Despite Microsoft recalling its Copilot + PC flagship feature ahead of a public launch, the company continues to plug away at making the screenshot gathering tool a more robust offering eventually.
As Tom’s Hardware reports, Microsoft may have recalled Recall but it’s already working on new features to provide users despite not having a confirmed launch date.
Tucked away in the latest Windows 11 Canary release (build 2636.5000), Recall receives several user interface improvements as well as a new analysis feature called Screenray.
It’s unclear why Microsoft continues to lean into its intrusive AI metaphors for its latest AI efforts, but Screenray functions less eerily as its name would imply.
Screenray is contextual search built atop the current Recall framework that allows users to ask questions about the state of their desktop while operating it in real time.
With a key combo of Win+Shift+D, users can summon Screenray similar to screenshots in Windows, and the utility will do a quick analysis of all contents currently open on the desktop and present a workable canvass/snapshot that will host selectable text, links, and images.
Screenray will default to Microsoft’s Copilot branded interface that presents a small search box similar to the context search already in Windows. Users can select from a handful of options when using the Copilot branded context search in Screenray that includes:
- Describe the image
- Find Similar images
- Create a similar image
- Copy
- Open with
- Translate
- Search the web
Screenray appears to be a response to skeptics of Recall, allowing users more manual control of how and when Microsoft surfaces desktop data.
In addition to Screenray, Microsoft is also improving the overall look and feel of Recall that shifts the user interface from the single image scrollable UI to grid style of stacked thumbnails.
Microsoft has also added a new data filter for searching Recall under the listing of Topics that sits above recently gathered snapshots.
Jumping into Recall is also less jarring for users thanks to the tweaks the Windows team recently implemented. Instead of users grabbing a screenshot of the current screen and being thrown into the Recall interface, summoning Recall now results in users being presented with a landing page of sorted historical data.
Microsoft is also working to improve its tagging intelligence in Recall by allowing users to apply their own tags to identify certain collection behaviors. Going forward, users can apply a tag to certain collected screenshot, and ‘Sace as a collection’ and the Recall AI will begin sorting screenshots with similarly identified content.
Microsoft is also playing around with the use iconography to identify content analyzed in collected screenshots with a new Search Results filter that will show a collection of buttons or icons that represent apps that are captured in each screenshot as well as the same icon presented in the bottom corner of the screenshot.
Interestingly enough Microsoft is finally injecting its branded AI technology into Recall with actual Copilot integration. Prior to the latest Canary Insider testing, Recall didn’t display a whole lot of Copilot branding, as if Recall was its weird Privacy nightmare unto itself.
Now it looks like the same Copilot search used in Screenray can now be used in conjunction with Recall to gain further contextual analysis of screenshots that include broader search queries, translation, or finding similar content.
Whether or not the public sees an official rollout of Recall remains a question but the latest updates to the platform look promising for people eager to test the full extent of their new AI powered PCs.
