- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
Copilot key will eventually be required in new PC keyboards, though not yet.
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Before I even read it I knew it was more ads or AI of some sort and yep it’s both. Sure yeah we need more ads. Can I get a Microsoft store button on mouses now? Ohoh a dedicated 2nd screen for ads on every monitor. We must please the share holders and the rich!
I’m plenty fine with all ads consolidated to a dedicated monitor, that would certainly never face the wall on minimal brightness
Attention citizen, your Economic Consumer Activity Monitor has identified error with your system and/or the Citizen Observation Rate to the unit. Your worldwide credits have been locked pending resolution.
You’re joking but that literally exists
I’m plenty fine with an OS that doesn’t try to abuse me in the first place.
Do you remember a few years ago, it came out that some company was working on a new idea that, when you were given an advertisement on a TV, it could require you to say the product name aloud or it wouldn’t continue?
I try not to concede anything related to advertising because everything they want seems so dystopian.
Please drink a verification can.
I remember another one proposing using eye tracking on a phone’s selfie camera to make sure you were watching ads, with the ads pausing every time you looked away.
There was also another patent for a TV with an eye-tracker camera in it to make sure you were actually watching the ads, another one that would unmute itself if it was muted during ads, and one designed to count the number of people in a room to charge you for piracy if you didn’t buy enough tickets for everybody for pay per view shows.
Please drink verification can to continue.
Monitors come with proximity sensors now. If the monitor doesn’t detect a user in front of it, ads will be shown on the primary instead.
Hey, finally a legitimate reason for a Realdoll!
You’re right, but you also know the answer to this. Loath as I am to say it, the solution to this is simple: just use Linux.
If only keyboards would have function keys for this purpose, named F1 to F10 for example, so any program could use them for their specific functions…
Nahh gotta place them where they’re obvious in your face and a constant reminder of CONSUME PRODUCT and be accidently pressed! Can guarantee you it’ll take up part of the space of a key hotspot
At least on the PC, it’s easier to remap the buttons. What enrages me more are the TV remote controls with buttons dedicated to specific streaming apps. I mean… none of these services will outlive the TV itself. I’ll just have to look at buttons that do nothing for years.
If you’re using Android TV, you can use something like https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=flar2.homebutton to remap the button to another apps or any other functions
I need that for my Roku. I may just write an automation in Home Assistant that will switch to whatever app I programmed if I press the Paramount+ button. Unfortunately that means I need to install that app on the Roku itself.
I personally recommend tvQuickActions for remapping. Pro Version.
It is quite feature rich as well for power users
I personally find those useful, but I can never find the combination of services that works with my needs.
There’s always like Vudu or Sling that just becomes a wasted button.
Anybody down to 3D print us some? :)
I get your point but at least three of those services will outlive the tvs expected life. Netflix Hulu and espn aren’t going anywhere, at most espn will be rolled into Disney+ and a software update could point that button to it
My TVs crackle and I heart radio buttons on the other hand…
Maybe even F13 to F24 if more is needed?
Because they used to exist, and support for them still does. Really handy for macro keys.I’d like them to leave F13 onwards alone, purely because it’s nice that they’ll only ever do what I want them to do
Here’s an idea… what if we had every key do all kinds of weird shit?
I remember those keyboard layout cutouts (were they called keyboard templates?) you got which you put on the keyboard with extra explanations of what each function key did in WordPerfect or Lotus or whatever.
I’m old.
Yeah I remember them too. Sometimes games would come with them even, to help with all the keyboard shortcuts. :)
I found out recently that you can buy replacement keycap sets that have many of the Vim functions printed on them, and I thought that was pretty exciting. I am also old, lol.
After 25 years of using vim I have replaced a lot of otherwise useful reflexes and brain capacity with vim keybindings (using a swedish variant of Dvorak none the less). I am way too old for needing a cheat sheet stuck on the keyboard, and it would even then be wrong not using QWERTY.
Removed by mod
I requested it, but I was only kidding!
copilot key will eventually be required
Fuck that, and fuck you, Microsoft
Microsoft learns nothing from their continued pattern of going all-in on a trendy and unproven concept. Windows 8 “live tiles” that were supposed to create one look and feel across devices, Cortana was supposed to be the digital assistant of the future, they even did their own poorly executed folding phone.
M$ can get absolutely fucked
Gee, I imagine this will go the same way as Cortana, but now there will be a key forever visible to be it’s gravestone.
Just don’t replace your keyboard.
I got a fancy custom keyboard for my birthday which is properly repairable and will most likely never need to be replaced.
Laptops bud
I don’t know how long you think you have left to live, but I wish you to change that keyboard someday
Wooting two?
Have been using the same Kinesis Advantage daily for 23 years now.
Not a single part has been replaced or repaired, only taken apart to be cleaned.
You say don’t replace your keyboard and then within 6 words mention the thing that doesn’t ever have to have some key ms has decided to add to keyboards. Leave the windows key off, too.
Oh cool, another useless gimmick just like the ‘Office Key’
What about the LinkedIn key.
That’s actually a shortcut for ctrl+alt+shift+L… that is an (unconfigurable?) hotkey for opening LinkedIn in edge.
Actually, a dedicated key to open ChatGPT seems convenient. I don’t hate it.
Can’t you go in your system settings and bind whatever combination you like to do just that?
Don’t you see? They’re fucking with the denominator. My 60% is already technically closer to 58%. If they keep adding keys, I don’t know how my mech can keep up with the shrinkflation. I can’t become one of those 50% weirdos. Microsoft is just finding more ways to ruin my life.
It’s already mapped to Windows Button + C.
Yeah and I already do. But why make it a key combo when you could just have a single dedicated key instead?
It’s not like anyone actually uses the menu key or the right Start key anyway. 'Bout damn time Microsoft remaps them to something more useful. Next they should do the Pause/Break key. That one hasn’t been useful since the DOS days.
We should also get a chrome key
And a windows store key
And a Microsoft.com link key
A key to open minecraft
Why not a key for launching the “windows action menu” or whatever they call it
A key to open the control panel
How about a key to open the settings menu?
Why are we limiting ourselves? We should have 500 keys and at least 300 of them should be unique to windows.
Try a stream deck, each key is also a small monitor for customizable button actions.
You think you are joking but in the 90’s that was a thing for keyboards.
it had a few hardcore fans, a quick search for RT9450 shows people still trying to get that to work up to about 2020
honestly i wouldn’t mind having another scroll wheel/bar on the keyboard somewhere, in the middle above the function keys might be cool
also fyi that link can be tidied to https://www.ebay.com/itm/363221421164
Because none of those keys are useful. AI is useful and isn’t Microsoft exclusive.
Once keyboards start adding the key, I’d be legitimately surprised if the major Distros didn’t eventually follow suit and integrate AI into their platforms as well. Hell, it might get built right into your favorite desktop environment in a couple years.
I get your point, AI is useful for some people, but what about the rest of us who don’t want it or use it? I genuinely use the menu key and would prefer to keep it functioning as it does and now I’m going to be forced to lose that key and now I have to deal with AI? It has no use for me. I also don’t want something actively watching and “thinking” about what I’m doing. I want my computer somewhat dumb and to only do what I tell it to. If you want a keyboard with a dedicated AI button, get one with a macro pad or something. Don’t inconvenience the rest of us by forcing a nonsensical change
Their point was that you could just assign the scroll lock key (or whatever) to open ChatGPT instead because who the fuck uses scroll lock?
Funny you say that, cause as a FL Studio user I hit that key all the time. (It switches between auto/manual scrolling of playlist, i.e. it locks/unlocks auto scrolling.)
Im pretty sure you could look up key remappers and do that already
Yes but you’re missing my point entirely. What I’m saying is that I’m happy that Microsoft is making it official, so that I don’t have to remap anything.
MS used to sell a keyboard with a custom button to start your web browser.
Now that web browsing is common but that key has been removed from keyboards, do you still remap a hotkey to bring up Firefox?
I’m ambivalent about all this, but I think the distinction is that a web browser button would simply open a persistent window, and therefore only really needs to be used once or twice per “session”. Copilot is designed to act more like the Start menu, in that it is opened frequently and disappears after each use.
That being said, and as much as I use ChatGPT myself, it’s hard to see this as anything more than an easy way to further the perception of Microsoft as first-class AI company, thereby justifying its high stock price for a corporation with limited new growth opportunities.
Hey! I do use menu key regularly! And same with pause and scroll lock! Print creen is obvious and everyone uses it. Right? Right!? RIGHT?!?
You can do Windows Button + C to open CoPilot.
The Clippy Key.
“It looks like you’re trying to make 3d SpongeBob bukkake porn. Can I help?”
OR, hear me out, we just have it mapped to alt+win(meta) key and this will be a nothing burger.
It’s already mapped on windows to Window button and C.
I can’t even begin to articulate my hatred for the current Microsoft business model. People used to joke how evil they were but it’s only continued to get worse
Ugh. Why do keyboards have to have Microsoft logos. I hate it. I want nothing to do with them.
Well, somehow keyboards are now a niche boutique industry where people spend hundreds of dollars putting together custom-made minimalist builds like they’re honing a weapon in an action movie. I find that’s probably dumber than a corporate logo becominmg a default key (which to be fair has been a thing since the 80s, the C64 had a Commodore key), but it does mean that if don’t want it, you can get a keycap with anything you want on it instead.
There’s nothing dumb about a keyboard personalized to your exact tastes and preferences that also makes your job easier and reduces RSI. But like, that’s just my opinion, man.
Your user name is “dyikeyboards”, I feel like we’re gonna agree to disagree on this no matter what I say, and I’m fine with that.
You might be surprised. I’ll be the first to tell you there’s a ton of overpriced, silly hype in the keyboard space. Exotic materials, lubes, and switches that have no measurable impact on performance are common. So are extremely detailed and expensive artisan keycaps. It’s a collector hobby for many. That’s not my thing.
OTOH, there are also some serious gains to be had for professional computer jockeys.
My daily board is just 42 keys, and I absolutely love it. There’s a learning curve for sure, but once mastered you’re on a new level. For instance, I can access all my standard keys, num now, function keys, and arrows without having to move my hands off the home position. It’s brilliant.
Random question for a keyboard aficionado: have you investigated the CharaChorder?
I’m aware of it, but haven’t tried it. There are hobbyists using chording already (this is how stenographers type so fast, combined with shorthand) so the idea isn’t new. The innovation here would be the directional movements in replacing traditional keypresses. I’d give it a go. I suspect the learning curve to be really steep though!
That was my basic assessment as well, I’m not sure the gains are worth trying to unlearn 30+ years of ingrained keyboard habits! Thanks for your take on the subject
That last paragraph would be more convincing without the typo in it.
You determine trustworthiness based on presence of typos?
When you’re talking about how great your custom keyboard layout is, yes.
The difference is that the C64’s keyboard was physically part of the C64…
I feel like that caveat holds up until you buy a laptop.
Found the membrane lover
What did the commodore key do?! Launch the evil cat typing tutor?
You can still buy a cheap basic keyboard, or a decent Logitech at a reasonable price. You can totally ignore the “niche custom keyboard” market. Most people don’t even know it exists.
What’s annoying is that laptop will now come with that stupid key.
You can totally ignore the “niche custom keyboard” market.
With a place like this on every street corner?!
(Just kidding, anyway this little place is an hour south of San Francisco in San Jose.)
That is an actual store that makes real money in U.S. dollars?
Years ago, I invested $120 or so on a clickey-clackey Das Keyboard and it’s been just fine. That is by far the most I will ever spend on a keyboard. The only thing I don’t like about it is that it takes up two USB ports and it’s old enough that the built-in USB ports are only USB 1.0. That’s how long it’s lasted me.
A decent keyboard is worth an investment if you use it all the time and want a good feel when you type, but people take it way too far.
Keyboards, gaming controllers, pens, pillows, lamps, golf clubs, tools…
You can overspend on anything and hobbyists/wealthy people do.
How is investing $120 on a keyboard that is extremely comfortable for me to use that I’ve kept since the USB 1.0 era overspending?
I’m far from wealthy. I bought that keyboard when I was working a $10/hour part time job.
If you had a WFH job, would you buy a $20 chair from Walmart or invest $100-$200 on a chair where you’ll actually be comfortable all day and not develop back problems? And you don’t have to be wealthy to work a WFH job either. My last job was a hybrid WFH/in-office job. I was paid less than what would be minimum wage in California.
If you can type so fast that USB 1.0 isn’t fast enough, keyboards are not the interface for you.
No, the ports on the side of the keyboard that are pass-throughs.
I don’t get the hate on custom keyboards. Sure you can go overboard, but like… I spend eight hours a day using a computer for work and then when I’m done I use another computer for fun. It’s not absurd to spend a few hundred bucks on a keyboard that you can expect to last 15+ years instead of the $20 ones that you throw away every year or two or as soon as one thing breaks.
There are definitely keeb elitists though, which is always shitty no matter what hobby you’re talking about.
I don’t hate. I like a good keyboard.
Now, do I think obsessing about the extremely specific properties of switches and keycaps and spending hours manually embedding each individual key component just to get a specific color combination makes sense as a hobby? Hell no. But then neither does collecting stamps or watching people’s grocery runs on Youtube. You do what you want, and this hobby at least lets you put whatever icon you please on the Bixby button.
I’ll say this, though, that justification, which I have used often to myself and others, is a terrible rabbit hole of mismanaged finances. That is true of your monitor, your PC, you laptop, your phone, your keyboard, your chair, your desk… by the time you’re done you’ve spent a year’s salary setting up your workstation with absurdly luxurious, custom gear that sometimes makes no discernible difference. By all means get whatever stuff saves you from injury and provides comfort and satisfaction, but we all know in many of those categories the quality curve flattens out way before the price curve does.
Also, I guarantee most people with a custom keyboard swap it out more often than people who are still using the crappy board that came for free with their prebuilt or was given to them at work. I have dirt cheap Dell keyboards that still work fine. I may not love how they feel or sound, but it turns out we mastered the art of making buttons a while ago and closing a circuit with a conductive pad reliably is not a particularly costly proposition. Hey, buy good keyboards for the feel or because you have a glitzy hobby, but don’t lie to yourself or me about it. You’re a grown person, own that superfluously expensive nerdy taste. If boomers could brag about their fountain pens you can smugly bore your friends talking about the injection molding in the keycaps matching a specific pantone that you bought.
You can get a quality mechanical keyboard in a layout of your choice and take your pick from hundreds of keycap sets in whatever color, profile, material etc. you can think of.
Keychron.com is a good starting point that won’t break the bank (but order them from a reseller or Amazon if you can, Keychron themselves aren’t great with returns and support).
You can get far better than keychron for a fraction of the price. Keychron is over hyped.
Where can I buy these not over hyped but far better keyboards? I’m being serious, I need a new keyboard. Two actually, but one is like DIRE
I typed out an entire reply with pictures and everything and it just went into the void when I hit send. I’m not putting in another 15 minutes of effort, because I have to get on to some other things, but I’ll do my best.
So I live in Canada, so pricing may be different for you than me. A cheap Keychron here is around $100, and I can get a good, hotswappable with removable cable for $40-$50 CAD ($30-$40USD).
I owned a Keychron because I wanted to have a keyboard that could be plugged in and use bluetooth, but the bluetooth side of things was a mess, so I sent it back. So I am not speaking out my ass about the keyboard. Aside from that, it was an okay keyboard, but didn’t offer anything a cheaper keyboard couldn’t do (bluetooth aside).
Here is a 60% on Amazon.ca with hotswappable, and removeable keyboard, with red switches for $35.99 CAD right now ($27.02 USD).
Another for $43.04 CAD here
A nearly fullsize for $49.99 CAD with a $5 off coupon here
An 89 key for 39.99 here
All of them have back lighting as well. And I just looked at the first page without refining my results.
And here’s a few off amazon.com in case you are American:
This is a 98 key mechanical (no detachable cable though) on sale, with a $3 coupon for $29.99 USD (26.99 USD) here
75% for $28.99 with a $6 coupon (USD) here
I love American prices lol.
Here is a 65%, with wireless and wired, hot swappable and backlit for $19.99 here
Just take a look for what you want, and you will find something in your price range that has the features you want. The market is flooded with them, and they will last just as long as the expensive ones. Mine is a 75% going on 10+ years now and my daughters is about 9 years old. I splurged on my partner and got her a GMMK fullsized $100
Here’s mine and I love it: https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/ab5a48a3-3e7f-48c9-ba81-835d85d2aa1f.jpeg
The switches and keycaps on mine are more expensive than the board itself. I’ve went through 5 or 6 different switches to find what I liked best and used three different keycap styles. Very customizable. The only thing I don’t like about mine is the cable is not removable.
I hope something in here useful. Take care!
Such as what? I’ve always found Keychron to be cheaper
I find it difficult to believe you can go much cheaper than the $50 where Keychron starts for their C series and still get quality.
A couple of years ago when I was looking for a cheap 80% to use as backup and occasional server work I shopped around and you can find stuff at $30-40 but it’s not exactly impressive.
Royal Kludge are a decent alternative but they are not “a fraction of the price”, in fact they’re pretty much the same.
They’re so desperate for AI to be a thing.
AI is absolutely “a thing”, not sure there’s really a debate about that. The desperation here is they want to be the first company to completely immerse itself in Generative AI, but they’re moving so fast they’re just shoving every experiment they can come up with down their customers’ throats.
AI is going to be a huge part of the future, but Microsoft might not be a part of that future if they fuck up with over implementation of nascent tech.
My bad, I should be more specific. They’re so desperate for a fancy chatbot to be a part of everybody’s workflow that they’re going to add a special key that is not needed, or wanted by the vast majority.
I hope this can be remapped to something useful.
You mean the Bixby button? (/s, but I think you can see my comparison of uselessness there)
Yeah, I’m glad the Bixby button was dropped. What a joke. I don’t need an assistant to use my phone, thanks.
I’m surprised people didn’t instantly remap the Bixby button to something else.
On my S10 I had it long press to activate flashlight, and double press to silence my phone. It was really handy.
Wasn’t that impossible for awhile?
Maybe, but I’m trying to remember which model. My S8 and onward I always remapped my Bixby button via 3rd party app (no root) so maybe it was the S7 that wasn’t remappable?
Wasn’t that impossible for awhile?
The button itself wasn’t bad Have such an extra button on my Sony too and it’s very nice (I have it set to take screenshots).
The problem is when they don’t let you map it to whatever you want.
I agree with you, AI is a thing alright, an overhyped chatbot thing. LLM’s are going to be neutered by pandering, and the true potential will be limited by investor fear and paranoia.
What makes you think they’ll be neutered? You think China is going to stop what they’re doing with them because the US might do something stupid? The genie is out of the bottle.
It’s a trend lately, that potentially sensitive things will be said or output from the models, so you can see an increasingly crazier set of guardrails getting put around the LLM’s so that they don’t offend someone by mistake. I’ve seen their usefulness decrease significantly, but their coding assistance is still somewhat good, but their capabilities otherwise decrease significantly.
I haven’t had those problems with locally run models (stable diffusion, llamafile)
I understand why it would seem unimpressive someone that doesn’t do something like research or programming in their daily life but when you do those things it’s very clear the difference they’re already making.
The thing I’m coding at the moment for example I’ve been using it to tear ideas for image processing scripts, it’d have taken me a day to do one before maybe longer but even the free gpt can have an idea working after half an hour or fiddling. Being able to focus on coming up with ideas rather than the finer details of implementation.
We’re going to see people get used to using them properly and their uses spread into many other areas of life - you will be customising games UI and making complex control input using natural language tools ‘Linux, remove the clock and put a system resource thermometer there instead for whatever bits are most likely to overheat’ ten years from now you’ll look back and wonder how people did anything without ai just like people often wonder how we lived without internet and mobile phones
I use copilot on a daily basis for programming. It has made me much more productive and it’s a real pleasure to use it. Nothing overhyped about it.
Curious to see what it will bring for other domains, e.g. for dealing with emails.
I do agree that there’s a lot of filtering happening. Not a huge deal for more applications. Luckily you can run your own models that are not filtered. I can definitely see a future where you run your own models locally. Afaik Apple recently did some stuff around that.
Why are you talking about what Apple might do, in relation to locally run models, when that’s what Facebook’s already done? And it’s source available, which is more than the Apple one will likely be.
It’s overhyped but LLMs have become basically an essential part of my daily workflow. I can’t imagine developing without it now and I’ve been using them for less than 12 months. The technology is only going to improve, and that’s both cool and scary to think about.
neutered by pandering
Opinion discarded.
Why? It absolutely is the case that corporate provided LLMs are neutered to not provide anything that goes against 21 century American corporate norms. Try and get chat GPT to agree with you that capitalism is at the root of most of the worlds problems and it will fight you every step of the way, ask it about how capitalism drives innovation and it will write you glowing praise.
They are neutered to comply with current hate speech laws, and the developers err on the side of caution cause they don’t have full control over the output for which they are legally responsible.
And again, install Linux and get rid of this Microsoft bullshit
This is way more about advertising Copilot than actually needing a new key. M$ gonna $.
