Like its AI, this automated screenshotter and logger is a feature not exactly everyone wanted

Microsoft has initiated a limited public preview of its Windows Recall system – about six months after its unveiling sparked backlash over privacy and security concerns.

As you may recall, Recall is an application designed for Copilot+ PCs that takes a snapshot of a user's active screen every few seconds and stores them locally for future lookup.

Microsoft's pitch is that these images can be searched by users who are having trouble remembering what they were doing at some earlier point; they can be recalled by sliding back through a timeline or using text queries. The idea long-term is that Recall will log nearly all application activity on a system, allowing previous work and actions to be located through AI-based search.

Customers saw this functionality as tantamount to spyware. It was widely criticized as a privacy and security nightmare when it was announced at Microsoft's Build conference in ...