It hasn’t been a couple of peaceful weeks over at Microsoft, as it gets mired in the Recall controversy that ultimately resulted in the feature put on indefinite hold just several days before its launch date. Despite that, the company is still adding a new feature called “Screenray” – which works like Google’s Circle to Search feature.
Screenray: Recall’s “Circle To Search”
As reported by Albacore (writing for Tom’s Hardware), the new “Screenray” feature is added in the recent Windows 11 Canary build (26236.5000), and it gives users the ability to ask questions on whatever is currently on screen. This function can be triggered with the shortcut key Win+Shift+D.
Like Recall, Screenray mainly focuses on texts shown in screenshots, which offers the user several options – including translate, search, and copying the text. That said, it works with links and images as well, though the details are relatively scarce here. This works in similar principles as Google’s Circle to Search feature, albeit Microsoft’s implementation is more geared towards text prompts.
This Insider build also introduced some changes to the Recall experience, which now categorize screenshots with topics, a new home screen, search filters, and Copilot integration (similar to how Screenray works).
Note that Recall (and likely Screenray as well) will only be available to Copilot+ PCs when Microsoft eventually figures out the security aspects of the now-recalled feature. For now, only Qualcomm Snapdragon-powered laptops qualify for this designation, whereas Intel and AMD will soon offer their equivalents sometime later this year (with an accompanying update to enable the feature for supported models).
Pokdepinion: I can see Screenray being more useful and potentially less intrusive than Recall is (assuming both features can be split apart).
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