Netflix is now live with its ad-supported tier, but company co-CEO Reed Hastings said he regrets not having launched it sooner. Speaking at The New York Times’ DealBook Summit, Hastings said he was preoccupied with digital competition from Google and Facebook. “I didn’t believe in the ad-supported tactic for us. I was wrong about that. Hulu proved you could do that at scale and offer customers lower prices,” Hastings told NYT columnist and DealBook founder and editor-at-large Andrew Ross Sorkin. “I wish we had flipped a few years earlier on that, but we’ll catch up.” Continue reading Netflix Expanding Previews as Ad Tier Gets Up and Running

LinkedIn is amping up its B2B marketing features designed to give brands an edge in a recessionary climate. In an effort to drive ad spending in the midst of economic uncertainty, the company has introduced a suite of tools — unveiled at the company’s B2Believe marketing summit — that aim to provide granular control over media investments on the Microsoft-owned platform. The new capabilities include ancillary measurement tools and fresh ad formats as well as a Brand Safety hub, allowing advertisers to boost performance on the LinkedIn Audience Network while setting brand safety guardrails. Continue reading LinkedIn Adds B2B Tools to Enhance Brand Safety, Exposure

Microsoft has entered into a multi-year deal with Nvidia to build what they’re calling “one of the world’s most advanced supercomputers,” powered by Microsoft Azure’s advanced supercomputing infrastructure combined with Nvidia GPUs, networking and full stack of AI software to help enterprises train, deploy and scale AI, including large, state-of-the-art models. “AI is fueling the next wave of automation across enterprises and industrial computing, enabling organizations to do more with less as they navigate economic uncertainties,” Microsoft cloud and AI group executive VP Scott Guthrie said of the alliance. Continue reading Microsoft, Nvidia Partner on Azure-Hosted AI Supercomputer

Information continues to trickle out regarding Apple’s new reality altering headset, expected to hit the market next year, possibly as soon as April. Bloomberg reports it will be powered by a Mac-level M2 chip, with more than 10 cameras facing both outward and inward and “the highest-resolution displays ever featured in a mass-market headset,” although the price tag, forecast as between $2,000 and $3,000, doesn’t sound mainstream. The first version of realityOS the company has developed is codenamed Oak. Apple is also reportedly developing 3D content for the new platform. Continue reading Apple Said to Be Developing 3D Content for realityOS Headset

IBM has achieved a new milestone in chips developed for quantum computing with the newly debuted 433-qubit Osprey chip. That’s more than three times the qubits of the 127-qubit Eagle chip IBM introduced last year. The company has its sights set on a more than 4,000-qubit system that it plans to unveil in 2025. Quantum computers solve problems faster and more accurately than classical computers and can find exact solutions to problems that today’s top computers can only guess at, known as the “quantum advantage.” Eventually, quantum computers are expected to contain millions of qubits. Continue reading IBM’s New Osprey Processor Advances Quantum Computing

Brendan Carr, a commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission, is continuing his efforts to have TikTok banned, telling the Council on Foreign Investment in the U.S. in his strongest language to date that the viral short-form video app is, as a result of consumer adoption, becoming a part of the nation’s critical information infrastructure, and thus presents a national security risk due to Chinese ownership. TikTok is reportedly back in negotiations with the CFIUS, an interagency committee that reviews foreign investment, about a change of ownership that would smooth the path to ongoing U.S. operations. Continue reading FCC’s Carr Renews Call for a National Security Ban on TikTok

A sharp decline in demand for PCs is prompting Intel to reevaluate its expenditures, with reduced factory hours and staff reductions among the options under consideration. Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger also says the company is considering divestitures as it seeks to cope with a 20 percent drop in Q3 revenue, to $15.3 billion, and full-year outlook downsized by $1 billion. Intel has been undergoing a reinvention of sorts as it steps into the role of foundry. Increased capex for new plant construction means surgical precision is needed to achieve a goal of $3 billion in 2023 cost cuts. Continue reading With Revenue Down 20 Percent, Intel Plans to Reduce Costs

After seeing its stock plunge more than 60 percent this year, Meta Platforms posted another decline, with Q3 revenue falling 4 percent, to $27.7 billion, from $29 billion for the same period last year. CEO Mark Zuckerberg told analysts that on a constant currency basis “total revenue grew slightly this quarter,” adding that “we’re still behind where I think we should be, but we believe that we will return to healthier revenue growth trends next year,” though just in case “we’re planning our budget somewhat more conservatively.” Meanwhile, Facebook’s number of daily active users hit 1.98 billion, a 3 percent gain year-over-year. Continue reading Meta Revenue Falls Despite Facebook Attracting More Users

Now that Apple, Google and Microsoft have updated their operating systems to support the open standard passkey protocol stewarded by the FIDO Alliance, consumers will soon be liberated from the tyranny of passwords and their attendant security threats. PayPal has become the latest to embrace the passkey approach, announcing U.S. users will soon be able to log in using FIDO-compliant passkeys. It joins Best Buy, CardPointers, eBay, Kayak and WordPress among those with digital portals offering a passkey option. Passkeys will permit consumers to login seamlessly across devices, making online purchases easier and eliminating friction from app access. Continue reading Big Tech Ramps Up Digital Security with Passkey Deployment

Microsoft is reportedly building an Xbox mobile store, challenging Apple and Google. The Redmond company’s pending Activision Blizzard deal is key to successful implementation of its mobile gaming strategy, which was previously hinted at and now comes to light in a filing with the UK Competition and Markets Authority, which requested additional information from Microsoft as part of its analysis of the $68.7 billion deal. In its filings, Microsoft says a “next generation” game store that “operates across a range of devices, including mobile” is significant impetus for the acquisition. Continue reading Microsoft’s New Gaming Strategy Includes Xbox Mobile Store

ClipperVision is the new direct-to-consumer regional streaming service for viewing Los Angeles Clippers basketball games and related content. The six channel options will make more than 70 of 84 regular season games available to fans located primarily in Southern California for $200 per season. Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer purchased the LA Clippers for $2 billion in 2014 and has since been strategizing an improved television platform for the franchise. The new offering makes the Clippers the first NBA team to host its own streaming platform, accessible without any additional TV subscription. Continue reading Clippers Become First NBA Team to Host a Streaming Service

Microsoft put the emphasis on security at Ignite 2022, launching Defender for DevOps and Defender Cloud Security Posture Management in public preview. The two offerings protect software development with runtime security across multicloud and multiple-pipeline environments. The company also touted improved protection tools for Windows and Office, beefing-up anti-ransomware capabilities for Microsoft 365 Defender, which now automatically repels attacks immediately on detection. To combat increasingly pervasive conditions like “tool sprawl” and “alert fatigue,” Microsoft combined six product lines into a single security portfolio. Continue reading New Microsoft Security Suite Focuses on Cloud, Ransomware

Netflix is introducing its ad-supported tier in the U.S. starting November 3, at a monthly subscription fee of $6.99. The Netflix economy service will reportedly average between four and five minutes of ads per hour, with individual spots running 15 seconds to 30 seconds. Certain TV shows and movies won’t be included on the ad-supported tier due to contract restrictions. To provide advertisers with viewership measurement, Netflix will begin using Nielsen’s digital measurement service in the U.S. starting in 2023. This will mark the streaming giant’s first third-party ratings. Continue reading Netflix Ad-Supported Plan to Debut Nov. 3 for $6.99 per Month

Microsoft is launching a host of new Surface products in time for the holidays. The Surface Pro 9, Surface Laptop 5, and Surface Studio 2+ were among the debuts at the fall 2022 Microsoft event. The Surface Pro 9 comes to market October 25 with two models, one with Intel inside and the other powered by Microsoft’s own SQ3 chip, an always-connected 5G ARM processor customized by Qualcomm that features a new Neural Processing Unit and up to 19 hours of battery. The Intel variants start at $999 while the SQ3 options begin at $1,299. Continue reading Microsoft Rolls Out New Surface Products, Apple Integrations

Microsoft announced it is integrating OpenAI’s DALL-E 2 into its new Microsoft Designer app, as well as its Microsoft Edge browser and the Image Creator tool in its Bing search engine. Microsoft provides cloud computing services to OpenAI and has partnered with OpenAI in AI commercialization efforts including the Azure OpenAI Service, now in preview, and GitHub Copilot. The Designer web app can be used to create designs for posters, presentations, invitations and other graphics that can be printed and used for display or shared on social or business media. Continue reading Microsoft Integrates DALL-E 2 into Designer and Creator Apps