cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/8149733
Andrew Cunningham (arstechnica.com) - Jan 4, 2024 8:01 am UTC Writes:
Microsoft pushed throughout 2023 to add generative AI capabilities to its software, even extending its new Copilot AI assistant to Windows 10 late last year. Now, those efforts to transform PCs at a software level is extending to the hardware: Microsoft is adding a dedicated Copilot key to PC keyboards, adjusting the standard Windows keyboard layout for the first time since the Windows key first appeared on its Natural Keyboard in 1994.
The Copilot key will, predictably, open up the Copilot generative AI assistant within Windows 10 and Windows 11. On an up-to-date Windows PC with Copilot enabled, you can currently do the same thing by pressing Windows + C. For PCs without Copilot enabled, including those that aren’t signed into Microsoft accounts, the Copilot key will open Windows Search instead (though this is sort of redundant, since pressing the Windows key and then typing directly into the Start menu also activates the Search function).
A quick Microsoft demo video shows the Copilot key in between the cluster of arrow keys and the right Alt button, a place where many keyboards usually put a menu button, a right Ctrl key, another Windows key, or something similar. The exact positioning, and the key being replaced, may vary depending on the size and layout of the keyboard.
We asked Microsoft if a Copilot key would be required on OEM PCs going forward; the company told us that the key isn’t mandatory now, but that it expects Copilot keys to be required on Windows 11 keyboards “over time.” Microsoft often imposes some additional hardware requirements on major PC makers that sell Windows on their devices, beyond what is strictly necessary to run Windows itself.
Read Microsoft is adding a new key to PC keyboards for the first time since 1994
Been saying it everywhere here. They’re cortana-iny copilot. They have an interesting thing. They gave it to their marketing team and they’re just going to run the thing into the fucking ground. It’s going to be on the home page of Xbox, it’s going to take up 40% of the task bar, it’s going to be there taking up 20% of the screen every time you open office.
Ffs they have good ideas then they ruin them with just constant bombardment. They did it with cortana. Cool idea, ruined by their own forcing it in our faces. Hell I’ll even go so far to saying it’s clippy again.
This nonsense reminds me of how many phones in the olden days had a dedicated Internet/WAP button on them from the phone companies that primarily existed so that people would be charged for accidentally pressing it.
With this new iteration of the same idea (they could have easily chosen a spot where it would never get hit accidentally, but didn’t), I suspect that Microsoft banks on people accidentally pressing the button in the hopes that at least some will be converted to using their dubious “AI” assistant more than once. Like the author of the article, I have my doubts this will happen. On laptop keyboards in particular, it’ll be pressed when people are actually trying to hit the left arrow key and cause more annoyance and confusion than anything else. I can already imagine IT departments disabling these on all new devices just to save them the extra headache.
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The exact positioning, and the key being replaced, may vary depending on the size and layout of the keyboard.
If nothing else, this new key is a sign of how much Microsoft wants people to use Copilot and its other generative AI products.
Plenty of past company initiatives—Bing, Edge, Cortana, and the Microsoft Store, to name a few—never managed to become baked into the hardware like this.
If Copilot fizzles or is deemphasized the way Cortana was, the Copilot key could become a way to quickly date a Windows PC from the mid-2020s, the way that changes to the Windows logo date keyboards from earlier eras.
Chipmakers like Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm are all building neural processing units (NPUs) into their latest silicon, and we’ll likely see more updates for Windows apps and features that can take advantage of this new on-device processing capability.
Microsoft says the Copilot key will debut in some PCs that will be announced at the Consumer Electronics Show this month.
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I thought it might be the ‘any’ key.
Looks like the are going all out with Copilot though.
Don’t know how Copilot works offline, OK neither does Google or Bing to a degree, but these systems are placing increasingly more load on round the clock connectivity. We don’t have decent 5G here in UK yet. Even 4G is patchy, and I’m in an urban area just north of London.
Should I worry though as I don’t use Windows, apart from work? Possibly not.
