Ask Paul: March 1 (Premium)

Happy Friday! The first Ask Paul of March takes us far and wide, so it’s the perfect way to sit back, relax, and kick off the weekend a bit early.

Affiliate links

Leo_W asks:

Recently you’ve mentioned ad revenues for the site being down as well as your starting to use affiliate links. To help highlight the affiliate links, have you considered a specific section of the website to group those links? For instance, rather than search out your various “What I use” articles, have a section that lists each of the items you’ve used in the past or currently with the affiliate links. That way if we’re planning to buy a webcam, microphone, or whatever else, we could go to one central location to find the link.

That’s an interesting idea. Though I have from time to time used affiliate links, we are moving slowly into this as a more formal venture. So you won’t see a lot of it, and certainly not articles that I think of as ads (“This Lenovo xyz is down to an all-time low price,” etc.) But … yeah, having some kind of a central place for this makes sense, and it may work as a component of a new site header I’ve been trying to figure out: I want to have obvious graphical links to the Windows Intelligence newsletters, our YouTube channel, my books, and so on, and a “What We Use” or whatever link in there with a product lineup makes sense to me. I’ve mentioned this to my wife to make sure it actually happens. 🙂

I know in the past Amazon had a pretty strict set of rules for what would count as paying for affiliate links. For instance if people used an affiliate link, but the item was already saved in their wish list, then the affiliate didn’t get any money from the sale.

We’re still new to the nuances of this, but I believe there is a way to link to Amazon.com so that whatever you bought in that session would go through the affiliate program (which, again, doesn’t cost you anything, etc.). And maybe this will work, it’s hard to tell.

A million questions, as many opinions, few real answers

Ezzy asks:

Reading your article on copyright and AI I have a million questions. I don’t think there are any answers, but I’d love to hear your thoughts.

I feel the same way. I have very strong opinions about AI, copyright, and fair use, but it’s not clear if the current laws and regulations align with them fully. As noted, I do think they’ll have to change to adapt to this unique and unprecedented challenge.

There has already been a court ruling that AI cannot hold a copyright. Who owns the rights to the image you used (generated by AI) in that article? You for writing the prompt? Nobody? Is AI-generated content a whole new class of content?

This is a great question. I suspect it may vary by service, but in Microsoft’s case, it aligns with OpenAI: Any content you create using Copilot is the sole property of the user and it can be used for commercial purposes. Interestingly, I’ve seen some, including some in Microsoft’s support communities, claim that images created with Microsoft Designer can’t be used for commercial purposes, but that’s not what the license agreement says. It clearly states that “you may use [Microsoft Designer] Creations for any legal purpose.” (I suspect there are licensing differences between the free/consumer and paid/commercial offerings.)

In any event, the ownership bit, at least, is clear.

That said, Microsoft is obviously using these interactions to help train its AI, so it’s not clear if there’s a weird round-robin effect where the creations that are deemed acceptable by users—perhaps because they were downloaded in the case of images—are somehow weighted higher and fed back into the system, biasing everything in a certain direction. I bet there is.

And, for the mother of all self-licking-ice-cream-cones. If AI content can’t be copyrighted and Google decides it’s AI isn’t as good as Open AI’s, can it use ChatGPT to train Gemini?

LOL. You’ve just described the singularity. 🙂

Right now, whatever we create with AI is ours and so it is, by law, also copyrighted. Granted if you want to really push this legally to protect yourself, which you might as a business, you will need to register a copyright and then defend it against infringement. In my case, I don’t know that I feel all that protective of the images I’ve created so far. But I could see creating a logo, design, whatever for the site and wanting to protect that, of course.

I think it’s safe to assume that we are breaking new legal ground of all of this. It’s making my head explode, but it is going to be fascinating.

Same. As if AI weren’t dizzying enough, now we have all these legal issues to think about.

The hidden life of Moment 5

yb asks:

This coming Monday was supposed to be the deadline when Microsoft was going to enable EU users to remove Edge. Is there any new announcement from Microsoft on that? Is this part of Moment 5? Thanks…

I assume you saw that Microsoft finally announced what we think of as Moment 5 yesterday. But there is a story there.

Microsoft reached out to me last week to see whether I would agree to an embargo about upcoming Windows 11 news. Of course. And what they then sent was a pair of near-final blog posts, one for consumers and one for commercial customers that ended up as this post and this post, respectively. At the time, the embargo was set for Tuesday afternoon at 1 pm ET. And as is usually the case, Laurent planned to write the news story and I went through the changes to see whether it warranted a Premium post of some kind.

On Monday, however, we were told that the embargo had slipped to Wednesday at 5 pm ET. This was not good for me: I record Windows Weekly on Wednesdays from 2 pm to 5 pm ET (which is 1 pm to 4 pm for me here in Mexico), and so we’d miss what I figured would otherwise be the biggest story of the week. Given how long Windows Weekly can be, I added notes about the update to the Notion we use and figured we could stall and talk about it right at 5 pm ET, quickly, before signing off.

But Microsoft contacted us again Wednesday morning and said that they were delaying the release and would no longer be going live with the posts that day. That solved the Windows Weekly problem, I figured. But in getting ready for the release, I had written up an update post about the Windows 11 Field Guide that included information about how I intended to handle Moment 5-related content. And I hate not publishing. So I looked it over, stripped out the Moment 5 stuff, and published it as Windows 11 Field Guide: Looking to the Future.

And then Microsoft contacted us again on Thursday morning and told us that it was suddenly ready and would announce the update, and publish the two posts, that day at 5 pm ET that day. Great. If I could have just waited a day, then I could have just published that post as originally intended.

Here’s what’s interesting about all this to me.

Looking at the schedule, I had predicted that Microsoft would deliver Moment 5 in preview form on Week D in February, so this past Tuesday, and would then issue it in stable the following Patch Tuesday, which is March 12. And this schedule was confirmed by the original, near-final versions of the blog posts we received. They originally read:

Many of these new experiences will start to become available today [meaning Tuesday, February 27], via Windows Update and new apps available via Microsoft Store updates … Consumers who are interested in experiencing these new enhancements now can choose to do so by going to Settings > Windows Update and turning on “Get the latest updates as soon as they’re available” and then select “Check for updates” … Most of these new Windows 11 features will be enabled by default in the March 2024 optional non-security preview release for all editions of Windows 11 [i.e. Patch Tuesday in March] … We anticipate broad availability for most new features by the April 2024 security update release for all eligible devices [ie. Patch Tuesday in April].

Of course, by delaying the initial preview release past the Tuesday of Week D, Microsoft missed that first milestone, but only by a few days. And the rest of the schedule remains intact, as it would. So this release actually does follow the formal release pattern that Microsoft now uses. That’s not always the case.

This is probably only interesting to me. 🙂 But given how unpredictable Windows has become, I like to see this kind of thing.

Oh, and if you’re interested in the Windows 11 Field Guide, my original version of that post included the following:

And while there are at least no major new features, there are dozens of smaller updates to existing features. This is not a complete list, but in prioritizing the updates I will write the soonest and in order, I came up with:

Copilot. This will be a completely rewritten (third) version of the chapter.

AI features in Windows 11. I’ve been meaning to write about the many AI-based features that Microsoft has sprinkled throughout the apps in Windows 11 for months. The issues here are many, most obviously where to put that content. But it’s come to a head. So this will be next (and, I suspect, spread across several chapters as needed).

Windows 365. I’ve put this one off for too long.

And then the dozens of other per-app features. There are a bunch. Including those in Microsoft Edge, as I’m overdue updating those chapters.

This is nothing like the massive list I created for 23H2, thankfully.

Eero, Wi-Fi, and tracking

JHeredia asks:

You’ve talked about using the Eero routers and I’m very interested in following your recommendation, but I can’t shake the concern that, since eero is an Amazon company, it’s uploading all of my internet traffic to Amazon servers for cataloging, tracking, and sale. Is this unfounded? Did/do you have any of those concerns yourself?

Oddly, I never even considered that. Remember, too, I had come to this after using a Google Wi-Fi mesh system for several years.

But Eero does not track its users’ activities. In a burst of simple clarity, its privacy policy notes:

eero Networks do not track where you go on the internet.

This was the case when Eero was independent, and it’s true now that Amazon owns them as well.

Granted, Amazon is collecting data. Some of that is for telemetry purposes. Some is personal data for customer support purposes. And Amazon has an understanding of the Wi-Fi devices its customers use. But none of this data is sold to advertisers or other third parties.

Eternal Spring

SarahDuguay84 asks:

I am just wondering if you be making more Eternal Spring videos. That channel is super!

Thanks. And yes. We’ve been mostly posting Shorts during this trip, but we have a few normal-length videos to do, and we’ve been waiting to complete a few things. We got the apartment painted, and we had someone install two new power receptacles, add floating shelves and more shower hooks, put a light over the mirror in both bathrooms, and replace all the ceiling lights (which were a harsh blue/white) with warmer bulbs. That work will finish up today, ahead of our kids arriving here tomorrow, so we will try to get a video about that work recorded this afternoon.

As I write this, two gentlemen have arrived to replace our water heater, which you may know has not worked correctly since we purchased this apartment over two years ago. This is probably the 5th or 6th time people have been in our apartment trying to fix the water heater during this trip alone, and on one previous visit, they replaced the gas regulator with a larger unit, which like all previous “fixes,” worked for about a day and a half before the problems returned. We’ve never figured this out, obviously, and I’m past believing that anything they do now, including this water heater replacement—the new one is allegedly bigger and better in whatever ways—will really fix it. But hope springs eternal. We’ll mention this work in the apartment update video either way.

Next week, we’re going to have two iconic Mexico City experiences with the kids, assuming everything goes to plan. Popocatépetl (“Popo”), the local volcano, started acting up the other day, triggering flight delays and cancellations, but we’re hoping that has calmed down enough that they don’t have issues getting here. But we hope to have other videos (and shorts) come out of these experiences too.

We have other videos in various states, including something about the Metro, and something about a change in how we’re charged for purchases and ATM withdrawals. And we also tried to take enough photos and videos throughout this trip that we will be set up for more videos when we’re back home.

Anyway, that’s where we’re at. On hold while this heater does or does not get fixed. You know where my money is.

Hot dogs

jimchamplin asks:

Nathan’s Famous, Kayem, Boar’s Head, Sabrett, or New York System? And, how is the dog dressed?

There is only one way to get a hot dog, which is Chicago-style: Yellow mustard, sliced pickles, sweet relish (preferably the kind that looks neon green), chopped onions, lettuce, and tomato. It’s so fresh tasting it almost seems healthy. 🙂

Regarding the where, I’ve not tried all of those. Nathan’s and Kayem are both serviceable though. Locally, we get hot dogs at Mad Dogs in Macungie, where the Chicago-style dog is called “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” Of course.

Club TWiT

helix2301 asks:

Leo mentioned Hands On Windows audio shows are available for free now why are they doing that I don’t understand why club stuff is starting to creep out of the club. I still pay for Club Twit cause I like the ad-free and the video component but why did they start doing that?

TWiT is doing the same thing I’m doing as a business, trying to find a way forward in a world in which advertising revenues have fallen off a cliff. So they’re trying different things. The recent change you reference makes Club TWiT-exclusive shows like Hands-On Windows available to non-subscribers but only in audio as an enticement to get people to check them out and then pay if they like what they hear. While I can’t speak to all of the content behind that paywall, I can say that Hands-On Windows is worthless in audio as this is a visual, hands-on show that’s mostly screen recordings. It only makes sense in video form.

Anyway, making those shows available in audio solves a problem. Now it’s easier for potential subscribers to check out the shows. This is similar to the change I made at Thurrott.com recently, where non-Premium members can now see more of each Premium article. Before, it was a very restrictive subset.

Apple stuff

helix2301 also asks:

I also wanted to ask if you still have your m1 Mac you used to be in the dev program so you could see this stuff have you given up on that?

I still have the M1 MacBook Pro but it’s at home and I believe I wiped it out recently and don’t recall where I’m at with the system or Windows in virtualization. But I think they’re both just on stable now. I have other PCs, also at home, on various Insider builds.

Parallels is amazing use it on my Mac a lot is there anything as good as Parallels for Windows?

There used to be a Parallels Desktop for Windows, but I think it’s long gone. But this kind of product isn’t as necessary on Windows, given that Hyper-V is built into Pro and higher versions. And we do have free virtual environments like VirtualBox. To be clear, these are not “like” Parallels in that they don’t offer integration features like Coherence, they’re just straight-up VMs displayed in windows or full-screen.

When you think about the need to access applications that are not available on your platform of choice, there’s an obvious need to run Windows apps elsewhere, but less of a need to run Mac native apps elsewhere, including on Windows. The same is true of Linux apps, in general, though we have a Windows Subsystem for Linux for those developers who prefer that environment.

Any plans to try out Vision Pro? I really don’t get into that headset stuff right now I am messing with a lot ai using powder and clipchamp to make videos been a HUGE time saver. I see AI as a tool great that you can put a few hour stream into Ai and it spits you back best clips I think twit uses something similar.

No. No plans. No desire, no need, no way I’m spending that much money on something I’d never use anyway. If I was interested in AR/VR in any meaningful way, and I’m not, I’d start with a Meta Quest headset, which is much less expensive.

AI as a platform

will asks:

With the announcement this week of the Copilot add-ins, do you see Copilot becoming a bigger dev platform in the very near future? While you can build private GPTs, I am curious if there will be bigger options for companies to tie their services into the paid Pro and M365 Copilot versions with third-party services that companies already use.

I would start off a bit more generally: AI generally, or Copilot specifically, is already a platform and so, yes, of course, the ways that developers can access that platform—really “those platforms,” since there is so much to this—will explode in number alongside the rapid evolution of the platform itself. We are just two months into 2024, and we have already seen an enormous and unprecedented amount of change and evolution in Copilot, and that’s before we’ve even had a chance to look at building our own GPTs.

Based on recent history and yesterday’s many announcements, Copilot already supports plug-ins, skills, and custom chatbots, and I suspect that’s just the tip of the iceberg for developers who wish to integrate into this system. A lot of this feels like the digital personal assistant capabilities we saw previously, but it may be time to think of these things, or perhaps the unique combinations of these things, as “AI apps” of sorts.

That bit goes back to that discussion about orchestration in Windows 11 is About to Get Its AI Moment (Premium): There will be things that are immediately recognizable as apps, as we know them today, but the real power here is from orchestrating multiple capabilities from separate services into individual workflows. Which we may come to think of as apps, apps that are highly personalized and perhaps even one-off things generated in the moment, used, and discarded.

Anyway. We will see further APIs, SDKs, frameworks, tools, and more for developers who wish to take advantage of the platform. In the Microsoft space, a lot of that will come from .NET and Azure, but there should be big web dev pushes as well. And while I hate to keep handing off these discussions to some future milestone, we know that Microsoft’s developer show, Build, returns in May. So that’s an obvious time for a boatload of announcements.

Remember when we used to ponder “the next wave”? The search is over. We found it.