Microsoft

Microsoft reportedly fires staff whose protest interrupted its Copilot event

Government & Policy /

On Monday, Microsoft reportedly terminated the roles of two software engineers, Ibtihal Aboussad and Vaniya Agrawal, who protested the company’s reported dealings with the Israeli military during Microsoft’s Copilot and 50th anniversary event last week. According to an internal message viewed by CNBC, Microsoft wrote that Aboussad could have raised concerns “confidentially with your manager, […]

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Microsoft releases AI-generated Quake II demo, but admits ‘limitations’

AI /

Microsoft has released a browser-based, playable level of the classic video game Quake II. This functions as a tech demo for the gaming capabilities of Microsoft’s Copilot AI platform — though by the company’s own admission, the experience isn’t quite the same as playing a well-made game. You can try it out for yourself, using

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‘A Minecraft Movie’ is on-track for a $135M opening weekend

Gaming /

The big screen adaptation of video game mega-franchise Minecraft brought in $58 million on Friday, putting it on-track for a $135 million opening weekend domestically — or potentially even more. That would give “A Minecraft Movie” the biggest opening of the year, beating out “Captain America: Brave New World” (which earned $88.8 million during its

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Protester interrupts Microsoft Copilot keynote, says company has ‘blood on its hands’

Government & Policy /

A protester interrupted Microsoft’s Copilot-focused keynote Friday afternoon, calling attention to the company’s reported dealings with the Israeli military. “Shame on you,” the protester said. “You claim that you care about using AI for good, but Microsoft sells AI weapons to the Israeli military […] All of Microsoft has blood on its hands.” Microsoft Head

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Microsoft’s Copilot can now browse the web and perform actions for you

Apps /

For its 50th birthday, Microsoft is teaching its AI-powered Copilot chatbot a few new tricks. Copilot can now take action on “most websites,” Microsoft says, enabling it to book tickets, reserve restaurants, and more. The bot has gained the ability to remember specific things about you, similar to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, like your favorite food and

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Microsoft reportedly pulls back on its data center plans

Enterprise /

Microsoft has pulled back on data center projects around the world, Bloomberg reports, suggesting that the company is wary of expanding its cloud computing infrastructure too rapidly. Microsoft has halted talks for or delayed development sites of data centers in the U.K., Australia, North Dakota, Wisconsin, and Illinois, per Bloomberg. A spokesperson told the publication

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ChatGPT isn’t the only chatbot that’s gaining users

Apps /

OpenAI’s ChatGPT may be the world’s most popular chatbot app. But rival services are gaining, according to data from analytics firms Similarweb and Sensor Tower. SimilarWeb, which estimates traffic to websites including chatbot web apps, has recorded healthy recent upticks in usage across bots like Google’s Gemini and Microsoft’s OpenAI-powered Copilot. Gemini’s web traffic grew

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Data centers love solar: Here’s a comprehensive guide to deals over 100 megawatts

Enterprise /

The rush to capitalize on the buzz around AI has led tech companies to dramatically expand their data center footprints. That’s been good news for companies like Nvidia, but it has also led to unprecedented growth in the power industry. New and expanded data centers are expected to double the sector’s power demand by 2029,

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Microsoft adds AI-powered deep research tools to Copilot

AI /

Microsoft is introducing a “deep research” AI-powered tool in Microsoft 365 Copilot, its AI chatbot app. There’s been a raft of deep research agents launched recently across chatbots, including OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, and xAI’s Grok. Powering them are so-called reasoning AI models, which posses the ability to think through problems and fact-check themselves —

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Microsoft is exploring a way to credit contributors to AI training data

Media & Entertainment /

Microsoft is launching a research project to estimate the influence of specific training examples on the text, images, and other types of media that generative AI models create. That’s per a job listing dating back to December that was recently recirculated on LinkedIn. According to the listing, which seeks a research intern, the project will

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