Boosting Photo Pixels with AI: What's New for Windows Users?

Ever wanted to make your photos look better without spending hours editing? Microsoft's Photos app on Windows is rolling out some cool AI features that might pique your interest. If you're one of the lucky ones with a Snapdragon Copilot+ PC, you can now upscale your images up to eight times their original size. This means your photos will look crisp and clear, even when you zoom in. But why just Snapdragon users? Microsoft says it's because of something called Neural Processing Units, or NPUs. While that's true, it's also possible that they want to give certain users a special treat. Another nifty feature is Optical Character Recognition, or OCR. This lets you select and copy text straight from images in over 160 languages. No more tedious retyping! Plus, the Photos app has been given some neat upgrades. For instance, you can now open images with just a single click. Large images will also resize automatically to fit your screen. And for those who enjoy a bit of editing, there are some bug fixes for the Image Creator and Restyle Image features. Earlier this year, Microsoft started testing an AI-based eraser for the Photos app. Recently, Insiders got to try out fill and erase functionalities in Microsoft Paint. This means you can do some basic AI editing without having to pay for a Photoshop subscription. Pretty neat, huh? But the future is even more exciting. Soon, you'll be able to find photos using text prompts with the help of generative AI. And there's a new feature called "Click to Do" that will offer editing suggestions for images, text, and websites right on your screen. It's like AI is about to become your personal editing assistant! But here's something to think about: while these features are cool, they also raise questions about privacy and accessibility. Who gets early access to these features, and why? And how do these AI features handle our personal data? These are important questions to consider as we move into the future of AI in photo editing.