Tag - microsoft

 
 

MICROSOFT

The Bing website on a smartphone. Microsoft has received a wave of criticism from human rights groups on how its search engine works in China.
BUSINESS / Companies
Mar 21, 2024
Microsoft is attracting growing criticism for censoring Bing in China
Bing is reportedly removing information about human rights, democracy, climate change and other topics.
Mustafa Suleyman, the co-founder & CEO of Inflection AI, at the Greylock Partners office in Menlo Park, California in May 2023. Suleyman, a co-founder of Google’s DeepMind artificial intelligence lab, is leaving the startup he was running to lead Microsoft’s consumer AI business, in another sign of Microsoft’s aggressive plans for the technology.
BUSINESS / Companies
Mar 20, 2024
Microsoft deepens AI focus, hiring DeepMind co-founder for consumer tools
Over a year after unveiling an AI-enhanced Bing search, the company has made few gains in the search market, still dominated by Google.
Sony's move to cut costs and Microsoft's decision to release titles on rival platforms reflect uncertainty in the gaming industry.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Mar 8, 2024
Looks like we're nearing peak PlayStation
The gaming industry as a whole is struggling with ballooning development costs and longer production cycles, leading to fewer and risk-averse titles.
People walk past the booth of an AI chip company at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on Tuesday.
BUSINESS / Tech
Feb 27, 2024
SoftBank, Nvidia and Microsoft team up to use AI in mobile base stations
The alliance aims to work together in preventing communications congestion and promoting the use of smartphone apps using generative AI.
The Microsoft logo hangs beside an illuminated iCloud icon at the CeBIT 2017 tech fair in Hannover, Germany.
BUSINESS / Tech
Jan 30, 2024
U.S. wants cloud firms to flag foreign users in China AI race
The White House proposal, released Monday, requires the firms to reveal foreign customers’ names and IP addresses.
Microsoft said a Russian-linked hacking group attacked its corporate systems, but said the group doesn’t appear to have accessed customers’ systems or Microsoft servers that run outward-facing products.
BUSINESS / Tech
Jan 20, 2024
Microsoft says Russia-linked group hacked employee emails
The company said it’s acting immediately to fix older systems, which will probably cause some disruption.
The New York Times headquarters in New York. The New York Times has sued Microsoft and OpenAI for using its content to help develop artificial intelligence services, in a sign of the increasingly fraught relationship between the media and a technology that could upend the news industry.
BUSINESS
Dec 28, 2023
NYT sues Microsoft and OpenAI for copyright infringement
While OpenAI has been sued by prominent authors, the suit is the first challenge to its practices by a major media organization.
Mena Kato, Microsoft's new director of Japan partnerships for Xbox, during an interview in Tokyo on Nov. 29
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 13, 2023
Microsoft taps PlayStation veteran to champion Xbox in Japan
Mena Kato is counting on her dealmaking skills, Microsoft’s global reach and local connections to make the Xbox a relevant player.
Microsoft's artificial intelligence prospects just got a boost from Sam Altman's return to his CEO role at OpenAI.
COMMENTARY
Nov 23, 2023
Altman’s comeback is a strategic triumph for Microsoft
Sam Altman's termination and swift rehiring will shift the dynamics at OpenAI.
Sam Altman, chief executive of OpenAI
BUSINESS / Companies
Nov 22, 2023
OpenAI restores Sam Altman as CEO after his tumultuous ouster
In addition to Altman's return, the company agreed to partly reconstitute the board of directors that dismissed him.
By Monday, OpenAI's board were overseeing a company in name only, with virtually the whole staff committed to a pledge of seeing them go or quitting the firm for fired former CEO Sam Altman's project at Microsoft.
BUSINESS / Tech / FOCUS
Nov 21, 2023
AI doomsayers blamed in OpenAI's undoing
Harsh critics see a deeply troubled startup that fell victim to the pearl-clutching of an incompetent board that was divorced from reality.
Sam Altman participates in an event at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders week in San Francisco on Nov. 16.
BUSINESS / Tech
Nov 20, 2023
OpenAI appoints ex-Twitch boss as CEO, while Altman joins Microsoft
The decision not to reinstate Altman as CEO has confounded efforts by investors and employees of the firm to steady the ship by bringing him back.
Sam Altman, then the chief executive of OpenAI, in Redmond, Washington, in February
BUSINESS / Tech
Nov 19, 2023
The perpetual rise of Sam Altman takes an unexpected turn
The former OpenAI CEO was the face of an AI-fueled future. He was the most Silicon Valley person alive. Then, on Friday, he was fired.
Sam Altman, then CEO of OpenAI, at the company’s headquarters in San Francisco in March
BUSINESS / Tech
Nov 19, 2023
OpenAI board pressed by some investors to reinstate Sam Altman
Altman is open to returning. In one scenario under consideration, members of the current OpenAI board would step down as soon as this weekend.
Sam Altman, CEO of ChatGPT maker OpenAI, arrives for a bipartisan Artificial Intelligence Insight Forum for all U.S. senators hosted by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer at the U.S. Capitol in Washington in September.
BUSINESS / Tech / FOCUS
Nov 18, 2023
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's ouster followed debate with board
The CEO's firing came after disagreements with his board — in particular Ilya Sutskever, an OpenAI co-founder and the company’s chief scientist.
Sam Altman, the then-chief executive officer of OpenAI, speaks at Keio University in Tokyo in June.
BUSINESS / Tech
Nov 18, 2023
In shock move, ChatGPT maker OpenAI ousts CEO Sam Altman
The shock firing followed a review the company's board, which concluded that "he was not consistently candid in his communications."
Executives were scrambling for seats for dinner with Xi or to be put on a waiting list, according to people familiar with the situation.
BUSINESS / Companies
Nov 15, 2023
Elon Musk among cadre of CEOs hoping to woo China’s Xi
CEO summit on the sidelines of APEC will coincide with the most challenging trade climate in a generation.
Zoom controlled only about 7% of the market for communication and collaboration software as of the first quarter of the year, while Microsoft topped 42%, according to industry analyst IDC.
BUSINESS / Tech
Oct 4, 2023
Zoom expands tools and features in bid to compete with Microsoft
The company is adding word processing to its suite of tools and experimenting with novel features for meetings as it faces steep competition from Teams.
Nintendo Tokyo at the Shibuya Parco department store complex, the first such official Nintendo store in Japan
COMMENTARY / Japan
Sep 27, 2023
Microsoft buying Nintendo would have been a disaster
Imagine the clash of cultures. Nintendo executives famously cut their own salaries rather than lay off workers during the failure of the Wii U.
U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer speaks to the media Wednesday after a closed-door Senate meeting on how artificial intelligence should be regulated.
BUSINESS / Tech
Sep 14, 2023
Tech leaders discuss AI policy in closed-door senate meeting
The meeting included a prestigious, and possibly combustible, mix of personalities with diverging views on how to write the rules for AI.

Longform

Traditional folk rituals like Mizudome-no-mai (dance to stop the rain) provide a sense of agency to a population that feels largely powerless in the face of the climate crisis.
As climate extremes intensify, Japan embraces ancient weather rituals