Microsoft will delay its controversial Recall feature and take more time to test and polish it before rolling it out to Copilot+PCs.
In an update to a blog post detailing changes coming to Recall, Microsoft revealed it would not make the feature available as a preview on Copilot+PCs on June 18th, as originally planned. Instead, the company will launch the preview in the Windows Insider Program first to get more feedback. Eventually, the company will make the Recall preview available to all Copilot+PCs, though there isn’t a timeline for when that will happen yet.
“We are adjusting the release model for Recall to leverage the expertise of the Windows Insider community to ensure the experience meets our high standards for quality and security,” Microsoft wrote in the blog post.
“This decision is rooted in our commitment to providing a trusted, secure and robust experience for all customers and to seek additional feedback prior to making the feature available to all Copilot+ PC users.”
This is the latest change to Recall following an outcry over security and privacy issues. Microsoft first revealed Recall at its Copilot+PC event in May. The company positioned Recall as a helpful tool for searching previous activities to find documents, conversations, photos, and more. However, security experts raised concerns over how Recall captures screenshots of what people are doing, which could result in the feature storing personal information like banking details or passwords. Recall uses screen captures to build a ‘semantic index’ of user activity that can be searched.
Notably, Apple’s recently unveiled Apple Intelligence features similarly rely on a semantic index built from personal information people store on their iPhones. Though both features work on-device and don’t use cloud processing, Apple Intelligence doesn’t appear to take screen captures to build its semantic index.
Microsoft will share another blog post detailing how to get the Recall preview once it becomes available for Insiders. However, the company still says Insiders will need Copilot+PCs to test Recall due to “hardware requirements,” even though it’s been proven that Recall works fine on other hardware.
Header image credit: Microsoft
Source: Microsoft
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