"Microsoft has pulled its latest Windows 10 update offline after some users complained of missing files. It's the latest in a string of incidents with regular patches and Microsoft's larger Windows 10 updates that have been causing issues for some PC users this year. While Microsoft tests Windows 10 with millions of beta testers, there are signs that this public feedback loop isn't always working. Earlier this year Microsoft delayed its April 2018 Windows 10 update due to last minute Blue Screen of Death issues, and then had to fix desktop and Chrome freezing issues after it was shipped to more than 600 million machines. "
"In cases where Chrome Enhanced Spellcheck or Edge's Microsoft Editor (spellchecker) were enabled, "basically anything" entered in form fields of these browsers was transmitted to Google and Microsoft.
"Furthermore, if you click on 'show password,' the enhanced spellcheck even sends your password, essentially Spell-Jacking your data," explains otto-js in a blog post."
Microsoft will soon own Yahoo! and everything Yahoo! owns. However, this will only bring Microsoft a fraction closer to surpassing the might that is Google.
"As reported by The Independent this week, Microsoft has been granted a patent that allows the company "to make a chatbot using the personal information of deceased people." Under the patent, Microsoft can create an artificial intelligence bot "based on images, voice data, social media posts, electronic message, and more personal information" of a deceased person."
"There are two key themes that stand out incredibly strongly in this: both Microsoft and Apple did an awful lot of what they did by shamelessly copying the work of others, and the big companies floating around the space (mainly IBM and Xerox) clearly had no clue at all about what was going on."
"Microsoft showcased a line of new autonomous robots, called K5, as security guards for one of its campuses. And though the robots looked nothing like Arnold Schwarzenegger, the machine - developed by Knightscope - is impressive and intimidating. Standing 5 feet tall, weighing 300 pounds, and equipped with HD cameras, sensors, alarms, artificial intelligence, and WiFi, it's one incredible piece of technology."
"Around 27 individuals employed by PA Media - formerly the Press Association - were told on Thursday that they would lose their jobs in a month's time after Microsoft decided to stop employing humans to select, edit and curate news articles on its homepages."
"A hot potato: "Use this picture of my dog to create a realistic poster in the style of Pixar for a movie called Merlin." It's a simple prompt for a generative AI to handle, which actually produces a cute result. Of course, Disney doesn't find it cute at all, which is why Microsoft reprogrammed its Bing Image creator. "
Here is a comparison between the new iPad Pro and the Microsoft surface Pro 3, and it shows you just how similar they are and could this be an issue of intellectual property
"Documents claiming that Mariam Nawaz Sharif was only a trustee of the companies that bought the London flats, are dated February 2006, and appear to be typed in Microsoft Calibri.
But the font was only made commercially available in 2007, leading to suspicions that the documents are forged."
"Microsoft has blamed human error after its search engine, Bing, blocked image and video results for the phrase "tank man" - a reference to the iconic image of a lone protester facing down tanks during the 1989 protests in Tiananmen Square - on the 32nd anniversary of the military crackdown.
Users reported that no results were shown for the search query in countries including the US, Germany, Singapore, France and Switzerland, according to Reuters and Vice News."
"Last month, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office granted a patent to Microsoft that outlines a process to create a conversational chatbot of a specific person using their social data. In an eerie twist, the patent says the chatbot could potentially be inspired by friends or family members who are deceased, which is almost a direct plot of a popular episode of Netflix's Black Mirror."
""Employers are increasingly exploiting metadata logged by software and devices for performance analytics and algorithmic control," Christl added. "MS is providing the tools for it. Practices we know from software development (and factories and call centres) are expanded to all white-collar work.""
"It sounds complicated, but the upside is how robust this write-once storage medium is. Microsoft claims the glass can be boiled in water, baked at 500 degrees in an oven, blasted in a microwave, and demagnetized, but the data it contains will survive. The lifetime is also incredibly long and measured in thousands of years."
"Generative artificial-intelligence tools are unproven and expensive to operate, requiring muscular servers with expensive chips that consume lots of power. Microsoft MSFT -0.43%decrease; red down pointing triangle
, Google, Adobe
and other tech companies investing in AI are experimenting with an array of tactics to make, market and charge for it.
Microsoft has lost money on one of its first generative AI products, said a person with knowledge of the figures. It and Google are now launching AI-backed upgrades to their software with higher price tags. Zoom Video Communications ZM 1.79%increase; green up pointing triangle
has tried to mitigate costs by sometimes using a simpler AI it developed in-house. Adobe and others are putting caps on monthly usage and charging based on consumption.
"A lot of the customers I've talked to are unhappy about the cost that they are seeing for running some of these models," said Adam Selipsky, the chief executive of Amazon.com's cloud division, Amazon Web Services, speaking of the industry broadly. "
"Microsoft will also launch Content Credentials for digital watermarking, create teams to work with political campaigns on cybersecurity and AI, and endorse a bill banning AI in political ads."
"Najjar told the Huffington Post that the error was most likely due to Bing's use of crowdsourced translations. The service can promote alternative translations to the top spot if they receive suggestions from about 1,000 people, which means that without manual correction it is possible to manipulate the system and substitute the correct translation for an alternative."