World News

Microsoft’s New ‘Recall’ Feature Is Equal Parts Cool and Dangerous

Published

2 months ago

May 21, 2024

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We take search functions for granted—when it goes well. If you search for a particular email, photo, or document on your PC, and it pops right up, you don’t think twice about it. But if you spend 10 minutes scouring your hard drive looking for that one file, you lose your mind. That’s where Microsoft hopes its new Recall feature can help, even if it comes with some major security risks.

What is Recall?

Recall, at its core, is simple: The feature quietly takes screenshots of what you’re doing on your PC throughout your session. Whenever you perform a search with Recall, it pulls from all these screenshots to find relevant moments in your PC activity history that might be what you’re looking for, stitching them together into a scrollable timeline. For example, if you’re looking for a slideshow you were crafting for work, searching for it may pull up the times you were working on it in PowerPoint, as well as the presentation you gave with it. The same goes for an image: If you’re looking for the photo of your dog at the park, you may see it from the time you opened it in your photos library, but also in the messaging app you used to send the photos to friends and family.

Recall associates these screenshots with the active app, as well: As you scroll through your timeline, not only can you see which window you were looking at it with, Recall will tell you which app was running and when. So if you know you want the PowerPoint session itself from February, you can skip over any screenshots from Teams.

While it’s certainly a novel feature, Microsoft wasn’t the first to launch a feature like this. Rewind offers a similar experience over on macOS, recording all your activity (including transcribing your audio) in order to make everything you do on your Mac searchable. Of course, the big difference here is Recall is a Microsoft-built feature, while Rewind is only offered by a third-party developer on macOS.

You also won’t be able to use Recall on any PC, even if its running Windows 11. Instead, this is a Copilot+ PC-exclusive, Microsoft’s new AI-powered PC standard. These machines are equipped with the Snapdragon X Plus and Snapdragon X Elite chips, which have a dedicated neural processing unit (NPU) for handling local AI processes. Unless you have one of these new machines, like the new Surface Pro or Surface Laptop, you won’t be able to try Recall when it launches.

Is Recall safe to use?

The answer, from Microsoft’s perspective, is yes. Because it only runs on Copilot+ PCs, Recall is entirely handled on-device, with no processing outsourced to the cloud. That means everything, from the AI processing to the screenshots themselves, happen on your PC. Microsoft says the screenshots used for Recall are encrypted on your PC, too, even from other profiles on the machine: If you lock your PC, your Recall screenshots are locked, too.

Plus, you have control over which apps and websites Recall takes screenshots for. If you don’t want Recall to take screenshots when you use WhatsApp, you can tell it not to. You can choose to pause Recall for periods of time as well, and delete either recently taken screenshots, or all screenshots stored on your device. InPrivate browsing sessions in Microsoft Edge, as well as DRM content, like Netflix shows and movies, will also not be recorded. (Your secrets really are safe with InPrivate browsing, I guess.)

However, while Microsoft is all about the security of Recall, it isn’t necessarily foolproof. For one, Recall takes screenshots of almost everything you do on your PC (assuming you haven’t adjusted these settings yourself). That means it won’t stop taking screenshots when you enter or access sensitive information like passwords, your social security number, or banking data: If you can see it on-screen, chances are Recall is recording it. While it’s great that these screenshots are encrypted when you lock your device, if someone does manage to break into your PC, they’ll be able to access your entire Recall history, including this sensitive information. It seems like an unforced error to let a potential hacker open Recall, search “Bank of America” or “Turbo Tax,” and watch as you from the past enters all the relevant credentials and private information in for them.

For the average Windows 11 user, Recall probably isn’t going to get them into trouble, or at least put them at a substantially greater risk than they already put themselves in. Do you have a picture of your social security card in your photos library? Do you keep all your passwords in a Word doc? (Please don’t do this.) But it’s important to understand exactly what you’re agreeing to before enabling the feature. Whether it’s a hacker that wants to break into your financial accounts, or a nosy friend snooping around your PC, you are making it easy for anyone with your computer’s password to search your entire PC activity.

If you do want to try Recall, and any other Copilot+ PC-exclusive features, you can preorder one of Microsoft new Surface devices below:

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Holly Jackson: ‘Obviously, I love murder

Published

6 hours ago

July 7, 2024

Shola Lee

Holly’s debut novel A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder has been turned into a series for the BBC

Holly Jackson Holly Jackson against a grey background — Holly’s debut novel A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder has been turned into a series for the BBC

Bestselling author Holly Jackson shares her secrets for plotting a modern murder mystery – and explains how true crime has influenced her.

For the author of A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, the process of writing a whodunnit is as meticulous as investigating a crime.

“I am obsessive about it,” she says. “I don’t quite have a ‘murder board’ because it’s not on the wall, but it is on the floor.”

Each scene in one of Holly’s books corresponds to an index card, which is then carefully placed into columns for each act in the story. The author admits this “does rather take over the room”.

While this is great for planning a storyline, Holly says opening her office door a “bit too ferociously” can literally blow her plot out of place.

A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder follows plucky heroine Pip Fitz-Amobi as she investigates a closed murder case. Pip soon finds a co-detective in Ravi Singh, whose brother was implicated in the crime.

Each clue, twist and turn in the story has been thoroughly discussed by Holly’s fans on TikTok; the hashtag for A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder – #agggtm – has more than 58,000 posts.

And the story has now been turned into a BBC drama by lead writer Poppy Cogan, with Holly serving as executive producer.

The Guardian called the series a “very modern Nancy Drew,” with fans on TikTok praising the show, stitching their reactions with clips from the new series.

The BBC spoke to Holly about the process of writing her hit novel. “Obviously, I love murder,” she says, “fictional murder.”

‘I need true crime in my ears’

Holly, 31, from Buckinghamshire, published her debut in 2019. She won a British Book Award the following year and has sold millions of copies around the world.

While her fiction fits into the young adult category, Holly does not shy away from heavier topics, like crime. Her first novel, for example, follows the disappearance and apparent murder of a school girl.

And Holly says true crime content – like the podcast Serial – became a “very useful” tool when writing A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder. The structure of the book feels like a podcast, Holly says, adding: “We have transcripts of dialogue the whole time.”

In the sequel to Holly’s first book – called Good Girl, Bad Blood – Pip even creates a true crime podcast herself.

And Holly says this research tool soon seeped into her real-life. “I can’t really do anything without a true crime podcast,” she says. “If I’m walking the dog or washing the dishes, I need true crime in my ears.”

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In the last ten years, true crime series have won international acclaim: Serial won a Peabody Award in 2015 and In The Dark – a long-form investigative journalism series – became the first podcast to win a George Polk Award in 2019. And, according to The New York Times, Serial has had more 705m downloads.

Even Holly is curious why crime is such a popular source of entertainment.

“Especially with young women,” she wonders, “is that like, an instinct in us that’s trying to protect ourselves?”

Georgia Hardstark is the co-host of My Favorite Murder, a US podcast that looks into historic and modern cases, with one episode covering the Dancing Plague of 1518 and the Paper Bag Killer.

For Georgia, part of the reason she is so interested in true crime is that it helps her feel less “paranoid” and validates her anxieties about life, she explains.

“That is at the forefront of my mind, constantly, you know, ‘What’s around the next corner? Are my doors locked?'”

‘I know who the murderer is’

For Holly, the line between fact and fiction is clearly drawn: unlike true crime cases, she always knows “the ending before I even write the first sentence”.

“I knew from the get-go who the murderer was going to be, this whole setup,” she says. “The slightly more complicated thing is not working out the mystery – it’s working out how Pip is going to solve the mystery.”

In A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, for example, Pip uses her Extended Project Qualification – an accreditation where a student independently researches a given topic – to interview suspects and keep track of clues for the case.

The story centres on Pip Fitz-Amobi (played by Emma Myers, left) who investigates a closed murder case with the help of Ravi Singh (Zain Iqbal, right)

BBC/Moonage/Sally Mais From left to right Emma Myers, Holly Jackson and Zain Iqbal gathered for a script read through of the TV series — The story centres on Pip Fitz-Amobi (played by Emma Myers, left) who investigates a closed murder case with the help of Ravi Singh (Zain Iqbal, right)

While Holly uses true crime as a “jumping off” point for research, she notes the content, often used as a source of entertainment, is “obviously, about real life people’s trauma”.

Jessica Jarlvi – a “Scandi-noir” writer and lecturer on the University of Cambridge’s Crime and Thriller Writing course – says things like true crime podcasts risk sensationalising these events.

“It just puts me off,” she says, “whereas in fiction, you don’t have to worry about that.”

In Georgia’s view, however, ignoring real-life crime – often with women victims – “is to sweep it under the rug”.

‘I don’t have passive readers’

Modern crime readers are “becoming more and more demanding”, Jessica adds.

Holly agrees: “I don’t have those passive readers, I have the really active ones who are looking to solve the mystery.”

On TikTok, fans of A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder share videos with their predictions and suspect lists as they read along with the book.

In one video, a reader guides people on how to annotate the book to keep track, colour co-ordinating sections into “clues” and “conflicts”.

“It makes me have to up my game a bit more,” Holly says.

Wondering how to watch A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder? You can stream the series on BBC iPlayer.

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World News

For sale: A piece of California’s country music history

Published

7 hours ago

July 6, 2024

Melody Gutierrez

The famed Buck Owens Crystal Palace, where music legends including Willie Nelson, Dwight Yoakam, Garth Brooks and a young Taylor Swift have played, is up for sale, with the foundation that runs the Bakersfield venue planning to list it for $7 million on Monday.

The nightclub, museum and steakhouse was owned by its namesake Buck Owens, the country music trailblazer who bucked the slick commercial melodies of Nashville for a distinctly West Coast twang. Owens opened the Crystal Palace in 1996, watching it become a premier venue for the biggest names in country music, including himself. Buck and the Buckaroos played there every Friday and Saturday night until his death in 2006.

Jim Shaw, a member of the Buckaroos and a director of the Buck Owens Private Foundation, said that after 28 years of running the famed venue, the Owens family plans to step back and find new owners amid a challenging business climate. The foundation said in a statement that “since Buck’s passing in 2006, we’ve tried to maintain the excellence that he expected, even as it became more and more difficult during these challenging times of increasing food and labor costs.”

The venue is not closing and scheduled events will continue as planned, Shaw said.

“It’s business as usual for now,” Shaw said. “Ideally, someone who wants to keep it exactly as it is will come forward.”

Owens’ youngest son, Johnny Owens, wrote on Facebook that the family’s hope “is that a buyer steps forward with a vision for the future and a reverence” for his father and the Bakersfield Sound.

The Crystal Palace, located on Buck Owens Boulevard, is a major tourism staple for Bakersfield. The 18,000-square-foot venue is next to the city’s downtown entrance.

“It’s the No. 1 tourist attraction in Bakersfield,” Shaw said. “There are people stepping forward and we are waiting to see what happens. I am getting a lot of phone calls. I’m anxious to see what happens.”

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2nd local radio host says they were given questions ahead of Biden interview

Published

11 hours ago

July 6, 2024

OLIVIA RUBIN

A second local radio host on Saturday told ABC News that he was provided a list of questions in advance of his interview with President Joe Biden this week.

“Yes, I was given some questions for Biden,” Earl Ingram of CivicMedia told ABC News. Ingram, a prominent host of a Wisconsin radio station, interviewed Biden this week in the wake of his debate performance.

Ingram said he was given five questions and ended up asking four of them.

“I didn’t get a chance to ask him all the things I wanted to ask,” he said.

Ingram is the second interviewer who now says they were provided questions by Biden aides to ask the president this week. Earlier today, another local radio host who interviewed Biden this week told CNN she was given questions to ask Biden before the interview.

PHOTO: President Joe Biden speaks to supporters during a campaign rally at Sherman Middle School, on July 5, 2024, in Madison, Wisconsin. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

“We do not condition interviews on acceptance of these questions, and hosts are always free to ask the questions they think will best inform their listeners,” the Biden campaign told ABC News on Saturday.

Ingram told ABC he didn’t see anything necessarily wrong with the practice. “To think that I was gonna get an opportunity to ask any question to the President of the United States, I think, is a bit more than anybody should expect,” he said.

He continued that he was grateful for the opportunity to interview Biden at all.

“Certainly the fact that they gave me this opportunity … meant a lot to me,” Ingram said.

MORE: Wealthy Democratic donors sound alarm over Biden staying in race

On CNN earlier today, Andrea Lawful-Sanders, the host of WURD’s “The Source,” said Biden officials provided her with a list of eight questions ahead of their interview with Biden.

“The questions were sent to me for approval; I approved of them,” she said.

“I got several questions — eight of them,” she continued. “And the four that were chosen were the ones that I approved.”

Responding to Lawful-Sanders, Biden campaign spokesperson Lauren Hitt said in a statement that it’s not “uncommon” for interviewees to share topics they would prefer. She noted that Lawful-Sanders was “free” to ask any questions she saw fit. She also noted that it was the campaign who sent over the questions and not the White House as other reports claim.

Lawful-Sanders did note in her interview with CNN that she ultimately “approved” the questions provided.

“It’s not at all an uncommon practice for interviewees to share topics they would prefer. These questions were relevant to news of the day – the president was asked about this debate performance as well as what he’d delivered for black Americans,” the statement said.

“We do not condition interviews on acceptance of these questions, and hosts are always free to ask the questions they think will best inform their listeners. In addition to these interviews, the President also participated in a press gaggle yesterday as well as an interview with ABC. Americans have had several opportunities to see him unscripted since the debate.”

A source familiar with the Biden booking operation told ABC News that moving forward they will “refrain” from offering suggested questions to interviewers.

“While interview hosts have always been free to ask whatever questions they please, moving forward we will refrain from offering suggested questions.”

2nd local radio host says they were given questions ahead of Biden interview originally appeared on abcnews.go.com

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