples and Bananas).

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We’ve unchecked Lemons and Pears while leaving Apples and Bananas selected.

Shimon Brathwaite / IDG

The final product looks like this:

The filtered table shows only the Apples and Bananas data.

Shimon Brathwaite / IDG

To go back to the normal view where all of the data is visible, simply click the column header button again and select Clear Filter.

Select Clear Filter to make all table data visible again.

Shimon Brathwaite / IDG

Tip: When you’ve sorted by a column, the button next to that column header changes to show an arrow pointing up next to the downward triangle. When you’ve filtered the items in a column, the button shows a funnel next to the triangle. And when you’ve both sorted and filtered the data, the button shows both an up arrow and a funnel. This indicator lets you know at a glance when sorting or filtering has been done to a table and which column it’s been done on.

Another way to filter is based on certain criteria, such as showing only items with numbers greater than a certain value. This is called conditional filtering. To see this in action, select the down arrow triangle to the Jan header. In the center of the pane that appears, click the first Equals dropdown and change it to Greater Than or Equal To, then type in 200 in the field to the right. Click the radio button for And. Then change the second dropdown to Less Than or Equal To and type in 300 on the right.

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Setting two conditions for filtering a table.

Shimon Brathwaite

This sets the filter to show only items that have values from 200 to 300 in the Jan column, as shown below.

Only the items with values between 200 and 300 in the Jan column now appear.

Shimon Brathwaite

How to create a calculated column in an Excel table

The Total row we discussed earlier calculates table data in a column, but you can also calculate data across rows. To do this easily, simply click the cell to the right of the final column in the first row of your table that contains data. Then, type in =average and select AVERAGE from the dropdown that appears. Highlight the entire row, and Excel fills in the rest of the formula to calculate the average for the values in the row. Hit Enter.

Select AVERAGE and highlight the whole row, then press Enter.

Shimon Brathwaite

Once you hit Enter, not only will Excel calculate the average for that row, but for all of the rows in the table — and it will use formatting that is consistent with the rest of the table. Thus, you’ve created a whole column simply by entering one function. Microsoft calls these calculated columns.

Excel has calculated averages for all four rows in the table.

Shimon Brathwaite

Note: Excel will typically give the new column a name in line with the other headers (in this case “April”), so you might want to rename it to something more fitting, like “Average.”

Change the column header to reflect the data being shown in the calculated column.

Shimon Brathwaite

Average isn’t the only calculation available in table rows. You can also perform sum, minimum, maximum, item count, and a host of other operations. See “How to use Excel formulas and functions” for an introduction to the functions available in Excel.

How to create a chart from a table

In this final section, you will learn how to make charts based on data stored in tables — a great way to visually present that data. To begin, highlight all the data rows in your table (not the header row or the Total row). Navigate to the Insert tab, select Recommended Charts, and choose the second chart — the Clustered Column chart with no line running through it.

Creating a chart from table data.

Shimon Brathwaite

A clustered column chart will appear on your worksheet, but you’ll notice that the labels at the bottom don’t reflect your header names. Let’s change that. Right-click the chart and choose Select Data from the menu that pops up.

On the Select Data Source screen that appears, select each legend name on the left and change it to the appropriate month by typing the month name in the Name field to the right. Once you have changed all four, click OK to apply the changes to the chart.

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You can change the legend labels manually.

Shimon Brathwaite

The chart now shows the correct legend labels. As a final improvement, double-click the title of the chart and rename it to “Sales Table.”

The final chart based on our table data.

Shimon Brathwaite

Of course, you’re not limited to column charts; there are dozens of chart styles to choose from in Excel. On the Ribbon’s Insert tab to the right of Recommended Charts, you’ll find dropdowns for various styles of column charts, line charts, and pie charts, as well as an array of specialized charts such as treemap, histogram, scatter charts and more. It’s worth experimenting with different styles to see which works best to present the data or trend you want to highlight.

More Excel tutorials:

• How to use PivotTables and PivotCharts in Excel
• How (and why) to use conditional formatting in Excel
• How to use Excel formulas and functions
• How to use Excel macros to save time and automate your work
• 8 simple ways to clean data with Excel
• Handy Excel keyboard shortcuts for Windows and Mac

Through a recently proposed policy change, Facebook and Instagram users in the European Union and UK learned that Meta planned to use anything they posted publicly to train its generative artificial intelligence (genAI) models.

In the US, Meta has long been using public Facebook and Instagram posts to train its Meta AI chatbot — something many users are not aware of. Users’ interactions with Meta AI are also used in training.

Meta’s change to its privacy policy, which originally was to take effect on June 26 for European Union and UK users, would allow it to use public posts, images, comments, and intellectual property to train Meta AI and the models that power it, including the company’s Llama large language model (LLM). LLMs are the algorithms or programs behind genAI engines. The company stated that it would not use private posts or private messages to train its models.

Users in the EU and UK would be able to opt out of having their content used for AI training, but only by filling out an objection form, according to a June 10 press release from Meta.

When EU and UK regulators caught wind of Meta’s plan, they pushed back, citing privacy concerns. Meta then paused its plans for the privacy policy change for users in the EU, adding that the delay “means we aren’t able to launch Meta AI in Europe at the moment.”

Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) posted a response to Meta pausing the rollout of its new policy, saying the “decision followed intensive engagement between the DPC and Meta. The DPC, in co-operation with its fellow EU data protection authorities, will continue to engage with Meta on this issue.”

Meta responded to a request for comment by Computerworld by pointing to a blog post by the company’s global engagement director, Stefano Fratta. In her post, Fratta said Meta is following the “example set by others, including Google and OpenAI, both of which have already used data from Europeans to train AI.”

“Our approach is more transparent and offers easier controls than many of our industry counterparts already training their models on similar publicly available information,” Fratta said. “Models are built by looking at people’s information to identify patterns, like understanding colloquial phrases or local references, not to identify a specific person or their information.”

Fratta reiterated that the Meta is building its foundational AI model by using only content that users chose to make public.

In the US, which has weaker privacy protections than the UK and Europe, Meta’s users have never been given the opportunity to opt out of having their public posts and comments used to train the company’s AI models. In a statement published by the New York Times, Meta said of US users, “While we don’t currently have an opt-out feature, we’ve built in-platform tools that allow people to delete their personal information from chats with Meta AI across our apps.”

Gartner vice president analyst Avivah Litan said Meta’s planned use of European users’ posts and other information is “pretty disconcerting,” and “Meta just gave users more reasons to distrust their services.”

At a minimum, Litan said, Meta should be more transparent and make it easier for users to opt out and understand what the implications are whether they do or don’t opt out.

“Users and our enterprise clients are justifiably concerned about model owners using their private data to train and improve their models. In fact, that’s their main concern when it comes to genAI risks and threats,” Litan said. “Now Meta is validating that their fears are valid.”

Meta originally notified users of its privacy policy change on May 31 through an email titled “We’re Updating our Privacy Policy as we expand AI at Meta.” In part, the email notification stated, “we’ll now rely on the legal basis called legitimate interests for using your information to develop and improve AI at Meta.”

Privacy policy updates more often than not go unnoticed by recipients, who are used to receiving a plethora of them, Litan said. What’s more, she noted, most users would not understand how to opt out of the new policy.

“Users are complacent about figuring out all the murky black box privacy processes that occur behind the scenes, largely because they are not able to understand them anyways,” Litan said. “Of course, there is no one at Meta that you can talk to if you have questions, and we have no tutorial or video to explain what it means to not opt out, nor how to opt out,” she added.

Meta should pay their users for their data, Litan said, because they are using it to increase their own profitability.

Meta is not alone in taking advantage of data posted publicly by businesses and users to build out its technology. With the exception of Apple, none of the hyperscalers or tech giants hosting AI used by consumers and businesses allow users to verify their claims around security and privacy, Litan said. “It’s all based on a ‘trust but no verify’ model.”

Android 15 is a-comin’! Google’s latest and greatest Android version is inching ever closer to its official arrival and promising some tantalizingly sweet treats for those of us on properly supported devices.

The third Android 15 beta landed on Tuesday, and that means the software is now considered fully “stable,” at the platform level. It also means we’ve got just one more prerelease beta version before the full final version rushes out into the world sometime this summer (or possibly in the early fall).

But hey, why wait? With the right pinch of creative thinking, you can give yourself early access to an even better version of an especially noteworthy Android 15 addition — a pair of intriguing improvements the software squeezes into an area of the operating system you probably glance at multiple times a day.

In fact, the setup I’m about to show you will add substantial productivity improvements over what Android 15 itself offers, and it’s likely something you’ll appreciate even after you’re rockin’ the official Android 15 update on your device.

Let’s dive in, shall we?

[Psst: If you love time-saving shortcuts as much as I do, check out my free Android Shortcut Supercourse. You’ll discover all sorts of smart efficiency-enhancers for your phone!]

Android 15 and the lock screen evolution

So, a quick crumb of context before we get going: Among Android 15’s more remarkable additions is a set of improvements to the Android lock screen — improvements with an interesting history on Android, as both have appeared on the platform or close to it at some point in the past:

• First, Android 15 introduces the ability to add widgets onto your device’s lock screen — something Google gave us back in 2012, as part of the Android 4.2 update of that era, but then took back away two short years later for no apparent reason.
• And second, Android 15 allows you to set a default system note app and then access that app directly from the lock screen for fast, easy access — something offered on Chromebooks via the Google Keep app a handful of years back until, well, y’know.

Both of these features were welcome productivity advantages when they initially launched in their earlier incarnations, and they’re certainly nice to have coming back into the mix now. But (a) they aren’t in front of us yet, since Android 15’s still in the oven — and (b) when they do arrive with Android 15’s launch, they’ll be accompanied by some serious asterisks.

First and foremost, the lock screen widget system will be limited only to tablets, at least for the time being, as part of the Pixel-Tablet-esque smart display hub mode. So no-go for phones, in other words. It’ll also work only with a small subset of widgets whose developers have specifically listed them as being compatible with this system (a designation very few widgets presently sport).

Second, the lock screen note shortcut system essentially just puts an icon for opening your note app of choice onto your device’s lock screen. That’s fine and certainly better than nothing, but it isn’t exactly what I’d call a rich or fully featured form of lock screen note-taking integration.

With about two minutes of effort, though, you can overcome these limitations and bring an even more functional, practical, and effective version of both concepts onto any Android device you’re using this second — phone or tablet, no matter how old it is, and no matter who made it.

Ready?

Your instant Android lock screen enhancement

The key to boosting your Android lock screen productivity lies in a simple little app called Lockscreen Widgets and Drawer. We talked about it almost exactly a year ago, but it’s freshly relevant in our current context and with the idea of adding extra productivity power into your lock screen in a similar way to what Android 15 will allow.

Rather than simply wax poetic about what the app can do for you, though, lemme show ya — ’cause in this instance, pictures really do speak louder than words alone.

So open those big, beautiful peepers and take a gander at my Android phone’s lock screen with this setup up and running:

A prominent note-taking widget right on my Android phone’s lock screen — huzzah!

JR Raphael, IDG

There, right front and center, is a widget showing my most recent notes within Google Keep. I can see and scroll through my notes, and with a single tap (and proper authentication), I can jump directly into any individual note or into creating a new note right then and there, without any extra steps or seconds wasted.

And to be clear, Google Keep is just the widget I picked for this example. You could just as easily use a widget for OneNote, Notion, or any of the other excellent Android note-taking apps that make widgets available. Or you could even go in a completely different direction and use an Android widget that has nothing to do with note-taking — one connected to your calendar, your tasks, or anything else your saucy ol’ noggin comes up with.

Just remember that, inevitably, anything you put in this area will be visible to anyone who has their paws on your physical device. You’ll still have to authenticate to actually get into the associated app, view any more than the initially visible preview, or edit and create anything within it — but, particularly when it comes to sensitive company information, you’ll want to think carefully about what you make present in that preauthentication area.

Capisce? Capisce. Now, here’s how to make this happen:

1. Download Lockscreen Widgets and Drawer from the Play Store. It’ll set you back a whopping buck-fifty — and odds are, it’ll bring enough of a boost to your efficiency to quickly make it worth that cost and then some.
2. Open up the app and make your way through its initial setup screens. Don’t worry about any of the specific permissions or prompts you see along the way; most of ’em aren’t particularly pressing, and the ones that are important will come up separately in a second.
3. Once you’re on the app’s main screen, tap “Accessibility Settings” — then find “Lockscreen widgets” in the list that comes up and tap it. (If you’re using a Samsung device, you’ll first have to tap “Installed apps” before you see the list of available options.)
4. Flip the toggle at the top of the next screen into the on position. (Make sure it’s the toggle at the top of the screen, too — not the “Shortcut” option beneath it.)

The interface may vary a bit from one phone to the next, but the top toggle is the one you want.

JR Raphael, IDG

Your phone will show you a warning about all the things that permission can do. It may sound daunting, but rest assured: This permission is legitimately required in order for the app to make this magic happen. The app is also explicitly clear about its privacy practices and the fact that it doesn’t collect any manner of user data, and it’s even open source so anyone with the right level of savvy can view the code for themselves and confirm it isn’t doing anything shady.

Got it? Good. Pat yourself on the back and treat yourself to a quick crumpet, ’cause you’ve got the basics all set! Now, you’re ready to pick which widget you want to have present on your lock screen and officially add it into that environment:

1. Make your way back to the main Lockscreen Widgets configuration screen and flip the toggle within the “Lockscreen Widgets” box into the on position.
2. Tap the +Add Widget button that shows up within that same area.
3. Scroll through the list of available widgets and select the one you want.
4. Tap the widget you want to add, then confirm that you want the app to add it.
5. Tap the Settings button within that same box, then scroll down until you see the “Lock Widget Frame” option (within the “Layout” section). Flip the toggle for that into the on position.

Aaaaand, take a deep breath: We’re almost done!

All that’s left is to press your phone’s power button to turn the screen off, then press it again to summon your lock screen. You should then see a placeholder for your snazzy new widget with instructions to tap the widget with two fingers to move and resize it.

A two-finger tap is all it takes to plop your widget in the perfect place and get it sized just right.

JR Raphael, IDG

Do that, then use the commands that appear within that area to slide the widget around and expand or contract its edges until you find the perfect place for it to live. Ideally, you’ll want it somewhere that’s out of the way and not overlapping with other elements, like your lock screen clock or notifications.

Drag, drop, slide — easy peasy.

JR Raphael, IDG

Once you’ve got it set, either tap the OK button within that widget box or tap the box again with two fingers, and shazam! The actual widget should then appear and be ready for your loving gaze and/or caressing.

srcset="https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/android-lock-screen-widget.webp?quality=50&strip=all 700w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/android-lock-screen-widget.webp?resize=282%2C300&quality=50&strip=all 282w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/android-lock-screen-widget.webp?resize=656%2C697&quality=50&strip=all 656w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/android-lock-screen-widget.webp?resize=158%2C168&quality=50&strip=all 158w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/android-lock-screen-widget.webp?resize=79%2C84&quality=50&strip=all 79w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/android-lock-screen-widget.webp?resize=452%2C480&quality=50&strip=all 452w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/android-lock-screen-widget.webp?resize=339%2C360&quality=50&strip=all 339w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/android-lock-screen-widget.webp?resize=235%2C250&quality=50&strip=all 235w" width="700" height="744" sizes="(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px">Selected notes, on demand at my phone’s front door — how’s that for efficiency?!

JR Raphael, IDG

If you ever want to temporarily hide the widget out of view on your lock screen, you can do so by tapping it with three fingers together on the screen at the same time.

You can find more intricate options for controlling your widget’s appearance and behavior within the Lockscreen Widgets app — along with options for adding additional widgets into the lock screen environment, if you’re really feeling fancy — but you don’t need to mess with anything else. At this point, your lock screen note center should be fully functional and ready to roll, and you can merrily move on with the knowledge that you’ve got an even better version of a still-unreleased Android feature.

Happy step-saving!

Get six full days of advanced shortcut knowledge with my free Android Shortcut Supercourse. You’ll learn tons of time-saving tricks!

One small but key new feature for iCloud in macOS Sequoia should make developers and engineers a little happier, as it will be possible to sign into iCloud and other Apple ID (soon Apple Account) services from virtual machines.

This hasn’t been possible before, which has impeded developers and users hoping to test iCloud features in apps, including trialing iCloud sync on their software. It has also been an obstacle for any Mac user who just wanted easy access to iCloud data form within a virtual machine. 

Who is this feature for?

For most developers, the big advantage will be in software testing. Many developers need to test software in multiple Mac configurations, but not all of them have the fleets of Macs required. Given that so many app developers now make use of iCloud features or make use to some degree of iCloud sync (think calendars, for example), the inability to easily make such tests may impact customer experiences.

Developers who like to keep a firewall between clients and their projects by hosting these in different virtual machines should also benefit from this support, as it means their iCloud data and services remain consistently available independently of their workflow.

So, what is the deal? 

Apple says that so long as both the host machine and VM are running macOS 15 Sequoia or later, it will be possible to use iCloud and other Apple ID-related services with the hardware. It’s not a complete panacea, unfortunately. That’s because the need to run macOS 15 or later means developers wanting to trial older operating systems will still have problems. All the same, it means that over time, it will become possible to test the performance of older macOS versions as new iterations ship.

There are a few technical considerations, as explained in an Apple tech note:

• If someone moves a VM to a different Mac host and restarts it, the Virtualization framework automatically creates a new identity for the VM using the information from the Secure Enclave of the new Mac host. The person using the VM will need to reauthenticate to allow iCloud to work.
• The Mac will also detect attempts to start multiple copies of the same VM simultaneously on the same Mac host. 

Enterprise-ready Macs

This is just one of a slew of WWDC-announced improvements coming to Macs and other Apple devices this fall. These include improvements in device management, passkeys, software updates, and Safari management.

Admins can also install executables, scripts, and configuration files remotely via MDM, which should make it a little easier for organizations to deploy and manage services across their fleets. Apple Account (formerly Apple ID) management has also been improved to encourage organizations to use Managed Apple Accounts..

Another great improvement is in Activation Lock. There have been problems in which perfectly functional Macs that have been handed on for renewal or sold legitimately on second-hand markets have ceased to function because people have neglected to disable Activation Lock. Apple does have a process to help in cases of this kind, but at WWDC it introduced new support to enable IT admins to remove Activation Lock using Apple Business Manager, which should mitigate the unintentionally bricked Mac problem.

Finally, Declarative Management will replace MDM profiles for software updates, as well as for some other commands and queries. The beauty of this is that Declarative Management delivers far more transparency to admins, while also improving the experience for users — your Mac won’t suddenly enter an update cycle just as you sit down with the board to begin a critical business condition status presentation, for example.

One more thing: whispers tell me it is also going to be possible for IT to disable services such as access to OpenAI from within Apple Intelligence, so unapproved sharing of enterprise data should not happen on managed devices.

All told, WWDC has been really good for IT admins, who now enjoy access to a broad and growing range of powerful tools with which to manage their Apple fleets. This seems particularly timely as the size of those fleets continue to expand. 

Please follow me on Mastodon, or join me in the AppleHolic’s bar & grill and Apple Discussions groups on MeWe.

Slack CEO Denise Dresser this week laid out what she sees as her company’s primary use for artificial intelligence (AI) in the future: making it easier for users to find key channel conversations and turn them into the basis for tasks and projects.

Dresser, a longtime Salesforce employee who took the reins of Slack six months ago, sat down with members of the media on Tuesday after her keynote address at Salesforce’s World Tour event in Boston. Much of the focus was on Slack’s integration with Salesforce’s Einstein Copilot.

(Salesforce acquired Slack in late 2020.)

What Slack will eventually be able to offer both its own and Salesforce’s users is a unified experience where AI oversees any influx of both structured and unstructured data and parses through it to offer users the most important summaries. Being able to find key moments in chats and knowing what happened in conversations is hard to navigate, Dresser said, and is at the heart of Slack’s AI integration.

“Sometimes AI can be the simplest thing that drives productivity,” she said. “So, we did Slack AI Search. With that, Slack becomes the long-term memory of your organization. …Being able to find things easily in a generative manner, where you actually get a summary of what you need to find, was a really big ‘Aha’ moment for us.”

AI’s adoption and integration into virtually every Slack function will continue to accelerate. Dresser pointed to an “evolution of skills” that has come with the adoption of the technology, including prompt engineering or the use of natural language processing to perform functions, such as the creation of software without traditional line-by-line coding.

“It took two months for ChatGPT to get to 100 million users, 15 years for the mobile phone to get to 100 million users, four years for Facebook to get to 100 million users. What I think we’re going to start to see is this [same] acceleration as people start to adopt it, and see productivity improvements,” Dresser said.

“We’re going to bring that into Canvas. It’s going to be in Workflow, it’s going to be in Huddle,” she continued. “So, you’ll see AI infused everywhere. It’s just going to be by your side in the application.”

Users, Dresser explained, won’t even know it’s AI with which they’re interacting; it will be a natural offshoot of the Slack functionality. For example, users would need to use a search window to weed through days of Slack messages they may have missed. Instead, an AI-infused Slack would quickly surface the most important message summaries.

In terms of future innovations, Dresser pointed to the recently launched Slack Lists feature, which automatically captures the most important parts of channel conversations and surfaces them to users.

Less than 34% of projects are completed on time and one budget, Dresser claimed, saying that users having to switch between tasks in applications was a significant drain on time and productivity. “We have millions of people working in Slack; why leave Slack?” she said. “We wanted to bring that capability for tasks, and lists, and projects into Slack. It starts right in a [Slack] conversation, where you’re able to start a task list from that conversation and start working on your project right there.”

The AI-infused communication and collaboration platform will eventually also suggest to its users the chat channels they should prioritize for project purposes. “That type of power in terms of capability is going to be ‘Aha’ moments for people,” Dresser said.

She noted that only about a third of employees in general use AI-powered platforms in their jobs — but those who do have seen an average 81% productivity increase by eliminating mundane tasks.

As AI continues to be integrated into Slack and Salesforce tools, one challenge will be maintaining the feel and “integrity” of what’s she called a “beloved” application.

“We’ve already integrated Slack, Sales Elevate, and Salesforce. Copilot’s integration is going to be great,” she said. “One of the things we thought deeply about was making sure the craft of Slack and the experience of Slack is maintained, even when thinking about architectural integration. Creating that experience that is very Slack-like and that’s efficient and productivity is something we’ve thought deeply about.”

The US is once again trying to slow advances in China’s chip manufacturing industry, a move that is unlikely to pay dividends long term, but may help US business concerns in the very short term, according to analysts and other China technology experts. The outcome will shape the semiconductor industry in the years to come.

Reuters reported on the latest diplomatic efforts on Wednesday, noting that US export policy chief Alan Estevez is traveling in an attempt to expand a 2023 agreement between the US, Japan and the Netherlands “to keep chipmaking equipment from China that could help to modernize its military.”

But experts on Chinese technology strategies are skeptical the talks will yield much and, if anything is achieved, they are even more skeptical that it will help long-term. That said, even a short-term delay in China’s chip-making progress could give US companies more breathing room.

The negotiations are tricky. US negotiators must convince key governmental and industrial concerns to stop selling chip manufacturing equipment and materials to China, even though it means surrendering a massive amount of revenue.

Lithography systems a key lever

Japan’s chip strength comes from a wide range of materials and components, whereas the Netherlands’ specialty is lithography systems, the complex machines used to etch semiconductor designs on silicon wafers, said Mario Morales, the group VP overseeing semiconductor coverage for IDC. Lithography “is what makes the most advanced silicon today. These are all critical market segments, so it definitely slows things down, but China is absolutely investing in those spaces,” he said.

The sums of money at stake make the US diplomatic efforts unlikely to succeed, Morales said.

“Some 25 percent of Intel’s business is coming from China,” he said, adding that AMD, Nvidia, and Qualcomm also rely heavily on sales to China. And if the US negotiators are successful, Morales said that he expects China to retaliate.

The only argument that the US can make is long-term, Morales said. These companies all know that China is heavily investing in its own manufacturing operations, and it will only be a few years — Morales projects five to seven years — before China will no longer need materials from Japan and the Netherlands. Once that happens, China will cut off revenue to those companies anyway.

The argument goes that not cooperating with the US now may make the US less likely to be there for those companies when China no longer needs them. On the flip side, it’s unlikely the US would cut back on purchases from Japan and the Netherlands even if they don’t cooperate because US companies need their support. It’s not as though the US would want American companies to buy from China any more than is absolutely necessary.

“Most of these initiatives will fail. And even if they don’t, it only contains China for a short term,” Morales said.

Morales specified automotive, smartphone and China’s own AI operations as representing the bulk of China’s current chip investments.

Irina Tsukerman is a geopolitical analyst, a national security lawyer and the president of Scarab Rising, a global strategy advisory firm. Tsukerman argues that these talks are going to make things very awkward for some of these chip component and tooling manufacturers.

Short-term profit or long-term relationship

“The scramble over these restrictions means companies will be hard pressed to make a choice whether to take maximum advantage of that window of opportunity to make profit, likely at escalated prices, to sell that equipment to China,” Tsukerman said, “or get on the US good side early and voluntarily start cooperating with the additional restrictions with a possibility of gaining early leverage and scoring investments or other positive incentives from Washington, before negative incentives are introduced more broadly.”

But she agrees with the US efforts, as she argues that it will likely succeed in the very short-term.

“Until now, China has been able to capitalize on weak import-export controls, including via US-friendly countries, as well as loopholes in the type of equipment banned under restrictions, to continue apace with its development of its domestic chip industry,” Tsukerman said. “Netherlands and Japan remain in possession of some of the most advanced equipment for developing semiconductors. If these loopholes and restrictions are tightened, China will have a much harder time with making the breakthroughs it needs to circumvent the overall bans on AI chips.”

Tsukerman said that US government officials should also look inward, as China has taken advantage of ineffective enforcement from multiple US agencies. The US “should look towards its own import-export controls, because the occasional and sometimes systematic unwillingness of its agencies to enforce these controls has resulted in China exploiting additional loopholes to gain access to such equipment,” she said. 

Retaliatory measures

In terms of likely Chinese retaliation, the Chinese government would have many options. “The US and its allies should be preparing for a likely eventuality of China placing additional restrictions on the rare earth minerals and other raw materials used in the development of semiconductors to prevent the US and its counterparts from advancing further and making it easier for China to catch up even under restriction,” Tsukerman said.

Potentially more importantly, Tsukerman said the US focus on China might prove problematic, as these chip supplies could also come from various other countries. “Working only with the Netherlands and Japan to prevent China from gaining access to equipment is clearly insufficient. China has benefited from loose import-export controls in countries willing to sell that type of equipment produced with Dutch, Japanese, and/or joint US involvement to China with the same result. The coalition should work in tandem to shut down gray zones, possibly imposing secondary sanctions on countries willing to sell such equipment,” she said. “For now, the chipmaking equipment production is dominated by the US-led coalition. It is only a matter of time before other countries develop their own capabilities, BRICS members being the prime example,” she added, referring to the intergovernmental organization founded by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa and more recently expanded to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates.

Tsukerman said recent US efforts to negotiate with India may be a good move. “India could still be helpful to chipmaking production in any of the expanded BRICS members in many other ways. Meanwhile, such restrictions certainly do not apply to any of the other members, including Saudi Arabia, which is dedicating billions to start a regional semiconductor hub and may receive China’s assistance in exchange for providing China with such equipment.”

Brian Levine, a managing partner with Ernst & Young who was one of the US Department of Justice’s representatives in the US law enforcement Joint Liaison Group (JLG) with China, said that he sees even a miniscule delay in China’s chip-making efforts as worthwhile for US interests. 

War is waged with microchips

“Progress is progress and the same is true for the delay of progress. These days, war is waged not with guns, but with microchips,” Levine said. “Win the war on microchips and you may win the war generally. I think the administration is trying to pull what levers it can. The degree to which it will be effective will depend on many factors that are unknowable at this point, such as the level of international cooperation with the effort.”  

Although some have raised questions of hypocrisy with the US trying to pressure China into not doing what it is actively doing, Levine disagrees. “Much of this technology was likely stolen from the US and other countries, so I have limited sympathy for those who may get worked up about the US attempting to impose such restrictions.”

Robert Khachatryan, the CEO of Freight Right Global Logistics, is also uncertain about how much of an impact the US diplomatic efforts will make. 

“Although the restrictions may slow China’s progress in the short term, it is uncertain if they will be sufficient to halt it entirely. China has been increasing its investments in domestic chip production, aiming for self-sufficiency,” Khachatryan said. “Restricting China’s access to AI chip technology could disrupt global supply chains and commerce, as China accounts for 24 percent of global semiconductor consumption. Such restrictions might slow worldwide production and distribution and shift trade dynamics, with countries seeking alternative suppliers.”

Microsoft has added generative artificial intelligence and other enhanced features to its quantum-computing platform as part of a larger strategy to deliver the game-changing technology to a broader range of users — in this case, the scientific community.

The company on Wednesday unveiled the release of Generative Chemistry and Accelerated DFT, which together expand how scientists in the chemicals and materials science industry can use its Azure Quantum Elements platform to help drastically shorten the time it takes them to do research, the company said in a blog post.

“Just as generative AI has unleashed new waves of creativity and improved productivity with collaborative tools like Copilot, we are now bringing AI and natural language processing capabilities to science,” according to the post, attributed to Jason Zander, EVP, Strategic Missions and Technologies.

Each week, I ask Windows Intelligence readers to share their favorite Windows PC tips with me. There are some I see submitted over and over — the top productivity tips many of my most enthusiastic readers think everyone should know.

Now, I want to share them with you, bringing them into one place for an easily skimmable guide filled with tweaks and upgrades you can put straight to work.

There are more PC tips where these came from! Sign up for my free Windows Intelligence newsletter to get free Windows Field Guides and three new things to try every Friday.

Windows productivity tip #1: Clipboard history

Windows has a built-in clipboard history. Just press Windows+V to find it. If you haven’t activated it, you can turn it on in one click from there.

You can copy multiple things and access both text and images you’ve recently copied within it. Or, if you find yourself pasting the same things again and again, you can “pin” items to your clipboard history for easy future access.

The clipboard history tool can help you perform other advanced tasks, too: You can sync your clipboard between PCs with your Microsoft account, for example, or paste items as plain text.

To configure the clipboard history, head to Settings > System > Clipboard. It’s available on both Windows 10 and Windows 11.

The clipboard history is stored entirely on your PC — unless you choose to sync it in Settings.

Chris Hoffman, IDG

Windows productivity tip #2: The power user menu

The “power user menu” was added during the Windows 8 days, when Microsoft removed the Start menu. It’s still useful today, offering a quick way to access a variety of useful system options and administrative tools. Whether you want to shut down your PC, launch File Explorer, or open a Terminal window, you can do it from the power user menu.

To open it, right-click your Start button on the taskbar or press Windows+X on your keyboard. You can then select an item in the menu with one more click.

Windows productivity tip #3: Plain-text pasting

Copy-pasting text on a PC can be a pain. You often end up copying formatting — fonts, colors, links, and other junk — when you just want plain old text.

You can paste just the plain text in nearly any application — if you use the right shortcut. Just press Ctrl+Shift+V instead of Ctrl+V to paste. This works in most applications, including web browsers like Google Chrome. (It now even works in Microsoft Word by default, too.)

Windows productivity tip #4: A website as an app

If you frequently use web apps, you might want to install them as applications, giving them their own separate windows, shortcuts, and taskbar icons for convenient access.

To do this in Google Chrome, visit the website you want to turn into an “app” — like Gmail, for example. Then, click the menu button on Chrome’s toolbar and select Save and Share > Create shortcut. Name it whatever you like, check “Open as window,” and you’re done.

If the website offers a Progressive Web App (PWA), you will see an “Install” button in the menu. You can use that instead.

This works in Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and other Chromium-based browsers. (Firefox, unfortunately, doesn’t support the option.)

This is the closest thing you can get to a Windows desktop app for Gmail.

Chris Hoffman, IDG

Windows productivity tip #5: Ctrl key shortcuts

There’s a good chance you already know some basic text-editing keyboard shortcuts. For example, you can hold Shift and use the left and right arrow keys to select text. But the Ctrl key makes all those keyboard shortcuts work with entire words and not individual characters.

Here’s how the Ctrl key upgrades other keyboard shortcuts while working with text in nearly any application, from your web browser and email client to Microsoft Word:

• Ctrl+Backspace: Backspace entire words to the left of the cursor at once — not just individual letters.
• Ctrl+Delete: Delete entire words to the right of the cursor at once — not just individual letters.
• Ctrl+Left arrow or Ctrl+Right arrow: Move the cursor to the previous word or the next word.
• Ctrl+Shift+Left arrow or Ctrl+Shift+Right arrow: Select entire words at once.

Windows productivity tip #6: Window snapping

The Snap feature is an incredibly useful way to quickly arrange multiple windows on your screen. In addition to clicking a window title bar and dragging it to the left or right edge of your screen, you can also use shortcuts such as Windows+Left arrow and Windows+Right arrow to snap windows to one side of your screen or the other.

On Windows 11, you have access to Snap Layouts for even more options — press Windows+Z to open Snap Layouts. (Here’s my ultimate guide to the Windows Snap feature to learn all the tricks you need.)

Snap is an absolutely useful tool for multitasking on Windows.

Chris Hoffman, IDG

Windows productivity tip #7: A Task Manager time-saver

The Windows Task Manager is a critical tool for all PC users. You might want to open it to see what applications are using resources, close an application that’s frozen, or just manage the startup applications that launch when you sign into your PC.

There’s no need to press Ctrl+Alt+Delete and click “Task Manager” to open it. Just press Ctrl+Shift+Esc, and the Task Manager will appear immediately. You can also right-click an empty spot on your taskbar and select “Task Manager” to launch it on either Windows 11 or Windows 10.

Windows productivity tip #8: Easy emoji insertions

Like it or not, emoji are part of modern communication. You can insert them anywhere on your PC — type them in emails, place them in Word documents, or even use them in file names.

To open the emoji picker on Windows, press Windows+. or Windows+; (that’s the Windows key along with a period or a semicolon).

You can then start typing to search for an emoji or browse through them. This works on Windows 10 and 11. You’ll also find other things you can insert in this pane — like special characters, for example.

With this shortcut, inserting emoji is just as easy on Windows as it is on your phone.

Chris Hoffman, IDG

Windows productivity tip #9: Pinned app shortcuts

The Windows key opens the Start menu, Windows+Tab launches Task View, and Windows+C opens Copilot. But you can activate the favorite apps you have pinned to your taskbar using the keyboard, too.

Just press Windows+1, Windows+2, or the Windows key along with any other number — 1 through 0. For example, if you press Windows+1, Windows will activate the first application shortcut from the left on your PC’s taskbar.

(Since 0 appears to the right of 9 on the number row on your keyboard, the 0 key will activate the 10th shortcut from the left.)

Windows productivity tip #10: Instant key transformation

Want to put your keyboard to better use? You can turn a key into any other key. For example, many people transform their Caps Lock key into something else. Here’s one idea: If your keyboard doesn’t have a convenient Play/Pause key, you could “remap” the Caps Lock key into a Play/Pause key.

There are a variety of ways to remap a key; my favorite is the Keyboard Manager included with Microsoft’s free PowerToys package.

To use it, install Microsoft PowerToys on your PC. Launch PowerToys from your Start menu or system tray, select “Keyboard Manager,” and use the “Remap a key” tool here to make a key function as another key. Microsoft has even more in-depth documentation on using the Keyboard Manager tool.

With a few clicks, you can transform a key on your keyboard into another key.

Chris Hoffman, IDG

Microsoft’s PowerToys package is packed with useful tools, too — Keyboard Manager is just scratching the surface of what you can do with it. For example, it has a convenient Always on Top tool for making any window “always on top” of all other windows. That can be a big productivity boost in the right situation.

Want more PC tips like these? Sign up for my Windows Intelligence newsletter today — you’ll get three things to try in your inbox each Friday. Plus, get free copies of Paul Thurrott’s Windows 11 and Windows 10 Field Guides as a special welcome bonus.

Shipments of augmented reality and virtual reality (AR/VR) headsets dropped 67.4% year over year in the first quarter of 2024 as a result of an evolution in the market, new data from International Data Corp. (IDC) reveals.

“The decline in shipments was expected as the market transitions to include new categories such as Mixed Reality (MR) and Extended Reality (ER),” IDC noted Tuesday. “Despite the decline, the average selling price (ASP) rose to over $1,000 as Apple entered the market and incumbents such as Meta focused on premium headsets such as the Quest 3.”

The future of such products in the enterprise is in flux, with Microsoft pulling back and laying off workers from its HoloLens division last year, while Apple is clearly targeting the enterprise market with its Apple Vision Pro.

However, IDC’s projections for shipments and selling prices may be thrown off by news that broke later the same day: Apple is reportedly abandoning plans to build a Vision Pro 2, concentrating instead on developing a lower-specced, lower-cost model for release in late 2025.

The research firm said that it recently revised its taxonomy of headsets to incorporate two new categories: “Mixed Reality which occludes the user’s vision but provides a view of the real world with outward facing cameras, and Extended Reality, which employs a see-though display but mirrors content from another device or offers a simplistic heads-up display.”

Headset market in flux

Meta again led the market in the first quarter in terms of share, while Apple’s recent entry into the market enabled it to capture the second position. ByteDance, Xreal, and HTC rounded out the top five, IDC said.

When online pre-sales of Apple’s Vision Pro AR/VR headsets began on Jan. 19 they sold out quickly, but as Computerworldnoted soon after, stable delivery dates could indicate limited demand for the $3,500 device.

Fast forward to April, and Apple said that it had cut Vision Pro production due to low demand, according to Ming-Chi Kuo, an Apple analyst at TF International Securities.

Jitesh Ubrani, research manager for worldwide mobile device trackers at IDC, said that with mixed reality on the rise, “expect strictly virtual reality headsets to fade in the coming years as brands and developers devise new hardware and experiences to help users eventually transition to augmented reality further down the line. Meanwhile, extended reality displays are set to garner consumer attention as they offer a big screen experience today while incorporating AI and heads-up displays in the near future.”

Meanwhile, Ramon T. Llamas, research director with IDC’s augmented and virtual reality team, said that although ASPs for the overall market crested above the $1,000 mark, this is not representative of all products.

“ASPs for augmented reality (AR) headsets have almost always been above this price point, but ASPs for VR, MR, and ER headsets have typically been lower,” he said. “Apple’s Vision Pro drove ASPs higher for MR headsets, but the addition of lower-cost devices from Meta and HTC have kept those ASPs from going much higher. Meanwhile, there were many devices for VR and ER priced below $500.”

Return to growth

Looking ahead, Llamas said that IDC is anticipating ASP erosion across all products: “Because the overall market is still in its early stages with more expensive first- and second-generation devices, prices will be high even as early adopters buy them. In order to reach scale in the mass market, vendors will need to reduce prices on later and upcoming devices.”

IDC is forecasting that “headset shipments will return to growth later this year with volume growing 7.5% over 2023. Newer headsets and lower price points will help with the turnaround expected later this year. Beyond that, headset shipment volume is expected to see a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 43.9% from 2024–2028.”

Updated on June 19, 2024, to add report that Apple is abandoning development of the Vision Pro 2.

(Editor’s note: This column originally appeared on Computerworld Sweden on June 14, 2024.)

Just as everyone expected, and almost demanded, Apple finally started talking about artificial intelligence — in its own way, of course. The big keynote at WWDC on Monday might not have been the AI ​​event many had thought was coming. For example, the deal with Open AI, where Chat GPT will be used as an extension of Apple devices’ own AI capabilities, was negotiated in a matter of minutes.

Apple appears to be approaching AI with caution. Cautious, you might call it, but I actually think this strategy is the right one, and it aligns with what I called for earlier: AI that integrates seamlessly and easily into solutions we already know and use.

Apple Intelligence (of course Apple’s AI has been trademarked) is not a special app, or a special assistant or a “Copilot.” These are small, clever features, built on small, specialized models, sprinkled throughout the software. In Siri, in the photo app, as a writing aid, and so on, all in a seemingly non-intrusive way — an extra function, or help, that is there, if you want it.

The latter is important because it bothers me enormously is when AI is shoved down one’s throat. Just because an AI feature exists, maybe I don’t want to use it? No one but I knows what tasks I’m better at than AI, and it obviously varies from person to person.

For example, I am very good at writing and processing text. I definitely don’t want any AI getting in there (I even turn off the spell check in Word). On the other hand, sitting with transcriptions and translations is boring as hell, so I’m happy to take help there.

I’m a decent hobby photographer and don’t need an AI to make my photos “better” unsolicited. However, it can be fun or effective to take AI help to remove some ugly detail, play with the depth of field, or expose subjects.

I’m also a frequent user of chat, both privately and at work, but I think it feels a bit dirty to click on the suggested answers in Microsoft Teams chat (“Great”, “That sounds good.”) because it feels quite disrespectful to the person I’m communicating with.

BAbove all, I am seriously uninterested in Google’s new “AI Overviews,” which have now been rolled out, starting in the US. The AI ​​function in Google’s search engine takes the liberty of using AI to try to guess what you are looking for — and answer it.

I’m extremely good at Googling; it’s a skill I’ve developed over many years. And when I do research with the help of Google, it’s not one answer I’m looking for, but a balanced assessment that I make based on the information I google, thank you very much. Even if Google’s AI in the future gives “correct” answers instead of suggesting to glue the cheese on pizza, that’s just not what I want to use a search engine for.

So that’s why I think Apple is right here. It is through these kinds of simple, friendly and optional functions that do not require advanced “prompt engineering” that the masses will be introduced to and actually use AI tools. Because even though it might sound like it sometimes, most people don’t use Chat GPT at all.

Now Apple has the luxury, if you call it that, of not having to position itself as an “AI company” as a number of other tech giants want to do, although there has been pressure from investors to start delivering in this area. Apple sells mobile phones (and other hardware, but mainly phones). Therefore, it can be worthwhile to focus more on data protection and privacy, and on introducing features at a pace and in a way that makes mobile phone buyers see value in their presence.

Moreover, Apple isn’t charging extra for it, as most others do. Of course, Apple Intelligence is so far only available on the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max (and Mac computers with M-chip). And, presumably, that sprinkling of AI isn’t so sparkling yet as to warrant an immediate upgrade for most people.

But even if this particular iteration of Apple Intelligence will not become everyone’s everyday AI — anymore than the first iPhone became everyone’s smartphone — I believe, this is the way development will go. AI is fundamentally a commodity, a general-purpose technology.

It’s a feature, not a product.

This column is taken from CS Veckobrev, a personal newsletter with reading tips, link tips and analysis sent directly from Computerworld Sweden‘s editor-in-chief, Marcus Jerräng. Do you also want the newsletter on Fridays? Sign up for a free subscription here.

Varjo has unveiled an app that lets users scan physical spaces with their smartphone to create photorealistic 3D “scenes” for virtual reality (VR) devices. 

The VR headset maker on Tuesday announced the preview of its Teleport app, which it said will lower the barrier for 3D content creation — a time-consuming and costly process that typically involves high-endequipment and know-how. “One thing holding back VR and 3D applications is just how hard is to create content,” said Patrick Wyatt, chief product officer at Varjo. 

He described the Teleport app as “a self-serve way that anyone with a smartphone can start creating their own 3D scenes,” allowing them to share their surroundings with others. 

To create a 3D scene, users scan a physical space with their smartphone camera (an iPhone Pro 12 is the minimum requirement for Teleport) — a process that takes several minutes. It’s possible to film indoor or outdoor scenes  (anything up to the size of a small town square will work), though more dynamic environments with crowds of people or lots cars could result in blurred footage. 

The footage is uploaded to Varjo’s cloud servers to build a high-resolution 3D scene.  When accessed via a VR headset, users can then move around the virtual space and view a reproduction of the environment that was recorded. 

Given Varjo’s focus on enterprise mixed reality and VR, Wyatt said Teleport can be used for training, planning, and remote assistance. But he sees Teleport as “foundational tech” that could have broad applications. “We’re not too prescriptive on use cases,” he said. “We want to see all the cool things people will do with it.”

While VR environments are often created with computer graphics, photorealism is preferred for certain enterprise purposes. “Much of what businesses want and need has to be as close to the real thing as possible to use those assets for engineering, sales and marketing purposes,” said Anshel Sag, principal analyst at Moor Insights and Strategy. “Without photorealism, it becomes a lot less valuable and powerful.”

Until recently, photorealistic 3D content has been produced either with expensive Lidar scanners that can cost several thousand dollars, or photogrammetry techniques that are more accessible, but still require specialist skills. In both cases, there are limitations on quality, too, said Wyatt.

A key advantage of Teleport is the use of a machine learning technique called Gaussian splatting. This enables full 3D scenes to be produced from a set of photos, with more realistic lighting, textures, and reflections – ideal for immersive applications such as Teleport, said Wyatt.

Gaussian splatting simplifies the creation of photorealistic 3D environments, though the technology has its own limitations, said Sag. “The biggest challenge for creating 3D content has primarily been the cost and time it takes to generate the assets,” said Sag. “Gaussian splatting is a way to take some shortcuts in the creation of content to make it cheaper and faster with minimal tradeoffs in terms of quality.

“That said, it isn’t without its problems, as the Gaussian splats don’t always come out right or need very specific capture techniques to work right.”

Varjo isn’t the only company to use Gaussian splatting for 3D content creation. Others include Luma and Polycam. Wyatt said Teleport differs in its focus on the creation of 3D environments rather than smaller objects, as well as a need for a higher image resolution so that content can be viewed effectively on a VR headsets. 

Varjo plans to make Teleport commercially available towards the end of 2024. A waitlist for early access is available here.

Apple’s artificial/machine/generative AI research team seems to be opening up as it explores new frontiers in this research, publishing more than 20 new Core ML models for on-device AI through the popular AI community site Hugging Face.

It’s a real change in the company’s customary rectitude in being open about what it’s doing, and it seems likely the move comes in response to demands from its research teams to be a bit more transparent. 

Cutting-edge AI capabilities

As first reported by VentureBeat, Apple has released dozens of Core ML models, complementing them with extensive datasets. The company seems to be posting new collections at a rapid clip — the latest item appeared in the collection within the last 24 hours. The collection is extensive and highlights two of the main aims of Apple’s teams: to build models that will eventually run on the device, and to ensure these also preserve user privacy.

Some of the AI functions promised by all this code includs tools for image classification, depth segmentation, text analysis, translation, and more. 

What, who, why?

They cover a wide range of applications, including FastViT for image classification, DepthAnything for monocular depth estimation, and DETR for semantic segmentation. 

The models are not intended for mass market use and are aimed at developers, who can download them, convert them to CoreML format, and then deploy them in their own code. The process for this was explained at WWDC 2024 in a presentation that details how the models can be deployed once converted. It is also worth noting CoreML is much, much faster in iOS 18, as Apple said.

The models available on Hugging Face are also ready to run at the edge. In addition to better privacy and security, on-device LLM models should also run far more swiftly than cloud-based code.

Apple is also working with Hugging Face on other AI-related tasks, including via the MLX Community. All in all, the company seems to have become more visibly open to open-source contributions as it seeks to build Apple Intelligence.

Not the first time Apple’s been open

Except, that’s not exactly the case. Apple is an active player in open-source development, and while this isn’t always fully understood, a cursory glance through company history shows support for the FreeBSD project, a GitHub repository that offers up source code for operating systems, developer tools and more. It also plays an active part across multiple standards bodies, such as Bluetooth SIG.

In other words, some degree of openness already does exist, though it seems to have opened up more for AI.

There’s a reason for this, of course. AI researchers like to collaborate as they explore these new frontiers, and it’s thought Apple’s customary corporate secrecy might have frustrated attempts to put its own work in artificial intelligence on the fast track. This certainly seems to have changed in the last year, as multiple research notes and AI tools have emerged from the company. This latest batch then is completely in keeping with Apple’s new approach, at least, its new tactics related to this part of tech.

Apple is, therefore, learning from the wider industry. 

…And the industry is learning from it

Apple’s stance on privacy leads the industry, and as the potential pitfalls of AI systems become more widely understood it seems probable that more companies will follow its lead. 

That means an eventual multitude of small models capable of being run on edge devices to perform a variety of tasks. While the capabilities of such models will be limited by a ceiling comprised of processor speed, computational power, and on-device memory bandwidth, Apple’s approach also includes strategic use of highly secured private cloud services, itself a signal to others in the space to follow its example – particularly as increasingly authoritarian and ill-conceived legislation threatens to undermine the security of networked intelligence itself.

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Remember former Google CEO Eric Schmidt? He now makes flying AI robots that target and kill autonomously. (Really!)

His robots are in high demand for one simple reason: GPS jamming.

I’ll explain more about Schmidt’s robots below. But first, it’s time to catch up on the rising trend of GPS, cell phone and other signal jamming, which is triggering a global arms race between jamming and anti-jamming technologies.

The FCC crackdown of 2012

All jamming devices in the United States were banned 90 years ago — long before jamming devices even existed. The Communications Act of 1934 explicitly prohibited deliberate interference with radio communications.

Both cell phone and GPS jamming works by “flooding the zone” with white noise in the same frequencies as phone and GPS receivers, basically a denial-of-service attack on the associated range of radio frequencies. But it was the rise in e-commerce that fueled an industry of online jammer sales. In 2012, a bus passenger in Philadelphia wanted some peace and quiet, so he used a cell phone jammer to jam all the phones on the bus. Later that year, the FCC took legal action against 20 online retailers in 12 states for illegally selling jamming devices. 

Despite the crackdown, the illegal use of jammers continued. In 2013, RNM Manufacturing in Houston, TX  used a jammer to block employees from using their phones at work and was fined $29,250. Not to be out-done by Houston, a Dallas company in 2022 called Ravi’s Import Warehouse also tried to jam employee calls and was also fined by the FCC, this time for $22,000.

Jammers are still available on the black market, which have led to calls for global enforcement of jamming bans. Signal jamming of every kind is illegal in the United States, which is why it might seem surprising to Americans to learn that thousands of commercial aircraft in Europe are put at risk every day by GPS jammers. 

The European jamming crisis

The current dramatic rise in GPS jamming is almost certainly done by the Russian military to protect its bases and assets from Ukrainian drone attacks. More than 46,000 aircraft GPS jamming incidents have been reported over the Baltic Sea, Kaliningrad, the Black Sea, the Caspian Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean since August 2021. New incidents are reported every day. 

(The website GPSJAM tracks and displays GPS interference in Europe and the Middle East.)

Major airlines like Ryanair (more than 2,300 flights), Wizz Air (nearly 1,400 flights), British Airways (82 flights) and easyJet (4 flights) have been affected by jamming. The GPS jamming has forced some flight cancellations or diversions. Finnair had to temporarily suspend flights to Tartu, Estonia. And a British Royal Air Force plane carrying the UK defense secretary experienced GPS jamming near Kaliningrad in March 2023.

The Ukraine/Russia conflict is a proving ground and laboratory for all kinds of both military and malicious cyberattack technologies. 

Specifically, the conflict is the world’s first large-scale drone war. The Ukraine side alone reportedly loses more than 10,000 drones a month, and the country itself has produced more than 1 million drones since the start of the war; it’s also received an unknown number from abroad, including familiar consumer and business drones like the DJI Mavic 2 Zoom, DJI Mavic 2 Enterprise, Autel EVO II Pro, the Bayraktar TB2 and others. 

Both sides are using huge numbers of drones for surveillance, reconnaissance, espionage, explosives delivery, hacking, malware delivery, counter-hacking and signal jamming. And while the Ukraine side leads in the creative use of drones, the Russian side is more advanced in drone GPS and signal jamming innovations.

Nearly every effective drone and counter-drone action pioneered and tested in the Ukraine-Russia conflict will almost certainly be used against business and other targets in the years to come. Based on what’s happening in the war, cybersecurity professionals should be aware of the three main areas drones will be increasingly used by malicious actors: 

1. Bypassing physical security: Drones can fly over fences, down air ducts and land on roofs to observe security protocols and plan physical attacks using high-quality cameras.

2. Network sniffing and spoofing: Drones equipped with modifiable computers can mimic Wi-Fi networks to steal sensitive information.

3. Denial-of-Service attacks: Drones can perform de-authentication attacks and jam communications.

Another easy prediction is that businesses will be challenged by malicious drone use, given the illegality of jamming in the US.

The military industrial complex gets to work

As Western GPS-guided munitions are increasingly defeated by Russian jamming, the Pentagon is scrambling to innovate in countering the jamming threat. (This is somewhat ironic, given that the GPS system, the mobile cellular system and, in fact, the internet itself were all created by or founded upon Pentagon research programs.) 

One approach is to blow up the jammers. The US Air Force awarded a contract valued at around $23.5 million to Scientific Applications and Research Associates to enable guided bombs to home in on — and destroy — jamming equipment. 

The Air Force Research Lab is conducting research on using regular smartphones for real-time detection of jamming and spoofing. And while blowing up jamming devices is a short-term, immediate solution, the longer-term solution is to enable drones to work autonomously, without needing to phone home or be controlled remotely.

One fascinating project is the Pentagon’s Rapid Experimental Missionized Autonomy (REMA) program. The project is developing plug-ins or adaptors that can be fitted to ordinary commercial drones that would enable them to carry out their missions autonomously after being jammed. Contracts for the drone-autonomy adapter interface have been already awarded to companies like Anduril and RTX for the hardware and Leidos, Northrop Grumman and SoarTech for the software. 

Eric Schmidt’s flying killer robots

White Stork is a secretive startup founded by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt. The company is building small, low-cost ($400) drones that use AI to target and fly into those targets, thus blowing them up with attached bombs. The drones don’t rely on remote control or GPS navigation, but instead use cameras and AI for navigation and targeting. And because they’re low cost, they can be manufactured and deployed on a massive scale. 

Schmidt has been actively involved in supporting Ukraine’s war efforts, and travels to Ukraine frequently to meet with Ukrainian generals about using drones in combat. White Stork drones will soon enter the conflict, if they haven’t already. 

The future of jamming and counter-jamming

The future of warfare, as well as industrial espionage, terrorism and cyberattacks in general will involve drones in increasing numbers. History tells us that everything the Pentagon builds and buys for the good guys eventually ends up in the hands of the bad guys. That means we’ll likely need not only jamming, but also defensive technologies to counter weaponized drones that don’t rely on radio signals, but instead use AI for autonomous targeting and attacking. Drones are cheap. AI is free. The autonomous drones are coming. We need defenses that are legal to use.

The Olympics this summer will be our first test run. The terrorist group ISIS has circulated detailed manuals on adapting commercially available drones to carry explosives. The idea is to get the how-to information into the hands of “lone wolf” terrorists operating autonomously. The group has also explicitly called on its followers in Europe to launch drone attacks on Paris landmarks like the Eiffel Tower during this year’s summer Olympics. 

France has established an anti-drone coordination center at a military base near Paris in light of the threat. And it’s planning to use antiquated technologies like special guns called SkyWall Patrol that shoot nets designed to capture drones mid-flight, and even laser beam devices. That might be sufficient for the low-tech drones they face today, but the AI drones of tomorrow will require more advanced defenses. 

While American businesses, enterprises, and law enforcement remain mostly oblivious to the coming threat from drone-based attacks, Europe is proving to be a laboratory for what’s possible there now, and what’s coming to the United States in the future.