Tag: microsoft

Meta Reportedly Hires Away 3 Researchers From OpenAI

admin — Thu, 26 Jun 2025 16:02:25 +0000

Meta has reportedly convinced three of OpenAI’s researchers to jump ship.

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Lucas Beyer, Alexander Kolesnikov and Xiaohua Zhai, all stationed with OpenAI’s Zurich office, have been hired by the social media giant for its artificial intelligence (AI) efforts, the Wall Street Journal reported late Wednesday (June 25), citing sources familiar with the matter.

The report noted that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been personally campaigning to hire new AI expertise to bolster his company’s flagging AI efforts.

In some cases, that has meant offering $100 million to researchers willing to join Meta’s team working on artificial general intelligence (AGI), an AI that can perform tasks at or above the level of humans.

Meta also recently invested $14 billion in AI startup Scale and brought its CEO Alexandr Wang on board to oversee the new team.

According to the WSJ, Zuckerberg has also tried to recruit OpenAI co-founders Ilya Sutskever and John Schulman, though both have declined. The report also pointed out that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said onstage at an event earlier this week that he wasn’t concerned about Zuckerberg’s efforts to poach his team.

“It’s like OK, Zuckerberg is doing some new insane thing. What’s next?” he said. Altman also recently said his best people hadn’t departed for Meta.

As covered here earlier this week, Zuckerberg has reportedly approached numerous high-profile AI companies about possible acquisitions. In addition to Scale, those startups include Perplexity, Runway, Thinking Machines and Safe Superintelligence, the latter two founded by former top executives at OpenAI. And as PYMNTS noted, it’s not only Meta trying to beef up its AI roster.

“The recruitment push comes at a time when competition for skilled AI talent has reached a fever pitch, with companies like OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Microsoft and Anthropic vying for the same pool of geniuses,” the report said.

The heightened focus on AI talent is also happening as Meta wants to expand the capabilities of its Llama AI model and integrate advanced AI into its products. The company’s AI-driven features now power everything from content recommendations on Instagram to conversational assistants in WhatsApp.

The company is also exploring AI agents to enhance customer service and commerce across its platforms.

The post Meta Reportedly Hires Away 3 Researchers From OpenAI appeared first on PYMNTS.com.

Microsoft is moving antivirus providers out of the Windows kernel

admin — Thu, 26 Jun 2025 16:00:00 +0000

It’s been nearly a year since a faulty CrowdStrike update took down 8.5 million Windows-based machines around the world, and Microsoft wants to ensure such a problem never happens again. After holding a summit with security vendors last year, Microsoft is poised to release a private preview of Windows changes that will move antivirus (AV) and endpoint detection and response (EDR) apps out of the Windows kernel.

The new Windows endpoint security platform is being built in cooperation with CrowdStrike, Bitdefender, ESET, Trend Micro, and many other security vendors. “We’ve had dozens of partners supply papers to us, some of them hundreds of pages long, on how they’d like it to be designed and what the requirements are,” explains David Weston, vice president of enterprise and OS security at Microsoft, in an interview with The Verge. “I’ve been really pleased with this. It’s an industry of competitors but everyone has stepped up and said we’ve got to build a platform that all of us work on.”

Microsoft is keen to stress that it’s not setting the rules and expecting everyone to immediately follow them, but instead build the rules together. “We’re not here to tell them how the API should work, we’re here to listen and provide the security and reliability,” Weston says. “I think if we’d gone out that some of our competitors and said, ‘Here it is, take it or leave it,’ that would really be a challenge.”

For decades, Microsoft has built Windows in a way that has allowed developers to deliver security software that’s deeply rooted into Windows, running at the kernel level of Windows — the core part of an operating system that has unrestricted access to system memory and hardware. The faulty CrowdStrike update last year highlighted just how easy it is for a kernel-level driver to go wrong and take down a machine, resulting in a Blue Screen of Death (BSOD).

Microsoft now has some of its most knowledgeable Windows engineers working on these security changes. “We’ve had key developers on this, some of the kernel architects of Windows and people that don’t even traditionally work in security,” Weston says. “It’s really the biggest brains of core Windows being involved and collaborating with CrowdStrike, ESET, and all those folks.”

The private preview will give security vendors a chance to request changes. Weston says he expects a few iterations until it’s ready for vendors to make the switch. It’s also not going to solve every single kernel-level driver instance straight away. “Our goal is to start with AV and EDR, but there will likely be kernel drivers for some period as we move on to the next set of use cases.”

Another big area of Windows that uses kernel-level drivers is anti-cheating engines for games. Microsoft has been speaking with game developers about how to reduce the amount of kernel usage, but it’s a more complicated use case as cheaters often have to purposefully tamper with their machine to disable protections and get cheating engines running.

“A lot of [game developers] would love to not have to maintain kernel stuff, and they are very interested in how they do that,” Weston says. “We’ve been talking about the requirements there, and I think we’ll have more to say on that in the near future.” Riot Games told me last year that it’s willing to follow potential Windows security changes and “recede from the kernel space.”

While it’s going to take Microsoft and security vendors some time to work through these Windows changes, Microsoft is confident that it will see good adoption rates because its customers are asking for changes in the wake of the CrowdStrike incident.

Microsoft is also getting ready to release a Windows update later this summer that will include a new Quick Machine Recovery feature, which is designed to quickly restore machines that can’t boot. It prompts a device to enter the Windows Recovery Environment, where the machine can access the network and provide Microsoft with diagnostic information. “We basically built the thing we’d love to have had for the incident last year,” Weston says.

The sight of a Blue Screen of Death will also be a thing of the past, too. Microsoft is now officially redesigning its BSOD so that it’s black and not blue. More on that big change here.

What is an Xbox?

admin — Thu, 26 Jun 2025 16:00:00 +0000

Microsoft's "This is an Xbox" marketing campaign in November always felt a little too early. If you ask a friend or family member what an Xbox is, the response is likely going to be "it's a game console." Xbox is ingrained in popular culture as a box under your TV that you play games on, but Microsoft's ads over the past six months have been attempting to redefine the Xbox as a platform that spans across phones, laptops, TVs, handheld gaming PCs, and even VR headsets.

The ads did a great job of drawing attention to the platform, but the perception of the Xbox brand as just a console is still a huge challenge that Microsoft needs to overcome if its latest strategy is going to be successful. I can already sense some trouble ahead.

Ever since Microsoft unveiled its ROG Xbox Ally handheld devices earlier this month, I keep hearing from friends that are asking about an "Xbox handheld." YouTubers with millions of followers have positioned these handheld gaming PCs as "the first Xbox handheld," which is true if you believe in Microsoft's marketing, but false in reality because they don't natively run Xbox games, only PC versions.

Microsoft's answer to this potential confusion is tha …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Windows is getting rid of the Blue Screen of Death after 40 years

admin — Thu, 26 Jun 2025 15:46:42 +0000

The Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) has held strong in Windows for nearly 40 years, but that’s about to change. Microsoft revealed earlier this year that it was overhauling its BSOD error message in Windows 11, and the company has now confirmed that it will soon be known as the Black Screen of Death. The new design drops the traditional blue color, frowning face, and QR code in favor of a simplified black screen.

The simplified BSOD looks a lot more like the black screen you’d see during a Windows update. But it will list the stop code and faulty system driver that you wouldn’t always see during a crash dump. IT admins shouldn’t need to pull crash dumps off PCs and analyze them with tools like WinDbg just to find out what could be causing issues.

The new BSOD in Windows 11. | Image: Microsoft" data-portal-copyright=" Microsoft" />

“This is really an attempt on clarity and providing better information and allowing us and customers to really get to what the core of the issue is so we can fix it faster,” says David Weston, vice president of enterprise and OS security at Microsoft, in an interview with The Verge. “Part of it just cleaner information on what exactly went wrong, where it’s Windows versus a component.”

Microsoft says it will roll out this new BSOD design in an update to Windows 11 “later this summer,” alongside its new Quick Machine Recovery feature, which is designed to quickly restore machines that can’t boot. The changes to the BSOD are part of a broader effort by Microsoft to improve the resiliency of Windows in the wake of last year’s CrowdStrike incident, which left millions of Windows machines booting to a BSOD.

Eclipse

admin — Thu, 26 Jun 2025 13:58:52 +0000

Eclipse is a powerhouse in the world of software development, known not just for its capabilities but also for the vibrant community that supports it. As an open-source integrated development environment (IDE), it plays a crucial role in various programming tasks, particularly with Java, while also being adaptable to other languages through its extensive plugin architecture.

What is Eclipse?

Eclipse is an open-source integrated development environment (IDE) primarily recognized for its strong support of Java development. Through a robust ecosystem of plugins, it extends its functionality to accommodate multiple programming languages and frameworks, making it a versatile tool for developers. With an emphasis on ease of use, Eclipse enables developers to manage projects, write code, and debug applications within a single interface, enhancing productivity and streamlining the development process.

The Eclipse Foundation

Behind the Eclipse IDE is a dedicated non-profit organization that steers its development and community.

Overview of the Foundation

The Eclipse Foundation is a nonprofit organization based in Canada, dedicated to managing the open-source Eclipse community. Its mission centers around fostering a collaborative environment that encourages innovation within the technology sector.

Structure and membership

– Membership Composition: With over 320 members and 1,750 committers, the foundation facilitates a collaborative ecosystem where individuals and organizations contribute to various projects.
– Codebase Management: The foundation oversees an extensive codebase comprising more than 332 million lines of code, emphasizing its role in supporting a wide array of software projects.

History of the Eclipse Foundation

The journey of Eclipse from a corporate project to a leading open-source foundation is marked by several key events.

Origins of Eclipse

Eclipse’s journey began in 2001 when IBM contributed three million lines of Java code to establish an open-source IDE. This foundational effort laid the groundwork for a robust community that has grown significantly over the years.

Key Milestones

– 2011: Oracle joined the Eclipse community, enriching its project portfolio with significant contributions, including the Hudson server and Java EE.
– 2016: A pivotal moment occurred when Microsoft announced integration between its Visual Studio services and Eclipse, bolstering cross-platform development capabilities.

Eclipse Foundation Services

To support its vast community and numerous projects, the Eclipse Foundation provides a range of essential services.

Community support structures

The foundation provides various support mechanisms to ensure a thriving community. One essential service is its intellectual property (IP) management, helping projects navigate legal complexities.

Marketing and infrastructure

In addition to community support, the foundation actively engages in software marketing. This includes strategies aimed at promoting Eclipse projects, while also managing essential IT infrastructure to sustain operations within the community.

Eclipse Projects and Domains

The foundation is home to a wide array of open-source projects that span various technological domains.

Variety of projects

The Eclipse Foundation supports over 400 open-source projects across numerous domains, highlighting its relevance in the evolving tech landscape. These projects cater to different development needs, reinforcing the significance of the Eclipse ecosystem.

Specialized applications

– Cloud-native applications: The foundation provides development tools designed specifically for cloud environments, addressing modern deployment challenges.
– Internet of Things (IoT) and edge computing: Eclipse is also involved in creating infrastructure for IoT and edge technologies, facilitating innovation in these rapidly growing areas.

Additional resources

For those looking to get started or stay updated, the foundation and its community offer a wealth of information.

Tutorials and migration guides

The Eclipse Foundation offers a variety of tutorials and migration guides to assist users. For instance, resources are available for installing Eclipse on various operating systems, including Ubuntu and Windows.

Insights and developments

Stay informed about the latest developments such as Jakarta EE 9, which focuses on the transition of Java EE and advancements within the Jakarta project. Additionally, discussions around Eclipse Theia as a competitive alternative to Visual Studio Code highlight ongoing innovation within the community.

Db2

admin — Thu, 26 Jun 2025 13:54:40 +0000

Db2 is a powerful database management system (DBMS) developed by IBM, designed to handle vast amounts of data effectively and efficiently. As organizations increasingly rely on data-driven decisions, understanding how Db2 works and its rich features becomes essential for database administrators and developers alike.

What is Db2?

Db2 represents a family of products that support both transactional and analytical processing. It is adaptable across various operating system platforms, providing the necessary tools for high-performance data management. With a focus on ensuring continuous data availability, Db2 meets the demands of modern businesses.

Understanding Db2 database functionality

Db2’s architecture is robust, designed for secure, multiuser access to structured data.

Structure of a Db2 database

A Db2 database consists of tables, views, and indexes organized to facilitate efficient data storage and retrieval. Database administrators (DBAs) oversee the essential functions, maintaining data integrity and accessibility.

Management tools in Db2

Db2 incorporates comprehensive management tools, allowing DBAs to configure, monitor, and optimize both logical and physical data structures. These tools are crucial for ensuring that changes can occur without interrupting service.

Creating a Db2 database

The process of creating a Db2 database involves the use of Data Definition Language (DDL) commands. This includes defining tables, views, and stored procedures that shape the database’s structure.

Performing CRUD operations

Once established, a Db2 database allows users to perform essential CRUD operations—Create, Read, Update, and Delete—in order to maintain and manipulate the data effectively.

Advantages of using Db2

Db2 offers numerous benefits that enhance its utility for organizations.

Actionable compression

One standout feature is actionable compression, which enables significant storage savings without sacrificing performance. This allows for speedy query evaluations directly on compressed data.

Hybrid transaction analytical processing (HTAP)

Db2’s HTAP capabilities enhance its performance for analytical tasks, leveraging the BLU column store and advanced acceleration techniques.

Temporal database support

Db2 supports temporal data, which means users can capture and query data at various times, including both historical and future states, enriching data analysis.

Integration with AI and ML

With features like an augmented data explorer, Db2 enhances user experiences through natural language queries, coupled with a machine learning query optimizer that boosts efficiency.

Deployment flexibility

Db2’s flexible deployment options include on-premises, hosted solutions, and managed cloud databases, catering to various organizational needs.

Compatibility options

The Oracle SQL compatibility feature within Db2 on LUW aids users transitioning from Oracle databases, simplifying the migration process.

Performance and scalability

Db2 for z/OS is designed to manage mixed workloads effectively, ensuring high performance and scalability across different applications.

Disadvantages of Db2

Despite its advantages, Db2 does present certain challenges for users.

Challenges in object-relational mapping

Object-relational mapping can be cumbersome due to the impedance mismatch between object-oriented and relational databases, requiring the use of Object-Relational Mappers (ORMs) for better compatibility.

Rigid schema requirements

Db2’s strict schema requirements can limit flexibility, particularly for modern applications that may require more adaptable data structures.

Scalability limitations

While Db2 excels in vertical scalability, it faces challenges in horizontal scaling compared to NoSQL systems, which can impact scalability in certain use cases.

Limited talent pool

A smaller pool of professionals with Db2 expertise exists, particularly when compared to more widely adopted systems such as Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server.

Supported platforms for Db2

Db2 is versatile, functioning across various platforms, making it accessible for numerous types of users.

Overview of supported platforms

Db2 can operate on workstations with Linux, Unix, and Windows, midrange systems like iSeries, and mainframes such as z/OS and VM/VSE, showcasing its broad applicability.

Code base and DBA practices

Each platform maintains its unique code base while supporting broad SQL compatibility. This variance impacts database administration practices.

Accessing Db2 databases

Developers can interact with Db2 databases using a variety of programming languages and APIs, including SQL, C, C++, COBOL, Java, and REST, providing flexibility in development.

Db2 editions and key features

Db2 offers several editions tailored to different usage scenarios.

Overview of Db2 editions

– **Standard edition**: Supports up to 16 virtual processor cores and 128 GB of memory.
– **Advanced edition**: No hardware restrictions for performance improvement.
– **Community edition**: A free version for non-production use, limited to 4 cores, 16 GB memory, and 100 GB storage.

Db2 on cloud

Db2 on Cloud provides a managed SQL cloud database with robust features, including point-in-time recovery and high-availability support, addressing enterprise requirements.

Free cloud instance and elastic data warehouse

Users can access a free instance through the Lite Plan, limited to 200 MB of data, alongside Db2 Warehouse on Cloud, specifically designed for complex data analytics.

Historical context of Db2

The development of Db2 has a rich history that reflects significant advancements in database technology.

Origins and development timeline

Db2 traces its origins to the System R project in 1974. Key milestones include:

1979: Release of Oracle’s first RDBMS.
1981: Transition from SQL/DS project to DB2 at IBM.
1985: Launch of DB2 Version 1 for MVS.
1988: Introduction of DB2 Version 2, enhancing distributed workload support.

Subsequent releases, including Db2 11.5.5 in November 2020 and Db2 12 for z/OS in October 2016, signify ongoing evolution and innovation in DBMS capabilities.

ChatGPT is reportedly building a Google Workspace and Microsoft Office rival — here's what we know

admin — Thu, 26 Jun 2025 12:54:40 +0000

ChatGPT is designing a major upgrade that rivals Google Workspace — here’s why I’m all in.

Microsoft reportedly 'struggling' to convince companies to buy Copilot — yup, employees prefer ChatGPT

admin — Thu, 26 Jun 2025 12:19:41 +0000

Microsoft's Copilot adoption is being held up by users of prospective buyers wanting to use ChatGPT instead, a new report has claimed.

Once Microsoft-backed OpenAI is building an Office 365 rival

admin — Thu, 26 Jun 2025 12:15:48 +0000

OpenAI is developing new features within its ChatGPT platform, positioning it as a direct competitor to established workplace productivity suites, according to The Information. These anticipated functionalities include collaborative document editing, meeting transcription services, and an integrated team chat capability. This expansion represents OpenAI’s ongoing efforts to evolve ChatGPT into a comprehensive artificial intelligence assistant.

The introduction of a ChatGPT-based productivity suite would intensify competition with Google, particularly given the impact generative AI alternatives have already had on web search traffic. Furthermore, such a suite would directly compete with Microsoft’s offerings, adding complexity to their existing strategic partnership. Since 2019, Microsoft has provided significant financial backing, crucial for training OpenAI’s advanced models.

In return, Microsoft gained rights to integrate OpenAI’s technology into its products, exemplified by the rebranding of its Bing search engine to Microsoft Copilot. Microsoft presently holds an approximate 49% stake in OpenAI’s for-profit division. Reports indicate discussions between the two entities are underway to restructure the terms of their current agreement. OpenAI has simultaneously begun to reduce its reliance on Microsoft’s cloud services, illustrated by its recent strategic partnership with Google, a primary competitor in the evolving artificial intelligence world.

WhatsApp will now summarize your missed chats

The recent surge in demand for generative AI tools has led both Google and Microsoft to integrate this technology into their respective workplace productivity suites, Google Workplace and Microsoft Office 365. OpenAI’s potential competitive advantage in this sector stems from its ability to build a new offering from the ground up, centered around its flagship chatbot. Since ChatGPT’s widespread success in late 2022, OpenAI has consistently expanded its capabilities.

Within the last two weeks, OpenAI launched an audio recording and transcription tool for specific paid ChatGPT users. The company also integrated its image-generation feature into WhatsApp. OpenAI is collaborating with Jony Ive’s company, io, on the development of a wearable artificial intelligence device. Additionally, there are reports that OpenAI is developing its own social media platform. Ziff Davis, the parent company of ZDNET, initiated a lawsuit against OpenAI in April 2025, alleging copyright infringement related to the training and operation of its AI systems.

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Anthropic trashed millions of books to train its AI

admin — Thu, 26 Jun 2025 10:47:42 +0000

Anthropic physically scanned millions of print books to train its AI assistant, Claude, subsequently discarding the originals, as revealed in court documents, according to Ars Tecnica. This extensive operation, detailed in a legal decision, involved the acquisition and destructive digitization of these texts. The company’s approach to data acquisition reflects a broader industry demand for high-quality textual information.

Anthropic engaged Tom Turvey, formerly the head of partnerships for Google Books, in February 2024. His mandate was to procure “all the books in the world” for the company. This hiring decision aimed to replicate Google’s legally validated book digitization strategy, which had successfully navigated copyright challenges and established fair use precedents. While destructive scanning is common in smaller-scale operations, Anthropic implemented it on a massive scale. The destructive process offered faster speed and lower costs, outweighing the need to preserve the physical books.

Judge William Alsup ruled this destructive scanning operation constituted fair use. This determination was contingent on several factors: Anthropic legally purchased the books, destroyed each print copy post-scanning, and maintained the digital files internally without distribution. The judge analogized the process to “conserv[ing] space” through format conversion, deeming it transformative. Had this method been consistently applied from the outset, it might have established the first legally sanctioned instance of AI fair use. However, Anthropic’s earlier use of pirated material undermined its initial legal standing.

The AI industry exhibits a significant demand for high-quality text, which serves as a fundamental driver behind these data acquisition strategies. Large language models (LLMs), such as those powering Claude and ChatGPT, are trained by ingesting billions of words into neural networks. During this training, the AI system processes the text repeatedly, establishing statistical relationships between words and concepts. The quality of the training data directly influences the capabilities of the resulting AI model. Models trained on well-edited books and articles generally produce more coherent and accurate responses compared to those trained on lower-quality text sources.

Publishers retain legal control over content that AI companies seek for training purposes. Negotiating licenses for this content can be complex and time-consuming. The first-sale doctrine provided a legal workaround for Anthropic: once a physical book is purchased, the buyer can dispose of that specific copy, including destroying it. This principle allowed for the legal acquisition of physical books, circumventing direct licensing negotiations. Despite the legality, the procurement of physical books represented a substantial financial outlay.

Initially, Anthropic opted to use digitized versions of pirated books to acquire high-quality training data, a strategy chosen to avoid what CEO Dario Amodei termed the “legal/practice/business slog” of complex licensing negotiations. By 2024, however, Anthropic had become “not so gung ho about” utilizing pirated ebooks due to “legal reasons,” necessitating a more secure source of data. Purchasing used physical books offered a method to bypass licensing issues entirely while providing the professionally edited text essential for AI model training. Destructive scanning facilitated the rapid digitization of millions of volumes.

Anthropic invested “many millions of dollars” in this book buying and scanning operation. The company often acquired used books in bulk. The process involved stripping books from their bindings, cutting pages to workable dimensions, and scanning them as stacks of pages into PDFs. These PDFs included machine-readable text and covers. All paper originals were subsequently discarded. Court documents do not indicate that any rare books were destroyed, as Anthropic procured its books in bulk from major retailers. Other methods exist for extracting information from paper while preserving the physical documents; for example, The Internet Archive developed non-destructive book scanning techniques that maintain the integrity of physical volumes while creating digital copies.

In a related development, OpenAI and Microsoft announced a collaboration with Harvard’s libraries to train AI models using nearly 1 million public domain books, some dating back to the 15th century. These books are fully digitized but are preserved.

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Sam Altman confronts NYT lawsuit head-on

admin — Thu, 26 Jun 2025 10:42:56 +0000

Sam Altman, OpenAI CEO, and Brad Lightcap, OpenAI COO, appeared at a live recording of the “Hard Fork” podcast in San Francisco, addressing the New York Times lawsuit against OpenAI and other industry challenges.

Altman and Lightcap arrived on stage earlier than anticipated at the San Francisco venue, which typically hosts jazz concerts. Kevin Roose, a columnist for The New York Times, and Casey Newton of Platformer, the hosts of the “Hard Fork” podcast, had planned to discuss recent headlines concerning OpenAI before the executives joined them. Altman acknowledged their premature appearance, stating, “This is more fun that we’re out here for this.” Moments later, Altman initiated a direct query regarding The New York Times lawsuit, asking, “Are you going to talk about where you sue us because you don’t like user privacy?”

Within minutes of the podcast starting, Altman redirected the conversation to address the lawsuit filed by The New York Times against OpenAI and Microsoft, its primary investor. The lawsuit alleges that OpenAI improperly utilized the publisher’s articles to train its large language models. Altman specifically expressed frustration over a recent development in the legal proceedings, where The New York Times’ lawyers requested OpenAI to retain consumer ChatGPT and API customer data.

Altman stated, “The New York Times, one of the great institutions, truly, for a long time, is taking a position that we should have to preserve our users’ logs even if they’re chatting in private mode, even if they’ve asked us to delete them.” He concluded this point by adding, “Still love The New York Times, but that one we feel strongly about.” For a period, OpenAI’s CEO pressed the podcasters for their personal opinions regarding The New York Times lawsuit. Roose and Newton declined to offer an opinion, explaining that as journalists whose work is published by The New York Times, they are not involved in the legal dispute.

The initial interaction involving Altman and Lightcap’s direct engagement lasted only a few minutes, after which the interview proceeded as planned. This early exchange underscored a significant inflection point in the relationship between Silicon Valley and the media industry. Over recent years, several publishers have initiated lawsuits against prominent AI companies, including OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and Meta, alleging the unauthorized training of their AI models using copyrighted works.

These lawsuits generally contend that AI models possess the capacity to devalue, or even replace, copyrighted content produced by media organizations. However, recent legal developments suggest a potential shift in favor of technology companies. Earlier this week, Anthropic, a direct competitor to OpenAI, secured a significant legal victory in its ongoing dispute with publishers.

A federal judge ruled that Anthropic’s use of books for training its AI models was permissible under specific circumstances. This ruling could have broad implications for other similar lawsuits filed by publishers against OpenAI, Google, and and Meta. This outcome may have contributed to Altman and Lightcap’s assertive demeanor during their live interview with The New York Times journalists. OpenAI, however, continues to navigate challenges from various sources, a reality that became evident throughout the evening’s discussion.

Mark Zuckerberg has been actively attempting to recruit top talent from OpenAI, offering compensation packages valued at $100 million to entice them to join Meta’s AI superintelligence laboratory. Altman had previously disclosed this recruitment strategy weeks prior during an appearance on his brother’s podcast. When questioned by the hosts about whether the Meta CEO genuinely believes in superintelligent AI systems or if this is primarily a recruiting tactic, Lightcap responded, “I think [Zuckerberg] believes he is superintelligent.”

Later in the interview, Roose inquired about the nature of OpenAI’s relationship with Microsoft. Reports have indicated increased tensions between the two companies in recent months as they engage in negotiations for a new contract. While Microsoft previously served as a significant accelerator for OpenAI’s development, the two entities are now operating as competitors in the enterprise software sector and other domains.

Altman acknowledged these dynamics, stating, “In any deep partnership, there are points of tension and we certainly have those.” He elaborated further, explaining, “We’re both ambitious companies, so we do find some flashpoints, but I would expect that it is something that we find deep value in for both sides for a very long time to come.”

OpenAI’s leadership currently dedicates substantial effort to addressing competitive pressures and ongoing lawsuits. This focus potentially impacts the company’s ability to concentrate on broader challenges associated with artificial intelligence, particularly the safe and scalable deployment of highly intelligent AI systems. At one point, Newton posed a question to the OpenAI leaders concerning recent reports of individuals experiencing mental instability utilizing ChatGPT, leading them into dangerous conversational patterns, including discussions about conspiracy theories or suicide with the chatbot.

Altman affirmed that OpenAI implements multiple measures designed to prevent such conversations. These measures include prematurely terminating interactions or directing users to professional services where they can access appropriate assistance. Altman stated, “We don’t want to slide into the mistakes that I think the previous generation of tech companies made by not reacting quickly enough.” In response to a follow-up question, the OpenAI CEO acknowledged a remaining challenge, stating, “However, to users that are in a fragile enough mental place, that are on the edge of a psychotic break, we haven’t yet figured out how a warning gets through.”

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Stax CTO: It’s Time to Orchestrate AI

admin — Thu, 26 Jun 2025 08:00:17 +0000

Watch more: Stax CTO on Why Agentic AI Needs Orchestration Layers to Scale

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When it comes to many innovations across payments, hype can often outpace practical deployment.

But even against that backdrop, the emergence of agentic artificial intelligence might stand among the most transformative moments in enterprise automation, at least since the invention of APIs.

Unlike older AI systems, which require frequent human prompting and contextual resets, AI agents take the initiative. They perform tasks, update their own context, and communicate with other agents to complete complex workflows all with minimal human involvement.

“We’re no longer just orchestrating our actions,” Stax Chief Technology Officer Mark Sundt told PYMNTS during a conversation for the June edition of the “What’s Next in Payments” series, “What’s Next in Payments: Secret Agent.” “We can now orchestrate the actions of AI.”

Reflecting on his experience across legacy technology firms like IBM and Microsoft, Sundt admitted even he is stunned by the pace of transformation.

“The velocity of change is absolutely astounding,” he said. “The half-life of information in AI right now is probably measured in weeks.”

Agentic AI is evolving and deploying faster than cloud computing and client-server models, which took years to gain traction. This is not merely automation; it’s delegation. It represents a philosophical shift in how businesses think about AI in the workplace.

Orchestration Layers

The journey into agentic AI began like many others, with AI tools operating essentially as advanced search engines or static content creators, Sundt said. However, that changed quickly as enterprise users demanded more from their models.

“It’s always been creating content, but it hasn’t updated the content it created for us,” he said. “And now we have the capabilities of doing that.”

This difference is not semantic. It is structural and strategic.

“We can ask it to do something on our behalf, and we define what done looks like — and it works on it until it’s done,” Sundt said. “So, it’s like these parallel processes that can run and be working on our behalf, which is just mind-bending to see.”

Still, if agentic AI is the engine, orchestration is the transmission. Without a central conductor, even the most capable agents act in isolation.

“You’ve got agents to agents … but who’s driving the process?” Sundt said. “Who’s doing the orchestration?”

The solution is a specialized “orchestration agent” that coordinates other agents’ activities much like a project manager, he said.

“It might do things in a different sequence than I would’ve designed or thought about — but someone’s got to drive that process,” he said.

Orchestration also brings structure to flexibility. Using agentic AI, tasks don’t have to follow a rigid order, but when sequence matters — such as booking a car after confirming a flight — agents can reason about interdependencies and adapt in real time. The resulting shift is democratic. AI is no longer a tool just for technologists; it’s a business assistant, strategist and executor rolled into one.

Bridging the Risk-Adoption Gap

Despite this promise, not all leaders are ready to leap into the agentic future.

“There’s a split between, ‘Agentic AI is the future — let’s go now,’ and others who are like, ‘Eh, we need to pump the brakes on this,’” Sundt said.

He attributed much of the hesitation to questions of governance, infrastructure and control.

“People are struggling with how to actually have uniform context across an organization,” he said.

However, new developments are addressing that.

As third-party AI services proliferate, companies must demand transparency and accountability. Sundt pointed to the importance of having vendors who can show audit logs, confirm the masking of personally identifiable information (PII) and maintain standards like SOC 2 compliance.

“We’re just now starting to have these discussions,” Sundt said, but he added that preparing for AI compliance should be seen as an essential part of adopting the technology.

What are the strategic takeaways for companies still assessing their position on agentic AI?

First, treat context as the foundation, he said. Whether in customer interactions or compliance, well-structured context is the difference between generative AI and truly agentic AI.

Second, empower orchestration. If tasks are getting done in silos, businesses miss the value of end-to-end process management. Define a clear orchestrator — human or digital, he said.

Third, democratize usage.

“This isn’t just for developers,” Sundt said. “Anybody could write this markdown file.”

The power of agentic AI lies in its accessibility and scalability.

Sundt recommended beginning with low-risk, high-impact projects — especially in compliance-heavy industries like payments.

At Stax, a strong early win came from using agentic AI for merchant verification during onboarding. The process involved checking utility bills and phone records for consistency.

“We can very quickly automate [this],” he said. “In the past, those types of workflows would use OCR and required pixel perfection. … Now, AI can extract and reason over jumbled data and still produce accurate context.”

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The post Stax CTO: It’s Time to Orchestrate AI appeared first on PYMNTS.com.

Windows 10 dies in October — 3 ways to avoid upgrading to Windows 11

admin — Thu, 26 Jun 2025 05:30:00 +0000

Microsoft will stop issuing critical security updates to Windows 10 this October, but if you want to keep using it (safely) for another year you can enroll in Microsoft's Windows 10 Extended Support Updates (ESU) program—here's how.

Nvidia Shares Hit All-Time High as Companies Add AI Infrastructure

admin — Wed, 25 Jun 2025 23:38:19 +0000

Nvidia shares hit an all-time high Wednesday (June 25), surpassing the previous record intraday high that was set in January, Bloomberg reported Wednesday.

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The rise took the company’s market cap to about $3.75 trillion, making it the world’s most valuable company, ahead of Microsoft, CNBC reportedWednesday.

The increase in Nvidia shares was driven by the company’s latest earnings results, which showed robust growth and potential for future strength, according to the Bloomberg report.

While Nvidia faces restrictions on selling advanced semiconductors in China, the company also has big customers like Microsoft, Meta, Alphabet and Amazon that are aggressively building artificial intelligence infrastructure, the report said.

The company’s stock price has risen 14% this year after rising 170% last year and leaping 240% in 2023, per the report.

Wall Street remains optimistic about the stock because it is showing both high growth and a reasonable multiple, the report said.

In a presentation released in conjunction with a shareholder meeting held Wednesday, Nvidia reported that its fiscal year 2025 revenue was up 114% year over year.

At the meeting, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said that in addition to AI, the company sees opportunities for growth in robotics, beginning with self-driving cars, according to the CNBC report.

“We have many growth opportunities across our company, with AI and robotics the two largest, representing a multitrillion-dollar growth opportunity,” Huang said, per the report.

Huang added that the business unit that includes automotive and robotics was up 72% on an annual basis and accounted for 1% of the company’s total revenue in the latest quarter, the report said.

Together with its AI chips, Nvidia has increasingly been offering related products like software, a cloud service and networking chips, according to the report.

Huang said in the shareholder meeting that Nvidia no longer thinks of itself as a “chip company” but rather as a provider of “AI infrastructure” or “computing platform,” per the report.

During a May 28 earnings call, Huang said Nvidia is pushing ahead with AI infrastructure projects worldwide to meet soaring demand for AI workloads.

“The age of AI is here, from AI infrastructures, inference at scale, sovereign AI, enterprise AI and industrial AI,” Huang said. “Nvidia is ready.”

The post Nvidia Shares Hit All-Time High as Companies Add AI Infrastructure appeared first on PYMNTS.com.

Content Tokenization Could be the Next Biggest AI Trend – Here’s Why

admin — Wed, 25 Jun 2025 20:30:00 +0000

Leading media organizations are increasingly signing licensing agreements with AI giants. For newspapers like The New York Times, such a deal safeguards their intellectual property and provides an additional revenue stream.

Meanwhile, companies like OpenAI and Amazon can train their models on accurate information and avoid lawsuits over copyright infringement. However, experts from IoTeX Network, O.XYZ, and AR.IO told BeInCrypto that existing decentralized alternatives could more transparently and equitably achieve the same results for content creators.

The New York Times’ New AI Strategy

In a move that drew considerable attention, The New York Times signed a deal with Amazon earlier this month, allowing Amazon to use its editorial content to train the tech company’s artificial intelligence (AI) models.

The licensing agreement between The New York Times and Amazon allows the tech company to use articles from the newspaper and its other publications. However, the newspaper’s public announcement about the deal did not reveal the financial terms.

Amazon and The New York Times Announce an A.I. Licensing Deal https://t.co/BPDtaxpliI

— Michael M. Grynbaum (@grynbaum) May 29, 2025

This decision marks a public change in strategy for The New York Times, which had previously opposed large language models (LLMs) using its content without permission.

In January 2024, the newspaper sued OpenAI and Microsoft over copyright infringement. The New York Times claimed these companies used copyrighted articles to train their LLMs without permission or compensation. That lawsuit is still ongoing and has not yet reached an outcome.

The New York Times is not the first media organization to sue a technological company over unfair use of its intellectual property.

“‬In‬‭ recent‬‭ years,‬‭ many‬‭ big‬‭ tech‬‭ projects‬‭ have‬‭ encountered‬‭ numerous‬‭ legal‬‭ challenges‬‭ and‬‭ fines. For‬‭ example,‬‭ Google‬‭ has‬‭ faced‬‭ over‬‭ €8‬‭ billion‬‭ in‬‭ fines‬‭ from‬‭ the‬‭ EU‬‭ in‬‭ the‬‭ past‬‭ decade‬‭ due‬‭ to‬‭ poor‬‭ data‬‭ practices,” Ahmad‬‭ Shadid,‬‭ CEO‬‭ of‬‭ O.XYZ., told BeInCrypto.

As the creators of leading LLMs need more widespread access to accurate information, such deals are becoming increasingly common.

The Rise of Licensing Deals

Licensing deals are growing in popularity. Last year, OpenAI, led by Sam Altman, signed an agreement with the European multinational media company Axel Springer SE. The deal closely mirrored the one recently made between The New York Times and Amazon.

The agreement allows OpenAI to use articles from media organizations owned by Axel Springer, including Politico, Business Insider, and Morning Brew, among other top international publications.

Altman later signed similar agreements with the Financial Times, Vogue, and the parent companies of outlets like The New Yorker, Cosmopolitan, and Le Monde, to name a few. OpenAI agreed to backlink all relevant information to the original articles as part of these deals.

OpenAI's content licencing deals

Companies with proprietary content (