news aggregator

The new Microsoft assistant is a blob named Mico, but you can turn it into everyone’s favorite paper clip.

Hands On Microsoft’s Clippy was an anthropomorphic assistant ahead of his time, offering to help you with your Office 97 tasks when all you could do was type and click in response. Today, as part of a massive Copilot Fall Release, Redmond is bringing Clippy back – at least as an avatar for its new AI helper named “Mico”.…

Google and Anthropic have finalized a cloud partnership worth tens of billions of dollars, granting Anthropic access to up to one million of Google's Tensor Processing Units and more than a gigawatt of compute power by 2026. CNBC reports: Industry estimates peg the cost of a 1-gigawatt data center at around $50 billion, with roughly $35 billion of that typically allocated to chips. While competitors tout even loftier projections -- OpenAI's 33-gigawatt "Stargate" chief among them -- Anthropic's move is a quiet power play rooted in execution, not spectacle. Founded by former OpenAI researchers, the company has deliberately adopted a slower, steadier ethos, one that is efficient, diversified, and laser-focused on the enterprise market. A key to Anthropic's infrastructure strategy is its multi-cloud architecture. The company's Claude family of language models runs across Google's TPUs, Amazon's custom Trainium chips, and Nvidia's GPUs, with each platform assigned to specialized workloads like training, inference, and research. Google said the TPUs offer Anthropic "strong price-performance and efficiency." [...] Anthropic's ability to spread workloads across vendors lets it fine-tune for price, performance, and power constraints. According to a person familiar with the company's infrastructure strategy, every dollar of compute stretches further under this model than those locked into single-vendor architectures.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

But AWS is still the AI upstart's primary partner

Google and Anthropic have struck a deal that will see the AI upstart gain access to up to a million of the web giant’s tensor processing units (TPUs) and involve “tens of billions of dollars.”…

It's not a bug, it's a feature

Large language models, or LLMs, are biased in one way or another - often many. And there may be no way around that.…

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Donald Trump is eyeing taking equity stakes in quantum computing firms in exchange for federal funding, The Wall Street Journal reported. At least five companies are weighing whether allowing the government to become a shareholder would be worth it to snag funding that the Trump administration has "earmarked for promising technology companies," sources familiar with the potential deals told the WSJ. IonQ, Rigetti Computing, and D-Wave Quantum are currently in talks with the government over potential funding agreements, with minimum awards of $10 million each, some sources said. Quantum Computing Inc. and Atom Computing are reportedly "considering similar arrangements," as are other companies in the sector, which is viewed as critical for scientific advancements and next-generation technologies. No deals have been completed yet, sources said, and terms could change as quantum-computing firms weigh the potential risks of government influence over their operations. [...] The administration will lean on Deputy Commerce Secretary Paul Dabbar to extend Trump's industry meddling into the quantum computing world, the WSJ reported. A former Energy Department official, Dabbar co-founded Bohr Quantum Technology, which specializes in quantum networking systems that the DOE expects will help "create new opportunities for scientific discovery." While the firm he previously headed won't be eligible for funding, Dabbar will be leading industry discussions, the WSJ reported, likely hyping Trump's deals as a necessary boon to ensure US firms dominate in quantum computing. A Commerce Department official denied the claims, saying: "The Commerce Department is not currently negotiating equity stakes with quantum computing companies." In August, the Trump administration took a 10% stake in Intel to help fund factories that Intel is currently building in Ohio.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft is retiring Office Online Server on December 31, 2026, ending support and updates for organizations running browser-based Office apps on-premises. The Register reports: After this, there won't be any more security fixes, updates, or technical support from Microsoft. "This change is part of our ongoing commitment to modernizing productivity experiences and focusing on cloud-first solutions," the company said. Office Online Server provides browser-based versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote for customers who want to keep things on-prem without having to roll out the full desktop applications. Microsoft's solution is to move to Microsoft 365, its decidedly off-premises version of its applications. The company said it is "focusing its browser-based Office app investments on Office for the Web to deliver secure, collaborative, and feature-rich experiences through Microsoft 365." Other than migrating to another platform when the vendor pulls the plug, affected customers have few options. The announcement will also hit several customers running SharePoint Server SE or Exchange Server SE. While those products remain supported, Office Online Server integration will go away. The company suggested Microsoft 365 Apps for Enterprise and Office LTSC 2024 as alternatives for viewing and editing documents hosted on those servers. Skype for Business customers will also lose some key features related to PowerPoint. Presenter notes and high-fidelity PowerPoint rendering will go away. In-meeting annotations, which allow meeting participants to write directly to slides without altering the original file, will no longer be available, and embedded video playback will run at lower fidelity. Features like whiteboards, polls, and app sharing shouldn't be affected. Microsoft's solution is a move to Teams, which the company says "offers modern meeting experiences."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A UK tribunal ruled that Apple abused its dominant position by charging app developers unfair commissions through its App Store, potentially costing the company hundreds of millions in damages. It marks the first major tech "class action" victory under the UK's collective lawsuit regime. Reuters reports: The Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) ruled against Apple after a trial of the lawsuit, which was brought on behalf of millions of iPhone and iPad users in the United Kingdom. The CAT ruled that Apple had abused its dominant position from October 2015 until the end of 2020 by shutting out competition in the app distribution market and by "charging excessive and unfair prices" as commission to developers. Apple -- which has faced mounting pressure from regulators in the U.S. and Europe over the fees it charges developers -- said it would appeal against the ruling, which it said "takes a flawed view of the thriving and competitive app economy." The case had been valued at around $2 billion by those who brought it. A hearing next month will decide how damages are calculated and Apple's application for permission to appeal. "This ruling overlooks how the App Store helps developers succeed and gives consumers a safe, trusted place to discover apps and securely make payments," an Apple spokesperson said.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

What?! No complimentary credit monitoring?

The Canadian outpost of retailer Toys R Us on Thursday notified customers that attackers accessed a database, stole some of their personal information, then posted the data online.…

An anonymous reader shares a report: China's Communist Party elite vowed on Thursday to build a modern industrial system and make more efforts to achieve technological self-reliance, moves it sees as key to bolstering its position in its intensifying rivalry with the United States. As expected, the Party's Central Committee also promised more efforts to expand domestic demand and improve people's livelihoods - long-standing goals that in recent years have been little more than an afterthought as China prioritised manufacturing and investment - without giving many details. [...] The full five-year plan will only be released at a parliamentary meeting in March, but the post-plenum outline from state news agency Xinhua hinted at policy continuity, which concerns economists who have been calling for a shift towards aâgrowth model that relies more on household demand. Building "a modern industrial system with advanced manufacturing as the backbone" and accelerating "high-level scientific and technological self-reliance" were listed ahead of the development of "a strong domestic market," the communique showed.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Samsung and SK Hynix have raised DRAM and NAND flash prices by up to 30% for the fourth quarter, Korean publications report. The two Korean memory giants passed the new rates on to customers as analysts predict the AI-driven memory supercycle will be longer and stronger than past boom periods. Several leading international electronics and server companies are stockpiling memory and negotiating long-term supply deals spanning two to three years. U.S. and Chinese electronics firms and data center operators are exploring mid-to-long-term contracts. Companies typically sign DRAM contracts on a quarterly or annual basis.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The amount of energy required to supply the data centers powering AI is so vast that meeting that need may be more than a lifetime away, according to a senior executive at Apollo Global. From a report: "The gap between what AI is demanding and what we have everywhere in the world on the grid in terms of generation and transmission is huge and will not be closed in our lifetime," Dave Stangis, who has led and developed Apollo's sustainability strategy over the past four years, said in an interview. That means sustainable energy investors need to accept that renewables alone aren't enough to power the AI age, he said. The comments encapsulate a new approach across the finance industry, where the economics of the energy transition -- a concept intended to represent the shift to a low-carbon future -- are becoming merged with the economics of an unprecedented boost in supply. "So what is happening around the world, there's no doubt about it, is what you might call energy addition," Stangis said. "The world is scrambling to add every source of power."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

iPhone and iPad users vexed by denial of spreadsheets

Microsoft Excel for the past week has been hanging or crashing on iOS and iPadOS devices, to customers' great annoyance.…

President Donald Trump has pardoned the Founder of Binance, Changpeng Zhao, who pleaded guilty to anti-money-laundering violations and served prison time. The Associated Press reports: Zhao has deep ties to World Liberty Financial, a crypto venture that the Republican president and his sons Eric and Donald Jr. launched in September. Trump's most recent financial disclosure report reveals he made more than $57 million last year from World Liberty Financial, which has launched USD1, a stablecoin pegged at a 1-to-1 ratio to the U.S. dollar. World Liberty Financial also recently announced that an investment fund in the United Arab Emirates would be using $2 billion worth of USD1 to purchase a stake in Binance. Zhao also has publicly said that he had asked Trump for a pardon that could nullify his conviction. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement Thursday that the Biden administration prosecuted Zhao out of a "desire to punish the cryptocurrency industry." She said there were "no allegations of fraud or identifiable victims," though Zhao had pleaded guilty in November to one count of failing to maintain an anti-money-laundering program.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Nearly three decades after Clippy appeared as Microsoft's Office assistant, the company is introducing Mico, a virtual character for Copilot's voice mode. The bouncing orb responds with real-time expressions during conversations and is being turned on by default, The Verge reports. Users can disable the feature, however. The assistant draws on a new memory feature inside Copilot to recall facts about users and their work. Mico will be available in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada at launch. Microsoft is also adding a Learn Live mode that transforms the character into a Socratic tutor using interactive whiteboards and visual cues. The initiative is part of an effort to give Copilot a permanent identity. Jacob Andreou, corporate vice president of product and growth at Microsoft AI, said: "Clippy walked so that we could run."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Social engineering? Check. Trojanized open source? Check. Lazarus’ pet RAT? Also check

North Korea's Lazarus Group has successfully compromised Europe's unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) sector with its Operation DreamJob campaign, which promises job seekers lucrative employment opportunities - but then delivers a malware-laced offer and a compromised computer.…

Banks face a hit to their bottom lines of as much as $170 billion if they don't adapt their business models to respond to customers turning to AI to optimize their finances. From a report: The consultancy firm predicted that customer uptake of agentic AI -- effectively autonomous bots -- would hit the profits banks earn from customer money in low interest accounts, according to a report from McKinsey published Thursday. "Imagine you have an AI agent that says: 'Hey, you could save $2,000-a-year by moving your money,'" Pradip Patiath, a senior partner at McKinsey, said. "It automates a lot of the inertia that is in the system today." Consumers hold $23 trillion out of a total of $70 trillion in accounts with close to zero interest rates, while the remainder is held in accounts that often pay relatively low rates, according to the research. Customer use of AI agents could lead to a 9% profit drop for banks, some $170 billion, if they do not change their business models. That could push average returns for banks below their cost of capital, the consultants said.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says it is now clear that efforts to cap global warming at 1.5C above pre-industrial levels will fail in the short term. AFP: Before next month's COP30 climate summit in Brazil, Guterres said going beyond 1.5C would result in "devastating" yet predictable impacts. "One thing is already clear: we will not be able to contain the global warming below 1.5C in the next few years," Guterres said at the UN's World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) weather and climate agency in Geneva. "Overshooting is now inevitable. Which means that we're going to have a period, bigger or smaller, with higher or lower intensity, above 1.5C in the years to come." However, if leaders start taking the problem seriously by driving towards net zero greenhouse gas emissions, "the 1.5 still remains -- according to all the scientists I met -- possible before the end of the century."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Airbus, Leonardo and Thales seek to 'strengthen Europe’s strategic autonomy in space'

Three European aerospace giants plan to combine their space units into a single heavyweight, hoping to boost the continent's space autonomy.…

An anonymous reader shares a report: With gingko "memory-boost tinctures," fennel "tummy-soothing syrups" and "citrus-immune gummies," AI "slop" has come for herbalism, a study published by a leading AI-detection company has found. Originality.ai, which offers its tools to universities and businesses, says it scanned 558 titles published in Amazon's herbal remedies subcategory between January and September this year, and found 82% of the books "were likely written" by AI. "This is a damning revelation of the sheer scope of unlabelled, unverified, unchecked, likely AI content that has completely invaded [Amazon's] platform," wrote Michael Fraiman, author of the study. "There's a huge amount of herbal research out there right now that's absolutely rubbish," said Sue Sprung, a medical herbalist in Liverpool. "AI won't know how to sift through all the dross, all the rubbish, that's of absolutely no consequence. It would lead people astray."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Plus: Model 3/Y recall over battery-pack contactors that can cut drive power

Feeling a bit blinded by the light when a Cybertruck rolls by? It's not just you — Tesla's recalling most built to date because the boxy pickup's front parking lights are too bright.…