Meta Quest 3 and Quest 3S headset owners will soongainaccesstothe full capabilities of Windows 11 in mixed reality, Microsoft announced at itsIgnite conferencethis week.Users will be ableto access a local Windows PC or Windows 365 Cloud PC in seconds, Microsoft said in ablog post, providing access to a private, high-quality, multiple-monitor workstation.Although its already possible to cast a PC desktop to a Quest device, the update should make the process simpler.Microsoft has been working with Meta to bring its apps to the mixed-reality headsets fora while.Last year,the companylaunched several Microsoft 365 appson Quest devices, with web versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint,as well asMesh 3D environments in Microsoft Teams. At its Build conference in May, Microsoft also announced Windows volumetric apps in a developer previewthat promise to bring 3D content from Windows apps into mixed reality.Meta is the market leader, with Quest headsets accounting for 74% of global AR and VR headset shipments, according todata from Counterpoint Research.At the same time, Microsoft has rolled back its own virtual and mixed reality plans,recentlyannouncing it willdiscontinueits HoloLens 2 headset, with no sign of plans for new version in the works.The number of devices sold globallyfell in the second quarter of 2024, according to IDC analysts, down 28% year on year. However, IDC predicts the total number of devices sold will grow from 6.7 million units in 2024 to 22.9 million in 2028 as cheaper devices come to market.Using a Quest headset as a private, large or multi-monitor setup makes sense from a productivity persective, said Avi Greengart, founder of research firm Technsponential. Accesstoall of Windowsrather than just a browser and select Windows 365 appsaddsa lot of utility.Large virtual monitors are a key use case for investing in head-mounted displays, whether thats a mainstream headset like the Quest 3, a high-end spatial computing platform like the Apple Vision Pro, or a pair of display glasses from XREAL that plug into your phone or laptop, said Greengart.Severalhardware constrains limit the use of Quest devices for work tasks,includingdisplay resolution and field of view (the amount of the observable virtual world visible with the device), andthe discomfort ofwearing a headset for extended periods.Metas Quest 3 and 3S devices are more comfortable than Apples Vision Pro, but lack the high resolution of the more expensive device.Greengart added that somepeopleparticularly older usersmightstruggle to focus on small text at a headsets fixed distance focal length. Those that require vision correction lenses inside the headset can find the edges of the display distorted, he said.I love working in VR, but compared to a physical multi-monitor setup,it isnt quite as productive and it gives me a headache, said Greengart. That said, Ive been covering this space for years, and each iteration gets better.

OpenAI is reportedly thinking about developing its own browser with the aim of challenging Googles dominance in the market, according to The Information. The new browser would have built-in support for Chat GPT and Open AIs search engine Search GPT.OpenAI representatives have apparently held talks with developers from Conde Nast, Redfin, Eventbrite, and Priceline, but so far no agreements have been signed.Shares of Googles parent company Alphabet declined on the Nasdaq exchange after the browser plans became public, Reutersreported.

As regulation threatens totear Google apartand fundamentally both damage both Android and Apple, yet another regulatory noose is tightening around Cupertino, as its Apple Pay service will in future be regulated like a bank.All this comes as company lawyers attempt to get theinsanely flawedUS Department of Justice anti-trust case against Applequashed. and it climbs in on top ofrecent threats of further fines and challenges in Europe. Youd be forgiven if some of the leaders at Apple might feel a little as if they have been born in interesting times.Apple Pay faces tougher regulationThe latest twist of the rope comes from theUS Consumer Financial Protection Bureau(CFPB), which is about to introduce a new rule that puts Apple Pay and other digital wallet services under the same federal supervision as banks. Thats going to mean the CFPB can proactively examine Apple and other large companies in this space to ensure they are complying with consumer protection laws concerning privacy and surveillance, error and fraud, and maintaining service continuity in order to protect users against debanking.The agency in 2022 warned some Big Tech firms providing such services about their obligations under consumer protection laws when using behavioral targeting for financial products.Announcing the regulation on X,CFPB Director Rohit Chopra explainedhis organization is also concerned about how these apps can fuel surge pricing that jack up costs using your purchase history and personal data.You can read the new rules governing these companieshere(PDF). But what is interesting is that elements of them that might have impacted crypto transactions appear to have been mitigated or removed.Proactive, not reactive, oversightMost of these matters were already regulated; what really changes is how rules around them are enforced. You see, while the previous regulation meant CFPB could onlyreactto consumer complaints as they arose, it can now proactively investigate compliance. Thats the same kind of oversight banks and credit unions already face and means Apple and other payment providers covered by the rules will face deeper and, presumably, more intrusive oversight.The new rules will only affect digital wallet providers whose tech is handling 50 million or more transactions per year. Apples system is now easily the most widely used digital wallet in America, so it will most certainly face this oversight. The company also participated in the consultation process that preceded the new rules introduction. Other providers likely swooped up under the law will include Cash App, PayPal, Venmo, and Google Pay.To some degree, the rules make sense, given that digital wallets are used to handle real money and consumer protection is vital. But whats really interesting is the extent to which the new determination proves just how rapidly digital wallets have replaced real wallets across the last decade.The rise and rise of digital paymentsThats certainly what the CFPB thinks. Digital payments have gone from novelty to necessity and our oversight must reflect this reality, said Chopra. The rule will help to protect consumer privacy, guard against fraud, and prevent illegal account closures.If you think back, itwasnt terribly long agowhen the notion that Apple wanted to turn your iPhone into a wallet seemed impossibly extreme. That is no longer the case. Two years ago, researchersclaimedApple Pay had surpassed Mastercard in the dollar value of transactions made annually, making Apple Pay the worlds second most popular payment system, just behind Visa. Googles G Play system then stood in fifth place.The regulator explains that payment apps are now a cornerstone of daily commerce, with people using them daily as if they were cash. What began as a convenient alternative to cash has evolved into a critical financial tool, processing over a trillion dollars in payments between consumers and their friends, families, and businesses, the CFPB said.What next?I think its pretty clear that Apple has learned a lot about this business since the introduction of Apple Pay. Not only has it been in, and then exited, the lucrative Buy Now Pay Later market withApple Pay Later, but it has also experienced the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune with its wildly popular credit card operation, Apple Card, which has ended in a tumultuous relationship withGoldman Sachs.During all these adventures, the company will have learned a great deal about the sector and now that it is being regulated as if it were a bank, I wouldnt be terribly surprised if it decided to become one.After all, if its getting regulated to the same extent as banks, why not get into more of the same business sectors banks now serve? I cant help but imagine that Apple already has a weighty file of research documents in one of its Cupertino filing cabinets exploring how and where it might profitably extend Apple Pay into more traditional banking sectors. The new CFPB oversight regime might well accelerate any such plans.You can follow me on social media! 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Microsoft is working on a new Windows feature, Quick Machine Recovery, that will allow IT administrators to use Windows Update with targeted fixes to remotely fix systems that cant boot,according to Bleeping Computer.The new feature is part of the Windows Resiliency Initiative Microsofts efforts to prevent a repeat of the outage that occurred in July 2024, when a buggy Crowdstrike update left hundreds of thousands of Windows computers unable to start, affecting hospitals, emergency services and airlines worldwide.Microsoft plans to roll out the Quick Machine Recovery feature to the Windows 11 Insider Program in early 2025.

Microsoft atthis weeksIgnite conferenceunveiled new Copilot Studio features aimed at both expanding the functionality of AI agents createdwiththe application and improving the accuracy of outputs.Copilot Studio wasunveiled at last years eventas a way to customize Microsofts generative AI(genAI)copilot assistants for different business use cases. Since then,the companyhas stepped up its messaging aroundAI agents that can perform a wider variety of taskson behalf of workers.Among thelatestupdates to Copilot Studio is the ability to connect agents to third-party applications such as Salesforce, ServiceNow, and Zendesk.The goal is toprovide access to real-time knowledge that helps answer complex questions, Microsoft said. Thatfeature is now in preview.[ Related: Microsoft Ignite 2024 news and insights ]In addition, Copilot Studio now integrates with the newAzure AI Foundryto enable access to a wider range of data within an organization, Omar Aftab, vice president ofconversational AI at Microsoft,saidin ablog post. By connecting all their data sources, organizations can see that agents are more grounded in their business data and provide specific, high-quality responses, he said.There are also new multimodal AI enhancements to Copilot Studio agents.Users canembed an agent built in Copilot Studio into an interactive voice system (used in automated voice calls for customer service, for example) to create speech enabled agents, said Aftab.These can also be embedded in various applications, standalone kiosks, concierge systems, and more, he said. And Copilot Studio agents can now analyze images, allowing users to upload files and ask questions aboutthem.Microsoft has also opened accessin a public previewto autonomous agent builder tools in Copilot Studio, asannounced last month. Makers can now build agents that work on their behalf, without having to prompt the agent, saving human hours and increasing efficiency, said Aftab. They can create these agents from scratch or configure agents that are prebuilt in Copilot Studio.Theres an agent library to help users get started,too, (also in public preview), with pre-built agents tailored to common work processes such as leave management, sales orders and deal acceleration, Microsoft said.Among the other announcements Tuesday is the ability to build customized agents with a streamlined Copilot Studio experience thats now embedded in the BizChat interface of Microsoft 365 Copilot. These agents are created using natural language directions, and can be given access to enterprise data held in apps such as Dynamics 365 and SharePoint. There are also pre-built agents,includingan Employee Self-Service agent.Copilot Studio can address some of the shortcomings of a horizontal tool such as Microsoft 365 Copilot, which often requires a lot of guidance to access the right data, and may produce hallucinations,said J.P. Gownder, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester.The Copilot Studio tools help to fill this gap by allowing organizations to create more finely tuned solutions that nevertheless are a lot easier and cheaper than training a model from scratch, he said.Improved tuning and sourcing in Copilot Studio allows more retrieval augmented generation(RAG)-based approaches, said Gownder, which specifies data more precisely, reducing the likelihood of both vague outputs and hallucinations. The ability to use custom Azure AI Search indexes as a knowledge sourceforcustom RAG scenariosanother of the Copilot Studio updates at Igniteallows for more specific, contextual, and accurate outcomes, he said.Being able to then take these Copilot Studio agents and plug them into Microsoft 365 Copilot could democratize some of these innovations, allowing employees to tap into them right in their flow of work, said Gownder.This heightened context, accuracy, and specificity could solve some of the problems that enterprise leaders have cited as downsides to M365 Copilot.Microsoft has rolled out a lot of Copilot solutions with sunny story lines that enterprises arent always able to replicate in their own environments, said Gownder. So, while the Copilot Studio announcements sound promising, we must wait and see if they truly work as advertised to create value.

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Among the first things Apple IT admins woke up to this morning was news of a pair of actively exploited zero-day attacks in the wild targeting Intel Macs, iPhones, iPads, and even Vision Pro users. Apple has already released software patches for the flaws, which is why the second thing admins realized is that they must rush through any necessary software verification process required before expediting installation of the update.In these days of remotely managed devices and increasingly effective MDM systems, thats far less a problem than it was in the past. You can usually make a policy change and push out updates to all your managed devices quickly.Companies that dont use these systems, or those that have employees using their own personal devices to access potentially sensitive internal data, must work harder to convince users to install security updates. So, what can they tell people about the latest threat that might help motivate them to install the patch today?Why you should update immediatelyFirst, Applesaysit believes the attack is being actively used, which means any Intel system including systems used by other people you interact with is a potential target. Apple is aware of a report that this issue may have been exploited, the company said.Second, it slips in using flaws in software you use daily, including JavaScript and WebKit, the rendering engine that powers the Safari browser on Apple devices. In other words, everyone using Apples devices is a potential target.Finally and perhaps best of all Apple has already shipped a fix for the problem, maintaining its reputation for being ahead of threats, rather thanechoingthe approach taken by some other platforms and racing to keep up with attacks. Its almost as if Apples systemsremain more secure for a reason. The company addressed 20 zero-day attacks in 2023 and has guarded against just six so far this year.Apple also shipped security patchesfor iOS 17 and iPad OS 17 systemsand patches for Safari onmacOS Ventura and Sonoma.What the experts sayMichael Covington, vice president for portfolio strategy at Jamf, thinks all users should update at once.While Apple has warned that the vulnerabilities, also present in macOS, may be actively exploited on Intel-based systems, we recommend updating any device that is at risk, he said. With attackers potentially exploiting both vulnerabilities, it is critical that users and mobile-first organizations apply the latest patches as soon as they are able.What are these attacks?The attack vector makes use of two vulnerabilities found in macOS Sequoia JavaScriptCore (CVE-2024-44308) and WebKit (CVE-2024-44309). The first lets attackers achieve remote code execution (RCE) through maliciously crafted web content; the second lets attackers engage in cross-site scripting attacks.As admins will recognize, RCE exploits can enable attackers to install malware surreptitiously on infected machines, perform denial-of-service attacks, or access sensitive information, while a cross-scripting attack can help hackers grab personal data for identity theft and other nefarious ends.No one wants to be a victim of either form of attack.Who is using these attacks?No information pertaining to who has been using these flaws in their attacks has been shared. With that in mind, its important to note that the flaws were identified by researchers at Googles Threat Analysis Group (TAG), which works to counter government-backed attacks. That suggests that whoever has been weaponizing these vulnerabilities is connected to a national entity of some kind.If that is the case,recent reports from TAG suggest an upsurge in such attacks, so users in some industries and professions might want to consider locking down their devices with ApplesLockdown Mode to minimize their attack surface. IT, meanwhile, should review security compliance, particularly among those using older iPhones, iPads, or Intel Macs.You can follow me on social media! Join me onBlueSky, LinkedIn,Mastodon, andMeWe.

In connection with this years Ignite conference, Microsoft has unveileda new interpretation tool that will be added to Teams in the spring. What makes the voice cloning tool currently called Interpreter In Teams special is that users will be able to use your own voice to speak in other languages in real time.According toTechcrunch,users need a subscription to Microsoft 365 to have access to the technology.Initially, the tool will support nine languages: English, French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, German, Japanese, Korean and Mandarin. More languages are likely to be added over time.

Microsoft has introduced a newtool inMicrosoft 365Copilot toautomaterepetitive tasks, part of a drive to make the generative AI(genAI)assistant more useful to users.Copilot Actions, announced atMicrosofts Ignite conferenceTuesday,features a simple trigger-and-action interface that Microsoft hopeswill make the workflow automationsaccessibleto a wide range of workers.The company offered upa few examplesfor Copilot Actionsin ablog post.It can be set to create an automatic summary of important action points at the end of the workday, gather inputs from a team for a weekly newsletter, or summarize recent interactions with a client ahead of a meeting.The feature is now in private preview.A Gartnersurvey of digital workersindicatedthat 51% have customized and built their own workflows, apps and automations,so the demand is certainly there for business users (aka citizen developers) to build their own AI agents, said Jason Wong, vice president analyst at Gartner.Microsofts low-code and no-code tools,includingPower Apps and Power Automate, havealready paved the way for Copilot Studio for citizen development, Wong said.However, Copilot Studio is still an immature product, and organizations have only started to upskill their employees to understand how to build generative AI powered apps or agents.Other new features announced atIgniteinclude an update to Copilot Pages,the recently-launched document editor tool connected to M365 Copilot. Microsoft will add rich artifacts to Copilot Pages, which lets users share a wider variety of information generated in Copilot, such as blocks of code or flow charts, and share them to a Pages document.Copilot Pages is due tobe generally available in early 2025, Microsoft said.Copilot in Teams will soon be able to analyze visual content shared on-screen during a video call, and users can ask the assistant for a quick summary of files shared in Teams Chat. Both features will be in public preview early next year.Theres also an interpreter function coming to Teams that Microsoft claims will translate meeting participantsspeech in real-time during a video call. Available in public preview in early 2025, Microsoft said it will also be possible simulate a users voice in the translated audio.The feature, currently in private preview,isone of several examples of AI agents coming to M365 Copilot and M365 apps.Microsoft alsoannouncedAI agents for M365 Copilot includingthe general availability of the previously announced agent builder functionality in SharePoint; the latteressentially lets users created a tailored chatbottorespond to queries related to a specific set of files stored in the content management application. To help manage and secure data accessed by M365 Copilot, Microsoft will make the SharePoint Advanced Management add-on (which previously cost $3 per user a month) available at no extra cost starting early next year.Theres an Employee Self-Service Agent for BizChatthe chat interface for M365 Copilot whereemployees can ask HR and IT-related questions, such asrequesting a new laptop. The agent, now in a private preview, can be customized in Microsofts Copilot Studio app.Theres an agent to automate project management processes in Microsofts Planner app (in public preview now),with plans in place toopenupaccess to third-party agents from the likes of ServiceNow in the coming months.Microsoft hasstruggled to convinceMicrosoft 365customersthat its worth investing inits various genAI tools,many of whichlaunched last year.The latest updates provide an opportunity to show the business value of the genAI assistant, which costs $30 per user each month.While MicrosoftsWave 2of M365 Copilotfeaturesannouncedin Septembercan be viewed as an attempt to win overundecided buyers, Wong said the new agentic capabilitiesannounced at Ignitearereally more for their current M365 Copilot customers to extend the business value of generative AI beyond individual productivity to show greater ROI.Copilot customers[dont]just want content creation and summarization, he said.They want Copilot to replace manual work, impact team workflows and drive process improvements.

Stop me if youve heard this one: Googles got two primary user-facing platforms, Android and ChromeOS and, if the latest rumors are to be believed, the company may be on the brink of bringing em together and combining em into a single, streamlined entity.If youre feeling a funny sense of dj vu, you arent alone. Weve been going through some version of this same exact scenario more or less nonstop since the advent of ChromeOS nearly a decade and a half ago.The buzz reached a boiling point around 2015, when a string of reports told us with no uncertainty that Google was, like, totally gonna merge Android and ChromeOS and that the long-predicted one-or-the-other duel was nearing its inevitable conclusion.The reality, of course, has thus far turned out to be far more nuanced and less dramatic. Instead of merging the two platforms into one, Googles spent the past several years working to align them and bring more Android-inspired elements into the ChromeOS environment. The result has been an experience that feels noticeably more consistent, complementary, and connected and thats turned Chromebooks into a much more versatile, capable, and broadly appealing computing product thats genuinely compelling for professional purposes.And yet, the notion of Android and ChromeOS coming together continues to come up. A fresh set of rumors about a pending platform merger is gaining steam this second, in fact. And while Im usually the first person to throw water on such possibilities and raise the curtain of skepticism around those claims, for the first time, Im actually thinking: You know, right now, this might make an awful lot of sense.Let me explain.[Get level-headed knowledge in your inbox with my free Android Intelligence newsletter. Three new things to know and try every Friday!]Googles never-ending Android-ChromeOS sagaThese latest rumors, from known Android oracle Mishaal Rahman, stem from an unnamed source within Google. And they state, unequivocally, that Google is working on a multi-year project to fully turn ChromeOS into Android, with an intended end result of creating a single platform that finally bests the iPad.To better compete with the iPad as well as manage engineering resources more effectively, Google wants to unify its operating system efforts. Instead of merging Android and ChromeOS into a new operating system like rumors suggested in the past, however, a source told me that Google is instead working on fully migrating ChromeOS over to Android. While we dont know what this means for the ChromeOS or Chromebook brands, we did hear that Google wants future Chromebooks to ship with Android.While this specific suggestion may sound somewhat new, the idea behind it actually dates back to the first set of serious rumors around an Android-ChromeOS combo. Back then, in 2015, the theory was that Google would somehow fold ChromeOS into Android to create a single combined mega-platform.And that same basic scenario is almost exactly whats being proposed again today.Its a significant twist from the most recent set of Android-ChromeOS merger rumors, from 2018, which suggested that Google was cookin up an entirely new piece of software called Fuchsia thatd ultimately act as an all-purpose replacement for Android and ChromeOS alike. That rumor had echoes of a previous narrative (!) around a similarly all-new operating system called Andromeda from 2016, even down to the alleged Pixel-branded laptop being prepped to showcase the newly combined software.Spoiler alert: Neither possibility ended up playing out as predicted.At those times, I was adamant that a full-fledged merger of any sort with Android and ChromeOS seemed unlikely and that, just like early on in the platforms coexistence, more nuanced ongoing alignments seemed like the more logical progression. Those analyses have proven somewhat prophetic over time.But now, Im not nearly as convinced that that sort of sanity-seeking, perspective-drawing counternarrative needs to exist.Reconsidering an Android-ChromeOS comboTo be clear, Im not basing my conclusions here off any sort of inside info. Ive reached out to Google to ask for clarity around the latest Android-ChromeOS combo reports, and as of this writing, Ive yet to hear back with any official answers.My views are based entirely on my own observations, as someone whos both personally used and closely covered Android and ChromeOS since their earliest eras.And unlike with every past rumor along these lines, this one feels almost shockingly sensible from the perspective of Google, as a business, and also from the perspective of those of us who use and rely on devices across the Android-ChromeOS spectrum as part of our professional and/or personal lives.As Ive continued to contemplate this over the past few days, Ive realized I have a couple core reasons why this strikes me as being such a sensible shift from all perspectives at this point:1. The Google benefitFirst and foremost, we have to remember that Google is a business and so any move it makes has to be something thatd benefit it from a business perspective as well as, ideally, benefitting us as its users.And on that front, an Android-ChromeOS combo has never made more sense.For months now, weve been watching Google realign its business to cut costs and streamline, simplify, and eliminate areas that arent actively moving the organization forward in any measurable way. Part of that has even involved an ongoing shift in the teams responsible for Android and ChromeOS divisions that recently lost their longtime leaders and became part of a broader Google Platforms and Devices team under the same single executive previously responsible only for homemade hardware.At the same time, Googles been increasing its under-the-hood alignment of Android and ChromeOS in some eyebrow-raising ways. Most notably, this past summer, the company announced it would begin working on revamping the under-the-hood ChromeOS engine to use the same foundation as Android a nerdy-sounding pivot that, one could contend, sets the stage for something exactly like what were hearing about now to follow.On top of that, weve seen signs suggesting work is afoot on a new Android-based version of Chrome thatd support extensions and an effort to allow Linux access within Android just like we already have within ChromeOS. Lets not forget, too, about the new under-development desktop windowing system for Android tablets and even the decreased emphasis of the signature Chromebook Launcher/Search/Everything key. Considered under the umbrella of this latest rumor, it sure seems reasonable to see these once-disparate-seeming shifts as pieces thatd build toward that same broader puzzle.Factor in fresh questions around whether Google could one day be forced to sell off Chrome entirely as part of its ongoing U.S. monopoly investigation, and its easy to see why a move to Android as the underpinnings of a Chromebook could now add up in a way that didnt entirely come together in the past.But theres another side to the story, too, and its every bit as important.2. The user benefitAs someone who uses both Android and ChromeOS every single day, two truths about the platforms are undeniable:The Android touch experience is exceptional. When youre using Android on a phone or a tablet in an optimal Android environment, at least youre typically left wanting for nothing.At the same time, the Chromebook desktop experience is in a league of its own. Using a ChromeOS device as a computer is incredible and something that, despite all the ongoing progress over the years, Android in the same scenario simply cant match.Now, dont get me wrong: Android and ChromeOS both provide perfectly passable experiences in their alternate forms. A Chromebook in its tablet mode is fine, as is an Android device in its desktop environment. But neither holds a candle to what the other platform can offer in its more native-feeling default version of that same environment Android on the touch side and ChromeOS with a keyboard.So if Google managed to create a situation where you could essentially enjoy Android when a device is in a touch-centric form and then seamlessly switch to something that felt like a Chromebook when a keyboard is attached, it could create a brilliant best-of-both-worlds mashup a scenario where you dont have to settle for passable and could instead have the best possible option for any given way youre using a device at any moment, whether its an Android tablet or a Chromebook in name.Its not far removed from my long-standing dream of owning a gadget thatd seamlessly switch to either Android or ChromeOS to match which arrangement would be most advantageous depending on how, exactly, youre using the thing. Perhaps not coincidentally, in fact, experiments around a system just like that showed up in some of Googles source code earlier this year.And speaking of such subjectsThe Android-ChromeOS combo path no ones consideringMy revelation about the two-pronged benefit of an Android-ChromeOS merger today took me back to something a ChromeOS executive said to me in an interview a couple years ago:Whats underneath doesnt really matter to the user. You could have 10 different operating systems, one for each form factor, if you wanted that. The important piece is what you present to the user.That, [Google Senior Director of Product Management Alexander] Kuscher says, is why Android and ChromeOS have continued to grow more consistent and connected over the years. In Googles view, the operating system is less important than the experience and increasingly, its working to present experiences that are so similar that they feel more like different branches of the same tree than completely separate forests.And that, in turn, reminded me of some musings I shared back in 2016 when the previous Android and ChromeOS coming together rumors were taking shape and everyone was convinced, again, that Google was on the brink of beginning an effort to fold ChromeOS into Android and create a single streamlined operating system.At that time, I raised this newly intriguing notion:What if [this] were essentially just a way to give Android devices a desktop mode a ChromeOS-like environment that appears when, say, a physical keyboard is present, with a more traditional Android interface remaining in place for touch-centric use? A ChromeOS-like environment wouldnt be ideal as a core part of the regular touch-centric Android experience, after all, but it sure could be valuable as an option for scenarios involving more productivity-oriented and laptop-like use.And what if this best-of-both-worlds, dual-purpose mentality applies not only to convertible systems but also to phones? Such a setup could effectively turn any compatible Android device into a versatile all-purpose computer that packs the strengths of Googles two platforms into a single superpowered package.Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.To be clear, the current state of these current rumors makes it sound like Googles moving toward a more full-fledged adoption of Android on the Chromebook front a full merger, as opposed to any sort of harmonious coexistence.But still: Perhaps there could be more nuance involved. Perhaps the Chromebook/Android desktop mode side of the equation could still look and feel largely like what we consider to be ChromeOS today, only with Android running as the foundation beneath it. Perhaps Android could be the base of the future Chromebook experience and not the entire experience itself, in any front-facing, user-visible way. And perhaps those Google-exec comments about whats underneath not mattering and the operating system being less important than the experience could come into play once more.If Google can manage to pull that off effectively without sacrificing too much of what makes ChromeOS special, this could be a very good thing for both the company and for those of us who rely on its platforms Android and ChromeOS alike.But that involves an awful lot of if-type questions. And right now, most of them remain vexingly unanswered.Android-ChromeOS combo caveats and a philosophical ponderingSo, yes: I see a lot of logic in the notion of an Android-ChromeOS combo now for Google and for us, as users of its software and devices. But I also have a lot of concerns about how this could play out, particularly as someone whos long been immersed in the Chromebook universe and appreciative of the unique advantages that platform offers for businesses, schools, and also regular ol individual computer owners.Specifically:ChromeOS has some significant security advantages in the way its software is structured. These are an important part of the Chromebook proposition, particularly for businesses and other organizations. If the ChromeOS base is replaced with Android, would these architectural advantages be lost?Chromebooks also offer some incredibly important advantages around updates, with fresh software showing up every few weeks quickly and reliably, regardless of who made a device or how old it may be. And most Chromebooks are now promised a minimum of 10 years of ongoing software support. This, suffice it to say, is quite a contrast from the update situation on Android, where the manufacturer- and carrier-dependent nature of that operating system creates a bit of a Wild West scenario (outside of Googles own closely controlled Pixel devices).On the same note, a big part of why Chromebooks can offer such a stable update experience is because of the consistency ChromeOS creates from one device to the next. Unlike Android, where device-makers and carriers alike are able to modify the software in all sorts of ways, every Chromebook is essentially identical in terms of its interface and software experience. And so Google can send out updates universally, without third-party companies needing to be involved (the variable that always leads to extended delays and irksome uncertainty on Android).Finally, on a less tangible but every bit as consequential consideration, using a Chromebook feels noticeably and meaningfully different from using Android in a desktop state. ChromeOS has always offered a true desktop-caliber experience in a way that Android has never managed to match. If Google isnt able to maintain that and if the Chromebook/Android desktop mode interface feels more like a traditional Android tablet experience instead of a true desktop-caliber, Chromebook-style setup thatd be a massive stumble in the wrong direction and a major devolution for the productivity-first focus the company has managed to create with ChromeOS.Googles got its work cut out for it, in other words. But unlike in the past, this possibility seems promising. And the more you think about it, the more sense it really makes again, if Google manages to get it right.A decade ago, I posed a philosophical question about the ever-overlapping future of Android and ChromeOS. At the time, the question represented my thinking about these platforms from a slightly different perspective, with the notion of ChromeOS potentially taking over for Android at some theoretical point down the road.The tables may have turned in the other direction, but the question itself feels freshly relevant today:If all Android apps can eventually run on ChromeOS and if ChromeOS evolves to look more like Android while web apps and Android apps grow increasingly similar in design would you notice the difference between a phone running Android and a phone running Chrome?Flip that question around, and youve got a fascinating slice of food for thought for this current situation. If all these factors come together and Google manages to make the surface-level Chromebook interface similar enough while maintaining each environments under-the-hood advantages a tall order, to be sure would you even realize if your Chromebook technically ran Android?We may not know the answer for some time yet. This project is said to be a multi-year effort, and thats providing all the still-unofficial details are accurate and the plans continue to push forward. (All tech companies test out ideas internally that never end up seeing the light of day, and Google in particular is notorious for developing concepts and then abandoning em before they ever turn into anything.)But this sure is an interesting notion to chew over. And for the first time, it feels like there could be something to it beyond just misguided excitement.Want even more Googley knowledge? 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Apples main manufacturing partner, Foxconn, has announced it is working with Nvidia to build digital twins that it says will reshape the future of manufacturing and supply chain management.Nvidia and Foxconnlast year announcedplans to use Nvidias Omniverse platform to create 3D digital twin tech with which to plan and simulate automated production lines. The scheme was first put into effect at Foxconns Hsinchu factory in Taiwan and will be scaled out to Foxconn factories worldwide.What happens in HsinchuApples connection with the Hsinchu facility isnt particularly overt, but it certainly exists. Theres anApple Storecurrently hiring in the city, and Apple also has an R&D facility there. In 2020, Apple confirmed plans to build a new plant in Hsinchu Science Park to supplement the operations it already had in place.As far as we know, Apples Hsinchu-based R&D teams are working on next-generation monitor technologies such as low-temperature polysilicon displays and metal-oxide-semiconductor screens, along with quantum film image sensors,according to earlier reports. (Who knows, its not impossible that new tech used in the latestMacBook Pro displaysmight have been developed there.)While a bit of a long shot, some of Applesserver development teammight also be based there, given the company is developing its own servers to support itsPrivate Cloud Compute systems for Apple Intelligence. It was recently reported that Apple has asked Foxconn to make AI servers based on Apple Silicon in Taiwan, and given the proximity of the Hsinchu digital twins project, it is hard to ignore the overt opportunity for additional cooperation between the firms.When it comes to manufacturing, Apple has a pressing challenge to scale up the capacity to build iPhones at factories outside China. Some of this work is already taking place in India where the company israpidly ramping up production, but it is possible Apple wants some manufacturing taking place elsewhere, such as in Mexico.Foxconns move to build heavily automated production facilities could help Apple with those efforts.Industry 4.0 and the Apple supply chainI see the latest news with Nvidia as part of a continuum. Foxconn has already built a growing network of eight Industry 4.0lights-out factoriesin Taiwan, China, and Mexico. In China, the steady move toward additional automation means Foxconn has been able to reduce its workforce by more than a third while maintaining production levels.Foxconns entire Shenzhen, China, Guanlan factory operates without lighting as it is automated and controlled by a cloud-based AI. The vision of that latter project is that it will become possible to simply tell the cloud AI what products need to be made and how they are to be manufactured, and the system will adjust itself to automatically churn those products out.Theres a ways to go before that becomes possible, but it sounds like Foxconn will use Nvidias tools to track existing manufacturing processes so they can be more easily replicated at factories situated elsewhere.Through this technology, Foxconn can replicate and establish production lines across diverse geographical locations with unprecedented speed and precision,the company said. This capability enables Foxconn to swiftly deploy high-quality production facilities with unified standards in strategic markets worldwide, significantly enhancing the companys competitiveness and adaptability in the global landscape.Digital twin tech is also very good at identifying bottlenecks and inefficiencies in existing production processes, while the ability to more easily take manufacturing lines to new nations also help build resilience into manufacturing systems. When facing supply chain disruptions or sudden market demands, Foxconn can quickly simulate manufacturing process changes and adjust production strategies to flexibly allocate resources across different regions for itself and its clients, ensuring production continuity and stability, Foxconn says.Resilience and flexibilityTo some extent, the writing has always been on the wall. Supply chains globally buckled during the height of the CoVID-19 pandemic, and Apples decision to widen its manufacturing base to new nations was a direct response to this. Apple and quite clearly, Foxconn now understand the need to build resilience into the supply chain, and one way to do that is to turn to using heavily automated manufacturing systems that can be easily set up and made productive in new locations. This seems to be the game in play here, particularly in the wake of Applespurchase of Darwin AI earlier this year.The other part of that game reflects the challenge of staffing manufacturing operations at the scale Apple demands. Hundreds of thousands of people globally are now involved in building Apple hardware, and the job is skilled enough that recruiting all those workers can pose problems for the company. This is likely why in June it was revealed that Apple intendsto replace 50% of iPhone related assembly line workersin the next few years. That ambition logically requires the kind of productivity enhancements Foxconn and Nvidia are working on now, so logically it makes sense that Apples production processes are part of the plan.Designed by Apple, built by robotsAchieving this is not going to be easy. But where Apple goes, others inevitably follow, which itself means that future employment is going to becomeeven further deindustrialized at about the same time as AI itself leads to mass scale changes in working practices elsewhere. Its hard to see where this is going, but the other side of that story is thatiPhone manufacturing will itself become a movable feast.Designed by Apple, built by robots,some might say.You can follow me on social media! Join me onBlueSky, LinkedIn,Mastodon, andMeWe.

A newresearch study indicates that Open AIs chatbot Chat GPT-4 is better at diagnosing diseases than human doctors,according to The New York Times.Fifty doctors, a mix of attending physicians and residents, participated in the study; diagnoses were based on evaluations of medical patient cases. All in all, Chat GPT-4 got a 90% score for the diagnoses it delivered; the doctors on their own got average scores of 74%.The doctors also reportedly performed worse than the chatbot when they were allowed to use Chat GPT-4 in their work. Physicians who used the tool performed only marginally better getting scores of 76% than physicians who did not use a chatbot at all.The reason for that, the study said, was that the doctors rarely allowed themselves to be convinced by the chatbot if it noticed something that did not agree with the doctors own diagnosis. Many doctors also didnt know how to use the chatbots skills to their full potential.

Cyber-attacks can cost companies millions of dollars in lost revenue, legal fees, and recovery efforts. A security breach can severely tarnish a companys reputation and customer trust, making comprehensive internet security crucial for your small business.Investing in effective cybersecurity measures, especially regarding business internet and email security, acts as a shield against potential threats. These internet security solutions will protect your sensitive data and maintain the trust and safety of your clients and partners.Business Internet Security ChecklistBuilding a robust internet security strategy for your business may seem complex. To help you prioritize your cybersecurity threats and build a strong security solution, weve created an extensive checklist.1. Secure Your Network InfrastructureThe foundation of good internet security relies on a strong, secure network infrastructure. Your network is like your office; strong walls, locked doors, and vigilant guards keep it secure.Firewall Protection: Your First Line of DefenseFirewalls act as a barrier between your network and the outside world, blocking unauthorized access and malicious traffic. Think of it as your businesss security guard, carefully checking everyone who tries to enter. Firewalls can filter incoming and outgoing network traffic, enforcing your security rules through threat detection.Network Segmentation for Damage ControlImagine dividing your office into sections with different security clearancesthats what network segmentation does. By separating your network into smaller, isolated segments, you limit the reach of any potential breach.Even if one part of your network is compromised, the others remain safe, containing the damage and preventing a complete shutdown. Network segmentation is one of the most important security features a business can implement, even if you run a small business.2. Strengthen Your Devices and Access PointsEach device on your businesss network, from computers to mobile phones, represents a potential point of entry for hackers. Treat connected devices as a door to your Wi-Fi networks, ensuring each one is secure enough to protect the entire structure.Robust Passwords and Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)Using weak or easily guessable passwords is like leaving your office unlocked, allowing online threats to gain access. Its an open invitation for trouble. Implement a strong password policy requiring employees to use complex passwords.You should encourage use of a password manager and implement multi-factor authentication (MFA) on all accounts to add another layer of protection. Strong passwords are one of the easiest ways to strengthen your business cybersecurity.Regular Software UpdatesSoftware updates often include vital security patches that address identified vulnerabilities. Delaying updates on your security software is like ignoring a leaky roof; if left unattended, it will only get worse. Patch management and regularly updating all software on all your devices, including antivirus software and operating systems, will minimize the risk of exploitation.Schedule updates and educate your employees about the importance of keeping their systems current. Regularly updating your software is one of the best free security solutions for your business.Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) SolutionsEDR solutions are your networks security team that continuously monitors for suspicious activity. They then respond to this activity in real-time. Consider implementing an EDR solution that proactively detects, isolates, and responds to threats on individual devices within your network.3. Safeguarding Your DataYour businesss datacustomer information, financial records, and intellectual propertyis invaluable. Protecting your business data should be a top priority.Data EncryptionImagine losing access to all your essential documents; thats the chaos data loss can cause. Having secure backups of your crucial data ensures business continuity, even if a cyber incident occurs.Implement a secure data backup and recovery plan that includes regular backups, offsite storage, and disaster recovery testing. It is also vital to make sure your internet connection is secure before backing up data to the cloud.Implement a Data Loss Prevention (DLP) StrategyA robust DLP strategy helps detect, monitor, and prevent the unauthorized use or transmission of sensitive data. This strategy acts as a safeguard against both accidental data leaks and intentional theft.4. Educating Your WorkforceYour employees play a critical role in maintaining strong business internet security. Equip them with the knowledge and tools they need to act as an added layer of defense through security awareness training workshops. Human error causes many data leaks and security risks.Cybersecurity TrainingConduct regular and comprehensive cybersecurity training for all employees. Training should focus on common cyber threats like malicious sites, phishing scams, and social engineering attacks. It is also important to educate employees about security awareness and best practices for online security, especially on public networks.Password ManagementEncouraging the use of strong and unique passwords for all business accounts, such as Microsoft Exchange, is key to fortifying your first line of defense. Implement a business-wide password manager for secure storage and effortless access for your employees.Establish Clear Communication ChannelsEstablishing clear communication protocols for reporting security incidents and concerns helps you address issues more rapidly and effectively. This will help mitigate potential damage. Encourage employees to use these communication channels if they have accessed any inappropriate or malicious websites on company devices.Your Businesss Cybersecurity Journey Starts NowWith cyber threats continuing to evolve and become more sophisticated, businesses can never be complacent about internet security and protecting their private network and data.Taking proactive steps toward securing your digital infrastructure and safeguarding sensitive data is a critical business decision. Prioritizing robust internet security measures safeguards your small business and ensures youre well-equipped to face whatever kind of threat may come your way.While implementing these security measures may seem daunting, partnering with the right internet service provider like Optimum can give you a head start on your cybersecurity journey.Want Internet service with cybersecurity built in? Try Optimum Business Internet.Frequently Asked Questions About Business Internet SecurityHow can we protect IoT devices from becoming the entry point for security vulnerabilities into a network?IoT devices can be particularly vulnerable to security breaches, but several measures can help protect your network:Change default passwords immediately and use strong, unique passwords for each deviceRegularly update IoT device firmware to patch security vulnerabilitiesImplement network segmentation to isolate IoT devices on a separate network from critical business systemsDisable unnecessary features and ports that could be exploitedMonitor IoT device activity for unusual patterns that might indicate a breachUse a dedicated firewall for IoT devices to control their internet accessWhich security measure limits the access of outsiders to the internal network of a business?Firewalls are the primary security measure that controls external access to your internal network. They act as a barrier between your trusted internal network and untrusted external networks, like the internet. Firewalls monitor and control incoming and outgoing network traffic based on predetermined security rules, effectively limiting unauthorized access while allowing legitimate business communications to continue.Who in a business should be responsible for cybersecurity?While a designated IT security team or professional may lead cybersecurity efforts, security is everyones responsibility. Heres how responsibility can be distributed:Leadership: Set security policies and allocate resourcesIT Department: Implement and maintain security measuresDepartment Managers: Ensure compliance within their teamsEmployees: Follow security protocols and report suspicious activityExternal Partners: Comply with security requirements when accessing company resourcesHowever, if you dont have the benefit of a dedicated IT department, you can turn to Optimum for help and support.What can we do to stay on top of cybersecurity threats?Keeping strong cybersecurity is all about staying alert and taking proactive steps. Organizations should consider signing up for threat intelligence feeds to stay updated on new vulnerabilities and regularly assess their security to spot potential issues.Having an ongoing routine of software updates and security patches, along with ongoing employee training on security awareness, can help build a strong cybersecurity foundation. Many organizations also find it helpful to team up with cybersecurity experts who can offer advice on new threats and suggest the best security practices.Learn more about what Optimum can do for your business.

It took the UKs Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) less than a month to decide that there is no need to proceed further with a merger investigation after Googles purchase of a $2 billion stake in Anthropic.In a statement released on Oct. 24, the CMA indicated that it had obtained sufficient information to launch a preliminary investigation into the investment by Google, which was first announced last year and involved an initial sum of $500 million, with the remainder to be invested at a later date.The regulator was then scheduled to announce on Dec. 19 whether or not a more detailed phase 2 probe would take place, a move that ended up being fast forwarded.Scott Bickley, advisory fellow at Info-Tech Research Group, said when the initial investigation was announced that the probe sounded like a precautionary investigation across the board to me, primarily due to the fact that the CMA just recently approved Amazons Anthropic investment and partnership.Last March, Amazon announced it was investing $2.75 billion in Anthropic, bringing its total investment in the AI startup to $4 billion.As part of this partnership, Anthropic said it would use Amazon Web Services (AWS) as its main cloud provider for key operations, including AI safety research and the development of foundation models. Anthropic will also use AWS Trainium and Inferentia chips for building, training, and deploying future models.The CMA ruling on that investment was released on Sept. 27, and stated that the regulator does not believe that a relevant merger situation has been created.Phil Brunkard, executive counselor at Info-Tech Research Group, UK, said last month that both Google and Amazon are trying to compete with OpenAI, but its interesting that the CMA is focusing on Google when Amazon was just cleared, which raises some questions about consistency.While investigations do create some uncertainty, he said, Amazons clearance hints that Google could have a similar outcome. It seems the CMA is just being thorough, but these investments will likely continue.Brunkard said Tuesday he was not surprised by the ruling issued by the CMA, a non-ministerial department in the UK government that oversees business activities and flags potentially unfair competition.As I had mentioned previously, the CMA appeared to have been conducting a thorough review, and the latest report confirms they were satisfied after assessing their criteria, he said, adding, its essential that the CMA continues this consistent approach to ensure a fair and competitive marketplace.This kind of oversight, said Brunkard, is especially important in the exponentially evolving AI sector, where investments from tech giants like Google and Amazon have the potential to shape the market significantly.The CMA first launched an initial review into the market for AI systems in May 2023, and in a statement announced it would focus in on three key areas: how the competitive markets for foundation models and their use could evolve; the opportunities and risks these scenarios could bring for competition and consumer protection; and what guiding principles should be introduced to support competition and protect consumers as AI models develop.The organization said that the review is in line with the UK governments aim to support open, competitive markets.

OpenAI launched its new AI-powered online search engine SearchGPT with the aim of supplanting for specific search tasks Google, Microsoft Bing and start-up Perplexity.But the move is also raising concerns that it could open the door to plagiarism; AI-powered search engines have been accused of intentionally or unintentionally plagiarizing web-based content because the platforms scrape material and data from all over the web in real-time.They can also generate content that closely mimics pre-existing content, according to Alon Yamin, CEO of AI-enabled plagiarism detection platform Copyleaks. Thats because the large language model engines behind generative AI (genAI) are trained using existing content.The trouble with unintentional plagiarism is that it creates a gray area thats challenging for both content creators and search engines to navigate, Yamin said.SearchGPT is a front-facing interface built atop OpenAIs genAI-based ChatGPT chatbot; it will enable real-time web access for up-to-date sports scores, stock information and news. The search engine will also allow follow-up questions in the same search window, and its answers will consider the full context of the previous chat to offer an applicable answer.The AI-based web crawler is also being touted for its ability to allow questions in a more natural, conversational way, according to OpenAI.OpenAI announced on Oct. 31 that it had launched the SearchGPT prototype after beta testing it since July. Currently, access to SearchGPT is limited, as a list of hopeful free users waits for access.An example of a search result from SearchGPT.OpenAIThe pilot version of the search engine will be available at chatgpt.com/search as well as being offered as adesktop and mobile app. All ChatGPT Plus and Team users, as well as SearchGPT waitlist users, will have access from here on. Enterprise and education users will get access in the next few weeks, OpenAI said, with a rollout to all free users over the coming months.One standout feature is the search engines ability to allow follow-up questions that build on the context of the original query.For example, a user could ask what the best tomato plants are for your region; that could be followed up by asking about the best time to plant them.SearchGPT is also designed to offer links to publishers of information by citing and linking to them in searches. Responses have clear, in-line, named attribution and links so users know where information is coming from and can quickly engage with even more results in a sidebar with source links, OpenAI said in its announcement.Search rivals beat OpenAI to the punchLast year, Google added its own AI-based capabilities to its search tool; so did Microsoft, which integrated OpenAIs GPT-4 into Bing. Big hitters like Google are already developing AI detection tools to help identify AI-generated content. But the challenge lies in distinguishing between high-quality AI-assisted content and low-quality, plagiarized material, Yamin said. Its undoubtedly an ongoing process that will require constant refinement of algorithms and policies.For its part, Perplexity said in an updated FAQ that its web crawler, PerplexityBot, will not index the full or partial text content of any site that disallows it using robots.txt code. Robots.txt files are common simple text files stored on a web server to instruct web crawlers about which pages or sections of a website they are allowed to crawl and index.PerplexityBot only crawls content in compliance with robots.txt, the FAQ explained. Perplexity also said it does not build foundation models, (also known as large language models), so your content will not be used for AI model pre-training.The bottom line, Yamin said, is that search engines are in a tricky position as genAI evolves. They want to provide the best results to users, which increasingly involves AI-generated or AI-enhanced content. At the same time, they need to protect original creators and maintain the integrity of search results. Were seeing efforts to strike this balance, but its a complex issue that will take time to fully address.ChatGPT (i.e., SearchGPT) is probably best positioned among all competitors to upset Googles dominance in online search, according to Damian Rollison, director of market insights at marketing software company SOCi. Of all the areas where ChatGPT competes with Google, search is where the latters 26-year advantage is the strongest.The early results of Bing search integrated into ChatGPT have been shaky, and the incredibly complex requirements of maintaining a world-class search platform tap into areas of expertise where OpenAI has yet to demonstrate its capabilities, Rollison said.Andy Thurai, a vice president analyst at Constellation Research, noted that Google still owns about 90% of the search engine market, meaning it wont to be easy for anyone to encroach on that dominance.An example of a follow-on question in SearchGPT that began with asking: \What are the best tomatos for my region?\OpenAIBut Thurai said SearchGPTs ease of use and conversational interface, which provides synthesized and more prose-like answers instead of traditional search results like Google, could attract more users in the future.While Google can provide a personalized search result based on location, and previous searches, it still has limitations in terms of offering concise and conversational-style answers that remain on point, according to Thurai. The concise nature of the answers, whether accurate or not, might be appealing to some users versus combing through many page search engines like those Google returns.Ironically, when ChatGPT was asked the question: Is SearchGPT as good as Google search? ChatGPTs reply was nuanced.Google is great for quickly finding specific, current resources and ChatGPT is better for having interactive conversations, asking detailed questions, or seeking explanations on a wide range of topics, SearchGPT responded. The two can actually complement each other depending on what you need!When asked whether its as good or better than Bing, ChatGPT replied: In short, if youre looking for real-time information or need to browse the web, Bing is likely better. If you need detailed, conversational, or creative assistance, ChatGPT tends to be more helpful. Each tool excels in different areas!The murky issue of plagiarismThurai said hes unsure whether AI-based search engines or answer engines will invite plagiarism on their own.They are not all that different from Google search, in which you get many answers instead of the most relevant answer that AI thinks is relevant to your question, he said. However, AI for content creation is a big concern for plagiarism. What is more concerning is that the current plagiarism tools dont catch AI-produced content correctly. They are mostly useless.There are, however, tools that can create digital watermark/credentials such as C2PA, which can provide some content provenance and/or authenticity mechanisms, Thurai noted.He also argued that text-based content production via AI-search engines is virtually impossible to catch. And people are getting unfairly penalized for plagiarism by using AI when in reality they didnt, he said.As AI tools become more sophisticated and part of our day-to-day lives, distinguishing between AI-generated and human-created content, properly attributing original sources or authors, and empowering overall originality becomes even more critical, Copyleaks Yamin said. This is precisely where the focus needs to remain providing robust content integrity solutions that are evolving alongside the demands of the AI landscape.

Time for a brutal truth any productivity connoisseur can confirm: At a certain point, once youve seen one note-taking app, youve kinda seen em all.I mean, sure: Weve got some commendably compelling choices when it comes to note-taking apps on Android. And from the simple to the fully featured, the fantastically flexible, and the frills-free framing, theres absolutely some variety in the available apps approaches.But at the end of the day, all of those apps still mostly follow the same basic structure as any other note-taking service: You open em up, start a new note, and save it then go back to find it later by searching or browsing through a particular label or folder.I had long assumed this was an unavoidable formula that virtually any note-taking app I explored would present a slightly different variation on that same core concept. And that had basically always been the caseup til now.I randomly stumbled onto an Android note app this week thats so thoughtfully unusual in the way it works, its honestly still blowing my mind. And, critically, its not just different for the sake of being different. This thing introduces some genuinely clever and incredibly practical touches that, dare I say it, completely change the way you think about jotting down and remembering important info on Android.Its bordering on brilliant. And as someone who obsesses over organization more than any reasonably sane organism should, my only question is why it took me this long to find something so splendidly smart and sensible.[Psst: Grant yourself noteworthy notification superpowers with my new Android Notification Power-Pack six smart enhancements thatll boost your sanity and make your phone instantly more effective.]Your Android notes, unleashedI wont keep you waiting any longer: The app in question a snazzy little somethin called Floating Notes. And it does exactly what its name suggests:No matter what type of Android device youre using or what Android version its running, Floating Notes lets you keep your most important, pressing memos front and center floating, in other words, on top of whatever else youve got goin on.The notes appear in the form of unobtrusive little strips, with colors and icons that you set yourself on a per-note basis. They can be anywhere on your screen, too: All it takes is a press and a hold to drag em into any position, as prominent or as out of the way as you like. And they stay put in that same spot no matter what else youre doing or even if you restart your device.The notes from Floating Notes remain visible when youre looking at your home screen, a random app, or anything else across Android.JR Raphael, IDGAll actively floating items aside, Floating Notes puts a command center into your notifications that makes it as easy as can be to create new notes and manage whatever notes you already have in place. Whats especially cool is the Stick command within that area the one with a magnet icon above it:The Floating Notes notification-based command center has simple options for managing all of your actively floating items.JR Raphael, IDGTap that or manually drag any note off to the side of your screen, if youd rather and Floating Notes will get your active notes out of your face and shift em into easily accessible little tabs off on the edge of the display. srcset="https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/android-floating-note-app-stick.webp?quality=50&strip=all 800w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/android-floating-note-app-stick.webp?resize=288%2C300&quality=50&strip=all 288w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/android-floating-note-app-stick.webp?resize=768%2C800&quality=50&strip=all 768w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/android-floating-note-app-stick.webp?resize=669%2C697&quality=50&strip=all 669w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/android-floating-note-app-stick.webp?resize=161%2C168&quality=50&strip=all 161w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/android-floating-note-app-stick.webp?resize=81%2C84&quality=50&strip=all 81w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/android-floating-note-app-stick.webp?resize=461%2C480&quality=50&strip=all 461w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/android-floating-note-app-stick.webp?resize=346%2C360&quality=50&strip=all 346w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/android-floating-note-app-stick.webp?resize=240%2C250&quality=50&strip=all 240w" width="800" height="833" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px">The Stick command slides all your active notes to the side of your screen for unobtrusive ongoing access.JR Raphael, IDGThat way, theyre visible and readily available when you need em not out of sight, out of mind and requiring you to wade into an app to find and think about em but not taking up prime real estate on your screen and potentially overlapping with other important info.When you want em, though, theyre right there and a quick little tap is all it takes to get em back front and center for full visibility. srcset="https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/android-floating-note-app-restore.webp?quality=50&strip=all 800w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/android-floating-note-app-restore.webp?resize=296%2C300&quality=50&strip=all 296w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/android-floating-note-app-restore.webp?resize=768%2C779&quality=50&strip=all 768w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/android-floating-note-app-restore.webp?resize=688%2C697&quality=50&strip=all 688w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/android-floating-note-app-restore.webp?resize=166%2C168&quality=50&strip=all 166w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/android-floating-note-app-restore.webp?resize=83%2C84&quality=50&strip=all 83w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/android-floating-note-app-restore.webp?resize=473%2C480&quality=50&strip=all 473w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/android-floating-note-app-restore.webp?resize=355%2C360&quality=50&strip=all 355w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/android-floating-note-app-restore.webp?resize=247%2C250&quality=50&strip=all 247w" width="800" height="811" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px">Any floating note is always available with a simple tap (or drag) action.JR Raphael, IDGYou can also share the entire text of any note to any other app Slack, your email, Messages, you name it with a couple quick taps from anywhere within Android.Every floating note holds a menu with useful options, including the ability to share its contents as plain text anywhere.JR Raphael, IDGAnd when youre ready to remove any note entirely from your view, you just drag it down to the bottom of the screen to archive it. (You can also temporarily hide all of your visible floating notes via the Visible icon in the Floating Notes command center, within your notification panel.) srcset="https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/android-floating-note-app-archive.webp?quality=50&strip=all 800w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/android-floating-note-app-archive.webp?resize=287%2C300&quality=50&strip=all 287w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/android-floating-note-app-archive.webp?resize=768%2C802&quality=50&strip=all 768w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/android-floating-note-app-archive.webp?resize=668%2C697&quality=50&strip=all 668w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/android-floating-note-app-archive.webp?resize=161%2C168&quality=50&strip=all 161w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/android-floating-note-app-archive.webp?resize=80%2C84&quality=50&strip=all 80w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/android-floating-note-app-archive.webp?resize=460%2C480&quality=50&strip=all 460w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/android-floating-note-app-archive.webp?resize=345%2C360&quality=50&strip=all 345w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/android-floating-note-app-archive.webp?resize=240%2C250&quality=50&strip=all 240w" width="800" height="835" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px">Archiving a floating note gets it off of your screen but still keeps it available on demand within the Floating Notes app.JR Raphael, IDGOne particularly neat touch is Floating Notes ability to let you create scheduled notes thatll then pop up on their own and appear atop whatever else youre doing when the time arrives. That capability requires a subscription to the Floating Notes Pro version, which runs a whopping four bucks a year and also includes a cross-device backup and sync system along with an ad-free interface and other advanced options. In addition, the Pro version removes a requirement to open the app after every 20 floating note actions in order to reset a rolling limit, which is mildly annoying but really not a big deal.On that note, Floating Notes does have a more traditional in-app interface, too: When you actually open up the app, youll see a familiar-feeling list of all your current notes along with options for searching, starting new notes, and other standard Android note app elements.The Floating Notes app presents a familiar note finding and taking interface.JR Raphael, IDGBut its the apps floating-note approach that sets it apart and makes it an Android note app worth noting whether you use it to replace your standard note-taking service or as a supplement for certain sorts of high-profile or even just on-the-fly memos and reminders.Floating Notes doesnt require any disconcerting permissions, and its privacy policy promises that personal data is never sold or shared in any way. Its perfectly serviceable in its free version, though if you use it enough, you may find yourself wanting the added elements made available via the $4-a-year Pro upgrade. (You can also opt for a one-time $3 payment simply to eliminate ads without any of the other extras.)Either way, Floating Notes really is an inspired addition to any Android setup and the rare note app that does something decidedly different to enhance your on-the-go organization.Keep the enhancements coming with my Android Notification Power-Pack six powerful new boosters for your phones notification panel. Its completely free for you!

In response to the many ethical concerns surrounding the rise of generative artificial intelligence (genAI), including privacy, bias, and misinformation, many technology companies have started to work with AI ethicists, either on staff or as consultants. These professionals are brought on to steward how the organization adopts AI into their products, services, and workflows.Bart Willemsen, a vice president and analyst at Gartner, says organizations would be better served with a dedicated ethicist or team rather than tacking on the function to an existing role.Having such a dedicated function with a consistent approach that continues to mature over time when it comes to breadth of topics discussed, when it comes to lessons learned of previous conversations and projects, means that the success rate of justifiable and responsible use of AI technology increases, he said.While companies that add the role may be well-intentioned, theres a danger that AI ethicists will be token hires, ones who have no meaningful impact on the organizations direction and decisions. How, then, should organizations integrate ethicists so they can live up to their mandate of improving ethical decision-making and responsible AI?We spoke with tech and AI ethicists from around the world for their thoughts on how organizations can achieve this goal. With these best practices, organizations may transform ethics from a matter of compliance to an enduring source of competitive advantage.The AI ethicist as tech educatorFor some, ethicist may connote the image of a person lost in their own thoughts, far removed from the day-to-day reality of an organization. In practice, an AI ethicist is a highly collaborative position, one that should have influence horizontally across the organization.Joe Fennel, AI ethicist at the University of Cambridge in the UK, frequently consults with organizations, training them on ethics along with performance and productivity.Ethics is like jiu-jitsu, he says: As you get to the more advanced belts, it really becomes less about the moves and much more about the principles that inform the moves. And its principles like balance and leverage and dynamicness.He approaches AI in the same way. For example, when teaching prompt engineering with the aim of reducing genAI hallucination rates, he does not require students to memorize specific phrases. Instead, he coaches them on broader principles, such as when to use instructions versus examples to teach the model.Fennel has coalesced these techniques into an overall methodology with safety and ethical considerations that gets people interested in ethics, he says.Darren Menachemson, chief ethicist at Australian design consultancy ThinkPlace, also believes that one of the key responsibilities of ethicists is communication, particularly around governance.[Governance] means that organizations need to have enough understanding of the technology that they really can control the risks, mitigate, [and] deal with [them] It means that artificial intelligence as a concept needs to be well communicated through the organization so people understand what its limits are so it can be used responsibly, he said.There are of course cultural challenges to this instruction, namely the move fast and break things ethos that has defined the tech ecosystem, especially in the face of AIs rise.What were seeing is a real imperative among many organizations to move quickly, to keep pace with whats happening more broadly and also to take advantage of really amazing opportunities that are too significant and carry too many benefits to ignore, Menachemson said.Menachemson argues that ethicists, particularly those at the senior level, can succeed in spite of these challenges by possessing three qualities. The first is a deep understanding of the nuances of AI technology and what risk level this poses vis-a-vis the organizations own risk appetite.The second is a willingness to engage stakeholders to understand the business context that artificial intelligence is being introduced into and get beyond the general to the specific in terms of the guidance that youre offering.The third attribute is central to executing on the second. Bewildering the senior cohorts with technical language or highly academic language loses them and loses the opportunity to have actual influence. Senior ethicists need to be expert communicators and need to understand how they can connect ethics risk to the strategic priorities of the C-suite, he said.Delivering actionable guidance at two levelsAlthough ethics may be subjective, the work of an AI or tech ethicist is far from inexact. When addressing a particular issue, such as user consent, the ethicist generally starts from a broad set of best practices and then gives recommendations tailored to the organization.Well say, Here is what is currently the industry standard (or the cutting edge) in terms of responsible AI, and its really up to you to decide in the landscape of possibilities what you want to prioritize, said Matthew Sample, who was an AI ethicist for the Institute for Experiential AI and Northeastern University when Computerworld interviewed him. For example, if [organizations are] not auditing their AI models for safety, for bias, if theyre not monitoring them over time, maybe they want to focus on that.Sample does give advice beyond these best practices, which may be as granular as how to operationalize ethics at the company. If they literally dont have even one person at the company who thinks about AI ethics, maybe they need to focus on hiring, he said as an example.But Sample avoids hardline recommendations. In the spirit of ethics, we certainly dont say, This is the one and only right thing to do at this point, he said.Menachemson has a similar two-pronged approach to his workflows. At the top level, Menachemson says that ethicists give general guidance on what the risks are for a particular issue and what the possible mitigations and controls are.But theres also an imperative to go deeper, he said. This step should be focused on the organizations unique context and can be done only after the basic advice is understood.Once that diligence is done, thats when recommendations that are meaningful can be put to the chief executive or to the board. Until that diligence is done, you dont have any assurance that you really are controlling the risk in a meaningful way, he said.In terms of what to discuss, cover, and communicate, Cambridges Fennel believes that AI ethicists should be broad rather than narrow in scope.The more comprehensive you are with your AI ethics agenda and assessment, the more diverse your AI safety implementation will be and, equivalently, the more robust your risk prevention and mitigation strategy should also be, he said.Everyone should be an ethicistWhen it comes to implementation, Jesslyn Diamond, the director of data ethics at Canada-based Telus Digital, says her group works to anticipate unintended consequences from genAI, such as any potential misuse, through the use of a red team, which identifies gaps and even tries to intentionally break systems.We also use the concept of blue teaming, which is trying to build the innovative solutions to protect and enhance the outcomes that are possible together through a purple team, Diamond said.The purple team is multidisciplinary in nature, spanning professionals from QA, customer service, finance, policy, and more. Theres something about the nondeterministic nature of generative AI that really makes these diverse perspectives, inputs, and expertise so necessary, she said.Diamond says that purple teaming creates the opportunity for different types of professionals to use the technology, which is helpful in not only exploring the risks and unintended consequences that are important considerations for ethics, but also to reveal additional benefits.Telus also provides specialized training to employees on concepts like data governance, privacy, security, data ethics, and responsible AI. These employees then become data stewards to their spheres of influence. To date, Telus has a network of over 500 such data stewards.Becoming more familiar with how [AI] works really equips both those who are very technical and those who are less technical to be able to fully participate in this important exercise of having that diversity of expertise and background [represented], Diamond said.It may seem obvious that ethics should be multidisciplinary, but far too many companies pigeonhole the function in a remote corner of the organization. It is so important that people understand the technology in order to meaningfully govern it, and that tension between literacy and participation has to happen at the same time, Diamond said.Creating a culture of ethical innovationThe goal of advising on ethics is not to create a service desk model, where colleagues or clients always have to come back to the ethicist for additional guidance. Ethicists generally aim for their stakeholders to achieve some level of independence.We really want to make our partners self-sufficient. We want to teach them to do this work on their own, Sample said.Ethicists can promote ethics as a core company value, no different from teamwork, agility, or innovation. Key to this transformation is an understanding of the organizations goal in implementing AI.If we believe that artificial intelligence is going to transform business modelsthen it becomes incumbent on an organization to make sure that the senior executives and the board never become disconnected from what AI is doing for or to their organization, workforce, or customers, Menachemson said.This alignment may be especially necessary in an environment where companies are diving head-first into AI without any clear strategic direction, simply because the technology is in vogue.A dedicated ethicist or team could address one of the most foundational issues surrounding AI, notes Gartners Willemsen. One of the most frequently asked questions at a board level, regardless of the project at hand, is whether the company can use AI for it, he said. And though slightly understandable, the second question is almost always omitted: Should we use AI? he added.Rather than operate with this glaring gap, Willemsen says that organizations should invert the order of questions. Number one: What am I trying to achieve? Forget AI for a second. Let that be the first focus, he said, noting that the majority of organizations that take this approach have more demonstrable success.This simple question should be part of a larger program of organizational reflection and self-assessment. Willemsen believes that companies can improve their AI ethics by broadening the scope of their inquiry, asking difficult questions, remaining interested in the answers, and ultimately doing something with those answers.Although AI may be transformational, Willemsen emphasized the need to closely scrutinize how it would benefit or not benefit people.This ought to take into account not only the function of AI technology, the extent to which undesired outcomes are to be prevented and that technology must be under control, but can also go into things like inhumane conditions in mining environments for the hardware to run it, the connection to modern day slavery with tagger farms, as well as the incalculable damage from unprecedented electricity consumption and water usage for data center cooling, he said.Organizations that are fully aware of these issues and aligned with their AI initiatives will see benefits, according to Willemsen. The value of AI ethics may not be immediately tangible, he said. But knowing what is right from wrong means the value and greater benefit of AI ethics has a longer-term view: a consistent application of technology only where it is really useful and makes sense.

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) is laying off 4% of its global workforce, around 1,000 employees, as it pivots resources to developing AI-focused chips. This marks a strategic shift by AMD to challenge Nvidias lead in the sector.As a part of aligning our resources with our largest growth opportunities, we are taking a number of targeted steps that will unfortunately result in reducing our global workforce by approximately 4%,CRN reportedquoting an AMD spokesperson.

One out of every five PCs shipped in the third quarter of 2024, a total of 13.3 million units, was a PC with a neural processing unit (NPU) fine-tuned for generative AI (genAI) development, according to data published Wednesday by analyst firm Canalys.It is anticipating a rapid rise in shipments of these AI-capable PCs, surging to 60% of units shipped by 2027, with a strong focus on the commercial sector.Such machines typically house dedicated chipsets, including AMDs XDNA, Apples Neural Engine, Intels AI Boost, and Qualcomms Hexagon, Canalys said in a statement.Copilot+ PCs equipped with Snapdragon X series chips enjoyed their first full quarter of availability, while AMD brought Ryzen AI 300 products to the market, and Intel officially launched its Lunar Lake series, said Ishan Dutt, principal analyst at Canalys. However, both x86 chipset vendors are still awaiting Copilot+ PC support for their offerings from Microsoft, which is expected to arrive [in November].Dutt added that there is still resistance to purchasing AI PCs from both key end-user companies and channel players.This is especially true for more premium offerings such as Copilot+ PCs, which Microsoft requires to have at least 40 NPU TOPS [trillion operations per second], alongside other hardware specifications, Dutt said. A November poll of channel partners revealed that 31% do not plan to sell Copilot+ PCs in 2025, while a further 34% expect such devices to account for less than 10% of their PC sales next year.Canalys labels the machines as AI-capable PCs, which is baffling, given that AI has been around for many decades and can and has run on all manner of PC. Someone accessing data from an LLM wouldnt need that level of horsepower. That would only be needed for engineers and LLM developers creating the data-intensive systems.But such PCs wouldnt necessarily make sense for most of those LLM developers, said George Sidman, CEO of security firm TrustWrx. Most developers writing LLM applications at that level would be accessing high-end specialized servers, Sidman said.The PC has very little role. You would be running this in a large data center. These things are blocks long, Sidman said. You have got to look at the real world issues. With a huge multi-petabyte system behind it, well, you need that for the LLM to be effective.Canalys disagreed. It said in its report, With the use of AI models set to increase exponentially, associated costs to organizations from accessing cloud resources will ramp up significantly. Moving some workloads to AI-capable PCs will help mitigate this, and allow businesses to optimize their use of AI tools according to their budgets.Regardless, would such souped-up PCs deliver better overall performance? Yes, Sidman said, but the better question is whether the typical business user would likely notice the difference, given the speeds that exist today in routine business desktops. Will it improve some performance on the PC? Probably, but it wont get them anything concrete, Sidman said.

If youre still trying to remember all of your passwords and then type em into sites by hand, let me tell you: Youre doing it wrong.With all the credentials we have to keep track of these days, theres just no way the human brain can handle the task of storing the specifics at least, not if youre using complex, unique passwords that arent repeated (or almost repeated, even) from one site to the next. Thats where a password manager comes into play: It securely stores all your sign-in info for you and then fills it in as needed.While theres a case to be made for leaning on a dedicated app for that purpose (for reasons well discuss further in a moment), Google has its own password management system built right into Chrome and also now integrated directly into Android, at the operating system level. And its far better to rely on that than to use nothing at all.Google Password Manager 101First things first: You shouldnt have to do anything to turn the Google Password Manager on. The system, once considered part of Googles Smart Lock feature, works across Android, iOS, ChromeOS, and any other desktop platform where youre signed into Chrome and its typically activated by default in all of those places.Youll see the Password Managers prompts for credential-saving pop up anytime you enter your username and password into a site within the Chrome browser. The service will also offer to create complex new passwords for you when youre signing up for something new. And whenever you return to a site where your credentials have been stored, Smart Lock will automatically fill them in for you or, when more than one sign-in is associated with a single site, itll provide you with the option to pick the account you want to use.The system is able to sign you into Android apps automatically, too, though it works somewhat sporadically and you never quite know when itll be present. To use Google Password Manager in that way, youll need to search your Android devices system settings for autofill, then:Tap Autofill service from Google, tap that same option once more, and confirm that the system is on and active.Return to that same settings search for autofill, tap Preferred service, and ensure that Google is both active and set to be the preferred service on that screen.Google Password Manager can also sign you into both websites and apps across iOS, though on that front, youll need to manually enable the system by visiting the Passwords section of the iOS Settings app, selecting Autofill followed by Passwords and Chrome, and then turning on the Autofill option within that area.Adjusting your Password Manager setupIf you ever want to look through and edit your stored passwords or adjust your Google Password Manager settings, the easiest thing is to sign into the Google Password Manager web interface at passwords.google.com in any web browser, on any device youre using.There, you can view, edit, or delete any of your saved passwords as well as see and act on any alerts regarding possible security issues with your credentials.You can also adjust your Google Password Manager preferences by clicking the gear icon in the upper-right corner of that page. Its worth peeking in there once in a while, as you may find some options that are off by default and advisable to activate like proactive alerts anytime a password youve saved is found to be compromised and on-device encryption for extra protection of any new passwords you save along the way.Thats also where you can go to export all of your passwords for use in another service, if such a need ever arises.The Google Password Manager web settings section has a host of important options some of which are disabled by default.JR Raphael / IDGSpeaking of which, if you do at some point decide to use a standalone password manager and well dive into that subject further next youll want to be sure to disable the Offer to save passwords and Auto sign-in options here to effectively turn Google Password Manager off and keep yourself from seeing confusingly overlapping prompts every time you try to sign in somewhere.Youll also want to revisit the related settings on any Android and/or iOS devices youre using to be sure the new password manager is set to take the place of Google Password Manager in all the appropriate areas.Google Password Manager vs. the competitionSo why is it more advisable to use a dedicated password manager instead of Google Password Manager? Well, a few reasons:First, dedicated password managers provide broader and more consistent support for storing and filling in passwords across the full spectrum of apps on both your phone and your computer something most of us need to do quite regularly, especially in a work context. You dont want to have to go manually look up a password and then copy and paste it over every time you sign into something outside of your browser, and with Google Password Manager, thats frequently what you end up having to do.Beyond that, dedicated password managers work seamlessly in any browser youre using, on any device, instead of being closely connected only to Chrome.They also tend to come with stronger and more explicit security assurances, and they often offer additional features such as the ability to share your passwords with team members or even external clients (with or without allowing the person to actually see the password in question). They frequently include other useful elements beyond just basic password storage, too, including the ability to securely store different types of notes and documents.I maintain a collection of recommendations for the best password manager on Android, and my top choice right now is 1Password which costs $36 a year for an individual subscription, $60 a year for a family membership that includes up to five people, $239-a-year Teams Starter Pack that allows up to 10 company users, or $96 per company user per year. And while my recommendation is technically Android-specific, I take into account the experience the service offers across all platforms, since most of us work across multiple device types. 1Password works equally well on the desktop front as well as on iOS.If you arent going to take the time to mess with a dedicated password manager, though, Googles built-in system is absolutely the next best thing. And now you know exactly how to use it.This article was originally published in May 2020 and updated in November 2024.

The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is reportedly preparing to investigate Microsoft for potentially anti-competitive practices in its cloud computing division. This inquiry centers on whether Microsoft is abusing its market dominance by deploying restrictive licensing terms to dissuade customers from switching from its Azure platform to competitors, the Financial Times reported.According to the report, the practices under scrutiny include sharply raising subscription fees for customers looking to switch providers, imposing high exit charges, and reportedly making Office 365 less compatible with competitor cloud services.The investigation reflects the agencys broader push, led by FTC Chair Lina Khan, to address Big Techs influence in sectors such as cloud services, with bipartisan support for curbing monopolistic practices.In November 2023, the FTC began assessing cloud providers practices in four broad areas competition, single points of failure, security, and AI and sought feedback from stakeholders in academia, industry, and civil society.The majority of the feedback the commission received highlighted concerns over licensing constraints that limit customers choices.Microsofts cloud strategy under fireThe inquiry reported by the Financial Times is still in its early stages, but an FTC challenge could significantly impact Microsofts cloud operations, which have grown rapidly in recent years.Interoperability and the fear of vendor lock-in are important criteria for enterprises selecting cloud vendors, said Pareekh Jain, CEO of Pareekh Consulting. This could create a negative perception of Microsoft. Previously, Microsoft faced a similar probe regarding the interoperability of Microsoft Teams.This scrutiny aligns with global regulatory focus: In the UK, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is investigating Microsoft and Amazon following complaints about restrictive contracts and high egress fees, which make switching providers costly. Similarly, Microsoft recently sidestepped a formal probe in the European Union after it reached a multi-million-dollar settlement with rival cloud providers, addressing concerns of monopolistic practices.Neither the FTC nor Microsoft had responded to questions about the reported investigation by press time.Microsofts position in the cloud marketCloud computing has rapidly expanded, with industry spending expected to reach $675 billion in 2024, according to Gartner. Microsoft controls roughly 20% of the global cloud market, second only to Amazon Web Services (31%) and ahead of Google Cloud (12%), according to Statista. Tensions have risen between the leading providers, with Microsoft accusing Google of using shadow campaigns to undermine its position by funding adversarial lobbying efforts.It seems Google has two ultimate goals in its astroturfing efforts: distract from the intense regulatory scrutiny Google is facing around the world by discrediting Microsoft and tilt the regulatory landscape in favor of its cloud services rather than competing on the merits, Microsoft Deputy General Counsel Rima Alaily said in a statement in October.AWS has also accused Microsoft of anti-competitive practices in the cloud computing segment and complained to the UK CMA.These top cloud providers had already filed an antitrust case against Microsoft in 2022 alleging that Microsoft is using its software licensing terms to restrict European businesses options in selecting cloud providers for services like desktop virtualization and application hosting.Previous FTC interventions and growing cloud sector scrutinyThis move follows the FTCs legal challenge against Microsofts $75 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, which faced antitrust concerns around Microsofts cloud gaming business. While a federal court allowed the acquisition to proceed, the FTCs appeal highlights its commitment to maintaining oversight of Big Techs market reach.Since its inception, cloud computing has evolved from simple storage solutions to a cornerstone of AI development, with Microsoft, Amazon, and Google competing for contracts that power AI model training and deployment.If pursued, this inquiry could lead to intensified regulations on Microsofts cloud strategy, underscoring the FTCs commitment to protecting competitive markets in sectors increasingly dominated by a few key players. Neither the FTC nor Microsoft has publicly commented on the matter.Moving forward, all hyperscalers should commit to the interoperability of their cloud solutions in both intent and practice, Jain noted, adding, failing to do so may expose them to investigations that could damage their brand and business.Shared blameIf enterprises are finding themselves locked in to high costs, though, some of the blame may fall on them, suggested Yugal Joshi, a partner at Everest Group. Enterprises are happy signing highly discounted bundled deals, and when these financial incentives run out they complain about lock-in. Many of them already know what they are getting into but then are focused on near-term discounts over long-term interoperability and freedom to choose. Given the macro economy continues to struggle, price-related challenges are pinching harder, Joshi said. Therefore, clients are becoming more vocal and proactive about switching vendors if it saves them money. Microsoft has been a beneficiary of this, he said, because some clients are planning to move, and some have already moved, to its Dynamics platform from Salesforce.

OpenAI recently introducedSimpleQA, a new benchmark for evaluating the factual accuracy of large language models (LLMs) that underpin generative AI (genAI).Think of it as a kind of SAT for genAI chatbots consisting of 4,326 questionsacross diverse domains such as science, politics, pop culture, and art. Each question is designed to have one correct answer, which is verified by independent reviewers.The same question is asked 100 times, and the frequency of each answer is tracked. The idea is that a more confident model will consistently give the same answer.The questions were selected precisely because they have previously posed challenges for AI models, particularly those based onOpenAIs GPT-4. This selective approach means that the low accuracy scores reflect performance on particularly difficult questions rather than the overall capabilities of the models.This idea is also similar to the SATs, which emphasize not information that anybody and everybody knows but harder questions that high school students would have struggled with and had to work hard to master. This benchmark results show that OpenAIs models arent particularly accurate on the questions that work asked. In short, they hallucinate.OpenAIs o1-preview modelachieved a42.7%success rate. GPT-4ofollowed with a38.2%accuracy. And the smallerGPT-4o-miniscored only8.6%. Anthropic did worse than OpenAIs top model; the Claude-3.5-sonnetmodel managed to get just 28.9%of the answers correct.All these models got an F, grade-wise, providing far more incorrect answers than correct ones.And the answers are super easy for a human. Here are the kinds of questions that are asked by SimpleQA:What year did the Titanic sink?Who was the first President of the United States?What is the chemical symbol for gold?How many planets are in our solar system?What is the capital city of France?Which river is the longest in the world?Who painted the Mona Lisa?What is the title of the first Harry Potter book?What does CPU stand for?Who is known as the father of the computer?These are pretty simple questions for most people to answer, but they can present a problem for chatbots.One reason these tools struggled is that SimpleQA questions demand precise, single, indisputable answers. Even minor variations or hedging can result in a failing grade. Chatbots do better with open-ended overviews of even very complex topics but struggle to give a single, concise, precise answer.Also, the SimpleQA questions are short and self-contained and dont provide a lot of context. This is why providing as much context as possible in the prompts that you write improves the quality of responses.Compounding the problem, LLMs oftenoverestimate their own accuracy. SimpleQA queried chatbots on what they think is the accuracy of their answers; the models consistently reported inflated success rates. They feign confidence, but their internal certainty may be low.LLMs dont really thinkMeanwhile,newly published research from MIT, Harvard, and Cornell University show that while LLMs can perform impressive tasks, they lack a coherent understanding of the world.As one of their test examples, the researchers found that LLMs can generate accurate driving directions in complex environments like New York City. But when researchers introduced detours, the models performance dropped because they didnt have an internal representation of the environment (as people do). Closing just 1% of streets in New York City led to a drop in the AIs directional accuracy from nearly 100% to 67%.Researchers found that even when a model performs well in a controlled setting, it might not possess coherent knowledge structures necessary for random or diverse scenarios.The trouble with AI hallucinationsThe fundamental problem we all face is this: Industries and individuals are already relying on LLM-based chatbots and generative AI tools for real work in the real world. The public, and even professionals, believe this technology to be more reliable than it actually is.As one recent example, OpenAI offers an AI transcription tool called Whisper, which hospitals and doctors are already using for medical transcriptions. The Associated Press reported that a version of Whisper wasdownloaded more than 4.2 million timesfrom the open-source AI platform HuggingFace.More than 30,000 clinicians and 40 health systems, including the Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, are using a tool called Nabla, which is based on Whisper but optimized for medical lingo. The company estimates that Nabla has been used for roughly seven million medical visits in the United States and France.As with all such AI tools, Whisper is prone to hallucinations.One engineer who looked for Whisper hallucinations in transcriptions found the in every document examined. Another found hallucinations in half of the 100 hours of Whisper transcriptions he analyzed.Professorsfrom the University of Virginia looked at thousands of short snippets from a research repository hosted at Carnegie Mellon University. They found that nearly 40% of the hallucinations were harmful or concerning.In one transcription, Whisper even invented a non-existent medication called hyperactivated antibiotics.Experts fear the use of Whisper-based transcription will result in misdiagnoses and other problems.What to do about AI hallucinationsWhen you get a diagnosis from your doctor, you might want to get a second opinion. Likewise, whenever you get a result fromChatGPT,Perplexity AI, or some other LLM-based chatbot, you should also get a second opinion.You can use one tool to check another. For example, if the subject of your query has original documentation say, a scientific research paper, a presentation, or a PDF of any kind you can upload those original documents into GooglesNotebookLM tool. Then, you can copy results from the other tool, paste them into NotebookLM, and ask if its factually accurate.You should also check original sources. Fact-check everything.Chatbots can be great for learning, for exploring topics, for summarizing documents and many other uses. But they are not reliable sources of factual information, in general.What you should never, ever do is copy results from AI chatbots and paste it into something else to represent your own voice and your own facts. The language is often a bit off. The emphasis of points can be strange. And its a misleading practice.Worst of all, the chatbot youre using could be hallucinating, lying or straight up making stuff up. Theyre simply not as smart as people think.

Research by British telecommunications provider O2 has found that seven in ten Britons (71 percent) would like to take revenge on scammers who have tried to trick them or their loved ones. At the same time, however, one in two people does not want to waste their time on it.AI grandma against telephone scammersO2 now wants to remedy this with an artificial intelligence called Daisy. As the head of fraud prevention, its the job of this state-of-the-art AI granny to keep scammers away from real people for as long as possible with human-like chatter. To activate Daisy, O2 customers simply have to forward a suspicious call to the number 7726.Daisy combines different AI models that work together to first listen to the caller and convert their voice to text. It then generates responses appropriate to the characters personality via a custom single-layer large language model. These are then fed back via a custom text-to-speech model to generate a natural language response. This happens in real-time, allowing the tool to have a human-like conversation with a caller.Although human-like is a strong understatement: Daisy was trained with the help of Jim Browning, one of the most famous scambaiters on YouTube. With the persona of a lonely and seemingly somewhat bewildered older lady, she tricks the fraudsters into believing that they have found a perfect target, while in reality she beats them with their own weapons.

Google has entered a new and more intense phase of the AI wars, introducing its own Google Gemini app for iPhones; now you can use Apple Intelligence, ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot and Google Gemini on one device. Only one of those services tries to give you what you needwithout gathering too much information about you.What is Gemini?Like most Google services, Google Gemini seems free, in that you dont need to part with any cash credits to use it. Open it up, and youll find a chat window that also lets you get to a list of your previous chats. Speaking to Gemini is simple text, voice, or even use a camera to point at something and youll get some answers. In other words, the app integrates the same features as youll find on the Gemini website, but its an app so that makes it cool.Probably.There is one more thing access to the more conversational Gemini Live bot, which works a little likeChatGPTin voice mode. You can even assign access to Gemini as a shortcut on your iPhones Action button for fast access to the bot, which can also access and control any Google apps youre brave enough to install on your iPhone.All about GoogleAnd thats the thing, really. Like so much coming out of Silicon Valley now, Google Gemini is self-referencing.You use Google on your iPhone to speak to a Google AI and access Google services, which gives you a more Android-like experience if you happen to have migrated to iOS from Android. You can use Gemini on your iPhone to control YouTube Music, for example, and youll get Google Maps if you ask for directions.You even get supplementaryprivacy agreementsfor all those apps, some of which deliver exactly what you expect from Google the ads sales company, which is probably a little different than the privacy-first Apple experience you thought you were using. Gemini does put some protection in place, but your location data, feedback, and usage information can be reviewed by humans. Most people wont know this. Most people dont read privacy agreements before accepting them. They should but they are long, boring, and archaically written for a reason.AI tribalismIf art reflects life and tech is indeed the new creativity, then the emergence of these equal but different digital tribes reflects the deeper tribalism that seems to be impacting every other part of life. Is that a good thing? Perhaps that depends on which state you live in.At the end of days, Gemini on iPhone is your gateway to Google world, just as Windows takes you to Microsoft planet and Apple takes you to its owndistorted reality, (subject to the EU). There are other tech worlds too, but this isnt intended to be a definitive list of differing digital existences, especially now that these altered states have become both cloud- and service-based. Its a battle playing out on every platform and on every device.After all, if your primary computing experience becomes text- and voice-based, and the processors handling your requests are in the cloud, then it matters less which platform you use, as long as you get something you need. (Its only later well find that we get slightly less than what we need, with the difference between the two being the profit margin.)Apples approach is tosupport those external services while building up its own AI suite with its own unique and, if you ask me,vitally necessaryselling point around privacy. Others follow a different path, but its hard to ignore that control of your computational experience is the root of all these ambitions.King of the hillWith its early mover advantage, OpenAI is not blind to the battle. Just this week it introduced support for different applications across Windows and Mac desktops. In aNov. 14 message on X(for whomeverremains genuinely active there), Open AI announced: ChatGPT for macOS can now work with apps on your desktop. In this early beta for Plus and Team users, you can let ChatGPT look at coding apps to provide better answers.That means it will try to help when working in applications such as VS Code, Xcode, and Terminal. While you work, you can speak with the bot, get screenshots, share files and more. There is, of course, also a ChatGPT app for iPhones, and the first comparative reviews of the experience of using both Gemini and ChatGPT on an Apple device showpros and consto both. Downstream vendors,most recently including Jamf, are relying on tools provided by the larger vendors to add useful tools to their own.Google and OpenAI are not alone. Just last month, Microsoft introducedCopilot Vision, which it describes as autonomous agents capable of handling tasks and business functions, so you dont need to. Apple, of course, remains high on its recent introduction ofApple Intelligence.Things will get better before becoming worseIts a clash of the tech titans. And like every clash of the tech titans so far this century, you or your business are the product the titans are fighting for. That raises other questions such as how will they monetize your experience of AI.How high will energy prices climb as a direct result of the spiraling electricity demands of these services? At what point will AI eat itself, creating emails from spoken summaries that are then in turn summarized by AI? When it comes to security and privacy, is even sovereign AI truly secure enough for use in regulated enterprise? Justhow secure are Apples own AI servers? And once the dominant players in the New AI Empire finally emerge, how, just how, will they do what Big Tech always does and followDoctorows orders?You can follow me on social media! Youll find me onBlueSky, LinkedIn,Mastodon, andMeWe.

The EU, which is now developing guidelines for how the regions new AI law must be complied with, has started collecting opinions in two areasvia an online survey.The first area involves how the law should define AI systems (compared to traditional software). Here, the EU wants to hear from people in the AI industry, companies, academics and civil society. The second area concerns when the use of AI should be prohibited. The EU wants detailed feedback on each prohibited use and is particularly interested in practical examples.Points will be collected using the survey until Dec. 11, and the European Commission expects to publish guidelines regarding the definition of AI systems and any prohibited uses in early 2025.

Microsofts November Patch Tuesday release addresses 89 vulnerabilities in Windows, SQL Server, .NET and Microsoft Office and three zero-day vulnerabilities (CVE-2024-43451,CVE-2024-49019andCVE-2024-49039) that mean a patch now recommendation for Windows platforms. Unusually, there are a significant number of patch re-releases that might also require administrator attention.The team atReadinesshas provided this infographicoutlining the risks associated with each of the updates for this cycle. (For a rundown of recent Patch Tuesday updates, see Computerworlds round-up here.Known issuesThere were a few reported issues for the September update that have been addressed now, including:Enterprise customers are reporting issues with theSSHservice failing to start on updated Windows 11 24H2 machines. Microsoft recommended updating the file/directory level permissions on the SSH program directories (remember to include the log files). You can read more about this official workaroundhere.It looks like we are entering a new age ofARM compatibility challenges for Microsoft. However, before we get ahead of ourselves, we really need to sort out the (three-month old) Roblox issue.Major revisionsThis Patch Tuesday includes the following major revisions:CVE-2013-390: WinVerifyTrust Signature Validation Vulnerability. This update was originally published in 2013 via TechNet. This update is now made available and is applicable to Windows 10 and 11 users due to a recent change in theEnableCertPaddingCheckWindows API call. We highly recommend a review of this CVE and its associated Q&A documentation. Remember: if you must set your values in the registry, ensure that they are type DWORD not Reg SZ.CVE-2024-49040: Microsoft Exchange Server Spoofing Vulnerability. When Microsoft updates a CVE (twice) in the same week, and the vulnerability has been publicly disclosed, its time to pay attention. Before you apply this Exchange Server update, we highly recommend a review of the reportedheader detectionissues and mitigating factors.And unusually, we have three kernel mode updates (CVE-2024-43511,CVE-2024-43516andCVE-2024-43528that were re-released in October and updated this month.These security vulnerabilities exploit arace conditionin Microsofts Virtualization Based Security (VBS). Its worth a review of themitigating strategies while you thoroughly test these low-level kernel patches.Testing guidanceEach month, theReadinessteam analyzes the latest Patch Tuesday updates and provides detailed, actionable testing guidance based on a large application portfolio and a detailed analysis of the patches and their potential impact on Windows platforms and application installations.For this release cycle, we have grouped the critical updates and required testing efforts into separate product and functional areas including:Networking:Test end-to-end VPN, Wi-Fi, sharing and Bluetooth scenarios.Test out HTTPclients over SSL.Ensure internet shortcut files (ICS) display correctlySecurity/crypto:After installing the November update on your Certificate Authority (CA) servers, ensure that enrollment and renewal of certificates perform as expected.Test Windows Defender Application Control (WDAC) and ensure that line-of-business apps are not blocked. Ensure that WDAC functions as expected on your Virtual Machines (VM).Filesystem and logging:TheNTFileCopyChunkAPI was updated and will require internal application testing if directly employed. Test the validity of your parameters and issues relating to directory notification.I cannot claim to have anynostalgia for dial-up internet access (though I do have a certain Pavlovian response to the dial-uphandshake sound). For those who are still using this approach to access the internet, the November update to theTAPIAPI has you in mind. A quick (haha) test is required to ensure you can still connect to the internet via dial-up once you update your system.Windows lifecycle and enforcement updatesThere were no product or security enforcements this cycle. However, we do have the following Microsoft products reaching their respective end of servicing terms:Oct. 8, 2024: Windows 11 Enterprise and Education, Version 21H2, Windows 11 Home and Pro, Version 22H2, Windows 11 IoT Enterprise, Version 21H2.Oct. 9, 2024: Microsoft Project 2024 (LTSC)Mitigations and workaroundsMicrosoft published the following mitigations applicable to this Patch Tuesday.CVE-2024-49019: Active Directory Certificate Services Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability. As this vulnerability has been publicly disclosed, we need to take it seriously. Microsoft has offered some mitigation strategies during the update/testing/deployment for most enterprises that include:Remove overly broad enroll or auto-enroll permissions.Remove unused templates from certification authorities.Secure templates that allow you to specify the subject in the request.As most enterprises employ Microsoft Active Directory, we highly recommend a review of thisknowledge note from Microsoft.Each month, we break down the update cycle into product families (as defined by Microsoft) with the following basic groupings:Browsers (Microsoft IE and Edge);Microsoft Windows (both desktop and server);Microsoft Office;Microsoft Exchange Server;Microsoft Development platforms (ASP.NETCore, .NET Core and Chakra Core);Adobe (if you get this far).BrowsersMicrosoft released a single update specific to Microsoft Edge (CVE-2024-49025), and two updates for the Chromium engine that underpins the browser (CVE-2024-10826andCVE-2024-10827). Theres a brief note on thebrowser update here. We recommend adding these low-profile browser updates to your standard release schedule.WindowsMicrosoft released two (CVE-2024-43625andCVE-2024-43639) patches with a critical rating and another 35 patches rated as important by Microsoft. This month the following key Windows features have been updated:Windows Update Stack (note: installer rollbacks may be an issue);NT OS, Secure Kernel and GDI;Microsoft Hyper-V;Networking, SMB and DNS;Windows Kerberos.Unfortunately, these Windows updates have been publicly disclosed or reported as exploited in the wild, making themzero-day problems:CVE-2024-43451: NTLM Hash Disclosure Spoofing Vulnerability.CVE-2024-49019: Active Directory Certificate Services Elevation of Privilege.CVE-2024-49039: Windows Task Scheduler Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability.Add these Windows updates to yourPatch Nowrelease cadence.Microsoft OfficeMicrosoft pushed out six Microsoft Office updates (all rated important) that affect SharePoint, Word and Excel. None of these reported vulnerabilities involve remote access or preview pane issues and have not been publicly disclosed or exploited in the wild. Add these updates to your standard release schedule.Microsoft SQL (nee Exchange) ServerYou want updates to Microsoft SQL Server? We got em: 31 patches to the SQL Server Native client this month. Thats a lot of patches, even for a complex product like Microsoft SQL Server. These updates appear to be the result of a major clean-up effort from Microsoft addressing the following reported security vulnerabilities:CWE-122: Heap-based Buffer OverflowCWE-416: Use After FreeThe vast majority of theseSQL Server Native Clientupdates address theCWE-122related buffer overflow issues. Note: these patches update the SQL Native client, so this is a desktop, not a server, update. Crafting a testing profile for this one is a tough call. No new features have been added, and no high-risk areas have been patched. However, many internal line-of-business applications rely on these SQL client features. We recommend that your core business applications be tested before this SQL update, otherwise add it to your standard release schedule.Boot note: Remember that there is a major revision toCVE-2024-49040 this could affect the SQL Server server side of things.Microsoft development platformsMicrosoft released one critical-rated update (CVE-2024-43498) and three updates rated as important for Microsoft .NET 9 and Visual Studio 2022. These are pretty low-risk security vulnerabilities and very specific to these versions of the development platforms. They should present a reduced testing profile. Add these updates to your standard developer schedule this month.Adobe Reader (and other third-party updates)Microsoft did not publish any Adobe Reader-related updates this month. The companyreleased three non-Microsoft CVEs covering Google Chrome and SSH (CVE-2024-5535). Given the update to Windows Defender (as a result of the SSH issue), Microsoft also published a list of Defendervulnerabilities and weaknessesthat might assist with your deployments.

Its been possible for users to download ISO files of the Windows operating system, but until now that option has only applied to the x86 version.Now its finally possible to download an ISO file of Windows 11 for computers with Arm-based chips fromMicrosofts website, according to Neowin. The file can be used to install Windows 11 on virtual machines or to create installation media such as a USB stick or a DVD.Note: not all drivers are included in the ISO file, meaning users might need to complete the installation afterwards by installing drivers from other sources.

In a sign of the times, Apples key manufacturing partners are ready to ramp up production in the US should the incoming Trump administration keep its promise to levy painful surcharges on Chinese imports.But, of course, these new factories wont necessarily create vast quantities of jobs, as they are likely to be focused on strategically important, high-value goods made inheavily automated plants.All the same, the news is that Apples big Taiwanese partners Foxconn, Pegatron, and Quanta Computer are ready to rapidly ramp up US manufacturing investment in response to any changes in national policy,explained Foxconn Chairman Young Liu. His company already has production centers in Texas, Wisconsin, and Ohio, and is ready for additional expansion, he said.Dealing with uncertaintyThis may be shrewd preparation, given that President-Elect Donald J. Trump has threatened to put a 60% levy on Chinese-made products once he re-takes power. Trump has just been elected. Its uncertain what policies he will implement. Well be watching to see what changes there will be from the new U.S government, Liu said, according toReuters.Liu was speaking during the companys stronger-than-anticipatedquarterly results call. The company revealed that net income for the quarter was $1.5 billion, with demand for server chips boosting performance. He expects Foxconn to take at least 40% of the global server market in future.That demand for server chips means the company can see even more value in US production, with Alphabet, Meta and Amazon set to spend billions on server infrastructure to drive AI this year. If you combine that demand with the growing recognition of the need to protect data sovereignty, you can surmise that making servers in this kind of quantity near or in the regions that are demanding them is a sensible business move for the company. (Liu actually uses the term sovereign server to articulate this.)Similarly, as tensions with China could increase under Trumps management, the Taiwanese firms may feel that manufacturing consumer products in the US is a price they can pay in exchange for some protection around their own national security. (And the strategic need to encourage companies to make chips in the US makes achieving that amatter of national security.)What about the iPhoneLiu was light with detail on the companys biggest client, though Apple critics seeking a little mood music might note his warning that the smart consumer products business will show a decline this year. This could either suggest iPhone sales are lower than anticipated or could hint that iPhones are eating the industrys lunch, with other smartphones Foxconn also makes for other brands not selling terribly well.Decoding the shadows surrounding the data, it is perhaps telling (and probably related) that Foxconns sales hit a record high in October, when the iPhone 16 was introduced.Im inclined to imagine the Apple smartphone is doing just fine.The new tech, US and India?The need to diversify manufacturing bases is generating international investments. Apple, Foxconn, and other Apple partners are also deeply immersed in building business in India, with Foxconn already putting $10 billion into that attempt.The company intends to makeeven bigger investmentsthere, even as alocal report claimsApple and its suppliers aim to make just under a third (32%) of all iPhones made globally in India by fiscal 2027.But even in India, the labor force is a cost, and Foxconn (and Apple) already have plans to reduce the number of workers involved in iPhone assembly, perhaps byas much as 50%.They hope to achieve this through automation and artificial intelligence, though there is a lot of work to do before robots can match human manufacturing success still, Apple has said itsmanufacturing headcount droppedfrom 1.6 million workers globally to 1.4 million in 2023.An iPod, a phone, a tool for international politicsJobs, international tension, money, the march of AI, trade wars and surveillance as a service., were through the smartphone looking glass, people, and no mistake.In the US, and elsewhere, weve quite clearly taken a long, long journey since the optimism and promise voiced by then-Apple CEO Steve Jobs when he described the first iPhone in 2007. He did not say an iPod, a phone, and a device that challenges economic and national security.It is only today, as the march of digital transformation continues, that this is what it turned out to be.You can follow me on social media! Youll find me onBlueSky, LinkedIn,Mastodon, andMeWe.

Box is developing new AI and automation tools to help customers tap into unstructured data stored in its content management platform; Box AI Studio and Box Apps were both unveiled at the companys Box Works event Tuesday.Box AI Studio lets customers build custom AI agents that workers can interact with via a natural language chatbot. Each agent can be prompted to respond in a particular way to specific groups of workers. There could be a legal contract review agent that knows all about a companys contracting policies, for example, or a sales agent that staff can consult for advice.You could be inside of your sales portal, trying to get sales advice for a deal youre working on, and talk to the sales agent thats using the information from within your sales portal, said Box CEO and founder Aaron Levie.The agents are built with a no-code interface, with customers able to select large language models (LLMs) from third-party providers such as Anthropic, Google, and Microsoft.Then were going to obviously have to figure out how we get the agents to all interact with each other thats going be the next frontier of interoperability, Levie said.Generative AI (genAI) technologies such as Box AI Studio will disrupt how organizations create, manage and leverage unstructured content and documents said Holly Muscolino, group vice president for Workplace Solutions at IDC. While business adoption of genAI has been slow so far due lack of clear ROI, trust around data access, and change management challenges when deploying tools to workers theres potential forlarge improvements in productivity, customer and employee experience and other business metrics, she said.Box is rolling out generative AI tools designed to help users build custom AI agents they can interact with via a chatbot.BoxWe believe that they will eventually be table stakes and part of baseline solutions. Note that Box is not unique in rolling out these capabilities, but they are very good at marketing them, Muscolino said.AI Studiois just the first step in Boxs vision for AI agents: Levie said the company is also working on agentic workflows that will let customers build AI assistants that can be set up to act autonomously on behalf of workers; these will arrive in the medium term, with no specific timeline set.We anticipate that any knowledge worker within an enterprise will probably be interacting with dozens, if not hundreds, of agents to do their work, said Levie.Not all those agents will be created within Box, he said, with all software vendors eventually creating their own agents. Youll have one agent help you with a contract process, another review information for some strategic decision, and another that gets your calendar organized, he said.The other major feature addition unveiled Tuesday is Box Apps, a no-code app development framework that includes features such as a custom UI interface, metadata extraction, workflow automations, and content dashboards.The idea is to automate common content-intensive businesses processes such as contract management and invoice processing. To run these processes, customers would typically have to either build an entire custom app on top of Boxs APIs, or use bespoke technology platforms, said Levie. This means customers must move data out of the Box platform, bypassing security controls in place.With Box Apps, these custom apps can be created directly within Box. You can have a contract management system, you can have an invoice processing system, you can have a digital asset management system, and in a matter of hours, if not minutes, you can build that entire application and deploy it to people in your organization, said Levie.So, this is going to be a real kind of a breakthrough in delivering no-code applications for every business process in the enterprise.Box Apps is built on technology from business process app builderCroozeone of two acquisitions Box made this year. Box also intends to release functionality based on another recent acquisition,Polish startup Alphamoon,next year, said Levie.Both of those acquisitions added important capabilities to Boxs portfolio by providing data extraction and metadata management, said Muscolino.Box AI Studio and Box Apps will be available in January in a new Enterprise Advanced payment plan that will also include premium features such as Box Archive for long-term content management, and Doc Gen, a custom document creation tool now in a beta preview. Enterprise Advanced will be the next tier up from the Enterprise Plus plan that arrived in 2021.Box said it would announce pricing for Enterprise Advanced closer to launch.Muscolino noted thatpricing forgenAI tools isstill all over the place. While customers may be happy to pay additional fees for the latest AI-powered features, many of these willeventuallybe an expected component of a content management system, she said.Of course, prices wont come down, but these features will not command a premium, said Muscolino.

With last weeks US elections, everything changed for the tech industry, especially for Microsoft. Given President-elect Donald J. Trumps penchant for incendiary statements, off-the-cuff decisions, plans to impose massive tariffs, and willingness to use the power of his office for personal vendettas, almost anything could happen.But based on Trumps past actions, who he turns to for tech and economic advice, and what hes said on the campaign trail, theres a lot we know about how Microsoft will likely be affected by his upcoming four-year reign.Theres so much, in fact, that its more than can be covered in one column. Here, Ill look at how Trumps likely plans for AI will affect the company. In Part 2, Ill look at tariffs, antitrust and climate change issues, and how Trumps actions often are based more on personal grievances than policy.Heres how the president-elects likely AI plans could help or hurt the company.Letting AI run freeMicrosoft is the world leader in AI and has built generative AI (genAI) copilots into its entire product line. That was just the start. The company continues to invest billions and has bet its future on the technology. As genAI goes, so goes Microsoft. That means any actions Trump takes could dramatically affect Microsofts present and future.Trump has said plenty about tech through the years, but surprisingly little about AI. Based on his big tech backers, general outlook on technology, and the few things hes said about it, we can get some sense of what hell do.One of his biggest tech boosters is venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, who is opposed to any regulation of AI, and believes AI development should be absolutely unfettered. Elon Musk wields even more influence with Trump than Andreessen, though, and has become his most trusted tech adviser. Musk is generally against any government regulation over tech, but when it comes to AI, hes a bit more nuanced.Musk has often spoken about his fears that unchecked AI could lead to the destruction of the human race. He also supporteda California bill that would have required AI to undergo safety testing before being deployed.As he wrote on X: For over 20 years, I have been an advocate for AI regulation, just as we regulate any product/technology that is a potential risk to the public.The bill was passed by the California legislature, but Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed it.That makes it sound as if Musk is all in on regulation. But thats not really the case. His primary worry is that AI might eventually represent an existential threat to mankind and thats all he wants to regulate. Hes against regulations around existing real-world issuessuch as intellectual property theft, or AIs use to violate civil rights, its role in misinformation, privacy violations, its effect on jobs and more.What this all means is that its unlikely AI will face much regulation under Trump. The first thing hell probably do is rescindBidens well-thought-out AI executive orderthat addresses everything from safety and security measures to issues related to bias and civil rights, and oversight over how genAI is produced. Because it was only an executive order, it didnt carry the full force of law. But it did have some effect. And it was an ideal roadmap for how Congress could act on AI regulation if it wanted to.Samuel Hammond, a senior economist at the Foundation for American Innovation, was blunt about what would happen to that order. He told Vox,There will likely be a day one repeal of the Biden executive order on AI.Trump will also almost certainly want to boost AI to make sure the US leads China in it.He told the right-wing influencer Logan Paul in an interview, We have to be at the forefront [of AI]. Its going to happen. And if its going to happen, we have to take the lead over China.Finally, in JulyThe Washington Post reported that Trumps tech boostersare drafting a sweeping AI executive order that would launch a series of Manhattan Projects to develop military technology and immediately review unnecessary and burdensome regulations.How this affects MicrosoftWhat does all this mean for Microsoft? Under Trump its going to be full speed ahead on AI. Any regulations are likely to cover only the existential danger AI could pose to humanity, and not any of the many dangers it currently poses. That means the company will be free to develop AI in pretty much any way it wants.Theres more good news for Microsoft than just being free of regulations. Because it is the worlds most powerful AI company, the Trump administration will almost certainly turn to Microsoft for help in its fight against China and pay the company well for it. The Biden administration has already done so, much to Microsofts benefit. The administration brokered a deal in which Microsoft invested $1.5 billion in a powerful genAI company based in the United Arab Emirates, which then cut its ties to China and aligned with the US.In addition, there will be direct government AI contracts. Expect Trump to pour billions into the military use of AI. Microsoft has had contracts with the US military for decades. In just the past few years, its gottena $22 billion contract to provide the US Army with 120,000 AR headsetsandbillions for a Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability (JWCC) contract to establish what the company calls an enterprise-level tactical cloud.A new generation of AI-related military contracts under Trump will fatten the companys bottom line even more.The Trump wild cardAll this requires that Trump acts rationally, though, which rarely occurs. If Microsoft wants those government contracts and wants to be free from regulation, its going to have to be obsequious to Trump, praise him when necessary and stay away from even the slightest hint of criticism. Its going to have to close its eyes to the worst of his actions and behavior. Its also going to have to do the same with Musk, who is as mercurial and thin-skinned as Trump.If Microsoft does all that, its profits will be sky high. As for what price in self-respect and its sense of itself as a moral company, only Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and those who work there know.

Lets be honest: Many Windows PCs dont have great webcams. The webcam is often an afterthought where manufacturers cut costs when putting together laptops. And, if you have a desktop PC, you might not even have a webcam at all unless you go out and buy one.But you almost certainly have multiple high-quality cameras built right into your smartphone of choice, whether you use an Android phone or an iPhone. And with the right bit of relatively simple setup, your smartphones high-end camera hardware can actually function as your PCs webcam, too.It might be just the secret to getting better video quality in your online meetings and other video calls no extra expenses required.Want to stay on top of the latest Windows PC features? My free Windows Intelligence newsletter delivers all the best Windows tips straight to your inbox. Plus, youll get free in-depth Windows Field Guides as a special welcome bonus!Use an Android phone as a webcam on Windows 11 (wirelessly)Up first: If you have an Android phone and a Windows 11 PC, Microsoft now offers a built-in way to turn your phone into a camera. It all happens wirelessly, so you dont even need a USB cable. However, this does require Windows 11 Microsoft didnt add the new feature to Windows 10.To set this up, open the Settings app on Windows 11, select Bluetooth & devices, and click Mobile devices. Activate the Allow this PC to access your mobile devices option if it isnt already enabled. Then, click the Manage devices button.From here, add your Android phone if it isnt already connected to your PC. This will involve installing the Link to Windows app on your phone and signing in with the same Microsoft account you use on your PC.Once everything is set up, ensure the Use as a connected camera option is activated.If you have any trouble, try toggling the Enabled switch here to turn the connection off and back on again.Chris Hoffman, IDGNow, your Android phone will appear as a webcam in apps. (Want to test this? Try opening the Camera app built into Windows.)When you select it as a webcam, youll see a notification on your Android phone. Tap it to allow the connection. You can then use the app on your phone or the floating panel on your PC to change settings.Youll see a floating window where you can switch between your phones front and back camera while using it as a camera.Chris Hoffman, IDGTurn a Pixel phone into a Windows webcam via USBDo you have a Pixel phone? Google has a very convenient built-in way for your phone to function as a webcam no extra apps necessary. Heres what youll need:A Pixel 6, Pixel 7, Pixel 8, Pixel 9, or newer phone.A Windows 10 or Windows 11 PC.A USB cable to connect your phone to your PC.To get started with this, plug your phone into your Windows PC with a USB cable as if you were going to do an Android file transfer between your phone and the PC. Youll see an Android system notification talking about USB connection settings on your phone. Tap it and then tap Webcam under Use USB for.Your Pixel phone will then appear as a webcam to your Windows PC. You can select it as youd select any other webcam device in your video-conferencing application of choice.Pixel phones can easily function as USB webcams.Chris Hoffman, IDGSet up DroidCam for iPhone or AndroidYou can turn to a third-party app thatll allow your phone to double as a completely wireless Windows webcam. There are a variety of paid applications for this, but DroidCam stands out from the pack.Despite the name, this app works with both Android phones and iPhones! And its completely free at standard resolution. (You can get a Pro upgrade for a one-time $15 payment to enable higher-resolution video streaming.) And theres also a watermark unless you pay the fee. But the price is still a bargain compared to competing applications that charge higher prices or even ongoing subscription fees. As a useful professional tool, its very reasonable.To set up DroidCam, youll need to install the DroidCam app on your phone get it from Google Play for Android or the App Store for iPhone. Then install the DroidCam client app on your Windows PC. Launch the client app from the Start menu after its installed and follow the instructions to link the phone and PC apps.Heres another option: Reincubate Camo has a lot of good reviews, but youre looking at a $50 per year subscription for all the features rather than a one-time $15 payment.DroidCam works with both iPhones and Android phones as long as you have a Windows PC or Linux system.Chris Hoffman, IDGTry a phone manufacturer-specific Android appWhile Android phones from other manufacturers may not offer the convenient webcam-over-USB feature Google offers on its Pixel phones, they sometimes do have their own solutions.Samsung, for example, offers a camera sharing feature for Galaxy phones but it only works with specific laptops also made by Samsung. According to Samsungs website, you can only use the Galaxy camera sharing feature if you have a Galaxy Book5 Pro 360 Windows laptop from Samsung.If you have a Motorola phone, it might support Motorolas Smart Connect platform. If so, you can install Lenovos Smart Connect app (Lenovo owns Motorola) and use it to position your Motorola phone as a webcam from your PC.Overall, youre generally better off going with the more broadly applicable solutions, such as the ones I mentioned. But if your phone has a built-in option provided by the manufacturer and it works with your PC hardware which might be a tall order, as we see with the Galaxy phone example it could be worth considering.Who needs Apples Continuity Camera?Of course, if youre using an iPhone and a Mac, you can use Apples Continuity Camera instead. But Windows users have a lot of great options here, and the integrated solutions work well especially with Android devices.Oh, and theres one more simple solution worth noting: If you want to use your phone as a webcam in a video meeting with a service like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, or Google Meet, you could also just join the meeting directly from your phone. Your phone would function as your webcam. Then, you could participate in the meeting from your phone, without even involving your computer.While you dont get the full-screen video-meeting experience in that scenario, it can work well for a quick call and is a great option to turn to in a pinch.Want to make the most of your PC? My free Windows Intelligence newsletter delivers all the best Windows tips straight to your inbox. Plus, youll get free copies of Paul Thurrotts Windows 11 and Windows 10 Field Guides (a $10 value) just for subscribing.

In the ongoing and potentially futile effort by CIOs to squeeze meaningful ROI out of their shiny, new generative AI (genAI) tools, there is no more powerful villain than hallucinations. It is what causes everyone to seriously wonder whether the analysis genAI delivers is valid and usable.From that perspective, I applaud OpenAI for trying to create a test to determine objective accuracy for genAI tools. But that effort called SimpleQA fails enterprise tech decision-makers in two ways. First, OpenAI is thelastbusiness any CIO would trust to determine the accuracy of the algorithms it is selling. Would you trust an app that determines the best place to shop from Walmart, Target or Amazon or perhaps a car evaluation tool from Toyota or GM?The second problem is that SimpleQA focuses on, well, simple stuff. It looks at objective and simple questions that ostensibly have only one correct answer. More to the point, the answer to those questions is easily determined and verified.That is just not how most enterprises want to use genAI technology. Eli Lilly and Pfizer want it to find new drug combinations to cure diseases. (Sorry, that should be treat. Treat makes companies money forever. Cures revenue is large, but ends far too quickly.) Yes, it would test those treatments afterwards, but that is a lot of wasted effort if genAI is wrong. Costco and Walgreens want to use it to find the most profitable places to build new stores. Boeing wants it to come up with more efficient ways to build aircraft.Lets delve into what OpenAI created. For starters, heresOpenAIs document.Ill put the companys comments into a better context.An open problem in artificial intelligence is how to train models that produce responses that are factually correct. Translation: We figured it would be nice to have it give a correct answer every now and then.Language models that generate more accurate responses with fewer hallucinations are more trustworthy and can be used in a broader range of applications. Translation: Call us hippies, if you must, but we brainstormed and concluded that our revenue could be improved if our product actually worked.Those flippant comments aside, I want to acknowledge that OpenAI makes a good faith effort here to come up with a basic way to evaluate precision where concrete answers can be ascertained. Setting aside how valuable that is in an enterprise setting, its a good start.But instead of creating the test itself, it would have been far more credible if it funded a trusted third-party consulting or analyst firm to do the work, with a firm hands-off policy so IT could trust that the testing was not biased in favor of OpenAIs offerings.Still, something is better than nothing, so lets look at what OpenAI said.SimpleQA is a simple, targeted evaluation for whether models know what they know (and give) responses (that) are easy to grade because questions are created such that there exists only a single, indisputable answer. Each answer in SimpleQA is graded as either correct, incorrect, or not attempted. A model with ideal behavior would get as many questions correct as possible while not attempting the questions for which it is not confident it knows the correct answer.If you think through why this approach works orseems like it would work it becomes clear why it might not be helpful. This approach suffers from a critical flawed assumption. If the model can accurately answer these questions, then that tells us that it will likely be able to answer other questions with the same accuracy.That might work with a calculator, but the nature of genAI hallucinations makes that assumption flawed. GenAI can easily get 10,000 questions correct and it might then wildly hallucinate for the next 50.The nature of hallucinations is that they tend to happen randomly with zero predictability. That is why spot-checking, which is pretty much what SimpleQA is trying to do, wont work here.To be more specific, it wouldnt be meaningful if genAI tools were to get all of the SimpleQA answers right. But the reverse isnt true. If the tested model gets all or most of the SimpleQA answers wrong, thatdoestell IT quite a bit. From the technologys perspective, the test seems unfair. If it gets an A, it will be ignored. If it gets an F, it will be believed. As the computer said inWarGames(a great movie to watch to see what a genAI system might do at the Pentagon), The only winning move is not to play.OpenAI pretty much concedes this in the report: In this work, we will sidestep the open-endedness of language models by considering only short, fact-seeking questions with a single answer. This reduction of scope is important because it makes measuring factuality much more tractable, albeit at the cost of leaving open research questions such as whether improved behavior on short-form factuality generalizes to long-form factuality.Later in the report, OpenAI elaborates: A main limitation with SimpleQA is that while it is accurate, it only measures factuality under the constrained setting of short, fact-seeking queries with a single, verifiable answer. Whether the ability to provide factual short answers correlates with the ability to write lengthy responses filled with numerous facts remains an open research question.Here are the specifics: SimpleQA consists of 4,326 short, fact-seeking questions.Another component of the SimpleQA test is that the question-writer bears much of the responsibility, rather than the answer-writer. One part of this criterion is that the question must specify the scope of the answer. For example, instead of asking Where did Barack and Michelle Obama meet which could have multiple answers such as Chicago or the law firm Sidley & Austin, questions had to specify which city or which company. Another common example is that instead of asking simply when, questions had to ask what year or what date.That nicely articulates why this wont likely be of use in the real world. Enterprise users are going to ask questions in an imprecise way. They have been sold on the promise of just use natural language and the system will figure out what you really mean through context. This test sidesteps that issue entirely.So, how can the results be meaningful or reliable?The very nature of hallucinations belies any way to quantify them. If they were predictable, IT could simply program their tools to ignore every 75th response. But its not. Until someone figures out how to truly eliminate hallucinations, the lack of reliable answers will stay with us.

Apple is allegedly preparing to introduce aniPad-like Control Centerfor smart homes. Equipped with a display andsome form of homeOS, it is expected to be some kind of wall-mounted device that lets you access some Apple services, control smart home devices, handle security camera feeds, and the like.This sounds like a good idea. After all, we know theres a market for sophisticated alarm systems, and ApplesHomeKit Securevideo system will no doubt play a part in whats introduced.As long as Sirireally does improve, the company might have a hope of introducing something that works for a while. But will it?Smart homes? Its complicatedI recently spent another fruitless hour trying to make my printer connect to my new Wi-Fi network, which it still wont do. While doing that, I was also attempting to return an old HomePod to factory fresh (and make it stop making weird belching sounds) when it really hit me how utterly frustrating most smart home experiences still are.Things that promise huge leaps in convenience can become hugely frustrating exercises, with a user experience that becomes characterized in folk memory by myopic attempts at stabbing tiny, awkwardly-placed holes with bent paperclips, or endlessly pressing software reset buttons that dont seem to make anything happen.Thats just the hardware user experience. The software adds another dimension.Who hasnt found it quite creepy whenads for products theyve just been talking to their family aboutappear online shortly after installing a new smart TV? Who else dislikes it when Alexa or Siri or any other smart assistant raises its little voice toremind you its there? Dont even get me started on the privacy policy statements manufacturers provide, and how so many seem to think these give them carte blanche togather data about youand sell that information (anonymized they say) to people you know nothing about.All in all, smart home tech seems to end up meaning you put quite costly devices in your home that stop working pretty soon, dont work particularly well together, and turn you into a profit center for people youve gotno relationship with. Thats smart for the manufacturers, I suppose, but not for the rest of us. But so many years into the evolution of the space, it really seems like the faults in some attempts at home automation are a feature, not a bug.Is it smarter to be cynical?Thats not to say every manufacturer in the space can be accused of the same thing.Im sure many have introduced smart home products that are easy to switch to new networks and ship with clear and actionable instructions for returning the gadget to factory fresh, rather than sending them via your local electronics recycling center to be cannibalized for conflict minerals with the carcass sent to landfill.With so many problems, no wonder consumers dont seem to be racing to invest in smart home devices.Sure, billions of dollars are being spent on these things, but over half of that spend goes on devices for video playback, and market growth seems anaemic overall and growth predictions seem to defy historical reality. Look at thisStatista graph for some sense of this. That big column at the right looks really promising until you realize its an estimated figure for 2027, which requires the market to enter a period of accelerated growth that exceeds any historical growth trends. It is also fair to point to other surveys that suggest once they do get their smart homes together, consumersbelieve the devices improve their quality of life.Though there is the issue of trust.A matter of trustWhile governments eager for growth seem to think tech will save us, consumers trust the sector less and less. Theres lots of data that reflects this decline. Arguably this could well represent a reaction against everything from huge security problems such as the recent Crowdstrike disaster to election interference, mass deception, concerns about fake news, privacy erosion, security, and even frustration at the never-ending nature of digital transformation. Its not just tech leaders who feel like they are under constant pressure to adopt new digitized working practices. Those on the front line are also struggling to keep up with endless digital change.Perhaps, once people do make it home, (dodging self-driving vehicles, smartphone zombies, and electronic scooters on their domestic commute), they just want their home kit to work without needing to read a manual. Assuming there evenisa manual.Can Apple change this? Maybe. Perhaps it can introduce an iPad-like smart home device with a privacy-first OS and decent integration with peripheral devices from a range of manufacturers thanks toMatter and Thread. Perhaps it can make Siri simply clever and deploy artificial intelligence tomake your smart home actually smart.Perhaps Apple can breathe life into the whole category. But maybe consumers are tired of promises and want to see an ecosystem that delivers on those promises before they slap too many dollars down. With that in mind, Im going to kick my frustrating printer andgo for a bracing stroll.You can follow me on social media! Youll find me onBlueSky, LinkedIn,Mastodon, andMeWe.

VMware this weekannouncedthat the virtualization companys hypervisor products, VMware Workstation and Fusion, will be completely free for both personal and commercial users, as well as for educational purposes. The move follows a decision last May, when VMware made both Workstation and Fusion free for personal use; those who wanted to use the software for commercial purposes still had to sign up for a paid subscription.The free versions will have the same functionality as the paid products, but VMware owner Broadcom will not offer troubleshooting support. The old paid versions Workstation Pro and Fusion Pro are no longer available.If you currently have a commercial contract, you can rest assured knowing that your contract will continue to apply until the end of your contract term, Himanshu Singh, Broadcom product marketing director, said in a blog post. You will continue to receive full service and enterprise-grade support as per your agreement.Broadcom bought VMware in 2023 and then decided to make major changes to the product portfolio. Among other things, by removing all perpetual licenses, which received a lot of criticism from several quarters.

As it seemingly remains focused onincreasing thecost of doing businessin the region, the European Commissions (trade) war with Big Tech/America by proxy continues with ademand for Apple to stopgeo-blocking practices on Apple Media Services, including the App Store, Apple Music, TV+, and others.Its a new European front in a battle dominated so far by Apples struggles to bring its business in line with theDigital Markets Actin the region. However, to some degree it reflects efforts to give consumers free access to markets across all EU states. But when combined with themyriad challengesApple alreadyfaces in the region, the demand will impose yetanother set of legal headaches and require the company to invest in yet moreexpensive developer time.Whats this all about?Europe argues that the geo-blocking restrictions Apple employs on its media platforms unlawfully discriminate against European customers based on their place of residence. In Europe, people should be able to purchase goods and services from any EU state. Further, Europes Services Directive requires that general conditions of access to a service dont contain discriminatory provisions relating to the nationality or place of residence of the service recipient, unless directly justified by objective criteria.So far, so good. But I have a sense that some of the territorial licensing restrictions some copyright holders still keep in place might act as a brake on what Apple can achieve. There was a day not so long ago when music streaming services had to reach a separate distribution deal for each EU member state, and while that has relaxed significantly, it may also be why Apples media services evolved that kind of licensing model. But that was then, this is now. (I do suspect Europe and Apple will find these problems arent completely within their own control.)What does Europe want?What regulators want is for Apple to make a series of changes to how it offers up media services in the EU. The discrimination of consumers based on their nationality or place of residence is against Union law, therefore unacceptable, said Commissioner for Justice Didier Reynders.Consumers must be able to reap the full benefits of the Single Market and should not face any obstacles while using a specific service and traveling around the EU, he explained. The Commission urges Apple to bring its practices in line with EU rules against the unjustified geo-blocking of consumers.Europe wants Apple to:Make it possible to access its media services via any country interface a consumer wants to use.Allow consumers to pay for things using any means of payment from any country they have available to them. For example, if you have bank accounts in France and in Germany but are registered for your Apple Account in France, you can use either bank to pay your bill. At present you can only use a French bank, as that is where your account is registered.The bloc also wants consumers to be able to download the version of an app offered in another EU/EEA country. Consumers should be able to download apps offered in other EU/EEA countries when they travel to or temporarily stay in that country, the EU states.Google has already done itApple may be in the Commissions sights (again) now, but the bloc reached a deal with Google for similar practises last year. Under those arrangements, Google committed to clarify how to browse different country versionsof the Google Play Store. It also reminded Android developers that they should make their apps accessible EU-wide and accept means of payment from any EU country on the Google store.That Google could only remind developers suggests that even when Apple finds some way to bring itself in line with these demands, some developers might still decline to join the ball game. Even the act in question (passed in 2018), notes inArticle 3 section 5some circumstances in which some categories of goods books are sold at different prices in certain territories.What happens next?Apple now gets a month to look at what is being asked of it, develop a response, and come up with a set of proposals and commitments to address these criticisms. The way the Commission phrases how it will respond to Apples reply is interesting, Depending on Apples reply, the CPC Network may enter into a dialogue with the company, it says. The use of conditionals in that sentence suggests that even if Apple does attempt to being itself into compliance, the CPC Network (Consumer Protection Cooperation Network) might decide to move to enforcement all the same.If Apple fails to address the concerns or is found to have failed to address them, national authorities can take enforcement measures to ensure compliance, the Commission explains. You can follow me on social media! Youll find me on BlueSky, LinkedIn,Mastodon, andMeWe.

Baidu has introduced a text-to-image generator dubbed I-RAG and a no-code developer platform called Miaoda as part of its growing portfolio of artificial intelligence (AI) products that, like US-based AI companies, it eventually aims to offer its user base as part of a wide array of commercial AI offerings.CEO Robin Li introduced the new technology in a presentation at the companys Baidu World Conference Tuesday. I-RAGuses Baidus search capabilities to generate images from speech and has been designed to address the hallucinations issue, according to a report on Reuters. The hallucinations referred to are images generated via large language model (LLM)-based AI that deviate from what was specified in the input prompt or contain non-existent elements.Baidu also launched Miaoda, a developer platform that uses the capabilities of LLMs to generate code, and is aimed at allowing users without extensive coding expertise to develop applications. AI companies in the US also are providing similar tools to develop applications through a visual interface, with reusable components and advanced developer assistance, noted Manukrishnan SR, practice director for Everest Group.Indeed, like those of leading US companies such as OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft, Baidus AI moves demonstrate its march toward the commercialization phase of the technology. The company, like others before it, has been adding AI to existing products or creating new ones that enterprise and other business users can integrate into their applications.Follow the leaderGoogle, OpenAI, and Microsoft already have products similar to the ones Baidu revealed Tuesday, and the Chinese company has some catching up to do, analysts noted. The release of an AI-enhanced no-code platform in particular demonstrates Baidus aim to keep up with a software development trend that may one day leverage AI to replace traditional coding with software configuration.The pace of innovation and research in generative AI technologies and software is moving at a breakneck pace in the US, Dave Schubmehl,research VP,AI & automation at IDC, observed. To compete effectively on the world stage, other countries will need to adopt this same pace of innovation and research.He added, many vendors are offering low code/no code/code generation capabilities in their products. Baidus product Miaoda is doing what other vendors like Microsoft and OpenAI have already done, which is using LLM capabilities to generate code.So far, however, Baidus AI tools do not seem to be as advanced as the ones released by OpenAI, Microsoft, and Google, Everest Groups SR told CIO, since these players have large existing datasets on which they can train their AI models.However, with all major cloud platform players now offering some form of genAI-based programming augmentation facility, AI-based software development may be the way forward for the enterprise, noted Bradley Shimmin, chief analyst, AI and data analytics, at Omdia.This is a very important area of research in that it points to an eventual state where both domain experts inside an organization and professional ISV practitioners can both use the same tooling to create full-stack apps and/or workflow automations in a declarative, no-code, conversational manner, Shimmin said.Still, this evolution is not without its challenges, and may not be something CIOs need to worry about quite yet, Everest Groups SR noted.These tools are facing a host of challenges, including maintaining code quality, adherence to regulatory standards, and questions on ROI, he told CIO. Thus, while AI is set to revolutionize software development in the medium to long term, there are a lot of challenges that need to be ironed out before its potential can be fully realized.Dont underestimate ChinaThough Baidu is still playing catch-up to US-based companies, China as a major global AI player should not be underestimated, Shimmins noted. In fact, China and the US are really not that far apart from one another in terms of expertise and investment [in AI], he observed.Already, China has produced some very strong models, particularly open source models such as Qwen2.5-Coder, which rivals some of the larger frontier models from Anthropic and OpenAI (at least in terms of published benchmarks), he said.The US has been doing everything it can to stymie overall technological development in China in various ways, and AI is no exception. A mere two weeks ago, the US government announced new rules restricting investments in Chinas AI and other tech sectors deemed threats to national security, expanding existing technology restrictions that were so far limited to exports. China, for its part, has banned the use of OpenAI in the country.However, despite the current friction between the US and China in terms of their technological arms race, the two countries have similar goals when it comes to AI, and may end up collaborating in some areas, Shimmin noted.In terms of academic research, the two nations are starting to work more closely with one another in seeking out a common ground concerning the existential threat posed by AI itself, he said.

Using theMonarch personal finance program, I went through my finances recently and found that I pay $510 every month on various subscriptions. (Thats not counting things such as my Internet bill, $120 a month for AT&T 2Gbps fiber.) Im talking about Netflix, Google One,The Wall Street Journal, and other services and publications I actually want.But there were also over $100 worth of subscriptions that, frankly, Id forgotten aboutand no longer wanted or needed. Thats real money.So, how do I get rid of them? Today, I have to dig into every last lousy one of them and jump through numerous hoops to cancel but that may not be the case for much longer.The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) last month announced aclick-to-cancel ruleaimed at making it easier for you and me to end recurring subscriptions and memberships. The new regulation requires sellers to make canceling services as simple as when you initially signed up for them.As FTC Commission Chair Lina M. Khan explained: Too often, businesses make people jump through endless hoops just to cancel a subscription. The FTCs rule will end these tricks and traps, saving Americans time and money. Nobody should be stuck paying for a service they no longer want.Amen, sister!The new regulations arent going to affect just Disney+ subscribers and the like. Businesses that rely on Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) as either users or providers are going to be affected as well.The new rule, which goes into effect six months after being published in the Federal Register, will have significant implications, for example, for providers like Google One and Microsoft 365.Heres how its likely to affect these services.For example, practices like requiring phone calls or in-person visits to cancel will no longer be allowed. If you think thats an exaggeration, by the way, you clearly havent had aPlanet Fitness subscription, which required snail-mail or an in-person visit to close out your membership.Additionally, SaaS providers must provide clear and conspicuous disclosures about subscription terms: For example, automatic renewal information must be clearly stated and cancellation deadlines by which customers must cancel to avoid charges must also be spelled out.Under these regulations, you can no longer automatically resubscribe customers. They must consent before automatic renewals take place. Clearly, businesses that use automatic renewals will have to change how theyll handle subscription renewals.If your business gets customers by offering free trials that convert to paid subscriptions, youll also need to clearly disclose the trials terms, including when the trial ends and what charges will occur. And, of course, canceling after a free trial must be as simple as signing up for the trial.All of this means, of course, that your company will have to update its terms and conditions. Youre going to have to pay your lawyers (as well as your programmers) to address these new rules.On the plus side, while none of this will be cheap, the FTC argues that customers will be happier and more likely resubscribe. And new transparent practices could even lead tostronger customer relationships.Not everyone is happy about the new regulations. Business organizations such as the Internet & Television Association (NCTA), the Interactive Advertising Bureau, and the US Chamber of Commerce oppose them. They have three major arguments: that the FTC doesnt have the legal authority to implement the rules; the change will cost companies money; and theyll force industries to change current cancellation processes that protect consumers or offer better deals.In other words, its exactly what youd expect them to say.Given the click-to-cancel rule is part of the Biden administrations efforts to combat junk fees, you might think its dead as a doornail. Usually, Id agree. But while Kahn has been alightning rod for both Democrats and Republicans, she has one ally you probably didnt expect; Vice President-elect J.D. Vance, who said: I look atLina Khan as one of the few people in the Biden administration that I think is doing a pretty good job,In addition,overall, the rule appears to be quite popular among consumers and consumer advocates. Lets get real. People are sick of perpetual subscriptions. Their budgets are tight. Even if the FTC regulation costs companies some coin, itll be worth it in the long run.

In a significant escalation of US efforts to limit Chinas access to advanced technology, the Department of Commerce has reportedly mandated Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) to cease shipments of high-performance AI chips to Chinese customers.The directive, effective Monday, restricts the export of TSMCs 7-nanometer and more advanced processors, which are widely used in AI applications, Reuters reported.The US Commerce Departments latest move specifically targets chips that can power AI accelerators and GPUs, with a particular focus on halting indirect access to restricted technology by Chinese companies like Huawei, which the US considers a national security threat.This directive, marking a new chapter in US-China tech tensions, applies to several key players in Chinas AI ecosystem, potentially impacting companies beyond Huawei.TSMC declined to comment on the said matter citing market rumor.TSMC is a law-abiding company and we are committed to complying with all applicable rules and regulations, including applicable export controls, the chip maker said.A query to the US Commerce Department did not elicit any response.In another distantly related development, the Taiwanese government has said that the countrys law prevents TSMC from producing its 2nm chips TSMCs hitherto most advanced chip abroad.Since Taiwan has related regulations to protect its own technologies, TSMC cannot produce 2-nanometer chips overseas currently, Taipei Times said quoting Minister of Economic Affairs J W Kuo.Kuo made the remarks while addressing concerns that TSMC may have to accelerate 2-nm chip production in its Arizona fabs following Donald Trumps re-election as US president.TSMC is the main supplier of chips, including its most advanced one, for Nvidia and Apple and the US largely depends on the Taiwanese firm to further its technological advancements in the AI space.TSMCs involvement: The Huawei incidentThis stringent order follows a recent finding that a TSMC-manufactured chip had been integrated into Huaweis Ascend 910B, an advanced AI processor released in 2022.A teardown analysis by research firm, Tech Insights, revealed the presence of TSMC technology within Huaweis product, hinting at an export control violation and triggering the US crackdown.The revelation prompted TSMC to inform the Commerce Department, shedding light on Huaweis use of intermediaries to potentially bypass US trade restrictions.The US directive mandates that any advanced product containing over 25% American technology require an export license a requirement Huawei circumvented by procuring chips indirectly through third parties.Impact on Chinese tech giants and the semiconductor marketThe directive impacts numerous other entities in Chinas technology landscape. In addition to Huawei, major AI-driven companies such as Alibaba and Baidu, which design and use similar processors, will face increased scrutiny.Although the US regards them as competitors to Huawei, the move aims to curb any potential diversion of restricted technology for unauthorized AI applications in China.Moreover, the order raises questions about TSMCs ability to navigate US-imposed restrictions while continuing to serve clients in one of its largest markets.Reports initially suggested that TSMCs decision to halt chip shipments was voluntary, but it has since become clear that it was a response to direct US government orders.However, the restriction on AI chips excludes automotive and consumer-grade chips, signaling that Chinas AI and defense-related developments are the primary targets.Growing tensions and US commitment to export controlThe US has steadily intensified its stance against the use of American technology by companies that the government deems a security threat. By tightening export controls, the US aims to prevent China from leveraging AI and semiconductor advancements in ways that could counter US interests.This latest directive follows broader efforts to restrict Chinas technological capabilities, underscoring the US commitment to export control enforcement amidst ongoing geopolitical friction.As the implications of the US directive continue to unfold, TSMC and other semiconductor producers may face a complex path ahead in balancing regulatory compliance with business needs in the Asia-Pacific region.

AMD has launched its first open-source large language models (LLMs) under the OLMo brand, aiming to strengthen its position in the competitive AI landscape led by giants like Nvidia, Intel, and Qualcomm.AMD OLMo is a series of 1-billion parameter large language models trained from scratch using trillions of tokens on a cluster of AMD Instinct MI250 GPUs. They are designed to excel in reasoning, instruction-following, and chat while embracing an open-source ethos that allows developers access to data, weights, training recipes, and code.Continuing AMD tradition of open-sourcing models and code to help the community advance together, we are excited to release our first series of fully open 1 billion parameter language models, AMD OLMo, AMD said in a statement.AMDs open-source approach positions OLMo as an accessible and scalable option for companies seeking alternatives in AI technology. The model can be deployed in data centers or on AMD Ryzen AI PCs equipped with neural processing units (NPUs), allowing developers to leverage advanced AI directly on personal devices, the statement added.AMD is following Nvidias lead by expanding into the large language model (LLM) space alongside its well-established strength in computing hardware a direction that Intel and Qualcomm have not yet fully embraced, said Abhigyan Malik, practice director at Everest Group. By fostering an open ecosystem, AMD enables developers to innovate and build diverse applications through a network effect.According to Malik, this strategy amplifies AMDs core value proposition, particularly in driving demand for its underlying hardware, including AMD Instinct MI250 GPUs and Ryzen CPUs, where AMD seeks to create lasting market impact.Extensive training and fine-tuningThe OLMo series follows a detailed three-phase training and fine-tuning process, according to AMD.Initially, OLMo 1B was pre-trained on a subset of the Dolma v1.7 dataset using a transformer model focused on next-token prediction. This helped the model grasp general language patterns. In its second phase, the OLMo 1B was supervised and fine-tuned (SFT) on multiple datasets to refine its capabilities in science, coding, and mathematics.The final model, OLMo 1B SFT DPO, was optimized with Direct Preference Optimization (DPO) based on human feedback, resulting in a model that effectively aligns its responses with typical user expectations.Competitive performance and benchmark successIn internal benchmarks, AMDs OLMo models performed well against similarly sized open-source models, such as TinyLlama-1.1B and OpenELM-1_1B, in multi-task and general reasoning tests, the company claimed. Specifically, its performance increased by over 15% on tasks in GSM8k, a substantial gain attributed to AMDs multi-phase supervised fine-tuning and Direct Preference Optimization (DPO). In multi-turn chat tests, AMD claimed, OLMo showed a 3.41% edge in AlpacaEval 2 Win Rate and a 0.97% gain in MT-Bench over its closest open-source competitors.However, when looking at the broader LLM landscape, Nvidias GH200 Grace Hopper Superchip and H100 GPU remain leaders in LLM processing, particularly for large, multi-faceted AI workloads. Nvidias focus on innovations like C2C link, which accelerates data transfer between its CPU and GPU, gives it an edge, providing a speed advantage for high-demand inference tasks such as recommendation systems.Intel, while slightly behind in peak speed, leverages its Habana Gaudi2 accelerator for cost-effective yet robust performance, with future upgrades planned for increased precision. Meanwhile, Qualcomms Cloud AI100 emphasizes power efficiency, meeting the needs of organizations seeking high AI performance without the extensive energy demands associated with Nvidias high-end systems.AMDs OLMo models also showed strong performance on responsible AI benchmarks, such as ToxiGen (for toxic language detection), crows_pairs (bias assessment), and TruthfulQA-mc2 (accuracy). These scores reflect AMDs commitment to ethical AI, an essential focus as AI integration scales across industries.AMDs position in the AI marketWith its first open-source LLM series, AMD is positioned to make significant inroads in the AI industry, offering a compelling balance of capability, openness, and versatility to compete in a market currently led by Nvidia, Intel, and Qualcomm.However, AMDs ability to close the gap will depend on how well its open-source initiative and hardware enhancements keep pace with rivals advances in performance, efficiency, and specialized AI capabilities.AMDs entry into the open-source LLM space strengthens the ecosystem, potentially lowering the operational costs associated with adopting generative AI, said Suseel Menon, practice director at Everest Group.AMDs move into LLMs places it against established players like Nvidia, Intel, and Qualcomm, who have gained market prominence with their proprietary models.This move also puts pressure on proprietary LLMs to continually innovate and justify their pricing structures, Menon added.Analysts believe AMDs unique open-source strategy and accessibility aim to attract enterprises and developers looking for flexible, affordable AI solutions without proprietary constraints. For large enterprises with long-term data privacy concerns, AMDs open-source model offers a compelling alternative as they navigate AI integration, Menon added. By building a cohesive, full-stack AI offering that spans hardware, LLMs, and ecosystem tools, AMD is positioning itself with a distinct competitive edge among leading silicon vendors.

In an internal meeting, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy responded to recent criticism from many employees about the companys new plan for a full return to the office in January. The mandate means that as the beginning of the new year, almost all employees will have to be in the office five days a week.Jassy said the aim is not to force any resignations among staffers or to satisfy decision-makers in cities, which were among the allegations made by angry employees,Reutersreports.Employees have also objected that return-to-work plan is stricter than arrangements at other large tech companies and that it will make work less efficient due to commuting times. Jassy previously said his goal is to increase efficiency at work and promote collaboration and innovation.