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Microsoft Is Finally Killing Cortana On Windows (1 hour 15 minutes old)

In a support document today, Microsoft announced its ending support for Cortana on Windows in late 2023. "Cortana continues to live on in Outlook mobile, Teams mobile, Teams display, and Teams rooms," notes XDA Developers. From the report: In the support document announcing the end of the Cortana era, Microsoft notes that you'll still be able to access AI experiences in Windows 11, and calls out Windows Copilot by name. Alongside that, there's the new Bing, Microsoft 365 Copilot, and voice access in Windows, the last of which lets you control your PC with your voice. The writing has been on [...]

US Judge Orders Lawyers To Sign AI Pledge, Warning Chatbots 'Make Stuff Up' (1 hour 55 minutes old)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: A federal judge in Texas is now requiring lawyers in cases before him to certify that they did not use artificial intelligence to draft their filings without a human checking their accuracy. U.S. District Judge Brantley Starr of the Northern District of Texas issued the requirement on Tuesday, in what appears to be a first for the federal courts. In an interview Wednesday, Starr said that he created the requirement to warn lawyers that AI tools can create fake cases and that he may sanction them if they rely on AI-generated information without [...]

Dead Silicon Valley Unicorns Pile Up as 'Unicorpses' (2 hours old)

An anonymous reader shares a report: Now more than a year into the tech "correction," the denial phase is over. There appears to be a broad consensus that lower valuations are here to stay, at least for the foreseeable future. But for well-capitalized private companies, it can take a while for the dominos to fall. We've started to see once highly valued businesses sell for disappointing outcomes or shut down altogether. There's a term for these erstwhile unicorns that have seen their valuations crash: unicorpses. We're starting to see businesses that were valued at hundreds of millions or ev[...]

Air Force Denies Running Simulation Where AI Drone 'Killed' Its Operator (3 hours old)

An anonymous reader shares a report: Over the past 24 hours, several news outlets reported a now-retracted story claiming that the US Air Force had run a simulation in which an AI-controlled drone "went rogue" and "killed the operator because that person was keeping it from accomplishing its objective." The US Air Force has denied that any simulation ever took place, and the original source of the story says he "misspoke." The story originated in a recap published on the website of the Royal Aeronautical Society that served as an overview of sessions at the Future Combat Air & Space Capabiliti[...]

Microsoft Stashes Nearly Half a Billion in Case LinkedIn Data Drama Hits (3 hours old)

Microsoft has warned investors about a "non-public" draft decision by Irish regulators against LinkedIn for allegedly dodgy ad data practices, explaining it had set aside some cash to pay off any potential fine. From a report: How much? Oh, a mere $425 million. The software giant said the funds were connected to a 2018 investigation by the Irish Data Protection Commission (IDPC) looking into whether LinkedIn's targeted advertising practices violated the the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). At the time of the complaint, the 2016 law had been recently implemented and t[...]

Google Wallet for Android Now Supports Digital IDs (4 hours old)

Google Wallet on Android is finally getting ready for your digital driver's license and other US state IDs. Google says the feature is rolling out this month, and it will slowly start bringing states online this year. From a report: Of course, your state has to be one of the few that actually supports digital IDs. Google says Maryland residents can use the feature right now and that "in the coming months, residents of Arizona, Colorado and Georgia will join them." The road to digital driver's license support has been a long one, with the "Identity Credential API" landing in Android 11 back in [...]

Apple Customers Say It's Hard To Get Money Out of Goldman Sachs Savings Accounts (5 hours old)

Apple's savings account, a partnership with Goldman Sachs, launched in April to great fanfare. Some customers say it has been hard to get their money out. From a report: Nathan Thacker, who lives outside Atlanta, had been trying to transfer $1,700 from his Apple account to JPMorgan Chase since May 15. Each time he called Goldman's customer service department, he said, he was told to give it a few more days. The money arrived in his Chase account Thursday morning, he said, after The Wall Street Journal contacted Goldman about his and other customers' experiences. Others said they also had troub[...]

Getty Asks London Court To Stop UK Sales of Stability AI System (5 hours old)

Stock photo provider Getty Images has asked London's High Court for an injunction to prevent artificial intelligence company Stability AI from selling its AI image-generation system in Britain, court filings show. From a report: The Seattle-based company accuses the company of breaching its copyright by using its images to "train" its Stable Diffusion system, according to the filing dated May 12. Stability AI has yet to file a defence to Getty's lawsuit, but filed a motion to dismiss Getty's separate U.S. lawsuit last month. It did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Read mo[...]

Laptop Makers Bet on Better Display Tech To Rekindle Sales (6 hours old)

PC makers from Lenovo to Samsung are pinning their hopes for reviving laptop sales on upgraded displays. From a report: At the Computex show in Taiwan this week, every major local electronics brand showed off new laptop models with OLED displays, the same technology used in smartphones. Asustek Computer, Acer, Gigabyte Technology and Micro-Star International all expanded their portfolios, hoping to drive an upgrade cycle and revive flagging sales. OLED produces more vibrant colors, greater uniformity and superior contrast compared to conventional LCD technology, but it uses more energy and com[...]

Dropbox-like Cloud Storage Service Shadow Drive Lowers Its Price (7 hours old)

Shadow has decided to cut the price of its cloud storage service Shadow Drive. Users can now get 2TB of storage for $5.3 per month instead of $9.6 per month. From a report: As for the free tier, things aren't changing. Users who sign up get 20GB of online storage for free. Shadow is also the company behind Shadow PC, a cloud computing service that lets you rent a virtual instance of a Windows PC in a data center near you. It works particularly well to play demanding PC games on any device, such as a cheap laptop, a connected TV or a smartphone. Coming back to Shadow Drive, as the name suggests[...]

BBC News - Technology

Twitch streamer Puppers, who lived with MND, dies aged 32 (4 hours old)

The gamer, known for playing Dead by Daylight, dies after being diagnosed with motor neurone disease.

US Air Force denies AI drone attacked operator in test (10 hours old)

A virtual experiment was described by a senior official at a conference, but he now says he "mis-spoke".

Elon Musk's Twitter loses second trust and safety chief (13 hours old)

Ella Irwin is the second person to leave the role since Mr Musk bought Twitter in October 2022.

Powerful artificial intelligence ban possible, government adviser warns (1 day old)

Systems above a certain power may need to be stopped, a member of the government's AI Council says.

iPhone in India: Foxconn to manufacture smartphones in Karnataka by April 2024 (18 hours old)

Apple's decision to manufacture iPhones in India aims at diversifying away from China

AI: War crimes evidence erased by social media platforms (2 days old [31/05/23])

Footage of potential human rights abuses may be lost after platforms delete it, the BBC has found.

Music streaming royalties to be discussed by government (2 days old [31/05/23])

It will look into claims of unfairness amid reports labels receive the lion's share of royalties.

Amazon to pay $25m over child privacy violations (1 day old)

The online giant is also penalised for allowing Ring doorbell workers access to customer recordings.

AI 'godfather' Yoshua Bengio feels 'lost' over life's work (2 days old [31/05/23])

Canadian computer scientist Yoshua Bengio tells the BBC he did not realise AI would develop so fast.

Elon Musk: Tesla boss on first China trip in over three years (2 days old [31/05/23])

The multi-billionaire has not yet publicly commented on the visit, which comes amid US-China tensions.

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