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Windows AI Microsoft Apple

Satya Nadella Says Microsoft's AI-Focused Copilot+ Laptops Will Outperform Apple's MacBooks (msn.com) 86

"Apple's done a fantastic job of really innovating on the Mac," Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella told the Wall Street Journal in a video interview this week.

. Then he said "We are gonna outperform them" with the upcoming Copilot+ laptops from Acer, ASUS, Dell, HP, Lenovo and Samsung that have been completely reengineered for AI — and begin shipping in less than four weeks. Satya Nadella: Qualcomm's got a new [ARM Snapdragon X] processor, which we've optimized Windows for. The battery lab, I've been using it now — I mean, it's 22 hours of continuous video playback... [Apple also uses ARM chips in its MacBooks]. We finally feel we have a very competitive product between Surface Pro and the Surface laptops. We have essentially the best specs when it comes to ARM-based silicon and performance or the NPU performance.

WSJ: Microsoft says the Surfaces are 58% faster than the MacBook Air with M3, and has 20% longer battery life.

The video includes a demonstration of local live translation powered by "small language models" stored on the device. ("It can translate live video calls or in-person conversations from 44 different languages into English. And it's fast.")

And in an accompanying article, the Journal's reporter also tested out the AI-powered image generator coming to Microsoft Paint.

As a longtime MS Paint stick-figure and box-house artist, I was delighted by this new tool. I typed in a prompt: "A Windows XP wallpaper with a mountain and sky." Then, as I started drawing, an AI image appeared in a new canvas alongside mine. When I changed a color in my sketch, it changed a color in the generated image. Microsoft says it still sends the prompt to the cloud to ensure content safety.
Privacy was also touched on. Discussing the AI-powered "Recall" search functionality, the Journal's reporter notes that users can stop it from taking screenshots of certain web sites or apps, or turn it off entirely... But they point out "There could be this reaction from some people that this is pretty creepy. Microsoft is taking screenshots of everything I do."

Nadella reminds them that "it's all being done locally, right...? That's the promise... That's one of the reasons why Recall works as a magical thing: because I can trust it, that it is on my computer."

Copilot will be powered by OpenAI's new GPT-4o, the Journal notes — before showing Satya Nadella saying "It's kind of like a new browser effectively." Satya Nadella: So, it's right there. It sees the screen, it sees the world, it hears you. And so, it's kind of like that personal agent that's always there that you want to talk to. You can interrupt it. It can interrupt you.
Nadella says though the laptop is optimized for Copilot, that's just the beginning, and "I fully expect Copilot to be everywhere" — along with its innovatively individualized "personal agent" interface. "It's gonna be ambient.... It'll go on the phone, right? I'll use it on WhatsApp. I'll use it on any other messaging platform. It'll be on speakers everywhere." Nadella says combining GPT-40 with Copilot's interface is "the type of magic that we wanna bring — first to Windows and everywhere else... The future I see is a computer that understands me versus a computer that I have to understand.

The interview ends when the reporter holds up the result — their own homegrown rendition of Windows XP's default background image "Bliss."
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Satya Nadella Says Microsoft's AI-Focused Copilot+ Laptops Will Outperform Apple's MacBooks

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  • Can it properly dub foreign porn into English in real time and maintain lip sync?

    If not, what good is it?

    • by serviscope_minor ( 664417 ) on Saturday May 25, 2024 @01:21PM (#64498479) Journal

      Oh huh there IS someone out there who watches for the dialogue.

    • by skegg ( 666571 )

      Is real-time language translation with lip syncing even possible?

      Anyone who speaks more than one language knows that word order often differs.
      FFS: hic Slashdot est ... doesn't the verb at the end of the sentence go?
      (Granted, not to deviate too much from the parent's post, I can't imagine much pornography is in Latin.)

      And don't some German words translate into multiple English words?

      • Ok yes not necessarily direct clean lip syncing across languages but there shouldn't be a painful delay between the audio and visual.

        I'm sure you've seen really bad sync where the voice is 3 seconds before/after their lips move on screen. By then someone else is talking or a different scene is on screen.

      • Is real-time language translation with lip syncing even possible?

        No, because most languages have different grammar, which also includes word order. So you will always have to wait at least for the word that probably will be the first word of a sentence in the target language to start saying the translation - and you can't really be sure that will be a decent translation until the sentence is finished. Of course you can also delay the video for some time, and hope you don't get run-on sentence.

        And that's before you get to the lip syncing, both word order and length of se

  • by Big Hairy Gorilla ( 9839972 ) on Saturday May 25, 2024 @12:50PM (#64498423)
    Anyone who's ever needed to translate important and valuable text runs into the exact same problem: how do I know the translated material is the equivalent of the original? Since you can't speak/read/write the target language, you can't verify the accuracy.

    Queue the lawsuits when whatchama-translate results in material losses.
    • If I were to guess, the translation would be so terrible most of the time it would be obvious. "The contract says we need to supply them with a unicorn and pharaohs with our payment? That can't be right."
      • I used to deal with Japanese to English Machine Translation back in the day. Short story it was crap.
        A single sentence was generally mostly ok but a paragraph and it would just fall apart with regard to meaning consistency.
        Now I guess it is better these days but as they say, I'm not holding my breath.
        YMMV!
        • I used to deal with Japanese to English Machine Translation back in the day. Short story it was crap.

          A single sentence was generally mostly ok but a paragraph and it would just fall apart with regard to meaning consistency.

          Now I guess it is better these days but as they say, I'm not holding my breath.

          YMMV!

          My Hovercraft is full of Eels!

      • I don't think you're following the argument. How do you know there's a reference to unicorns... in the OTHER language?

        The mis-translation of crackers as fire-crackers, might NOT be obvious and might be subtle enough to be accepted on the other end, until ... something blows up ...ha ha, see what I did there ... then the lawsuit.

        The point is that you basically need a consultant who speaks/reads/writes BOTH languages to confirm the veracity of the translation. So now you have 2 translators, the auto-translat
        • I don't think you're following the argument. How do you know there's a reference to unicorns... in the OTHER language?

          And you missed the point that the translation goes to someone, right? You are not putting the translation "at the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.'" The person that receives the translation will notice if it is translated badly.

          • You've obviously never done this. You have to consider your legal liability BEFORE the other person gets it.
            • You've obviously never done this. You have to consider your legal liability BEFORE the other person gets it.

              1) You do know people don't execute contracts automatically right? You do know there is some negotiation when a contract is proposed right? When a contract is proposed the recipient should review it with lawyers before signing it especially if it involves goods.

              In your exact example of firecrackers instead of crackers, it benefits both parties to make sure the translation is correct. Otherwise a baking company is now required to provide firecrackers which they do not produce to a company that does not need

    • Microsoft obviously thinks their Knowledge Base isn't that important, if you ever read one of the articles in any language but English.
  • by OwnedByTwoCats ( 124103 ) on Saturday May 25, 2024 @12:57PM (#64498427)

    Stop the presses! A new generation of computers that come out in a month or more are going to be faster than products that are already on store shelves! Color me impressed, because that never happens! And how good is Microsoft’s x86/AMD-64 emulator for ARM?

    • by Bert64 ( 520050 )

      Faster than Apple's existing low end passively cooled model at that, no comparison is made with their higher end models.

      • Faster than Apple's existing low end passively cooled model at that, no comparison is made with their higher end models.

        Let alone to M4-based Devices.

        Like an iPad.

        • by Bert64 ( 520050 )

          Yes most likely performance will be behind by the time they're released, plus windows will rely more heavily on emulation than macos does (most mac apps have already been ported to native arm code by now, i don't have anything using rosetta on my m1 these days.

          • Yes most likely performance will be behind by the time they're released, plus windows will rely more heavily on emulation than macos does (most mac apps have already been ported to native arm code by now, i don't have anything using rosetta on my m1 these days.

            They're already behind what's going to be announced/released at WWDC next week!

            I'll bet they're already behind the Piano-Crushing Power of the M4 iPad!

            Plus, it runs Windows; and not even Real Windows at that. . .

      • Not to mention that the M3 has just 4 performance and 4 efficiency cores, while even the Snapdragon X Plus has 10 cores.
    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      It's actually an interesting example of marketing BS.

      They say it is faster than the MacBook Air, a machine limited by the lack of active cooling. If the Surface has a fan, all it needs to do to outperform the Air is throw more power and heat at the problem.

      Then he goes on to talk about local live transcription and translation, something that Google phones have been doing for years on much less powerful hardware.

      It's some Apple grade marketing BS.

    • Wait, where have we heard this before?

      Microsoft says, "We've caught up with Apple! We mean it this time. No, really . . ."

  • by ArchieBunker ( 132337 ) on Saturday May 25, 2024 @12:59PM (#64498431)

    Indian call center accents?

    • I thought that the one of the big selling points for AI was to replace 1st level Indian call center support. I mean, it doesn't really take an sentient level AI chatbot to tell the user to power off their device and power it back on again.

      • Is it plugged in?
        Did you turn it on?
        Unplug it and wait 2 minutes... pause... ok now plug it back in. Is it working?
        Let's try rebooting it... pause... is it working now?
        What? Yes, I understood when you said it caught fire when you turned it on.
        Is it plugged in now?
        Let's try unplugging it again.

    • Why would I want my translation app to translate everything into speech with an Indian call center accent?
  • What a moron (Score:3, Interesting)

    by CEC-P ( 10248912 ) on Saturday May 25, 2024 @12:59PM (#64498435)
    They will outperform the MacBooks in complete and utter collapse of the product line's demand from customers after this Recall crap was announced. If you haven't been around the internet, people are losing their minds. They could delete it permanently today and that news wouldn't reach anywhere near the amount of people alarmed by this.
  • Trust it??? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jenningsthecat ( 1525947 ) on Saturday May 25, 2024 @01:02PM (#64498441)

    ... because I can trust it, that it is on my computer

    No, dear Satya, I CAN'T "trust" it. Why, you might ask? Well, in the first place, it's YOU saying it, and I don't trust you. I suspect a lot of folks here on Slashdot don't.

    In the second place, it's from Microsoft , the company which so many techies - and even non-techies who have been screwed over by its shenanigans - utterly despise. Forced updates whether the user wants them or not? Check. Working to force software and operating systems to a rental-only business model, with everything in the Cloud and beyond users' direct control? Check. Sneakily forcing users to upgrade to Windows 10 when they expressly didn't want to do so? Check. Ramming Edge down users' throats by hook or by crook, in spite of their going to great lengths to install and use alternatives? Check. Playing whac-a-mole with UI elements for no reason beyond 'just because we can'? Check. Trying to force users into signing in to Redmond to use stuff that doesn't even require a 'net connection? Check. Placing advertising in an OS that users already paid for? Check.

    In short, why the ever-loving fuck would any sane person believe you or the company you manage?

    Sod off, you self-important fucktard.

    • I'm curious... are they still trying to cram "S" mode down people's throats on these ARM devices, where they try to force you to download everything from the Microsoft Store?

    • by Anonymous Coward

      Gathering telemetry data on users that is similar to what spyware does? Check.

  • ... run Linux?

    Just think of all that processing power freed up and available to run systemd.

    • I'm certain that they use the same secure boot + UEFI combination that has allowed for running aarch64 ARM Linux kernels as other Surface devices. With a 32 GB RAM version, I'm considering this.

      Today, I have a 16" M1 Macbook Pro with 16GB RAM, running an Asahi Linux boot environment with a Debian unstable OS release. It's the fastest Linux machine I ever owned. The rub for many of the emulation scenarios I could be using on this, is M-series SoCs have a 16k page size, and the 4k paging asked for by the in

      • I'm certain that they use the same secure boot + UEFI combination that has allowed for running aarch64 ARM Linux kernels as other Surface devices. With a 32 GB RAM version, I'm considering this.

        Today, I have a 16" M1 Macbook Pro with 16GB RAM, running an Asahi Linux boot environment with a Debian unstable OS release. It's the fastest Linux machine I ever owned. The rub for many of the emulation scenarios I could be using on this, is M-series SoCs have a 16k page size, and the 4k paging asked for by the intel binaries I want to run have no solution that suits every situation, other than a VM.

        The Surface, if proven to run Linux, looks like it solves for that, along with being 3 generations of ARM fabrication newer. It's a lot to plunk down almost 4K USD for the loaded slab, but may well be worth it.

        Three Generations behind? How cute.

        If Apple's Highly-Custom "ARM" Cores were actually anything like what the sturm and drang (or even Qualcomm or Intel) have access to, that might be relevant; but they aren't and it's not.

        Besides, you might be one of about 100 people on the planet for which "page size" impacts their workflow in any meaningful way.

        • The simple and not completely uncommon use case - running Intel Windows VST plugins with Wine and Box64 - is affected directly by the page size expected by the complied objects.

          Far more common are users running games intended for various platforms, about which I regularly see questions and advice in a number of online forums.

          • The simple and not completely uncommon use case - running Intel Windows VST plugins with Wine and Box64 - is affected directly by the page size expected by the complied objects.

            Far more common are users running games intended for various platforms, about which I regularly see questions and advice in a number of online forums.

            Ok, well, those are certainly some additional use cases. . .

            Hmmm. I figured we were long-passed problems with Page-Alignment.

            Guess not.

            • This is why there have been attempts to package Rosetta2 to run on Asahi Linux. That has been kind of stale for a year. Apple did good work to make any Intel binary run in a M-series Linux ARM VM on their virtualization.

              I have run a lot of Linux hardware since the 90's. With a couple of beta niggles, I've never had any workstation smoke like the M1 or M2. Kinda have high hopes for the new Snapdragon Surface.

              • This is why there have been attempts to package Rosetta2 to run on Asahi Linux. That has been kind of stale for a year. Apple did good work to make any Intel binary run in a M-series Linux ARM VM on their virtualization.

                I have run a lot of Linux hardware since the 90's. With a couple of beta niggles, I've never had any workstation smoke like the M1 or M2. Kinda have high hopes for the new Snapdragon Surface.

                Rosetta 2 is a tour-de-force in code translation, that's for sure!

  • Moore and Less (Score:4, Insightful)

    by xack ( 5304745 ) on Saturday May 25, 2024 @01:10PM (#64498457)
    Moore's law has been defeated not by the excellent silicon engineers at ASML, but bloatware in Windows and MacOS. The Original MacOS X was criticized as bloated, but in retrospect it only required 128MB ram when Modern Macbooks require 8GB to run the same os. Same with Windows. Windows XP only required 128MB ram while Windows 11 Copilot needs 16GB to run. 90% of the ram is used up to run ads for the latest McBurgers, which is bloatwaring humans.
    • As the old, old, old saying goes, “What Andy Giveth, Bill taketh away.” The same as it ever was.
      Ever notice that clock speeds stopped increasing about 15 years ago? Now it’s all “how many cores?”, and speed on single-threaded tasks hasn’t been improving very quickly.

    • ... required 128MB ...

      Microsoft demanded 256 MiB RAM for Windows XP but laptop manufacturers, having a surplus of Windows 7 spec. laptops, supplied only 128 MiB: The result was, new laptops were a total dog, and didn't last because constant page-swapping caused overheating.

  • by tiananmen tank man ( 979067 ) on Saturday May 25, 2024 @01:11PM (#64498459)

    >>Nadella reminds them that "it's all being done locally, right...? That's the promise... That's one of the reasons why Recall works as a magical thing: because I can trust it, that it is on my computer."

    This just copying Apple's excuse that it's all done "locally "
    Random screenshots, a feature no one asked for.

    • No one outside of various Big Brother governments. They'd love to be able to see what your personal screenshots look like. All the 1984 dystopia available in Windows 11, coming soon!
  • Fix your gazillion "regular" bugs instead of obsess on toys!

  • Can someone explain me what "completely reengineered for AI" could means, what % of the hardware of the OS would be even slightly affecte by the AI knowing that in 99% of the case the AI is just a remove web service like getting the weather...
    • I suspect it's a bunch of marketing execs at a conference table going "how can we work "AI" into the material?"

    • It means the CPU has a bitchin NPU on it.
      It means that the machine can run lightweight LLMs and other models (like stable diffusion) very efficiently.
      This has been mainstream on Phones for over a decade, and Apple laptops since the transition to Apple Silicon.
  • by gtall ( 79522 )

    But if I have to use Windows, forget it. I'd rather eat a broom.

  • by gkelley ( 9990154 ) on Saturday May 25, 2024 @02:12PM (#64498553)
    Since it runs locally on "your computer" you can trust it. But the OS belongs to M$ and they can do what ever they want on "your computer" without your knowledge or concert. M$ broke that "trust" promise a long time ago with all the data collection that gets send back to them. No thanks.
    • by WaffleMonster ( 969671 ) on Saturday May 25, 2024 @03:14PM (#64498655)

      Since it runs locally on "your computer" you can trust it. But the OS belongs to M$ and they can do what ever they want on "your computer" without your knowledge or concert. M$ broke that "trust" promise a long time ago with all the data collection that gets send back to them. No thanks.

      Favorite line from the summary - "Microsoft says it still sends the prompt to the cloud to ensure content safety."

      • You're right on the money with this one

        WTF is 'safe' content? I need a supervisor to make sure I'm not thinking the wrong thoughts? Drawing the wrong pictures? Writing the wrong songs?

        Deeply disturbing

      • > "Microsoft says it still sends the prompt to the cloud to ensure content safety."

        So WTF .. Paint now won't work if you don't have an active internet connection?
        I guess the Taliban would be all for it - no naughty bits! What does the Pope think - FFS!
        • by dryeo ( 100693 )

          Funny enough, this Pope probably wouldn't care, which is why the hardcore Catholics consider him not a real Pope.
          America, who had a revolution partially due to Catholics getting too many rights, the revolutionaries would have a shit seeing the Supreme Court of today full of people who's primary allegiance is to the Church rather then the Constitution or country.

          • The revolutionaries would have a shit seeing the Supreme Court of today full of people who's primary allegiance is to the Church rather then the Constitution or country.

            The revolutionaries would have a parade celebrating Supreme Court justices personally believing in JESUS instead of obedience to government run churches like the Church of Maryland, the Church of Virginia, the Church of England, the Church of Rome, etc.

    • by dryeo ( 100693 )

      Installed Win95, 1st edition. At the end of the install it informed me that it noticed I had OS/2 installed on the computer, it was now gone. Could have been a warning at the beginning of install or better, left the computer how it was found as it took 15 seconds with fdisk to change the active partition back to OS/2 BootManager. How many people lost their work due to this decision by MS to make other OS's appear to be gone?

  • This sounds too much like what RIM was saying, before they failed with their tablet. I am not saying this will be the case here, but until we see a real product on the market, then it is just hand waving.

    Also this sort of discourse is surely fuel for Apple want to make Nadella wrong? It could also be a distraction.

    • More like what MS said about the Windows Phone with MS holding a "funeral" for the iPhone [cnet.com] in 2010. Thirteen years later Apple only sold 231M iPhones in 2023 while MS sold . . . let me check the numbers again . . . 0 Windows Phones.

      I don't have much faith in MS when it comes to laptops especially with their own hardware. Remember this isn't Windows first ARM laptop. The first MS Windows on ARM laptop was in 2011. They performed poorly and could not really run x86 code. It wasn't until Apple released the M1

      • It wasn't until Apple released the M1 Macs in 2020 that Apple showed MS and the world how to run x86 code on ARM chips.

        Funny, I was running MS-DOS on an ARM chip [computinghistory.org.uk] back in 1987 [computinghistory.org.uk] - it worked great, I used it to run WordPerfect 5, DB2 and the TopSpeed Modula2 compiler.

        • Well, it worked.
          Great feels like a stretch to me. Great for the time, and primitive nature of the emulation? I'll give it that.
          It was dog slow, though.
          • It was dog slow, though.

            It was about the speed of the original IBM PC or XT, in the era of the AT/286. The fastest PC on the market was the Compaq Deskpro 386, but I had not yet seen any 386 in the wild.

            Compared with native ARM, which was then by far the fastest CPU available in a home computer (with the 680x0 as a distant second - Apple Macintosh, Atari ST, and Commodore Amiga were still using the original 68000), it was indeed dog slow - however after upgrading my Archimedes from 1 Meg to 4 Megs (which involved desoldering the

            • It was about the speed of the original IBM PC or XT, in the era of the AT/286. The fastest PC on the market was the Compaq Deskpro 386, but I had not yet seen any 386 in the wild.

              Compared with native ARM, which was then by far the fastest CPU available in a home computer (with the 680x0 as a distant second - Apple Macintosh, Atari ST, and Commodore Amiga were still using the original 68000), it was indeed dog slow - however after upgrading my Archimedes from 1 Meg to 4 Megs (which involved desoldering the original RAM chips) it was somewhat better.

              It's not *quite* that simple.
              The performance delta was greatly overstated by the bad metrics in use at the time (like MIPS)
              When calculating 100*100 takes 1 instruction and 13 cycles on a 286, and 100 instructions and 100 cycles on the ARM1, that doesn't make the ARM1 faster, even at twice the MIPS.
              At least with the ARM2, the CPU actually had a multiply instruction ;)
              DMIPS is a little better, but still pretty atrocious for measuring actual performance of actual programs between actually different archite

              • Personally, I think you've either got some really rose colored glasses

                Guilty as charged.

                or never had yours hands on a contemporary 286 at the time. As I said, it was pretty cool for even having that functionality on an Archimedes, but it wasn't great compared to the real thing.

                I did not compare the speed of the PC Emulator to a 286, I compared it to a 8088.

                • I did not compare the speed of the PC Emulator to a 286, I compared it to a 8088.

                  Oof- I missed that, then. Ya, that's far more reasonable.

      • Windows 10 for Arm could run x86 code before Apple Silicon was ever put in a computer. 4 years before, in fact. I'll grant you it wasn't great.
        The 2011 butchery you're thinking of is Windows RT.
        • Windows 10 for Arm could run x86 code

          I should have clarified that Apple showed MS how to run all x86 code on ARM. Windows on ARM could run some x86 code by Windows 10. Kinda. It had to be 32 bit code and it ran it poorly. It could not really run x86-64 at all when the M1 was launched. To get any decent performance, native ARM apps had to be used. The Apple released the M1 which ran Windows code better than a MS device. Linus showed how a M1 MacBook [youtu.be] running Windows 10 in a VM handily beat a MS Surface Pro X (Windows 10 on ARM) in benchmarks. An

          • x86_64 support was added for Windows 11 for Arm, released 2021. It's true that it lagged the M1 by about a year, but Apple didn't "show" anyone how to do it.
            MS just had no plans to retrofit Windows 10 with Arm64EC.
            As for the performance- that is absolutely true. Even Arm64EC still sucks huge ass, performance wise. It's the weakest part of the OS, frankly.
            But Rosetta2 isn't fantastic either. It seems that way, because you're comparing Apples to rotten oranges.

            The Apple released the M1 which ran Windows code better than a MS device.

            This has nothing to do with emulation- it's a

  • What, he means they will out-collect our personal info compared to Apple? jfc!
  • What else is he supposed to say?
  • Great, you ditched the legacy CPU Intel chip, now where is all ARM native windows software and what do I do with my existing legacy non-arm software.
    There kinds of needs a bit more to this play than a press release. If I want 22 hours of video playback I'll get an iPad or MacBook Air.

  • 1. It is way more expensive than the Macbook Air.
    2. It has fans.
  • Presumably, they mean "outperform" Apple in the sense of increasing their company's share price by a higher margin. Remember that, according to the conjoined triangles of success, the share price IS the product. I made that up. They teach it at business schools now.
  • Then he said "We are gonna outperform them" Going to be left in the dust again !!! Apple already planning the M5 !!!
  • This is like the creepiest-possible embodiment of Apple's Knowledge Navigator Concept-Video from 1987. Here's an Expanded Version of Apple's Ideas, including Knowledge Navigator, from the Windows 3.1 time-period. . . (Honestly, this was simply the best-quality copy of the actual KN Video I could find. Feel free to skip the rest of the video!).

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

    But, Just like all the State Governments that keep pushing "Pro Life" and "Faith Based" Agendas, Microsoft Comntines to prove that the

  • in other words we'll nanny the fuck out of your life

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