While you’re busy doing that or waiting for another survey to pop up, you may also want to know that your payouts might increase with a future update if the findings of X.com user and Google app investigator AssembleDebug are anything to go by.

More rewards please, Google 

Opinion Rewards will allow users to link their Gmail account to share receipts and earn more rewards.

Another string from the app-
• Share a receipt from %1$s by forwarding it to purchase@rewards.google.com#Google #Android pic.twitter.com/uD0qvNAPPh

— AssembleDebug (@AssembleDebug) April 10, 2024

Their post, spotted by Android Police, details evidence of a possible update that will allow users to link their Gmail account with Google Opinion Rewards to forward their digital receipts to earn more money. One specific string of code even mentions a seemingly legit email address – purchase@rewards.google.com.

This future feature makes a lot of sense given that, in other parts of the world where Opinion Rewards is available, some users are tasked with uploading photos of their shopping receipts for bigger rewards. Currently, the feature only allows uploading photos of receipts, making the process a lot harder if you’ve received yours in your email inbox.

We’ve never seen this task in the two or so years we’ve been farming free money so chances are these kinds of tasks aren’t available to South African users yet. But that could change with this update, which would streamline the process while also making it accessible to more users — more free money for more people.

When that will happen exactly isn’t as clear as the benefits of more free money. But, as with anything that offers free money, the sooner the better.

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Well, that was the case when the company first announced the feature a few months ago. But a message we received from the caller ID app today made us look a little further. Just as well we did, as the feature’s rollout seems to have reached South Africa.

Truecaller’s web client, accessed through a web browser in the same way as WhatsApp or Telegram, seemed a little underwhelming at first, but at least setting it up was simple.

Truecaller – Spammers be gone

Head over to https://web.truecaller.com/ on your desktop (both Windows and MacOS are supported) and scan the QR code from inside the Truecaller app via Messages > kebab menu (top right) > Messaging for Web. Only one device can be linked for now so you’ll need to manually unlink a device if you want to swap to another.

You’ll be greeted with a familiar-looking interface of your Android device’s message inbox once the setup is complete. There are separate tabs for promotional and spam messages so you shouldn’t have to wade through them to find the message you’re looking for.

Read More: Is another Instagram necessary? No, but TikTok is doing one anyway

But something similar is already possible on Windows for both Android devices and iPhones with Microsoft’s Phone Link feature, you might be thinking. Well yes, but Truecaller’s web client also includes the company’s phone number lookup feature as well — something Phone Link can’t offer. Received a call from a number you don’t recognise? If that number uses Truecaller or has called other Truecaller users who have taken the trouble to tag it, their info will appear.

Other than that, the web client will also provide users with real-time notifications of incoming calls. Those could be useful if you like to leave your phone on silent but still want to know when you receive calls without having to switch devices. A niche feature for sure, but a welcome one… for some people. We guess.

7,197 unique devices were recorded performing a collective 285,839 speed tests on the MyBroadband speed test platform all over South Africa from 1 January 2024 to 31 March 2024 to arrive at these findings. These speed tests, together with drive tests carried out in cities, towns and on the country’s main roads provide the basis for MyBroadband Insights’ findings and offer real-world performance metrics of South Africa’s mobile network operators.

MTN risks running out of award shelf space

With average download and upload speeds of 82.48Mbps and 24.03Mbps respectively, an average network latency of 24ms, and a Network Quality Score of 9.66 out of 10, MTN takes the cake for best overall mobile network in the country.

More specifically, the operator recorded wins as the best mobile network in most of the country’s major metropolitan areas, including Cape Town, eThekwini, Ekurhuleni, Tshwane, and Nelson Mandela Bay but lost to Vodacom as the best network in Johannesburg.

Vodacom wasn’t far behind first place with average download and upload speeds of 77.45Mbps and 14.74Mbps, an average latency of 30ms, and a Network Quality Score of 8.14 out of 10. MyBroadband Insights’ report notes that average network performance for LTE and 5G networks are calculated separately and that Vodacom’s 5G network ranked better than MTN’s. This could explain Vodacom’s standout victory in Johannesburg.

Read More: Rain is hiking prices at the beginning of June 2024

The network performance of Cell C, Telkom, and Rain was also recorded and, unsurprisingly, they didn’t do as well. Cell C and Telkom obtained average download speeds of 39.32Mbps and 30.49Mbps respectively with Rain only managing an average of 19.41Mbps.

While these results may or may not be surprising to you, it’s worth keeping in mind that they are only from the first three months of the year. There’s still another nine whole months for these five mobile network operators to battle it out for South African network dominance in 2024.

But why stop there? 2025 could hold the big break Cell C has presumably been waiting for and 2026 could hold big gains for Telkom. With hundreds of thousands more speed tests to run, it will never be finally decided who is the best mobile network operator. There’s still everything to play for and forever to play it in.

If your workload is mostly answering emails, filling in spreadsheets, and typing up documents, you probably won’t care too much that Huawei’s 2024 MateBook D16 can’t do fancy things, like turn into a tablet. It’s more focused on getting you through the day without wasting your time making you wait for things to load or getting bogged down when you open more than two Chrome tabs.

The classic laptop look

Huawei has played it safe with the MateBook D16’s design, not straying too far from previous MateBook D iterations. There are some slight changes, though. Our review unit arrived with a “Mystic Silver” chassis of which the lid and bottom plate are metal, giving this mid-range machine a premium feel. They also mean you won’t constantly find yourself wiping off fingerprints.

A ‘premium feel’ isn’t the same as full-fat premium so you can expect a little play near the centre of the lid. This doesn’t crop up unless you’re looking for it and we didn’t notice any structural issues in everyday use. The new 180-degree hinge was a lot more noticeable. It’s rather tight and makes one-handed openings next to impossible but that’s probably a trade-off for bending all the way over.

With metal chassis pieces, a large 16in IPS display, and a 70Wh battery, the fact that the MateBook D16 only weighs 1.7kg is slightly surprising. That might not sound like a big deal but if you have to lug a laptop around with you the whole day you’ll be thankful it doesn’t weigh more.

Slim bezels surround the display which boasts a 1,920 x 1,200 pixel resolution and 16:10 aspect ratio. It will get bright enough to handle overhead or ambient lights and can even be used outdoors but might struggle with direct light source reflections, despite the matte anti-reflective coating.

As far as performance goes, this panel provides a decent experience that gets better with a bit of tweaking. It covers 100% of the sRGB colour space so it’s also suitable for image and video processing. It’ll suit you fine whether you’re stringing letters together, airbrushing your ex out of photos, or catching up on Netflix but don’t expect any bells or whistles like HDR support or high refresh rates.

Isn’t an i9 supposed to be fast?

We’ll admit we got a little excited when we saw mention of the Intel Core i9-13900H CPU featured here. The ‘i9’ tag usually precedes impressive performance potential so is usually reserved for high-end gaming or workstation laptops that can cost more than double what Huawei is asking for the MateBook D16.

Turns out there’s a reason for that. The more performance you want, the more power you’ll need to provide and the more heat you’ll get in return. While we never noticed an issue with overheating even during prolonged stress tests, the power limits that Huawei has had to implement keep the i9-13900H from hitting truly spectacular numbers.

But benchmark numbers only tell part of the story; one person’s underpowered workstation is another’s overpowered office or student companion. Despite its paltry power limits, this MateBook D16 will still breeze through anything you throw at it – provided what you’re throwing doesn’t involve heavy graphical processing. Light image or video processing should still be doable but the integrated Iris Xe GPU will only get you so far. We’d recommend sticking to older 3D or 2D games in your downtime.

Additionally, 16GB of RAM should please browser tab hoarders, although there’s no way of upgrading that down the line. There’s a single M.2 2280 NVMe SSD slot which houses 1TB of storage. If that isn’t enough for you it’s possible to increase storage but that will mean replacing the current drive rather than adding a second one.

The upside of keeping the CPU’s power draw in check, together with a larger 70Wh battery, means that this particular MateBook D16 has the staying power to see you through a full day of use. During light to medium workloads in the performance power plan and at maximum brightness, we saw on average around six hours of battery life.

But that isn’t ‘a full day’ we hear you say. Yes, but you won’t be running it at max brightness the whole time and between our tests we only noticed a small difference between the performance and balanced Windows power plans. If you stick to the balanced power plan and set the brightness to a realistic level, you can expect up to nine hours of juice. If all you’re doing is streaming video, battery life expectancy jumps to between eight and twelve hours. A full charge will take around two hours with it switched on.

Side order of features

While quick CPU performance, a decent display, and impressive battery life are all great to have, the MateBook D16 isn’t without its faults, most notably an outdated feature set. The 720p webcam won’t do you any favours in conference calls and doesn’t support biometric sign-ins. The onboard speakers are mostly there to play Windows notifications, anything else will sound flat.

The port selection isn’t any better. There’s only one USB-C port (3.2 Gen 1) for power delivery and it doesn’t support Thunderbolt 4 or USB4 standards. There’s a full-sized HDMI port (as opposed to a mini one) but it’s limited to HDMI 1.4 bandwidth. Then, of the two USB-A ports, only one supports 5Gb/s speeds while the other is stuck in the 2000s with USB 2.0 speeds.

It isn’t all bad though, the full-sized backlit keyboard provides a comfortable typing experience and the trackpad leans towards the larger side. The power button and integrated fingerprint reader sits on its own and makes logging in a breeze.

MateBook D16 (2024) verdict

Huawei’s 2024 MateBook D16 seems to offer a fantastic package for the hybrid worker or student. It has a large IPS display and full-sized keyboard without being overly cumbersome or heavy, despite its metal chassis. The Intel i9-13900H CPU will power through pretty much everything that doesn’t require a dedicated GPU and the RAM and storage on offer should be enough for most folks – although it would’ve been nice to see extra slots for future expansion.

The apparent fantastic package erodes a little when you start to poke around. The outdated port selection means you may need to find workarounds or compromise on your peripherals and the 720p camera won’t impress hybrid workers. It isn’t exactly a budget buy either at R25,000.

There’s another MateBook D16 model that features a 12th-gen Intel i5 CPU for R15,000 but that comes with half the storage, a different display, and a smaller battery. Is the R10,000 price difference between the two worth going for the i9? That ultimately depends on you and your wallet but we’d advise weighing up your other options carefully.

Once we got over that and took a closer look at the anodised aluminium plates, oak wood handle, and paper fibre weave covers, we were reminded of Bang & Olufsen’s esteemed heritage – and that this speaker was probably a pricey one.

The Danish audio company has been around for nearly 100 years, making high-end audio products and the Beosound A5 is its latest portable wireless speaker, starting at R26,000. The price might sound ridiculous at first but after considering its performance, design, and the company responsible, things start to make a lot more sense.

Make a statement without saying a word

We’ll be honest, we couldn’t see past the picnic basket resemblance for the first few days of reviewing the Beosound A5 but it’s grown on us since then. It’s also available with anthracite plates and a dark oak finish. That one’s slightly more expensive but it probably won’t matter to you if you’re already considering a B&O product.

As ever, B&O has crafted premium materials into an exquisitely designed product that’s worth putting on show before you’ve even switched it on – for some people out there, at least. The materials, build quality, and attention to detail are a few of the design aspects that make the Beosound A5 stand out. They’re also why we’d hesitate to call this a ‘portable’ speaker, weighing just shy of 4kg. The solid oak handle carries the weight with no problem but this isn’t really a speaker for packing into a bag on a hike.

As far as physical features go, B&O has kept it minimal. The control buttons, recessed slightly into the top plate, provide good tactile feedback but are a little tough to see in low light. It’s not a big deal because you’ll probably be using the companion app most of the time anyway. The buttons give you control over power, Bluetooth connection, volume, playback, and four ‘favourite’ buttons that you can customise.

Between the buttons, you’ll find a Qi wireless charging pad. Using this to keep your smartphone going will take a chunk out of the A5’s 12-hour battery life but if you keep it close to a power source or leave it plugged in, that won’t be a problem.

Packed with features, not sandwiches

In fact, we’d recommend you keep it plugged in whenever possible. Its fantastic audio performance is enhanced by an intelligent room compensation feature that plays a tone and then uses the built-in microphones to work out the acoustic signature of the room to cancel out any resonant frequencies. But it only works when plugged in and manually told to. This isn’t the only speaker to use a feature like this but it’s among the best in the game to do so.

Before you can calibrate the speaker, however, you’ll need to download the Bang & Olufsen app. It offers a broad level of control including B&O’s signature Beosonic EQ, support for linking your Deezer account if you really want to, and access to connection settings. It’s also where you’ll manage your other B&O devices in your Beolink Multiroom setup or customise the four ‘favourite’ buttons to play a radio station or playlist of your choice.

Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.3 handle wireless connectivity options. We’d recommend sticking to a Wi-Fi connection wherever possible as this will offer the most control and is how you’ll stream music to the speaker, either with AirPlay, Spotify Connect, or Chromecast. Surprisingly for a high-end speaker, only SBC and AAC Bluetooth codecs are supported. We can’t say we missed high-res codec support streaming from Spotify, but it feels like an oversight when you’re paying this much.

Speaking of wireless features, while the A5 does have microphones and is compatible with a smart home setup and virtual assistant, your voice commands will need to be directed at your smartphone, there’s no support built-in.

How does this Beo sound?

Setting up and using the B&O app with the Beosound A5 was straightforward. We found the app to be a little laggy on our S20 Ultra while jumping between settings pages. It was, at most, a little odd and switching to a newer device helped somewhat. After the initial setup, you probably won’t be jumping between settings pages too often, B&O have placed the frequently used functions upfront.

The Beosonic EQ is one such function and a refreshingly different approach to personalising your sound. We stuck with the ‘Optimal’ sound mode during our tests although you’re presented with a few presets to choose from or the option to create and save your own.

Another important note, we’d recommend disabling the ‘Loudness’ toggle in the B&O app. It’s on by default and is supposed to boost deep bass and high treble when listening at low volumes. But the A5 isn’t short on bass even at low volumes and most people will be happy with the sound sans boost.

Tied into the sound modes is a toggle for directivity. The Beosound A5 features four Class-D amps that distribute its 280W total power between four drivers – a 13cm front-facing woofer, a 2cm front-facing tweeter, and two 5cm full-range drivers on the rear corners. These four drivers and their placement allow toggling between a narrow and omnidirectional sound dispersion.

We found the narrow, front-directed mode provided the best listening quality for indoor use, especially if you’re listening critically, whereas the omnidirectional mode is better suited for large spaces or outdoor listening.

Compensating for something?

Finally, we get to the Beosound A5’s sound performance. We’ll come right out and say this is one of the best portable wireless speakers we’ve had the pleasure of listening to. We were wonderfully surprised at just how big it could seem, effortlessly filling our relatively small room with its rich, full-bodied sound.

We mentioned bass earlier but it’s worth mentioning again. The A5 handles the low-frequency range with authority providing a clean, tight bass response that was never overbearing – not even during Hok-man Yim’s Poem of Chinese Drum.

There was one occasion when we found some distortion at the low end while we had it outside and were fiddling with the loudness toggle. The volume was nearly maxed (attempt with caution, it gets loud) when the bass response started to clip a little in Chase and Status’ bass-heavy Baddadan. In most cases and under practical listening conditions, this shouldn’t be an issue.

Similar poise and clarity are present across the rest of the frequency range. The delicate details of Yosi Horikawa’s Fluid were conveyed with airy confidence while Grace Jone’s vocals in Nightclubbing never seemed recessed, as they often are in less capable products.

Regardless of the genre we played, the Beosound A5 impressed us with its neutral tonality and made for a thoroughly enjoyable listening experience.

Bang & Olufsen Beosound A5 verdict

If you’re trying to find a good home for your spare R30k and need a wireless speaker for carrying around the house or entertaining guests on your patio…Get this one. It’s that simple. If you’re worried about people flinging basket jokes, go for the dark oak model.

Yes, it’s expensive, but B&O have still managed to make the Beosound A5 seem worth it. The pool of people who might find it appealing is admittedly rather small, mostly thanks to its price tag. But if you can stomach it, the Beosound A5 is one of the best-sounding battery-powered wireless speakers we’ve tried, with a fantastic build quality and robust feature set to boot.

You can find better value for your money elsewhere if all you care about is audio quality (you could also easily spend five times this amount), but that’s not what B&O is about. One of its key principles is longevity and the A5’s modular design together with B&O’s Mozart platform means replacing faulty parts or upgrading the streaming capabilities won’t require you to buy a whole new speaker every few years. But if you didn’t bat an eye at this price, you’ll probably buy a new one anyway.

There is an immediately obvious use case for the rugged Tank 3 Pro and its 23,800mAh battery — it would do well as a camping companion. But even then, it might be a little overkill because the enormous battery (which features 120W fast charging), rear LED light, and rugged IP68-certified design aren’t the only standout features.

For starters, it’s also packing a 200MP main camera sensor among the five on offer. There’s also a 50MP wide-angle sensor, an 8MP telephoto sensor, and a 64MP night vision sensor. Another 50MP sensor handles front-facing hole-punch selfie shots. A high megapixel count doesn’t guarantee great snaps, but it’s great for bragging rights.

When a smartphone and a power bank love each other very much…

The most interesting feature of the Tank 3 Pro isn’t something we’ve seen many phones do before. It’s got a built-in 100 lumens 120Hz DLP (digital light processing) projector that even has an adjustable focus. It’s perfect for impromptu outdoor sales pitches or ‘camping’ indoors while your load is being shed.

The regular smartphone bits are worth mentioning too. There’s a large 6.79in FHD display that will manage up to 120Hz refresh rate. A MediaTek Dimensity 8200 SoC powers everything, helped by a generous 16GB or 18GB of physical RAM and 512GB of storage. If that somehow isn’t enough, it supports up to 2TB with a memory card.

For wireless connectivity, expect 5G, Wi-Fi 6, and Bluetooth 5.3 support.

Finally, a 40m laser rangefinder lives inside for… doing stuff like this…

Don’t expect to find the Tank 3 Pro on local shelves but if you’re serious about picking one up, it’s listed on the official AliExpress 8849 store for a respectable R11,300 before shipping and import fees.

We can only imagine how awful that must be. Thankfully, this terrible plight is easily solved with the new 77in LG M3 wireless OLED evo TV — all it takes is a big enough wall and R130,000.

LG M3 OLED TV wins cable hide-and-seek

The LG M3 OLED evo is billed as “the world’s first completely wireless OLED television,” although you’ll still need to provide it with power. That’s the only cable you’ll find running into or out of this TV. Everything else is handled by the Zero Connect Box.

This isn’t the world’s first TV to move its ports from the TV to an external box, some TVs could do that already. But those lesser TVs still require you to plug that external box into the TV somehow. The M3 removes that requirement, transmitting the audio and video signal between the two wirelessly without losing any quality.

Any decoders, game consoles, or AV receivers you would normally plug into the TV now plug into the Zero Connect Box’s three available HDMI 2.1 ports — one of which supports eARC. It also houses an Ethernet port, a place to plug in a satellite or TV aerial, two USB-A ports, and an optical audio jack.

The wireless tech has a few limitations — its technology, not magic. While the box can be placed anywhere in the room up to 10m away thanks to its adjustable antenna, it still requires line-of-sight to the TV for the best results. You might get away with sticking it in a cabinet below the TV but that’s not guaranteed.

The other bits of the M3 OLED evo, like the usual smart TV features, jaw-dropping picture quality and colour accuracy, and webOS interface stick around. The M3 is based on the already impressive G3 OLED evo, so it also benefits from a boost in brightness thanks to LG’s use of MLA (Multi Lens Array) tech powered by the Alpha 9 Gen 6 processor.

This TV isn’t going to be for everyone. Some people might like their TV cables sticking out, who are we to judge? Then there’s the price. R130,000 is what the smallest 77in model costs. It’s also available globally in 83in and 97in sizes. You might be able to convince LG to bring one in for you but they’ll obviously cost more.

SIMA, which stands for Scalable, Instructable, Multiworld Agent, is currently still in its research phase and is being trained to learn a broad range of gaming skills across a variety of scenarios — instead of just destroying humans at StarCraft II.

Through partnerships with video game developers Hello Games, Embracer, Tuxedo Labs, Coffee Stain, and others, SIMA is learning how games work and how to apply what it learns to games it’s never seen before. DeepMind’s eventual aim with SIMA, other than furthering natural language AI model research, is for it to be a devoted member of your party that does what it’s told and doesn’t take all the good loot.

Does this SIMA good idea?

“SIMA isn’t trained to win a game; it’s trained to run it and do what it’s told,” said Google DeepMind researcher and SIMA co-lead Tim Harley, according to The Verge.

SIMA researchers have focused on games that involve open-world play, rather than linear or story-driven titles, so the agent can learn to follow instructions. To achieve this, SIMA was trained by watching pairs of humans play a game — where one watched and gave instructions while the other carried them out. In a different scenario, players played freely while DeepMind researchers recorded instructions that would’ve resulted in what the player did.

We’ll admit this sounds rather appealing. If you’ve ever played an online co-op game that drops in randoms, you’ll know how risky that can be. There’s a good chance of them ruining your game, whether through incompetence or toxicity.

Having an AI party member who follows instructions means you won’t have to worry about watching your back or your hard-earned loot. Don’t feel like spending hours collecting resources? Tell SIMA to do it while you handle more important tasks.

Read More: DeepMind is back at it again, this time teaching AI how to play football

However, as appealing as this might sound, it’s worth remembering how training AI models on human behaviour — especially when online human interaction is involved — has gone in the past. TayTweets, anyone?

This probably isn’t a problem in a controlled research environment but, should SIMA ever be trained on average human-based online gameplay, we doubt it will take long before the griefing starts.

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While the Magic V2 isn’t exactly new — it launched in China in July last year — it could still prove disruptive to the local foldable smartphone market. When it lands, it’ll claim the title of being the thinnest and lightest folding smartphone in the country against Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Huawei’s Mate X3.

The Magic 6 Pro, on the other hand, is entirely new and was only recently announced at MWC last month. Honor has Samsung’s Galaxy S24 Ultra in its sights as the only other phone available in the country (so far) with on-device AI capabilities. Both devices also feature pretty respectable spec sheets.

Honor brings fresh Magic V2 to SA

Being slightly older, the Magic V2 sports last year’s flagship Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 5G chipset with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. It might not be new but that chipset still offers impressive performance. Although, we’re eager to see how Honor handles the heat in the Magic V2’s remarkably thin and light chassis — we’re talking 156.7 x 145.4 x 4.7 mm unfolded and 156.7 x 74.1 x 9.9 mm folded while only weighing 231g.

The folding internal OLED display measures 7.92in with a 2,156 x 2,344 resolution. It uses LTPO (Low-temperature polycrystalline oxide) tech meaning it can vary its refresh rate, reducing it to save battery and increasing it up to 120Hz for buttery smooth scrolling or gaming. The Magic V2 also features a 6.43in LTPO OLED cover screen with a 1,060 x 2,376 resolution and HDR10+ support.

The Magic 6 Pro packs an equally impressive 6.8in LTPO OLED screen with a reported max brightness of 5,000 nits — that’s only just shy of the Sun’s 1.6 billion nits but certainly the brightness display you can get here. Behind the panel sits the latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset along with 12GB of RAM and 512GB storage options.

Honor’s marketing is making a big fuss about the Magic 6 Pro’s camera performance. It houses two 50MP sensors — one of which will use a variable aperture — along with a 180MP sensor behind a periscope telephoto lens. Up front, you’ll find another 50MP selfie cam and a TOF (time-of-flight) sensor for depth and biometrics.

The Magic V2 isn’t as focused on snapping pics but that doesn’t mean it won’t be capable. It also houses two 50MP sensors along with a 20MP telephoto shooter around back and a 16MP selfie cam.

When it comes to portable power, the Magic V2 uses Silicon-Carbon (Si-Ca) in its 5,00mAh battery, instead of the traditional Lithium-Iron Phosphate (Li-Po) used in most modern smartphones, and uses Honor’s 66W SuperCharge tech for refilling. The Magic 6 Pro packs a 5,600mAh battery which is based on the same Silicon-Carbon tech in the Magic V2 and will support charging at 100W wired and 66W wireless.

The Magic V2 and Magic 6 Pro will officially launch in SA next week. We’ll need to wait until then to find out when the devices will be available for purchase, although we don’t think it will be too long after the launch.

Some of the now-blocked prompts include “pro choice,” “four twenty,” and “pro life” after the platform was found to produce “demons and monsters alongside terminology related to abortion rights, teenagers with assault rifles, sexualized images of women in violent tableaus, and underage drinking and drug use,” according to a CNBC report.

Stuff can confirm that when provided with those prompts Copilot Designer shows a message saying it couldn’t generate images because “something may have triggered Microsoft’s Responsible AI guidelines.”

Microsoft’s Designer gets slap on AI wrist

A Microsoft spokesperson told CNBC about the changes, “We are continuously monitoring, making adjustments and putting additional controls in place to further strengthen our safety filters and mitigate misuse of the system.”

As reassuring as Microsoft probably wants that to seem, the fact that you can still generate questionable images or easily get Copilot Designer to infringe on copyrights after the changes isn’t doing the company any favours.

Read More: Microsoft Copilot celebrates 1st birthday with redesign on web and mobile

Neither is the fact that Shane Jones, the Microsoft engineer who wrote to the FTC, first tried reporting his findings internally back in December 2023. Microsoft acknowledged his concerns but that’s about as far as it went, instead referring him to OpenAI. After not hearing back from them, Jones posted an open letter to LinkedIn asking OpenAI’s board to suspend Dall-E 3, the AI model Copilot Designer is based on, until the issues could be resolved.

Microsoft’s lawyers didn’t like that and told Jones to remove his LinkedIn post, which he did. This is what prompted him to write letters to FTC chairperson Lina Khan and Microsoft’s board of directors, letters he shared with CNBC.

Not a particularly good look for Microsoft.

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