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Microsoft promotes new tools for making AI software amid competition

Microsoft promotes new tools for making AI software amid competition

by | May 22, 2024 | Technology


3 min read Last Updated : May 22 2024 | 12:27 PM IST


Microsoft talked up new tools on Tuesday aimed at encouraging programmers to build AI-focused technology into Windows software as it races against Alphabet, Amazon.com and Apple to dominate the emerging field.

 


At a developer conference in Seattle, Chief Executive Satya Nadella promoted new application programming interfaces, or APIs, that make it easier for developers to tap in to AI technology offered by Microsoft.

 


The company said 1.8 million developers are now using Github Copilot, Microsoft’s generative AI tool that helps computer programmers be more productive.

 


“What stands out to me as I look back at this past year, is how you all as developers have taken all of these capabilities and are applying them, quite frankly, to change the world around us,” Nadella said during his keynote address at the Build conference.

 


Microsoft detailed new features for its Copilot AI software that helps business productivity applications such as email and its Teams video and text chat product. At its developer conference last week, Alphabet’s Google unveiled a similar batch of AI tools to help people with office applications.

 


Microsoft announced details of its new developer tools last week.

 


Shares of Microsoft were up 1.2 per cent at $430.67 on Tuesday afternoon after hitting a record high of $432.97 earlier in the session. Microsoft’s stock has now gained 14 per cent in 2024.

 


Also aimed at developers, Microsoft said last Thursday it would offer its cloud computing customers a platform of AMD AI chips that will compete with Nvidia, whose graphics processing units have become the gold standard for AI computing.

 


The platform of AMD chips created by Microsoft uses networking technology made by Nvidia called Infiniband to string the processors together.

 


OpenAI’s new GPT4-o model, which runs on Microsoft’s infrastructure, is 12 times cheaper for developers to use in their software than earlier versions of the technology, Microsoft’s chief technology officer Kevin Scott said.

 


Microsoft is the largest investor in OpenAI and uses some of the AI heavyweight’s technology in its own products.

 

On Monday, Microsoft debuted a line of Copilot+ personal computers with AI features such as software that lets users search through their past actions in nearly any software. The new computers feature Arm-based processors made by Qualcomm.


(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

First Published: May 22 2024 | 12:27 PM IST



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Chinese tech giants cut prices of language models used to power AI chatbots

Chinese tech giants cut prices of language models used to power AI chatbots

by | May 22, 2024 | Technology


2 min read Last Updated : May 22 2024 | 12:27 PM IST


Chinese tech giants Alibaba and Baidu slashed prices on Tuesday of large-language models (LLMs) used to power generative artificial intelligence products, as a price war in the cloud computing sector heats up in China.

 


Alibaba’s cloud unit announced price cuts of up to 97 per cent on a range of its Tongyi Qwen LLMs. Its Qwen-Long model, for instance, will cost only 0.0005 yuan per 1,000 tokens – or units of data processed by the LLM – after the price cut, down from 0.02 yuan per 1,000 tokens.

 


It was quickly followed by Baidu, which hours later announced that its Ernie Speed and Ernie Lite models would be free for all business users.

 


A price war in China’s cloud computing space has been ongoing for the past few months, with Alibaba and Tencent recently lowering prices of their cloud computing services.

 


Many Chinese cloud vendors have relied on AI chatbot services to boost sales, after China saw a wave of investment in large language models in response to the hit debut of US-based OpenAI’s ChatGPT in late 2022.

 


The price war in China’s cloud computing space has now hit the large-language models that power these chatbots, threatening to lower companies’ profit margins.

 


Baidu’s Ernie Lite and Ernie Speed were released in March and until Tuesday corporate customers paid to use them.

 


Bytedance announced last week that the main model of its Doubao LLMs would be priced 99.3 per cent lower than the industry average for business users.

 


Chinese LLM developers have focused on charging businesses as a way to monetize their investments in LLMs.

 


Some have also begun targeting individual users. Chinese startup Moonshot recently launched a tipping feature, where business and individual users can pay to prioritize their use of its chatbot services.

 

Baidu was the first company in China to offer its LLM products to paying consumers, charging 59 yuan per month for those looking to use its most advanced Ernie 4 models.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

First Published: May 22 2024 | 12:26 PM IST



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Soon, WhatsApp could let you clear all unread chats in one go: Details here

Soon, WhatsApp could let you clear all unread chats in one go: Details here

by | May 22, 2024 | Technology


2 min read Last Updated : May 22 2024 | 12:25 PM IST

WhatsApp could soon let you clear all unread chats in one go. Reportedly, Meta’s instant-messaging platform is testing this feature in a beta version for Android. Part of the notification settings, the “clear unread when app opens” option will allow users to clear their unread message count whenever they open the app.


WhatsApp update tracking platform WABetaInfo has reported that the clear all unread chat option is now available in the beta version for Android. It lets the users clear the unread message count every time they open the messaging app. According to the report, the feature first appeared in WhatsApp beta for Android version 2.24.11.13. The feature is inactive for now and might not be accessible for beta users who registered through the Google Play Beta Button, the report added.


Once activated, the feature will be visible in the “Notifications settings”. As per shared images by WABetaInfo, notifications will have a new settings option. An option named “Clear unread when app opens” will appear between the option to preview notifications and show notifications for reactions. This option will be described as “Your unread message count will be cleared every time the app opens.”


A feature of interest especially for those who receive excessive messages or are part of several groups, this can help people eliminate the hassle of opening every chat to remove the unread text notifications and will enable them to prioritise messages accordingly.


Interestingly, the feature will allow the users to clear the unread message count but will not show read receipt on the other side. This is essentially because the unread messages are cleared without being read. Since the feature is being tested in beta version for Android, it is entirely possible that the final version for public release may allow users to clear unread messages while also marking them as read.

First Published: May 22 2024 | 12:25 PM IST



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Microsoft Copilot Plus AI PCs from Samsung, Asus, and more are coming soon

Microsoft Copilot Plus AI PCs from Samsung, Asus, and more are coming soon

by | May 22, 2024 | Technology


3 min read Last Updated : May 22 2024 | 12:24 PM IST

Microsoft debuted a new category of personal computers, called Copilot Plus PCs, at an event on May 20. The Surface Pro and Surface Laptop are the first Windows PCs to launch under the Copilot Plus PCs platform, powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite and Snapdragon X Plus. Other original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) such as Acer, ASUS, Dell, HP, Lenovo, and Samsung have also announced Copilot Plus PCs powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite and Plus chipsets.


Microsoft has announced that the first wave of Copilot Plus AI PCs will be available from June 18, 2024. However, Indian consumers may have to wait a tad longer no OEM has announced India launch as yet.


According to Qualcomm, the Snapdragon X Elite delivers the highest Neural Processing Unit (NPU) performance per watt for laptops. It said that the Elite chip is up to 2.6 times faster than Apple’s M3 chip and up to 5.4 times faster than the Intel Core Ultra 7 processor. Nevertheless, below are some of the first-generation AI PCs coming up shortly:


Copilot Plus PCs


Acer


Acer has announced the Swift 14 AI PC, powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon X series platform with Copilot Plus capabilities in Windows 11. The device boasts a 14.5-inch 2.5K touchscreen display, and a 75 Wh battery. The laptop features an activity indicator on the touchpad and an AI logo on the cover.


ASUS


ASUS announced the Vivobook S15 with the Snapdragon X Elite and X Plus chipset. The laptop boasts a 15.6-inch OLED display with 3K resolution and a 120Hz refresh rate. It is supported by ASUS IceCool thermal technology and offers a battery life of up to eighteen hours.


Dell


Dell is offering five new laptops powered by the Snapdragon X Elite and Snapdragon X Plus: XPS 13, Inspiron 14 Plus, Inspiron 14, Latitude 7455, and Latitude 5455.


HP


HP has announced its next-gen AI PCs with the Snapdragon X Elite chipset, including the HP OmniBook X AI PC and HP EliteBook Ultra AI PC. Both laptops are sleek, thin, and offer up to 26 hours of battery life. They feature Wolf Pro Security Next Gen Antivirus (NGAV), Microsoft Secured-Core PC designation, and come with a three-year warranty.


Lenovo


Lenovo introduced the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x and Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6, its first AI PCs powered by the Snapdragon X Elite. The Yoga Slim 7x supports a battery life of 70 Wh in Cosmic Blue color, while the ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 offers a 58 Wh battery and comes in Eclipse Black color. Both models run on the Windows 11 operating system.


Samsung


Samsung has introduced the Galaxy Book4 Edge powered by the Elite chipset. The Galaxy Book4 Edge is available in 14-inch and 16-inch AMOLED 2X display options and integrates with the Galaxy AI ecosystem, featuring functionalities like Circle to Search, Live Translate, and Chat Assist.

First Published: May 22 2024 | 12:14 PM IST



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US antitrust law alleging iPhone mkt monopoly should be dismissed: Apple

US antitrust law alleging iPhone mkt monopoly should be dismissed: Apple

by | May 22, 2024 | Technology


2 min read Last Updated : May 22 2024 | 12:12 PM IST


Apple said on Tuesday it plans to ask a US judge to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the Justice Department and 15 states in March that alleged the iPhone maker monopolized the smartphone market, hurt smaller rivals and drove up prices.

 


In a letter to US District Judge Julien X. Neals in New Jersey, Apple said “far from being a monopolist, Apple faces fierce competition from well-established rivals, and the complaint fails to allege that Apple has the ability to charge supra-competitive prices or restrict output in the alleged smartphone markets.”

 


In the letter to the judge, Apple said the DOJ relies on a new “theory of antitrust liability that no court has recognized.”

 


The government is expected to respond within seven days to the Apple letter, which the court requires parties to submit, hoping to expedite cases before advancing to a potentially more robust and expensive effort to dismiss a lawsuit.

 


The Justice Department alleges that Apple uses its market power to get more money from consumers, developers, content creators, artists, publishers, small businesses and merchants.

 


The civil lawsuit accuses Apple of an illegal monopoly on smartphones maintained by imposing contractual restrictions on, and withholding critical access from, developers.

 


The Justice Department, which did not immediately comment, has previously said Apple charges as much as $1,599 for an iPhone and makes a larger profit than any rival. Officials also said Apple imposes hidden charges on various business partners – from software developers to credit card companies and even rivals such as Alphabet’s Google, in ways that ultimately raise prices for consumers.

 


Apple rejected the government’s contentions that the iPhone has kept consumers “locked in” to the devices. “Someone unhappy with Apple’s limitations has every incentive to switch to competitor platforms that ostensibly do not have those limitations,” the letter said.

 

“Consumers should not have to pay higher prices because companies violate the antitrust laws,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in March. “If left unchallenged, Apple will only continue to strengthen its smartphone monopoly.”

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

First Published: May 22 2024 | 12:12 PM IST



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Not halted any orders of Nvidia's advanced chip in market, says Amazon

Not halted any orders of Nvidia's advanced chip in market, says Amazon

by | May 22, 2024 | Technology


Amazon (Photo: Bloomberg)

2 min read Last Updated : May 22 2024 | 12:11 PM IST


Amazon.com’s cloud services unit said on Tuesday that it has not halted any orders of Nvidia’s most advanced chip on the market, but has instead decided to purchase the company’s newer state of the art chip for an upcoming supercomputer project between the companies.

 


Earlier, the Financial Times had reported that Amazon Web Services (AWS), the world’s largest cloud services firm, had “fully transitioned” its previous orders for Nvidia’s Grace Hopper chip to its newer Blackwell graphics processing units (GPUs), that Nvidia announced in March.

 


An AWS spokesman told Reuters that the transition from Grace Hopper chips to Blackwell chips applies only to Project Ceiba, a supercomputer that AWS and Nvidia are building together. AWS continues to offer other services based on Nvidia’s Hopper chips, its flagship model for training artificial intelligence systems (AI), the spokesman said.

 


The Project Ceiba transition was announced by the two firms in March when Nvidia unveiled the new Blackwell chips.

 


“To be clear, AWS did not halt any orders from Nvidia. In our close collaboration with Nvidia, we jointly decided to move Project Ceiba from Hopper to Blackwell GPUs, which offer a leap forward in performance,” an AWS spokesman said in statement.

 

The Financial Times amended its earlier story to say that Amazon’s chip orders had not yet been placed. The newspaper directed a request for comment to its updated story.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

 

First Published: May 22 2024 | 12:11 PM IST



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