Technology

Acer Swift 14 AI was unveiled in select markets globally on Wednesday, May 22. The laptop is powered by Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon X series CPUs and comes with Copilot+ support which includes optimised AI-backed features to improve users’ productivity. Some of the advanced AI tools include Recall, Cocreator, Live Captions, new Windows Studio Effects, and Auto Super Resolution. It also sports a thin-and-light design with an aluminium chassis and a 180-degree hinge which allows users to open the laptop flat.

Acer Swift 14 AI price, availability

The Acer Swift 14 AI starts at $1,099 (roughly Rs. 91,500) or EUR 1,499 (roughly Rs. 1,35,300). It will be available in the EMEA region and North America in June and July, respectively. The company notes that the exact specifications, prices, and availability of the laptop will vary by region. The India launch of the device has not yet been confirmed. It is offered in a silver colour option.

Acer Swift 14 AI specifications, features

The Acer Swift 14 AI sports a 14.5-inch WQXGA (2,560 x 1,600 pixels) IPS touch display with a 120Hz refresh rate and a TÜV Rheinland Eyesafe Certification 2.0 that is said to minimise blue light harmful effects. The 180-degree hinge of the laptop is claimed to offer users a flexible mobility option by allowing them to open it with one hand.

The AI-powered laptop is available in two processor options – Snapdragon X Elite X1E-78-100 and Snapdragon X Plus X1P-64-100. They come with Qualcomm Adreno GPU, up to 32GB of dual-channel LPDDR5x RAM, and up to 1TB PCIe Gen4 NVMe storage. It runs on Windows 11 out-of-the-box. 

Acer Swift 14 AI has a dedicated Copilot key which gives easy access to all things AI. These include tools like Recall, Cocreator, and Live Captions. These tools are meant to help users retrace their past timeline, create innovative images, and get real-time English subtitles.

The laptop is also equipped with dual speakers with DTS-backed audio and a 1440p QHD IR webcam with a Privacy Shutter and a triple-mic system. It also comes with two USB Type-C, two USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A ports, and a combined audio jack. 

Acer has packed a 75Wh battery in the Swift 14 AI with support for fast charging. On a single charge, the laptop is claimed to offer up to 18 hours of web browsing time and 26 hours of video playback time. The laptop weighs 1.3kg and measures 322.6 x 225.95 x 17.95mm in size.

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Infinix has made laptops before, but this is their first attempt at a gaming laptop. The Infinix GT Book was unveiled in India alongside the Infinix GT 20 gaming phone. It is equipped with up to 13th generation Intel processors and up to Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 GPU. The laptop has a unique design that will definitely turn some heads and is also priced competitively. I’ve had the Infinix GT Book for a couple of days now, and while I haven’t had time to fully explore it, here are my initial impressions.

Firstly, I’ll talk about the design. The Infinix GT Book looks the part thanks to the Cyber Mecha design, which you’ll also find on some of the recent smartphones from the brand. The top and bottom lid are made from metal, and have a matte finish, which helps keep the fingerprints and smudges away. The lid features the Mecha Loop emblem as well. Overall, the GT Book feels well-built, and yes, you can open the lid with just one hand. Infinix claims this is the lightest gaming laptop, with a 16-inch display weighing in at 1.99kg.

The Mecha bar is an RGB strip that’s customisable

It also has some RGB lighting in the form of a thin strip located at the back called the Mecha Bar. The rear also houses the exhaust vents. The bottom panel has an orange-accented grille for the intake fans and sturdy rubber feet to keep the laptop planted. All RGB on the laptop is customisable using the GT Control Centre, but I’ll talk more about the experience in my full review.

Opening the lid reveals a full-size keyboard with 4-zone RGB lighting and a rather small touchpad. Then there’s the 16-inch display with an anti-glare coating, slim bezels on the sides, and slightly thicker bezels at the top and bottom. The display offers a 16:10 aspect ratio, full-HD resolution, 120Hz refresh rate, and up to 300 nits of brightness. At first glance, it appears to be a good display for gaming. The top bezel houses a 1080p web camera and dual microphones.

The laptop has a 4-zone full-sized RGB keyboard

Before I talk about the internals, let’s take a look at the ports on the laptop. You get two USB Type-A 3.2 ports, an SD card slot, HDMI 2.0, and a USB Type-C DP port. In terms of connectivity, the Infinix GT Book offers up to dual-band WiFi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2. The company provides a 210W power adapter in the box that can definitely be used as a weapon. I think Infinix did a good job with the port selection here.

Alright, moving on to the internals, the Infinix GT Book comes with a 70 Whr battery, dual fans for cooling, up to 32GB non-upgradable LPDDR5 RAM, and up to 1TB PCIe 4.0 storage. The laptop is configurable with up to a 13th Gen Intel Core i9 13900H processor and up to Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 GPU with 8GB VRAM. Our review unit came with the 12th Gen Intel Core i5 12450H processor, Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 with 6GB of video RAM, 16GB LPDDR5 RAM, and 512GB PCIe 4.0 storage. There’s also a variant that comes with a 13th Gen Intel Core i5 chipset and Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050 GPU.

The laptop has orange accents on the vents and speaker grilles

The base variant, which I’ll be testing, is priced at Rs. 59,990. It has a total graphics power (TGP) of 80W, whereas the other two variants offer a slightly higher 90W TGP. I’ll be testing the laptop thoroughly to see how well it fares in gaming. 

For the first attempt, I think Infinix has done a good job with the GT Book gaming laptop. The pricing is good, and as part of a limited-time launch offer, users will also get some freebies with the laptop purchase. The freebies include an RGB gaming mouse, RGB gaming headphones, and an RGB gaming mousepad. Although the internals are older than most recent gaming laptops, they should be good enough for gaming, video editing, and such. Stay tuned to our full review to find out if the Infinix GT Book is a good gaming laptop to buy.

Microsoft Surface Laptop 7 was unveiled by the company earlier this week, alongside the Surface Pro 11 and the first benchmarks of the company’s Surface laptop with a Snapdragon X Elite chip appears to have beat Apple’s M3-powered MacBook Air in some benchmark tests, along with Intel’s Meteor Lake CPUs and a Surface Pro 9 with an SQ3 chip. The benchmark results also suggest that Qualcomm’s latest processor for Copilot+ PCs could go toe-to-toe against Apple Silicon chips in the coming weeks.

While reviews of the new Surface Laptop 7 are still awaited, a Microsoft commissioned third party test of the Snapdragon X Elite-powered laptop reveals that it is capable of delivering reliable battery life, good thermal management, and powerful CPU performance. However, it reportedly lags behind the third-generation Apple Silicon processor in graphics, gaming, and web performance. 

Surface Laptop 7 CPU performance on Geekbench 6.3
Photo Credit: Signal65

In its report, Signal65 compared the Surface Laptop 7 to a Surface Laptop 9 with the Arm-based Microsoft SQ3 processor, a Surface Laptop 5 with a 12th Gen Intel Core-7 CPU, an MSI Prestige 16 AI Evo with a current-gen Intel Core Ultra 7 CPU, and Apple’s 15-inch MacBook Air with an M3 chip. All the laptops were equipped with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, except the MSI laptop which had 32GB of RAM and 1TB of storage. 

On two popular benchmarking tests — Geekbench 6.3 and Cinebench 2024 — the new Surface Laptop 7 easily beat all the other laptops except the 15-inch M3 MacBook Air in the single-core tests. In the multi-core tests. however, the new Surface laptop managed the highest score among all the laptops that were tested — the tests also showed it was up to 30 percent faster than the M3 chip in multi-core performance.

Surface Laptop 7 offers better battery life than other models tested by the firm
Photo Credit: Signal65

Meanwhile, the Snapdragon X Elite chip on the Surface Laptop 7 was far ahead of the other laptops in the Procyon AI Computer Vision benchmark test. The Arm-based chip from Qualcomm on the laptop enables it to offer over NPU performance that is more than twice as powerful than the 15-inch M3-powered MacBook Air.

Microsoft’s new Surface Laptop 7 can also best the Surface Laptop 5, Surface Pro 9, and M3 MacBook Air on Handbrake 1.7.3, but is far behind the MSI Prestige 16 AI Evo with the lates Core Ultra 7 155H CPU. Meanwhile, in web performance (Google Chrome’s Speedometer v3 and JetStream v2.2) the Surface Laptop 7 is second only to the MacBook Air with an M3 chip.

The Surface Laptop 7 beat competitors on the Procyon AI computer vision benchmark
Photo Credit: Signal65

In the graphics department, the M3 chip on the 15-inch MacBook Air beat the Snapdragon X Elite on the Surface Laptop 7 on two out of three 3DMark’s graphics benchmarking tests — the Apple Silicon chip wasn’t tested on the third benchmark.

Signal65’s local H.264 video playback tests showed that the Surface Laptop 7 offered the highest battery life, with over 21 hours of playback on a single charge, higher than the M3-powered MacBook Air which delivered 16 percent less battery life. In the Procyon Productivity battery test showed that the MacBook Air with an M3 chip and the Surface Laptop 7 offered “equivalent” battery life.

While these tests were commissioned by Microsoft, it’s worth noting that the benchmarks were conducted by an independent third-party firm. Reviews of the new Surface Laptop 7 are still awaited, and we can expect to learn more about day-to-day performance, battery life, and other parameters, after the laptops go on sale in the US next month.

Microsoft Phone Link is set to introduce text-copying capabilities on Windows 11, according to a report. The mobile pairing app, which comes preloaded on Windows 11, lets users connect their smartphones – both Android and iOS – to their PCs, syncing text messages and images, and allowing them to make and receive calls. According to a report, the Phone Link for Windows app will soon be updated with a new optical character recognition (OCR) feature, enabling users to copy text from images.

Phone Link App to Add Text Recognition Support

A few of Microsoft’s apps, such as Lens and Office, already have OCR capabilities. Last year, the Snippet tool on Windows 10 and 11 also gained this feature, making it easier to copy text from captured screenshots. Windows Central reports that OCR support will soon make its way to the Phone Link app.

Tthe feature was spotted in the latest Phone Link app version 1.24051.91.0 on the Release Preview Channel which is accessible via the Windows Insider Program. However, it isn’t available to the public yet but may be rolled out to all Windows users in the future, according to the publication.

Text Recognition on Phone Link: How It Works

When an image is opened via the Photos section of the Phone Link app, a new icon labelled Text reportedly appears, as per the report. When clicked, it automatically scans the image to detect text within the image, following which two options appear – select all text or copy all text. Users can the copy the selection to the clipboard and paste it elsewhere.

AI-powered Advanced Paste on Windows

Microsoft is reportedly also testing a more advanced paste option which appears to be powered by artificial intelligence (AI). According to a Microsoft Learn blog, the new Advanced Paste feature is available via PowerToys version 0.81.0. It can be accessed with a shortcut: Windows Key + Shift + V.

Users can then select between 3 options for pasting from the clipboard – Plain text, JSON, and markdown, all of which can be used with a quick key shortcut. It also gets another option called Paste with AI which uses OpenAI’s technology, allowing users to summarise text, translate and stylise it and even generate code.

Microsoft Copilot is now available on the popular messaging app Telegram. The tech giant integrated its artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot with Telegram on Tuesday, extending its capabilities within the app. Telegram users can now converse with, ask questions, and search the internet with Copilot. Currently, the feature is released in beta, although it has been made available to all users for free. However, there is a limit of 30 turns per day (30 back-and-forth messages) when accessing the AI.

How to access Copilot for Telegram

There are two easy methods to get access to the chatbot. Users can go to Microsoft’s microsite dedicated to the feature and click on the ‘Try Now’ button to go directly to the Telegram app and find the Copilot chatbot. Alternatively, users can manually open the messaging app and search for Copilot.

However, in case users opt for the second method, it is important to ensure the authentic Copilot chatbot by looking for a blue check mark next to the name. There are multiple replica bots by the same name, and some of them can be malicious.

At present, Copilot is only available as a text-to-text chatbot, and it will not generate images. It can, however, access the internet and will be able to answer web-based queries. Microsoft suggests asking the AI bot about cheat codes and walkthroughs of video games, movie suggestions, dating tips, recipes, live scores, personalised playlists and more.

Copilot for Telegram

Interacting with Copilot is fairly straightforward if you have experience with using bots on Telegram. If not, you can use the “/ideas” command to get examples of what the AI can do and “/restart” will clear the current context of a response and start over. These instructions and other similar methods are also shown by the chatbot when first entering the chat.

However, before a user can interact with the chatbot, they will first have to register using their phone number. This might be concerning to some users given Telegram’s privacy-focused approach. On its microsite, Microsoft addresses the concerns and says, “Copilot on Telegram relies on the same safety infrastructure as the Microsoft Copilot experience.”

Microsoft is adding support for new Indian regional languages to its artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot Copilot for Microsoft 365. The tech giant is adding multiple new Indian languages to the AI model to accurately understand queries and generate responses in these languages. As per the company, support for more languages was added to make the AI tool more accessible for users whose primary language is not English. Notably, Microsoft has also added Copilot to the instant messaging app Telegram and the Microsoft Launcher app for Android.

Microsoft now supports these Indian regional languages

The company announced the support for more languages in a press release on Wednesday. Microsoft 365 Copilot will now support regional Indic languages such as Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, and Telugu. The company did not disclose the full list of languages the AI chatbot will support. The updated languages have also not been added to its support page.

Based on the press release, the company is expanding Copilot’s support for regional languages in not just India but other countries in the world as well. Prior to this update, Copilot supported 27 languages for prompt, and no Indian regional languages were included.

As per Microsoft, the increased support will not only enable users to converse with the chatbot in their native language but also get responses in the same language. The company highlighted that this feature will benefit students, small businesses, and native language speakers who have not been able to take advantage of generative AI due to the language barrier.

“By integrating regional languages, we’re making technology more inclusive and accessible. Our goal is to ensure that everyone, regardless of language, can benefit from AI advancements,” said Pavan Kumar Verma, Regional Business Head – MWP, Embee Software. Embee Software is a leading Microsoft LSP partner in India.

Separately, Microsoft is also expanding Copilot to different apps, adding its capability within the in-app environment. On Tuesday, the tech giant released Copilot for Telegram in beta for all users. The chatbot is free to use on the messaging app, although there is a daily message limit of 30 turns. Copilot is now also available in the Microsoft Launcher app for Android.

Call of Duty: Back Ops 6, the next instalment in Activision’s popular first-person shooter franchise, will be available on Xbox Game Pass at launch, Microsoft confirmed Tuesday. All Game Pass subscribers will be able to play the game on day one. The confirmation came days after reports claimed that the Xbox parent was planning to put the next Call of Duty on its game subscription service.

Microsoft has bet big on Xbox Game Pass, bringing all its first-party titles to the service at launch. That strategy has, however, cost Xbox in sales of its exclusive games. Bringing Call of Duty, one of the best-selling game franchises in the world, to Game Pass would likely result in subscriber growth, but could also end up hurting direct sales. On Game Pass, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 would be playable at launch at no additional cost to subscribers on Xbox consoles, PC and other supported devices.

In January, Microsoft provided subscriber numbers for Game Pass after a gap of over two years, confirming that the service had 34 million subscribers. While that represents a 36 percent jump from numbers reported over two years ago, gaming subscription services have struggled in recent times to add new paying members. Games industry analyst Mat Piscatella claimed earlier this month that spending on non-mobile game subscription services had stalled. “March 2024 non-mobile video game subscription spending was only up 1% vs the April 2023 figures…,” he said in his X post at the time.

Earlier this month, Microsoft shut down several game studios under its umbrella, including Hi-Fi Rush developer Tango Gameworks and Redfall maker Arkane Austin, in order to shift focus on to its “priority games”. While Redfall launched to negative reception and fell short of Microsoft’s expectations, Hi-Fi Rush, in the company’s own words, was a “break out hit” across “all key measurements and expectations.” A big chunk of the player numbers for the rhythm-based action-adventure title, however, was believed to have come from Game Pass, rather than direct sales. Releasing Call of Duty, a mass-market, money-spinning tent-pole franchise, on Game Pass could thus be Microsoft’s biggest bet on the subscription service.

Activision, which was acquired by Microsoft last year, confirmed last week that Black Ops 6 would be the next Call of Duty title. The publisher is planning a full reveal for the game at a Direct presentation immediately following the Xbox Games Showcase on June 9. Activision has so far revealed little about the game, releasing a few teasers and a live-action trailer since the game was confirmed. Microsoft said that it would share more details about Black Ops 6 at the Direct showcase, where players can expect the “first in-depth look at gameplay in this dark new chapter of the Black Ops series.

Microsoft Outlook received new features for its app on Android and iOS on Monday. The features were introduced as part of app updates on both platforms. According to Microsoft, the Compose and calendar functionalities have been improved on its iPhone app whereas the update for its Android app brings enhancements to events, search, and calendar. Furthermore, bug fixes have also been rolled out for both platforms.

Microsoft Outlook iOS app new features

According to release notes, Microsoft Outlook for iOS adds the Report Message option to the swipe action list. It also brings the ability to use a local account in Office 365 Box, the company’s content cloud where users can securely store their files online and easily share them.

The Compose feature is also claimed to be updated and users can now resend messages from the Sent folder. Furthermore, Teams meeting chat can now be accessed from the event details in the calendar.

Microsoft Outlook Android app new features

On Android, the Outlook app update brings improvements to events, search, calendar and box. Microsoft says users can now search past events for up to one year, compared to the previous cap of six months.

Additionally, a Teams tab has been added through which Teams chat messages can be searched. When a message is selected, it will open up the same message in the Teams mobile app. Users who do not have the app will be redirected to the Google Play Store instead, Microsoft claims.

It also brings the same functionality to Compose and events as introduced on iOS. Microsoft says the update for Outlook for Android fixes an issue that prevented the single sign-on flow from succeeding for Microsoft 365 accounts in some cases.

These features were introduced with Outlook for Android and iOS app version 4.2418.0.

Microsoft Copilot on Telegram

In another recent development, Microsoft integrated its artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot Copilot with Telegram, with a limit of 30 turns per day. It enables Telegram users to converse with the chatbot, ask questions and browse the internet.

Currently, the feature is released in beta, although it has been made available to all users for free.