Microsoft unveiled its new Recall feature on Monday — alongside new Surface Laptop 7 and Surface Pro 11 devices — and it’s designed to track and save your every move on your PC. Plus, it lets you to retrieve everything you’ve ever seen on your screen.
It’s reminiscent of that one Black Mirror episode, featured in the first season, called “The Entire History of You.” It’s about a fictitious, ultra-modern, sci-fi society where everyone wears an implant that records everything they do, see, and hear. In typical Black Mirror fashion, and without spoiling too much, the episode ends in chaos, making viewers reflect on whether such an invasive technology is worth it.
Recall, as it stands now, is nowhere near as bonkers as the “personal recorder” implant depicted in Black Mirror. It’s an innocuous feature built to be a helpful perk for Surface users. However, we can’t help but notice some parallels.
What is Recall?
Recall is like hitting CTRL + H or Command Y, but instead of just getting a history of your browser activity, you’re getting insight into everything you’ve ever seen on your Surface PC. How does it work? Windows 11 takes screenshots of your screen consistently before using the on-device generative AI model, and the NPU (internals that facilitate AI processing), to retrieve anything in your past with natural language.
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