Tag: Microsoft Corp

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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Investors Are Happy to Pay Premium for Tech, But Not for AI
31Jul By adminNo Comments
Technology

Investors Are Happy to Pay Premium for Tech, But Not for AI

[ad_1] Investors on Wall Street and beyond are betting that the great tech rally of 2023 has staying power, even as they appear skeptical that the artificial-intelligence era will live up to the hype.Some 77% of the 514 respondents to the latest Markets Live Pulse survey are planning to either increase their exposure to technology stocks or keep it steady over the next six months. Meanwhile, less than 10% see a bubble in the sector bursting anytime soon. That bullishness has pushed the Nasdaq 100 to its best first half in history, ramping up market valuations and blindsiding pros on the Street. Yet while survey participants are likely riding the AI-fueled market melt-up thanks to their broad equity exposure, they aren't going all-in on the technology just yet. Half are disinclined to pa...
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AI Leaders Create Industry Watchdog as Government Scrutiny Grows
27Jul By adminNo Comments
Technology

AI Leaders Create Industry Watchdog as Government Scrutiny Grows

[ad_1] Facing calls to put guardrails on artificial intelligence development, a group of tech companies including Alphabet Inc.'s Google and OpenAI Inc. are creating an industry body to ensure that AI models are safe.The effort, also backed by AI startup Anthropic and Microsoft Corp., aims to consolidate the expertise of member companies and create benchmarks for the industry, according to a statement Wednesday. The group, known as the Frontier Model Forum, said it welcomed participation from other organizations working on large-scale machine-learning platforms. The fast proliferation of generative AI tools such as OpenAI's ChatGPT, which can create text, photos and even video based on simple prompts, has put pressure on tech giants to tread carefully. The companies involved in the Fron...
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Wall Street’s Use of AI and Data Analytics Faces New SEC Rules
27Jul By adminNo Comments
Technology

Wall Street’s Use of AI and Data Analytics Faces New SEC Rules

[ad_1] Wall Street's main regulator is unveiling proposed restrictions for brokerages and money managers that use artificial intelligence to interact with clients.The US Securities and Exchange Commission approved a plan on Wednesday to root out what Chair Gary Gensler has said are conflicts of interest that can arise when financial firms adopt the technologies. The agency also adopted final rules requiring companies to disclose serious cybersecurity incidents within four business days after they're deemed significant. The AI proposal is the latest salvo from Washington regulators concerned about the technologies' power to influence everything from credit decisions to financial stability. Companies would need to assess whether their use of predictive data analytics or AI poses conflicts...
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OpenAI backs idea of requiring licenses for advanced AI systems
20Jul By adminNo Comments
Technology

OpenAI backs idea of requiring licenses for advanced AI systems

[ad_1] An internal policy memo drafted by OpenAI shows the company supports the idea of requiring government licenses from anyone who wants to develop advanced artificial intelligence systems. The document also suggests the company is willing to pull back the curtain on the data it uses to train image generators.The creator of ChatGPT and DALL-E laid out a series of AI policy commitments in the internal document following a May 4 meeting between White House officials and tech executives including OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman. “We commit to working with the US government and policy makers around the world to support development of licensing requirements for future generations of the most highly capable foundation models,” the San Francisco-based company said in the draft. Th...
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Apple Tests ‘Apple GPT,’ Develops Generative AI Tools to Catch OpenAI
19Jul By adminNo Comments
Technology

Apple Tests ‘Apple GPT,’ Develops Generative AI Tools to Catch OpenAI

[ad_1] Apple Inc. is quietly working on artificial intelligence tools that could challenge those of OpenAI Inc., Alphabet Inc.'s Google and others, but the company has yet to devise a clear strategy for releasing the technology to consumers.The iPhone maker has built its own framework to create large language models — the AI-based systems at the heart of new offerings like ChatGPT and Google's Bard — according to people with knowledge of the efforts. With that foundation, known as “Ajax,” Apple also has created a chatbot service that some engineers call “Apple GPT.” In recent months, the AI push has become a major effort for Apple, with several teams collaborating on the project, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the matter is private. The work includes trying to a...
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Roblox Grapples With Employee Demands for More Diversity
18Jul By adminNo Comments
Technology

Roblox Grapples With Employee Demands for More Diversity

[ad_1] In the spring of 2021, the staff at video-game juggernaut Roblox Corp. gathered for an all-hands meeting over the video conferencing app Zoom. An employee submitted by text a question to executives about why there were so few women at the top ranks of the company. According to multiple people in attendance, the company's co-founder and chief executive officer David Baszucki accepted the query at the virtual get-together and responded by saying that Roblox has a very high bar in hiring.Several of the women there said they found the comment dismissive, but not surprising. In public and private forums, the 60-year-old Baszucki and his deputies often noted that the goal of the San Mateo, California-based company was to “hire the best people.” Three of the 15 current or former female ...
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Elon Musk Is Rooting for ‘Safe’ Superintelligence at Startup xAI
15Jul By adminNo Comments
Technology

Elon Musk Is Rooting for ‘Safe’ Superintelligence at Startup xAI

[ad_1] Elon Musk's new startup is “definitely in competition” with OpenAI, the billionaire said on Friday during a discussion on Twitter Spaces. Musk's artificial intelligence company, xAI, is his latest salvo against OpenAI, currently the buzziest and best-funded player in the fast-growing industry. During the discussion, Musk and staffers of his new startup spoke in lofty terms about the mission of xAI. Though it does not yet have any products, the startup unveiled a new website this week, and has the goal of safely developing artificial general intelligence, or AGI. The plan is “to build a good AGI with the overarching purpose of just trying to understand the universe,” Musk said. Later, he added, “I guess you could reform the xAI mission statement as: ‘What the hell is really going...
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Elon Musk announces ChatGPT alternative dubbed xAI
12Jul By adminNo Comments
Technology

Elon Musk announces ChatGPT alternative dubbed xAI

[ad_1] Elon Musk, who has hinted for months that he wants to build an alternative to the popular ChatGPT artificial intelligence chatbot, announced the formation of what he's calling xAI, whose goal is to “understand the true nature of the universe.”On a website unveiled Wednesday xAI said its team will be led by Musk and staffed by executives who have worked at a broad range of companies at the forefront of artificial intelligence, including Google's DeepMind, Microsoft Corp. and Tesla Inc., as well as academic institutions such as the University of Toronto. Musk was involved in the creation of OpenAI, the highest-profile AI startup and developer of ChatGPT. But he has frequently and publicly criticized OpenAI since he left the board in 2018, especially after it created a for-profit ar...
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In Pixel smartphone drive, Google set to hire Sreenivasa Reddy as India policy head
4Jul By adminNo Comments
Technology

In Pixel smartphone drive, Google set to hire Sreenivasa Reddy as India policy head

[ad_1] Alphabet Inc.'s Google is set to appoint a manufacturing and policy veteran as its top government affairs executive in India to tackle legal challenges and expand hardware assembly to the country.Sreenivasa Reddy, currently a senior engineering executive at Microsoft Corp., is likely to join Google toward the end of this year, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be identified as the matter is private. He previously worked in senior positions at Apple Inc. 's India regulatory team and headed government relations at the local unit of Swedish telecom-gear maker Ericsson AB, helping to drive domestic manufacturing at both companies. Reddy's experience will come in handy at Google, which is scouting for partners in India to assemble its Pixel range of smartphones as it...
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