Daily Archives: October 30, 2023

• 14th Gen processors, and (of course) AI

  Posted on October 30, 2023 at 02:45 CDT by Will Fastie • Comment in the Forums

  

  ISSUE 20.44 • 2023-10-30

  INTEL NEWS

  

  By Will Fastie

  Intel made some impressive announcements, but Qualcomm may get all the good press.

  You know we’ve been following developments in silicon carefully over the past couple of years. Our focus has been largely on Apple because of its bold initiatives with its M-series of chips.

  That coverage has not been to tout Apple, although it’s abundantly clear that the company’s products, especially Macintosh, have shown market share improvements. Our purpose has been to underscore what we perceived as a lag in Intel’s ongoing development. Windows users don’t gain anything from Apple’s proprietary silicon, but they lose something if Intel can’t keep up.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (20.44.0, 2023-10-30).
  This story also appears in our public Newsletter.

  Intel News Financial Performance, Intel, Intel News, Intel Processors, Newsletters, Qualcomm

• Anyone can render you naked with three mouse clicks

  Posted on October 30, 2023 at 02:44 CDT by B. Livingston • Comment in the Forums

  PUBLIC DEFENDER

  

  By Brian Livingston

  Artificial-intelligence technologies have so invaded our lives that now dozens of sketchy websites enable anyone to upload a picture of your face and immediately receive an AI-generated nude that’s completely photorealistic.

  Tech-savvy perverts have published fake nudes of celebrities for years, of course. But making those falsified images required at least some talent with Photoshop and other image-editing tools.

  At the new AI-fake websites, you just upload a fully clothed headshot of anyone. You then click, click, click, and you have a “nudified” copy. Most people would believe the resulting image is an actual photograph of how the victimized person supposedly looked at the time.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (20.44.0, 2023-10-30).

  Public Defender AI, Deepfakes, Generative AI, images, Newsletters, Watermarks

• Why not to use Outlook (new)

  Posted on October 30, 2023 at 02:43 CDT by Peter Deegan • Comment in the Forums

  OFFICE

  

  By Peter Deegan

  Underdeveloped and overhyped, a truly new Outlook is coming. But it’s not yet a proper replacement for either the Windows or Mac version of Outlook.

  As usual, Microsoft is hyping a product that’s still a work in progress. I’ll explain the dirty little secrets behind Outlook (new) — that’s one of its names — and why serious Outlook users should not touch it yet.

  Outlook (new) is now replacing Windows Mail and Calendar apps in new Windows 11 installations. Existing Mail/Calendar app setups will continue to work.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (20.44.0, 2023-10-30).

  Office Licensing, Microsoft 365, Newsletters, Office, Outlook, Outlook (new), Outlook Mobile

• A strong Microsoft

  Posted on October 30, 2023 at 02:42 CDT by Will Fastie • Comment in the Forums

  MICROSOFT NEWS

  

  By Will Fastie

  Microsoft’s FY24 Q1 numbers are excellent and will please investors, but results in certain sectors may spell future trouble.

  These days, decoding financial statements can be very difficult, much more so than during my time as a securities analyst in the ’90s. Complicating matters today are strained economies, inflation, political uncertainty, post-pandemic recoveries, supply-chain disruption, and currency fluctuations.

  Despite all that, Microsoft’s first-quarter financial results justify optimism.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (20.44.0, 2023-10-30).

  Microsoft News Financial Performance, Microsoft, Newsletters, Surface, Windows

• Browsers and search engines

  Posted on October 30, 2023 at 02:41 CDT by Susan Bradley • Comment in the Forums

  ON SECURITY

  

  By Susan Bradley

  If you are as old as I am, you will remember the revolutionary changes the browser Netscape Navigator and search engine AltaVista brought to our desktops.

  In what now seems like an overnight event, all those research topics that used to require a trip to our local libraries became a mere dial-up call away, using our light-speed, 9600-baud modems. Okay, a little patience was required in those days, even once those ubiquitous modems reached the dizzying heights of 56K.

  At about the same time, we witnessed the start of what was to become a decades-long browser and search-engine war, during which we all have probably changed allegiances several times.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (20.44.0, 2023-10-30).

  On Security Bing, Brave, Chrome, DuckDuckGo, Ecosia, Edge, Google, Newsletters, Patch Lady Posts, Qwant, Swsscows