Tag: Bloomberg

Dropbox Ends Unlimited Cloud Storage Following Google Change
25Aug By adminNo Comments
Technology

Dropbox Ends Unlimited Cloud Storage Following Google Change

[ad_1] Dropbox Inc., a provider of online data storage, is ending its unlimited option, saying a small handful of customers were using massive amounts of resources that had the potential to degrade the cloud service for the rest of its clients.The company's highest-tier “all the space you need” storage plan will be capped at about 5 terabytes per user for new customers, the company said in a blog post shared with Bloomberg to be released Thursday. That's enough space to save about 33 million documents, Dropbox said. While the plan was designed for businesses, some clients were instead using it for cryptocurrency mining, pooling storage with strangers, or re-selling the cloud service, Dropbox said. These uses “frequently consume thousands of times more storage than our genuine business c...
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Google and Microsoft Are Supercharging AI Deepfake Porn
24Aug By adminNo Comments
Technology

Google and Microsoft Are Supercharging AI Deepfake Porn

[ad_1] When fans of Kaitlyn Siragusa, a popular 29-year-old internet personality known as Amouranth, want to watch her play video games, they will subscribe for $5 a month to her channel on Amazon.com Inc.'s Twitch. When they want to watch her perform adult content, they'll subscribe for $15 a month for access to her explicit OnlyFans page.And when they want to watch her do things she is not doing and has never done, for free, they'll search on Google for so-called “deepfakes” — videos made with artificial intelligence that fabricate a lifelike simulation of a sexual act featuring the face of a real woman. Siragusa, a frequent target of deepfake creators, said each time her staff finds something new on the search engine, they file a complaint with Google and fill out a form requesting t...
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Zoom Boosts Outlook With Move Beyond Video Calls
23Aug By adminNo Comments
Technology

Zoom Boosts Outlook With Move Beyond Video Calls

[ad_1] Zoom Video Communications Inc. raised its annual forecasts, a sign of progress on its effort to sell more products to large enterprise customers. The shares gained about 4% in extended trading.Revenue for the year ending in January 2024 will be as much as $4.5 billion, the company said Monday in a statement. In May, Zoom projected annual sales of about $4.48 billion. Annual earnings, excluding some items, will be $4.63 to $4.67 a share, compared with a previous forecast of $4.25 to $4.31. Investors have been concerned about the stagnation of Zoom's once-explosive sales as the company's central videoconferencing software is challenged by major rivals, such as Microsoft Corp. Zoom's plan to resuscitate growth hinges on expanding its tools for large businesses, such as phone platfor...
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How the Microsoft-Activision Deal Came Back From the Dead
23Aug By adminNo Comments
Technology

How the Microsoft-Activision Deal Came Back From the Dead

[ad_1] If Microsoft Corp. completes its acquisition of Activision Blizzard in the coming months, the $69 billion deal will go down as one of the biggest comeback stories in the history of mergers.By this past April, the gaming industry's biggest acquisition ever appeared doomed. US regulators had filed a challenge to the takeover and their counterparts in the UK had blocked it outright. But Microsoft resurrected the purchase earlier this summer, deploying what amounted to a bluff that pitted US and UK regulators against each another. And on Tuesday the UK agreed to open a fresh probe of the transaction, following an offer from Microsoft to sell the cloud rights of current and future Activision games released over the next 15 years to Ubisoft Entertainment SA. If the transaction clears t...
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Uber Is Developing an AI-Powered Chatbot to Integrate Into App
2Aug By adminNo Comments
Technology

Uber Is Developing an AI-Powered Chatbot to Integrate Into App

[ad_1] Uber Technologies Inc. is developing an artificial intelligence-powered chatbot to integrate into its app, joining the long list of companies that are turning to the language tool to improve customer service, marketing and other automated tasks.“We're working on it right now,” Chief Executive Officer Dara Khosrowshahi said Tuesday in an interview on the Bloomberg Technology show. He didn't provide details on the specifics of what the chatbot would be capable of doing, but highlighted the ways Uber currently uses AI in its business. “We have been working with machine learning, artificial intelligence systems for years and years,” he told Emily Chang. “Every time you get matched up with a car or a courier, there are algorithms making that happen, from the time of day, distance, all...
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Just How Deep Is Mark Zuckerberg’s Metaverse Money Pit?
1Aug By adminNo Comments
Technology

Just How Deep Is Mark Zuckerberg’s Metaverse Money Pit?

[ad_1] When it comes to measuring the progress of Mark Zuckerberg's metaverse, big numbers have been in short supply. Only 20 million of his Quest virtual reality headsets have sold since 2019. Only 200,000 users are reportedly active in Meta Platform Inc.'s flagship virtual reality experience, Horizon Worlds. Oh, actually, there is one big number: $21 billion lost on creating the Metaverse since the start of 2022.All this prompts an obvious question: Just how much money is Zuckerberg prepared to spend to make his Metaverse successful? Luckily for him, he doesn't have to answer that just yet. Meta's legacy business — selling online advertising — is roaring, with double digit revenue growth for the first time since the end of 2021. That's providing sufficient distraction to keep investor...
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BlackRock, Worldcoin, Ripple: Bitcoin Bull Mike Novogratz Dishes on Crypto
30Jul By adminNo Comments
Technology

BlackRock, Worldcoin, Ripple: Bitcoin Bull Mike Novogratz Dishes on Crypto

[ad_1] As Bitcoin roars back after a year of crypto industry scandals and losses, Mike Novogratz says one man in particular gives him reason to stay bullish.“The most important thing that happened this year in Bitcoin is Larry Fink,” Novogratz said, referring to the investment titan who is chief executive officer at BlackRock Inc., the world's biggest asset manager. BlackRock thrilled the crypto community in June when it applied to launch an exchange-traded fund to track the spot price of Bitcoin — a move that, if approved, could potentially spark a new wave of investment in the cryptocurrency. But it was Fink's seeming conversion from crypto skeptic to Bitcoin believer — he now considers it an “international asset” — that really has Novogratz excited. “He got ‘orange-pilled,' as we say...
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Elon Musk’s Wealth Slumps $13.6 Billion as Tesla Shares Tumble
21Jul By adminNo Comments
Technology

Elon Musk’s Wealth Slumps $13.6 Billion as Tesla Shares Tumble

[ad_1] Elon Musk's fortune slumped $13.6 billion Thursday after Tesla Inc. warned it may have to keep cutting the prices of its electric vehicles, sending shares tumbling.The drop in net worth to $241 billion further narrows the wealth gap between Musk and Bernard Arnault, the world's two richest people, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Musk's fortune still exceeds that of Arnault, chairman of luxury goods maker LVMH, by about $40 billion. Shares of Austin-based Tesla dropped 7% to $271.02 at 11:30 a.m. in New York after the company warned of more hits to its already-shrinking profitability. Months of markdowns have taken a toll on automotive gross margin, which fell to a four-year low in the second quarter. Musk said Wednesday Tesla will have to keep lowering prices if in...
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Twitter’s Surge in Harmful Content a Barrier to Advertiser Return
20Jul By adminNo Comments
Technology

Twitter’s Surge in Harmful Content a Barrier to Advertiser Return

[ad_1] Elon Musk's Twitter acquisition, and the series of content policy changes that ensued, has led to a dramatic spike in hateful, violent and inaccurate posts on the platform, according to researchers. That's now the top challenge for Twitter's new Chief Executive Officer Linda Yaccarino, who has to address advertisers' concerns about the trend in order to boost revenue and pay back the company's debts. Musk and Yaccarino have touted updates to the site's policies, such as letting advertisers prevent their posts from showing up next to certain kinds of content. Still, advertising sales are down by half since Musk took control of the company in October, he said this week. That's in part because businesses don't believe there has been significant progress in resolving the problem. “M...
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AI Is No Easy Fix for NFT Selloff, Says Creator of Historic $69 Million Artwork
20Jul By adminNo Comments
Technology

AI Is No Easy Fix for NFT Selloff, Says Creator of Historic $69 Million Artwork

[ad_1] The intersection of artificial intelligence and nonfungible tokens provides no simple antidote for the slump in the market for digital collectibles, according to the artist Beeple.Proponents of AI-generated art claim it offers a new type of interactive creativity that can be tied to NFTs to potentially reignite interest in that marketplace, where activity has tumbled since a peak in 2022. But Michael Winkelmann, better known as Beeple and famed for his Everydays NFT artwork that fetched $69.3 million in 2021, said on Bloomberg Television that “AI isn't some sort of quick fix to give value to NFTs.” “This is a tool that everybody now has,” he told Caroline Hyde and Ed Ludlow. “If it is something that is easy for you to do with AI and make, it probably won't have lasting value beca...
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