Microsoft May Add AI Features to Windows Photos and Camera
Microsoft may be bringing artificial intelligent (AI) features to built-in Windows apps like Photos, Camera, Snipping Tool, and Paint.
According to a report by Windows Central, Microsoft is experimenting with ways to inject AI-powered capabilities to these bedrock apps in Windows 11.
Windows Central reports that one of these AI features could involve a new setting in Photos that lets users identify people or objects in a photo — making it easier to separate them from their backgrounds. Users will then have the ability to cut and paste these elements in a photo elsewhere.
Microsoft is also considering adding optical character recognition (OCR) technology to both the Camera app and the Snipping Tool.
These would allow users on the Camera app to select text in a photo taken on the device and copy and paste information from these files. Similarly, the OCR technology in the Snipping Tool will enable Windows to identify texts in screenshots for faster clipboard copying.
Bringing Generative AI To Paint
Microsoft is also reportedly toying with the concept of bringing generative AI to the paint app — which would enable users to generate a canvas from a text prompt.
The text-based image generation system will be based on the same technology on the Bing Image Creator system — which uses OpenAI’s DALL-E based model to create AI-generated images.
In an internal mock-up image shared by Window Central, a Paint user can select from a series of photos of “Venice Beach” to use alongside their text prompt of “a sketch of a skater” to create an artwork.
It is currently unclear when Microsoft will roll out these AI integrations on Windows 11. Although Microsoft has released several AI tools in the last year.
In April, the company added DALL-E generative AI into Microsoft Edge, which made it the first browser to have an integrated AI image generator. The software giant said that it added this ability to help users create images that don’t yet exist more easily — in this case, directly from the Microsoft Edge sidebar.
Image credits: Header photo licensed via Depositphotos.
