GitHub has introduced Copilot Workspace, a Copilot-native developer environment for artificial intelligence, in technical preview. Developers are invited to sign up for a waitlist for the service, which allows the use of natural language to plan, build, test and run code. The Microsoft-owned company has introduced various aspects of Copilot over the past few years, adding an autocomplete pair programmer in 2022, and in 2023 Copilot Chat for natural language coding, debugging and testing, “allowing developers to converse with their code in real time.” The “task-centric” Copilot Workspace leverages different agents for a “start-to-finish experience.” Continue reading GitHub Puts Copilot Workspace Developer Platform in Preview

Amazon reported $143.3 billion in Q1 revenue, a 13 percent increase year-over-year, excluding the impact from foreign exchange rates, with net income at just over $10.3 billion, a nearly 229 percent surge that set a first quarter record for the company. Both categories outperformed Wall Street expectations, with strong online sales and a booming cloud business thanks to the increased demands of artificial intelligence deployment by enterprise clients credited as driving the boom. Amazon President and CEO Andy Jassy called it “a good start to the year.” Continue reading Amazon Q1 Profits Surge on Strong Retail and AWS Comeback

London-based AI-startup Synthesia, which creates avatars for enterprise-level generative video presentations, has added “Expressive Avatars” to its feature kit. Powered by Synthesia’s new Express-1 model, these fourth-generation avatars have achieved a new benchmark in realism by using contextual expressions that approximates human emotion, the company says. Express-1 has been trained “to understand the intricate relationship between what we say and how we say it,” allowing Expressive Avatars to perform a script with the correct vocal tone, body language and lip movement, “like a real actor,” according to Synthesia. Continue reading Synthesia Express-1 Model Gives ‘Expressive Avatars’ Emotion

Microsoft revenue was $61.9 billion in the quarter ending March 31, up 17 percent compared to the same period a year ago. Profit was up 20 percent, to $21.9 billion, despite an increase in capital expenditure to purchase Nvidia GPUs for training and running AI models. The performance smashed analyst predictions, sending the stock up 5 percent in after-hours trading. Revenue for the Microsoft Cloud division overall was $35.1 billion, up 23 percent year-over-year, fueled largely by customers using it to host resource intensive AI services. Revenue in the Intelligent Cloud sector was $26.7 billion, a 21 percent uptick. Continue reading Microsoft Cloud Buoys Quarterly Revenue to Nearly $62 Billion

Alphabet reported revenue of $80.5 billion for Q1, a 15 percent increase fueled largely by online advertising from Google Search and YouTube. The figure topped analyst estimates of $78.8 billion. Profit soared, rising 57 percent to more than $23.6 billion, wildly overperforming the forecast of $18.9 billion. The strong performance resulted in Alphabet announcing its first ever shareholder dividend, at 20 cents per share, which pays out on June 17. Alphabet’s board approved a $70 billion stock repurchase program, and the news-filled earnings event drove Alphabet shares up 13 percent in after-hours trading. Continue reading Alphabet Profit Up 57 Percent, Prompting First-Ever Dividend

Micron Technology has been selected to receive up to $6.14 billion in CHIPS and Science Act funding from the federal government. The Boise, Idaho-based tech firm says it will use the funds to construct four new fabrication plants — two in its hometown and two in New York State. Micron has committed an investment of up to $125 billion across both states over the next two decades as it endeavors to build a leading-edge memory manufacturing ecosystem. President Biden announced the preliminary funding agreement during a trip to the Milton J. Rubenstein Museum of Science & Technology in Syracuse, New York. Continue reading Micron Awarded CHIPS Funds for Fabs in Idaho and New York

The trend toward small language models that can efficiently run on a single device instead of requiring cloud connectivity has emerged as a focus for Big Tech companies involved in artificial intelligence. Apple has released the OpenELM family of open-source models as its entry in that field. OpenELM uses “a layer-wise scaling strategy” to efficiently allocate parameters within each layer of the transformer model, resulting in what Apple claims is “enhanced accuracy.” The “ELM” stands for “Efficient Language Models,” and one media outlet couches it as “the future of AI on the iPhone.” Continue reading Apple Unveils OpenELM Tech Optimized for Local Applications

Elon Musk’s social media platform X (formerly Twitter) is preparing to launch a streaming video app for smart TVs. Though still in development, with no formal launch date announced, X CEO Linda Yaccarino posted a “sneak peek” that indicates the app will have a “trending” algorithm that pushes popular content and will be AI-powered to deliver a “personalized experience.” Yaccarino said the X video app will also have “effortless casting” so content can be easily sent to a larger screen from a mobile device. Availability is billed as “coming soon to most smart TVs.” Continue reading Yaccarino Says X Streaming Video App for TVs ‘Coming Soon’

Microsoft, which has been developing small language models (SLMs) for some time, has announced its most-capable SLM family, Phi-3. SLMs can accomplish some of the same functions as LLMs, but are smaller and trained on less data. That smaller footprint makes them well suited to run in a local environment, which means they’re ideal for smartphones, where in theory they would not even need an Internet connection to run. Microsoft claims the Phi-3 open models can outperform “models of the same size and next size up across a variety of benchmarks that evaluate language, coding and math capabilities.” Continue reading Microsoft Small Language Models Are Ideal for Smartphones

Adobe plans to add generative AI capabilities to its Premiere Pro editing platform and is exploring the update with third-party AI technologies including OpenAI’s Sora, as well as models from Runway and Pika Labs, making it easier “to draw on the strengths of different models” within everyday workflows, according to Adobe. Editors will gain the ability to generate and add objects into scenes or shots, remove unwanted elements with a click, and even extend frames and footage length. The company is also developing a video model for its own Firefly AI for video and audio work in Premiere Pro. Continue reading Adobe Considers Sora, Pika and Runway AI for Premiere Pro

Google is implementing an internal reorganization that combines its Android and hardware teams. Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced a new Platforms & Devices team headed by Rick Osterloh, which includes Android, Chrome, ChromeOS, Photos and all Pixel products. Pichai says the move will help speed development. Osterloh’s mandate is full-stack platform development that smoothly incorporates AI across all Google platforms, including smartphones, TVs and anything with Android OS. Hiroshi Lockheimer, who previously ran ops for Android, Chrome and ChromeOS, moves on to other projects at Google and Alphabet. Continue reading Google Merges Android and Hardware Units for AI Efficiency

Motorola has three new flagship Edge phones that sport AI features to improve photographic performance and overall usability. The top-of-the-line Edge 50 Ultra, mid-level Edge 50 Pro, and economy Edge 50 Fusion are being released in Europe with the line “expanding” to North America later this year. Thanks to “moto ai,” these phones will “elevate every interaction by empowering users to intuitively create content, personalize their device, obtain the information they seek, and accomplish more,” the Lenovo subsidiary said, promising the world’s first “Pantone-validated” smartphone camera and display, with Motorola’s “most advanced solutions for capturing motion.” Continue reading Motorola Begins Launch of AI-Packed Edge Series in Europe

Pursuant to his goal of “building the world’s leading AI,” Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Friday that Meta AI is upgrading to Llama 3 concurrent with a rollout of its open-source chatbot across the company’s social platforms, integrating it into the search boxes atop WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook and Messenger. There is also a website, meta.ai, for those who prefer browser access. Reports of Meta upgrading its social AI capabilities began leaking out early last week, albeit on a more limited test scale than what Zuckerberg announced, which, excepting Threads, is cross-platform. Continue reading Meta AI Assistant Is Launching Across Platforms with Llama 3

Microsoft has developed VASA, a framework for generating lifelike virtual characters with vocal capabilities including speaking and singing. The premiere model, VASA-1, can perform the feat in real time from a single static image and a vocalization clip. The research demo showcases realistic audio-enhanced faces that can be fine-tuned to look in different directions or change expression in video clips of up to one minute at 512 x 512 pixels and up to 40fps “with negligible starting latency,” according to Microsoft, which says “it paves the way for real-time engagements with lifelike avatars that emulate human conversational behaviors.” Continue reading Microsoft’s VASA-1 Can Generate Talking Faces in Real Time

Internet advertising revenues hit a record $225 billion in the U.S. in 2023, a 7.3 percent increase, according to a PwC report for the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). The connected TV and audio categories saw double-digit growth, as did spending on e-commerce platforms, classified “retail media,” which rose 16.3 percent year-over-year, reaching $43.7 billion in 2023 as key players expanded their ad inventory. Video advertising revenue climbed 10.6 percent year-over-year, to $52.1 billion, with 42 percent of that revenue generated from CTV and OTT streaming. Continue reading IAB: U.S. Digital Advertising Hit Record $225 Billion Last Year