Microsoft

Amazon, Google, Microsoft reportedly warn H-1B employees to stay in the US

Government & Policy /

Large tech companies have responded to President Donald Trump’s dramatic changes to H-1B visa applications by telling employees with those visas to remain in the United States, according to multiple media reports. The White House announced Friday that Trump had signed a proclamation requiring employers to pay a $100,000 fee for H-1B visa applications. In […]

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OpenAI secures Microsoft’s blessing to transition its for-profit arm

AI /

OpenAI announced Thursday it reached a non-binding agreement with Microsoft, its largest investor, on a revised partnership that would allow the startup to convert its for-profit arm into a public benefit corporation (PBC). The transition, should it be cleared by state regulators, could allow OpenAI to raise additional capital from investors and, eventually, become a

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Microsoft to lessen reliance on OpenAI by buying AI from rival Anthropic

AI /

Microsoft will pay to use Anthropic’s AI in Office 365 apps, The Information reports, citing two sources. The move means that Anthropic’s tech will help power new features in Word, Excel, Outlook, and PowerPoint alongside OpenAI’s, marking the end of Microsoft’s previous reliance solely on the ChatGPT-maker for its productivity suite.  Microsoft’s move to diversify

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Microsoft AI chief says it’s ‘dangerous’ to study AI consciousness

AI /

AI models can respond to text, audio, and video in ways that sometimes fool people into thinking a human is behind the keyboard, but that doesn’t exactly make them conscious. It’s not like ChatGPT experiences sadness doing my tax return … right? Well, a growing number of AI researchers at labs like Anthropic are asking

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Group14 lands $463M from SK, Porsche, and others to make silicon anodes for EVs

Climate /

Battery materials startup Group14 announced Wednesday it has closed a $463 million funding round to expand its manufacturing footprint, a sign that investors remain confident in the future of electric vehicles. The startup manufactures silicon anode materials, which significantly boost the storage capacity of lithium-ion batteries. Group14 currently operates three factories, two in the U.S.

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RIP, Microsoft Lens, a simple little app that’s getting replaced by AI

Apps /

Sometimes it’s nice to have a simple app that does one thing well without a lot of fuss. Microsoft Lens was that type of app: a mobile document scanner that turned paper documents, business cards, receipts, and anything else into easily readable digital files. Now that app is being discontinued, Microsoft says, as it directs

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Microsoft brings OpenAI’s smallest open model to Windows users

AI /

Microsoft is making OpenAI’s new free and open GPT model, gpt-oss-20b, available to Windows 11 users via Windows AI Foundry, the tech giant’s platform that lets users tap AI features, APIs, and popular open-source models on their computers. The company said in a blog post that gpt‑oss-20b is “tool-savvy and lightweight,” adding: “Optimized for agentic

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GitHub Copilot crosses 20 million all-time users

AI /

GitHub Copilot, an AI coding tool offered by Microsoft-owned GitHub, has now reached more than 20 million users, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said on the company’s earnings call Wednesday. A GitHub spokesperson confirmed to TechCrunch that this number represents “all-time users.” That means five million people have tried out GitHub Copilot for the first time

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