Tag Archives: microsoft

Music industry giants allege mass copyright violation by AI firms

Enlarge / Michael Jackson in concert, 1986. Sony Music owns a large portion of publishing rights to Jackson’s music. reader comments 103 Universal Music Group, Sony Music, and Warner Records have sued AI music-synthesis companies Udio and Suno for allegedly committing mass copyright infringement by using recordings owned by the labels to train music-generating AI… Read More »

Bing outage shows just how little competition Google search really has

Getty Images reader comments 42 Bing, Microsoft’s search engine platform, went down in the very early morning today. That meant that searches from Microsoft’s Edge browsers that had yet to change their default providers didn’t work. It also meant that services relying on Bing’s search API—Microsoft’s own Copilot, ChatGPT search, Yahoo, Ecosia, and DuckDuckGo—similarly failed.… Read More »

New Windows AI feature records everything you’ve done on your PC

Enlarge / A screenshot of Microsoft’s new “Recall” feature in action. reader comments 142 At a Build conference event on Monday, Microsoft revealed a new AI-powered feature called “Recall” for Copilot+ PCs that will allow Windows 11 users to search and retrieve their past activities on their PC. To make it work, Recall records everything… Read More »

Apple, SpaceX, Microsoft return-to-office mandates drove senior talent away

reader comments 246 A study analyzing Apple, Microsoft, and SpaceX suggests that return to office (RTO) mandates can lead to a higher rate of employees, especially senior-level ones, leaving the company, often to work at competitors. The study (PDF), published this month by University of Chicago and University of Michigan researchers and reported by The… Read More »

Microsoft launches AI chatbot for spies

reader comments 41 Microsoft has introduced a GPT-4-based generative AI model designed specifically for US intelligence agencies that operates disconnected from the Internet, according to a Bloomberg report. This reportedly marks the first time Microsoft has deployed a major language model in a secure setting, designed to allow spy agencies to analyze top-secret information without… Read More »

New Microsoft AI model may challenge GPT-4 and Google Gemini

Enlarge / Mustafa Suleyman, co-founder and chief executive officer of Inflection AI UK Ltd., during a town hall on day two of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday, Jan. 17, 2024. Suleyman joined Microsoft in March. reader comments 35 Microsoft is working on a new large-scale AI language model called MAI-1,… Read More »

Microsoft plans to lock down Windows DNS like never before. Here’s how.

Getty Images reader comments 74 Translating human-readable domain names into numerical IP addresses has long been fraught with gaping security risks. After all, lookups are rarely end-to-end encrypted. The servers providing domain name lookups provide translations for virtually any IP address—even when they’re known to be malicious. And many end-user devices can easily be configured… Read More »

Microsoft ties executive pay to security following multiple failures and breaches

Enlarge / A PC running Windows 11. reader comments 56 It’s been a bad couple of years for Microsoft’s security and privacy efforts. Misconfigured endpoints, rogue security certificates, and weak passwords have all caused or risked the exposure of sensitive data, and Microsoft has been criticized by security researchers, US lawmakers, and regulatory agencies for… Read More »

The BASIC programming language turns 60

Enlarge / Part of the cover illustration from “The Applesoft Tutorial” BASIC manual that shipped with the Apple II computer starting in 1981. Apple, Inc. reader comments 71 Sixty years ago, on May 1, 1964, at 4 am in the morning, a quiet revolution in computing began at Dartmouth College. That’s when mathematicians John G.… Read More »

Critics question tech-heavy lineup of new Homeland Security AI safety board

reader comments 28 On Friday, the US Department of Homeland Security announced the formation of an Artificial Intelligence Safety and Security Board that consists of 22 members pulled from the tech industry, government, academia, and civil rights organizations. But given the nebulous nature of the term “AI,” which can apply to a broad spectrum of… Read More »