Your Windows PC can now recall everything you've seen
What's the story
Microsoft has officially launched the Recall feature, almost a year after announcing it.
The feature is only available on Copilot+ PCs at the moment, a special category of Windows 11 systems sold in the last year.
Recall captures screenshots of everything you do on your PC, continuously, and stores them in a searchable database.
However, this poses major privacy concerns as anyone with access to your Recall database can see almost everything you've done on your PC.
Development
Recall's journey to public release was not smooth
Recall's journey to public release has been marred with challenges - from a rushed initial launch attempt and criticism over its security measures to multiple delays and a major internal overhaul.
The feature was tested for five months in Microsoft's Windows Insider beta program before its official launch.
Just two weeks ago, Microsoft had said Recall was nearing readiness for release when it appeared in the near-final Release Preview channel.
Security measures
Microsoft has addressed major security issues
Recent tests by Ars Technica and other security researchers have confirmed that Microsoft has fixed a lot of major security issues with Recall.
The company has introduced improved automated content filtering to keep the feature from storing certain kinds of sensitive information, but it is still inconsistent.
Most importantly, Microsoft has made Recall an opt-in feature rather than an opt-out one, letting users remove it completely.
New features
Recall is part of broader Windows 11 update
Recall is the most prominent feature in the latest update for Copilot+ PCs, which also comes with a new version of Windows's Search function.
The enhanced search can understand the contextual meaning of words or phrases, making searches more intuitive.
Another new feature called "Click to Do" lets users copy text from images, search screen content, and quickly summarize or rewrite on-screen text.
Hardware requirements
Copilot+ PCs require specific hardware
Copilot+ PCs come with specific hardware requirements, in addition to those required to run Windows 11.
The most important one is a neural processing unit (NPU) that can handle over 40 trillion operations per second (TOPS).
This NPU enables more AI and machine learning model processing on-device, enabling features to work faster without sending sensitive personal information to Microsoft's servers.