Innehållsförteckning för March 2023 från PCWorld

Microsoft has unveiled the “age of AI,” with new conversational ChatGPT features for Bing that the company described as the “AI-powered copilot for the web.” Microsoft will add contextual searches to Bing, powered by its own version of the ChatGPT algorithm. Microsoft will also integrate a separate, dedicated chat interface for Bing, complete with footnoted links. Finally, AI will be integrated into Edge, allowing users to summarize a financial earnings report, for example. Bing’s new search engine interface is live, but at this writing people who want to try it must sign up for a waitlist. It will expand in coming weeks. Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s chief executive, likened AI and the launch of ChatGPT to the opening of the Web. “It was the Mosaic moment,” Nadella said. “I think this technology…

Like its rivals, Microsoft’s Edge browser sports a built-in PDF reader that’s bare-bones but functional. You click a PDF link and a tab opens with the document that you can read, search, and lightly annotate. But that experience is getting supercharged: Microsoft and Adobe have teamed up to bring Adobe Acrobat to Edge, in what will become a wholesale replacement of the browser’s current PDF engine. This move will enable more features when viewing PDFs from the web, like markup tools, stronger security for PDFs, and greater accessibility (that is, read-aloud narration). The increase in Edge’s PDF capabilities will be native, without the need to install a separate add-on. Users with an Adobe subscription will still need to install a browser extension to access additional advanced features like text and…

Google is promising a closer collaboration between its ChromeOS, Chromebooks, and Microsoft 365, which seems like an unusual commitment given that the two companies are usually fierce rivals in the productivity space. Google said recently that the company will migrate users to a “new integration later this year on ChromeOS, making it easier to install the app and open files.” For most purposes, Chrome OS functions as a primarily web-based experience. Currently, ChromeOS allows users to open Office apps as Progressive Web Apps, or PWAs, which are essentially web apps that can be stored and run locally on a PC. The new integration, as Google describes it, will connect the OS more seamlessly with both Office 365 and Microsoft’s OneDrive cloud. “Users will be offered a guided setup experience that…

Enthusiast laptop hardware is nothing to scoff at these days—especially not since both the Intel and Nvidia’s new flagship mobile parts have finally hit shelves. The massive notebooks they power are incredibly potent. And while there is no surprise here, Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 4090 for laptops is absolutely ferocious. Though not an exact replica of its desktop counterpart (a sore spot for some internet denizens), this graphics processor still posts huge improvements over its RTX 3080 Ti predecessor—while seemingly using less power. How big? Think performance increases as high as 70 percent in our tests. This GPU is a juggernaut backed by impressive technology—and that bodes well for the laptops coming our way. Our YouTube video dives deep into the details, but for the key points (as tested on a monstrous…

Keychron started out making wireless, Mac-focused mechanical keyboards that were, at least for me, pretty underwhelming. Then the company shifted into high-end, enthusiast-focused keyboards, such as the Keychron Q5, which has all the trappings of a small-batch boutique build, but at about half the price. This is the company’s sweet spot, and it’s been improving on that ever since. Now we’ve come full circle: The Q1 Pro is Keychron’s first high-end, all-metal board to add Bluetooth. And damn it if it isn’t just about perfect. The Q1 Pro combines the ultra-popular 75% layout, high-end materials like an all-aluminum case and a rotary dial, and boutique features like gasket mounting and VIA/QMK programming. And it’s wireless. It’s everything you want in a high-end build, with almost no sacrifices. And as usual,…

AI is going to end up everywhere within Microsoft’s consumer products: search, Office, business intelligence…and yes, eventually, even Windows. So what could an AI-powered Windows actually look like? We can speculate. If we had to guess, we’d say that the first drips of Bing’s AI won’t transform into a flood until some ways down the road. In part, that’s because AI requires either a persistent internet connection, AI-infused PC processors, or both. Both AMD and Intel are waiting for upcoming processor generations to include AI, with only Qualcomm Snapdragon Arm chips offering it today. But fast-forward—six months? A year? Suddenly an AI-powered Windows future is here. What could Windows powered by AI look like? We have a dozen ideas. 1. A SUPERCHARGED CORTANA This seems so obvious it’s hardly worth mentioning:…

A few years ago, Dell released a neat feature that enabled iPhone text messaging from within the Windows desktop. Now a successor to that app is available on any Windows 11 PC, no Dell required. It’s called Intel Unison, and while it’s only supposed to run on a small number of Intel-powered laptops, Windows Central reports that it works on any computer running Windows 11. I’ve got it running on my Lenovo Yoga C940 laptop from 2019, and it’s a revelation. To set it up, download the Intel Unison app for Windows, then grab the companion app for iOS. (It’s also available for Android as an alternative to Microsoft’s built-in Phone Link utility.) The Windows app will walk you through a few steps to pair your phone and PC. Once…

Bing’s new AI-powered chatbot (see page 7) is basically ChatGPT with ads…and one that refuses to do your homework for you. Well, sometimes. That’s not necessarily a derogatory criticism; the new Bing is pretty amazing. In your first few minutes with the new Bing chat interface, you’ll probably see even more sophistication than the free version of ChatGPT currently offers, with lengthy, detailed responses that can help you in many walks of life. But they may end with a jarring ad that looks (and probably is) ripped straight from Bing. That said, the fresh AI experience already works shockingly well more often than not. The new Bing experience is basically two parts. There’s the traditional search, with a list of search results and a new contextual interface to the right; and…

For some people, offline email is still the way to go. Whether it’s due to habit, mistrust of cloud services, or sensible prudence about backups, downloading email to a client still factors large in the routines of many users. Mozilla Thunderbird is a key part of such setups thanks to its hefty set of features and zero-cost price tag. But Thunderbird has long been criticized for its outdated interface, and not without cause—it still looks like it’s stuck in 2003. That will finally change in July, with the upcoming launch of version 115. As detailed in a Thunderbird blog post, this year’s update of the client will sport a “simple and clean” user interface friendlier to new adopters. Customization options will also be available, allowing the client to retain a…

A U.S. congressman has begun advocating for a federal department to regulate the use of artificial intelligence, postulating a dystopian future where AI will make key decisions and autonomous weapons roam America. Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) authored an opinion piece in The New York Times on Monday, arguing that AI has emerged as a powerful tool that can be used to benefit humanity—or deceive it, and worse. In fact, the example he cited, reproduced above, wasn’t written by Lieu, but by ChatGPT, the AI chatbot developed by OpenAI. (OpenAI received a multibillion-dollar investment from Microsoft on Monday, amid user reports that it is unveiling a paid version.) Lieu, who earned a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Stanford University, noted that AI is now present in everything from smart speakers to Google…

Having reached capacities of 1TB and beyond, USB thumb drives put a lot of cable-free storage in your pocket. However, most examples of the species suffer a rather salient deficiency—slow performance. Not so with Teamgroup’s C212, the object of this review. It’s capable of sustained transfer speeds in excess of 400MBps to 600MBps—almost five times the norm, depending the size of the data set being read or written. That puts it on par with the speed of SATA SSDs found inside computers. Buckle up! FEATURES The C212 is a USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10Gbps) thumb drive that measures a mere 2.6 inches long (3.08 inches with the connector extended) by 0.8 inches wide by 0.46 inches thick (including the ejection switch). Weight is a mere 9 grams. It’s available in…

Can’t get your hands on an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 for your gaming rig (or not keen to pay the $1,199.99 price)? Now you don’t have to. Nvidia GeForce Now, the company’s cloud gaming service, has released a GeForce Now Ultimate subscription tier that provides RTX 4080–equivalent hardware, complete with ray tracing and DLSS 3 support—and I’ve spent several days testing it. The RTX 4080’s might comes flanked by several other GeForce Now enhancements, including support for ultrawide resolutions up to 3,840×1,600. Refresh rates get a boost, too, with support for 240Hz at 1080p and 120Hz at up to 4K. The higher refresh rates can also lead to lower total latency, allowing Nvidia to double-dip on its marketing claims. GeForce Now Ultimate is priced at $19.99 per month, or $99.99 every six…

Nothing makes your computer space quite your own like having a personalized background. It’s time to retire those boring photo backgrounds and replace them with something unique and inspiring. If you’re looking to spice things up, you’re in luck. We’ve put together a step-by-step guide on how to add personalized photos to your desktop. CHANGING YOUR BACKGROUND IMAGE FROM FILE FINDER Before you begin, make sure the image you want to use is saved to your computer. Once you’ve saved it, click on the file finder icon. A window of your files will open. Select the file where you’ve saved the image. Once you’ve located it, you have a few options on how to set it as your background. The first is to right-click the image icon to pull up…

Over the past six months, we’ve learned how AI can be used for many tasks: creating art, powering a sophisticated chatbot, and so on. But what if you could use it to actually assist you in your job? If your job is working with Excel, you’re in luck. A free site (with registration) does just that: Excel Formulator.Excel Formulator takes your instructions, in plain English, and turns them into an Excel formula. “Pick the highest value in column C and assign it to the cell to the right of the cell labeled ‘Big Spender’” turns into =MAX(C:C) & “Big Spender”. Copy the latter into the formula field into an Excel cell, and you’ve saved yourself some time—or, for those who don’t have a sophisticated knowledge of Excel, you now have…

Just a couple months ago, sharp-eyed Redditors noticed that searching for AMD graphics card drivers on Google served up a shady text ad as the first result. Our advice then (as now) was to be careful when you’re looking for Radeon software, plus maintain good search habits in general. Life’s a whole lot easier when you sidestep malware. At the time, this incident seemed more of a one-off reason for heightened awareness. Even with the more recent report about Bitwarden suffering from a similar issue, using Google seemed mostly business as usual. Turns out, though, our threat alert should be set much higher—other major downloads like Adobe Reader, Microsoft Teams, OBS, Slack, and Gimp are being targeted, too. As thoughtfully detailed by Ars Technica, the sharp rise in malvertising is…

If you think games like Halo and Grand Theft Auto are “retro,” you’ve probably never heard of 3DFX. It was a scrappy little company that competed with Nvidia in the early days of discrete graphics cards for home PCs. While the Voodoo series of GPUs can just about handle a modern version of Tetris (if you leave ray tracing off), they were beloved back in the 1990s…so much so that someone just spent a huge chunk of cash to own one of the last 3DFX prototype cards. The Voodoo 5 6000 was 3DFX’s final GPU design before the company was sold to Nvidia. According to Wikipedia, a little over 100 of the experimental graphics cards were created in 2000. The last few of these cards were intended to be the…

Samsung’s Galaxy Book3 Pro 360 laptop packs in a self-contained movie theater, a sketchpad for digital artists, and an all-day productivity machine that can digitally connect to other Galaxy devices inside a single, 16-inch, 360-degree convertible laptop. Capping it all off is a gorgeous, powerful new OLED display that puts almost all of its rivals and predecessor to shame. Consider this $1,699 (MSRP) laptop for what it can do after hours as well as your workday. While its 13th-gen Intel Core processor doesn’t outperform everything in its class, you’ll find a ton under its hood that few rivals offer. So buckle up—there’s a lot to talk about. WHAT IT OFFERS AND WHERE IT FITS Samsung’s Galaxy Book3 Pro 360 is one of a small family of new Book3 laptops that consists…

FastestVPN’s name says it all: It aims to be the fastest VPN service around. It’s no easy feat to lead with a superlative like that and back it up. FastestVPN strives to be a top VPN and, at least on the surface, it makes a persuasive case for itself. The company is based in the Cayman Islands, which bodes well for privacy and security. The service also offers a solid premium feature set, with 10 simultaneous connections, P2P optimized servers, no logs, and stated promises to unblock region locks on most of the top streaming platforms. FEATURES AND SERVICES Since the time of our last review, FastestVPN has once again upgraded the design of its application to make it simpler and easier to use across devices. Upon first opening the application…

If you’re struggling to stay on top of your tasks or keep track of your notes, maybe what you need is some new tools. I’m always looking for better ways to stay organized. When I find a new app that sounds promising, I pit it against my existing tools in a game of survival of the fittest, leaving only the ones that work best for me. These are currently the five services I rely on the most for note-taking, bookmarking, and task management. Most offer premium subscriptions, but their free tiers hold up well for individual users. As we head into the new year, perhaps they’ll provide just the kind of fresh inspiration you’re looking for. 1. TWEEK CALENDAR FOR DAILY REFLECTION Every weekday morning, my desktop computer automatically loads…

In the grand scheme of potential privacy concerns, email privacy is perhaps the most personal. Getting unwanted messages in your inbox can feel like a major breach of trust, and knowing that senders can see a record of everything you’ve opened and clicked can feel downright creepy. That’s why it’s worth getting familiar with all the ways you can protect your email privacy. From resistance against email tracking to masked email addresses that hide your identity, here are some of my favorite free tools you can use right now. IRONVEST FOR ALL-PURPOSE EMAIL MASKING Masked email is a way to hide your email address without having to maintain a separate email account for junk. Instead of handing out your actual email address, you can provide an alias that forwards to…