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Microsoft Copilot has just recently announced Copilot Tasks which runs in the cloud and can accomplish complex tasks like watching realty listings for new apartments or home and notifying you when something meets your criteria or monitoring your Inbox for emails that you consider important. It’s in preview and has a wait-list. You can find out more and join the wait-list at https://copilot.microsoft.com/tasks/preview.

Image manipulation has advanced greatly in recent months. Nearly all of the major AI suppliers have updated their image and video generation capabilities — Google has Nano Banana 2 (https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/technology/ai/nano-banana-2) and ChatGPT introduced their ChatGPT Images (https://openai.com/index/new-chatgpt-images-is-here/). OK, Anthropic, maker of Claude doesn’t have a built-in image manipulation feature but Microsoft’s Copilot does. Gone are the days of the 3-fingered or 6-fingered hands and the person with 3 arms or legs. Good images can be created with just a simple prompt and modified just as easily. What seems to be really popular with my Zoom friends is uploading a picture of yourself and turning that simple image into something else or putting you into a different environment.

While I’m not much of a visual artist, the AIs tend to make it easier to do things like remove or remake the picture’s background (say “remove background” or “put me in a forest”). I have a number of photos of me with glasses. Now that I don’t need them, I’ve said “remove my glasses,” and they’re gone!

You can turn a picture of you looking straight into the camera into one with you facing a little to the right or left just by telling it “have me face a little to the left.” You can change hair color or remove hair altogether! Turn your color image into a black and white sketch. Make yourself an astronaut or a cowpoke. If you’ve created a storybook for a child or grandchild, you can have an AI create pictures for the book with you or your target audience in the pictures.

Different AIs have different ways to input your picture. Some AIs let you drag a picture in to the chat. Others have a “+” or something similar which opens a dialog where you can locate and select a picture or several. If you can’t figure out how to input the picture, ask your AI!

Once you’ve uploaded your picture, really you’re just limited by your imagination. Like I said, I’m not much of a visual artist, but I have copied what some others have done and taken some of their suggestions for things that I might do. You can see some pictures of me that I created with AI: https://go.ttot.link/TonysPhotos. I seem to have better results with ChatGPT than with Gemini but I have included some from both of them in that collection. Your experience may be different so try several AIs. And the prompts that I used were really simple. I said “make me an astronaut” and it put me in a NASA space suit. I said “put me in a futuristic space suit walking on the outside of a futuristic space craft” and it did. I said “make me a cowboy in front of a chuck-wagon” and…you guessed it! I’ve had it make me a cowboy riding the range, a 60s hippie, a fighter from Dune, a student at the pre-Burn Starfleet Academy and so much more, all with some simple prompts. And remember that you can modify produced pictures with further prompts.

Create a few images today. You can do it! Modify some pictures, rework your profile picture, try different things. Don't hesitate to write to me if you have questions!

As always, I aim to help you understand the basics and equip you to search for more detailed information.

Please feel free to email me at [email protected] with questions, comments, suggestions, requests for future columns, newsletter signups, or whatever. Or just drop me a quick note and say HI!

And remember that I maintain a NotebookLM notebook of all my previous newsletters at https://go.ttot.link/TonysNotebook. Since it has access to all of my newsletters, you can ask it questions like “what are passkeys” or “what can I do to help me remember things.” You’ll need a Google account to access it and, when you visit, you’ll be given your own NotebookLM notebook.

If you like, you can read my most recent newsletter in the Hillsboro Times Gazette at https://go.ttot.link/TG-Column - I should have that link updated shortly after this edition of the newsletter appears in the online version of the newspaper.