By
Paula ParisiNovember 1, 2024
Alphabet’s revenue increased by 15 percent during the latest quarter, topping $88.3 billion. Powered by advertising and cloud services, profits surged 34 percent to $26.3 billion, exceeding Wall Street expectations of $22.9 billion. The company experienced continued growth in the online marketplace with popular consumer services such as Google Search and YouTube while also expanding in B2B with cloud offerings. All this as the government explores dismantling its business while competitors such as TikTok and Amazon come after its market share. Advertising growth slowed in Q3, yet still notched a healthy year-over-year increase of 10.4 percent. Continue reading Alphabet Profits Climb 34 Percent, Powered by Cloud and Ads
By
Paula ParisiNovember 1, 2024
Meta Platforms revenue was up 19 percent to $40.6 billion in Q3 compared to the same period one year earlier. Profit rose to $15.7 billion — a 35 percent increase from 2023. The company believes that its years of investments in adtech, artificial intelligence and the metaverse are starting to pay off. In Q3, Meta reported $23.2 billion in expenses and capital expenditures of $9.2 billion. And the company isn’t taking its foot off the accelerator, having increased its annual spending forecast by $1 billion to a minimum of $38 billion. Additionally, Meta’s advertising revenue for Q3 was just a tick under its high-end spend projection of $40 billion. Continue reading Meta’s Investments in Adtech, AI, the Metaverse Yield Results
By
Paula ParisiNovember 1, 2024
Propelled by increasing demand for artificial intelligence services, Microsoft cloud solutions, which includes the Azure platform, was the star of the quarter, bringing in $38.9 billion for 22 percent growth year-over-year. Revenue was $65.6 billion, up 16 percent, while profit increased by 11 percent, to $24.7 billion. While Microsoft financials don’t break out AI — now embedded across numerous products — Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella says AI “is on track to surpass an annual revenue run rate of $10 billion” by December 31, “making it the fastest business in our history to reach this milestone.” Continue reading AI Surges: Microsoft Quarterly Revenue Climbs to $65.6 Billion
By
Paula ParisiOctober 31, 2024
Microsoft is previewing GitHub Copilot for Azure in an ambitious expansion of its AI app development toolkit that some say could fundamentally change how developers build software for the AI era. The new premise is that switching from one software to another, as developers often do, should be seamless, not disruptive — sort of a real-time language translation and integration system for code. To fend off the move by Microsoft, AWS announced it is making its Q Developer AI code assistant available as an inline chat add-on accessible from IDEs like JetBrains and Microsoft’s own Visual Studio. Continue reading Microsoft, Amazon Jockey for Lead Among AI Code Assistants
By
Paula ParisiOctober 31, 2024
Yahoo News has signed up to use San Jose-based cybersecurity company McAfee’s deepfake image detection technology. The scalable McAfee system can “quickly identify images that may have been produced or modified using AI, including deepfake images,” flagging them for the Yahoo News editorial standards team for human review. The standards team then “determines whether the flagged images meet the platform’s editorial guidelines.” The partnership provides news aggregator Yahoo with an extra layer of protection as it deals with a large network of global publishers in addition to policing its original content. Continue reading Yahoo Using McAfee’s Modified Image Detector to Flag Fakes
By
Paula ParisiOctober 31, 2024
The first big play from Disney following February’s $1.5 billion investment in Epic Games is “ESPN Football Island,” available now as part of the “Fortnite” social gaming platform. The new sports-themed experience is designed to get football in front of younger fans. Games include navigating an obstacle course and “high-intensity box fights,” with the main action centering on “Touchdown Rush,” where players “team up with friends and enter the stadium to navigate rocky terrain, a lava moat, and the other team,” according to ESPN. The experience includes participation from ESPN announcers and will soon feature regular updates highlighting the current season. Continue reading Disney, Epic Launch ‘ESPN Football Island’ Experience Online
By
Paula ParisiOctober 30, 2024
Netflix wants to make viewing a more memorable and interactive experience with Moments, a new mobile feature that makes it easy to save, relive and share favorite scenes from movies and series. Launching globally on iOS and coming soon to Android, Moments not only allows you to revisit pivotal plot points, but also lets you restart the film or episode right from that bookmark. Sharing Moments on Instagram, Facebook and other social platforms is reportedly just as easy. You can share a Moment as you create it or, from the My Netflix tab, you can select a scene and tap to share it across all of your platforms. Continue reading Netflix Enables Bookmarking, Sharing of Scenes with Moments
By
Paula ParisiOctober 30, 2024
Consumers continue to let their affinity for FAST and AVOD television services be known. In the latest example, Samsung TV Plus has already attracted 88 million monthly active users worldwide. With growth springing largely from viewers in the 18-49 demographic, the service has become the most-used U.S. app on Samsung TVs. The metrics put it on par with other top competitors in the free ad-supported TV space: Roku, Tubi and Pluto TV. As it becomes a global content force, Samsung TV Plus continues to expand its global presence with recent launches in Singapore and the Philippines, with Thailand soon to come. Continue reading FAST: Samsung TV Plus Touts 88 Million Monthly Active Users
By
Paula ParisiOctober 30, 2024
Apple has revealed the new iMac, which features an M4 chip and Apple Intelligence in an ultra-thin case. Refreshed versions of all three MacBook Pros are also powered by M4 Pro and M4 Max chips. With the M4, the new iMac performs “up to 1.7x faster for daily productivity, and up to 2.1x faster for demanding workflows like photo editing and gaming, compared to iMac with M1.1,” Apple says, adding that the neural engine in the M4 makes “iMac the world’s best all-in-one for AI,” with bespoke Apple Intelligence. Apple released iOS 18.1, which also includes Apple Intelligence features, among them writing and summary tools and a “more natural and conversational Siri.” Continue reading Apple Ships iOS 18.1 with New Siri, Debuts iMac with M4 Chip
By
Paula ParisiOctober 29, 2024
IBM has updated its Guardium platform to optimize protections for security threats stemming from the current tech environment: “shadow AI” and quantum exposure. The new IBM Guardium Data Security Center leverages tools from both IBM Guardium AI Security and IBM Guardium Quantum Safe, allowing for cross-environment protection with unified controls in a single dashboard. Data monitoring and governance, data detection and response, data and AI security posture management and cryptography management to deflect quantum attacks can now be managed from an omniscient perspective, allowing security teams to integrate workflows. Continue reading Big Blue Updates Tech in IBM Guardium Data Security Center
By
Paula ParisiOctober 29, 2024
In its first week of public beta, Anthropic’s “Computer Use” feature is gaining immediate traction, helping people do research and complete coding tasks. Claude works autonomously in Computer Use mode, suggesting broad implications for future productivity and workforce goals. Coming on the heels of OpenAI’s Swarm framework, these early forays into independent AI assistants seem to indicate that implementing such systems will be an area of focus for businesses in 2025. Claude can “see” what’s onscreen and use its “judgment” to adapt to different tasks, segueing across workflows and software. Continue reading Anthropic’s AI Agents for Claude Sonnet Increase Productivity
By
Paula ParisiOctober 29, 2024
Marking its first news deal in years, Meta Platforms entered into an agreement with Reuters to use its content to answer user questions posed to its Meta AI chatbot. The arrangement comes as Meta has been minimizing news content on its services in response to publisher demands for revenue sharing and regulatory criticism over misinformation. Terms of the partnership were not disclosed, nor were details provided as to whether Meta plans to use Reuters content for model training. Meta AI is available across its Facebook, Whatsapp, Instagram and Messenger services. Continue reading Meta, Reuters Sign Multi-Year AI Content Licensing Agreement
By
Paula ParisiOctober 28, 2024
Midjourney is turning heads with its new image editor, which lets users upload images and then make adjustments. The company’s models — most recently Midjourney 6.1 — accept uploaded images as a reference to use for generative results. Now the Midjourney image editor allows precise adjustments to aspects of the frame. An “image retexturing mode” is also being introduced, as is v2 of its “AI moderator.” The new features are only available to users with yearly memberships, monthly memberships for the past 12 months, or those who have generated at least 10,000 Midjourney images. Continue reading Midjourney Makes Powerful AI Image Editor Available in Alpha
By
Paula ParisiOctober 28, 2024
OpenAI is taking a new approach to generating media that it says is 50 times faster than the models commonly used today. Called sCM, the approach is a “consistency model,” a variation on the diffusion method used by many leading systems. OpenAI claims its new model is ideal for training for large scale datasets and generating video, audio and images that are of “comparable sample quality to leading diffusion models.” Such models often require hundreds of steps, creating challenges when it comes to real-time applications. OpenAI aims to change this with a faster system that requires less power. Continue reading OpenAI: sCM Generates Media 50x Faster Than Other Models
By
Paula ParisiOctober 28, 2024
President Biden issued the first-ever National Security Memorandum on Artificial Intelligence, outlining how the Pentagon, intelligence agencies and various national security groups should use artificial intelligence technology to advance national interests and deter threats, touching on everything from nuclear weapons to the supply chain. “The NSM is designed to galvanize federal government adoption of AI to advance the national security mission, including by ensuring that such adoption reflects democratic values and protects human rights, civil rights, civil liberties and privacy,” the White House announced in a statement. Continue reading The White House Defines Government Objectives Involving AI