Spotted on Hacker News: Search Bench. From the announcement: “I built Search Bench as a small experiment to compare search engines without showing which engine produced which results. It was inspired by the idea behind the LLM Arena, but applied to search.” I did two searches, one with a common word (cows) and one with a much rarer word (agrivoltaics). The cow query was a close choice but I […]

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Search Engine Journal: 19 WordPress Alternatives: From Simple Builders To Enterprise CMS. “This guide provides an overview of leading WordPress alternatives across key website categories. We explore user-friendly website builders that offer drag-and-drop simplicity. We look at flexible open-source options for developers and tech-savvy users. We also cover blogging-focused options, ecommerce […]

ZDNet: I’ve used nearly every browser available and these are my top 4 (spoiler: Chrome is out). “Over the decades, I’ve tried almost every browser that’s come to market, from the most basic, terminal-based ones to the very complex and bloated. Within that spectrum, there are some browsers that rise so far above the rest that there’s no comparison between the bad, the mediocre, and the good. […]

Search Engine Journal: 19 WordPress Alternatives: From Simple Builders To Enterprise CMS. “This guide provides an overview of leading WordPress alternatives across key website categories. We explore user-friendly website builders that offer drag-and-drop simplicity. We look at flexible open-source options for developers and tech-savvy users. We also cover blogging-focused options, ecommerce […]

MakeUseOf: I tested 5 open-source music players and this is the only one I kept. “There are many open-source music players for Android out there, and I’ve tried a handful of them, including Harmony Music, OuterTune, and PixelPlay. In fact, GitHub users rounded up 24 free and open-source music players for Android in a repository, so they’re easy to find and navigate. However, if you’re new to […]

MakeUseOf: I tested 5 major Google Maps alternatives — this is the one I’m keeping. “Over several months, I relied entirely on five popular navigation apps—Sygic, Magic Earth, OsmAnd, HERE WeGo, and Waze [Waze?] —for everything from urban navigation to foreign city breaks and far-flung motorcycle trips off the beaten track. After plenty of traffic jams, reroutes, and signal drops, some […]

Ars Technica: We asked four AI coding agents to rebuild Minesweeper—the results were explosive. “To see how effective these modern AI coding tools are becoming, we decided to test four major models with a simple task: re-creating the classic Windows game Minesweeper. Since it’s relatively easy for pattern-matching systems like LLMs to play off of existing code to re-create famous games, we […]

This holiday, Microsoft wants you to talk to Copilot on Windows 11 and get ready for Christmas – Windowslatest.com

This holiday, Microsoft wants you to talk to Copilot on Windows 11 and get ready for Christmas

By Mayank Parmar, December 3, 2025

Microsoft has kicked off its new ad campaign for Copilot, taglined “Meet the computer that you can talk to.” In the most recent ad, Microsoft shows a dad spending Christmas talking to his PC more than the people around him. In the one-minute commercial, he keeps saying “Hey Copilot” in what could have been a cozy family scene.

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Microsoft says Copilot Vision is all you need to plan your Christmas, as it can see what’s on your screen, and then you can ask follow-up questions. You can start Copilot Vision with the “Hey Copilot” command. Microsoft says the feature has the potential to create a “PC hands-free” experience where Copilot does everything for you.

“Copilot Vision understands what’s on your screen so you can use Voice to ask questions and control interactions with your PC hands-free. Just press the Copilot key or speak, and Copilot on Windows is ready to help when you need it,” Microsoft says.

It also appears that Microsoft really wants Copilot to feel a part of your family, because at one point, Copilot even jokes, “Toy assembly has declined due to hot cocoa consumption.”

“Talk to your computer” – Copilot Vision might sound stupid, but it does have a few use cases

I am going to play devil’s advocate here, but Copilot Vision does have a few use cases, and it has gotten significantly better in recent releases. You can invoke it with “Hey Copilot” and follow up with questions like “compare Samsung’s SSD with Sandisk” when you’re browsing Amazon with two tabs open.

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While there are rough edges, Copilot Vision does have potential. However, the problem is that Copilot Vision on Windows 11 is not as good as Microsoft wants you to believe. It’s slow, often fails, and is limited in reality.

Continue/Read Original Article Here: This holiday, Microsoft wants you to talk to Copilot on Windows 11 and get ready for Christmas

#Computers #Copilot #CopilotVision #Holidays #ProductComparisons #TalkToYourComputer #Voice #Windows11 #WIndowslatest #WIndowslatestCom

Mashable: GPT-5.2 vs Gemini 3 — How the two heavyweight models compare on benchmarks, price, and feature set. “So, how does OpenAI’s GPT-5.2 stack up against Google’s Gemini 3? So far, the models seem evenly matched on benchmark performance, pricing, and other comparisons, with both models gaining an edge in specific areas.”

https://rbfirehose.com/2025/12/16/mashable-gpt-5-2-vs-gemini-3-how-the-two-heavyweight-models-compare-on-benchmarks-price-and-feature-set/