Windows 11 gets AI eraser and image upscaler
Microsoft announces some new AI features for Windows 11. If they work well, they will make the NPUs much more useful.
(Image: Microsoft)
Notebooks with a Snapdragon X processor from Qualcomm, Intel Core Ultra 200V (Lunar Lake) or AMD Ryzen AI 300 will receive new AI functions that run on the integrated Neural Processing Units (NPUs) from November. These updates appear to be more useful than previous functions such as the paint image generator.
For example, Microsoft is developing an upscaler that increases the resolution of images up to eightfold, similar to the free Upscayl tool. This is particularly useful if you only have highly compressed or low-resolution source material.
(Image: Microsoft)
Eraser and filler
Paint gets Generative Fill and Generative Erase, which is reminiscent of the AI functions of Photoshop and Google's Pixel smartphones. Generative Erase is an intelligent eraser that removes unwanted objects, animals or people from images and inserts a replacement that matches the image instead. This allows you to erase unwanted fellow tourists from your vacation photos, for example.
With Generative Fill, you can tell Paint what to insert at a certain point using a text prompt. According to Microsoft, it has improved the underlying stable diffusion model in order to optimize image generation. This is sorely needed, as the Paint image generator has so far delivered only mixed results.
(Image: Microsoft)
Screen recognition with task suggestions
Click to Do is like a souped-up snipping tool: If you hold down the Windows key and then click on the screen, the function highlights the entire screen content and then suggests context-related options. If Windows recognizes an email address, for example, it suggests sending an email to the address.
(Image: Microsoft)
For images, Click to Do suggests a reverse image search with Bing or post-processing steps such as removing or blurring the background. Microsoft is hinting here that the tools mentioned above will also move directly into the Windows photo display. Meanwhile, Windows Explorer is set to receive promised AI enhancements, such as the new image search for visible content.
Microsoft plans to test the functions in the Windows Insider Ring over the coming weeks. From November, distribution to all Windows 11 PCs with Copilot+ certification will gradually begin. It remains to be seen what will happen to desktop PCs that use graphics cards with AI computing units. AMD and Nvidia are integrating them into current Radeon and GeForce GPUs – but Microsoft has so far completely ignored graphics cards.
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