The Ridgewood Blog Brings a Free Market Laissez-faire Point of View to Local, New Jersey State and National Issues.
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Ridgewood NJ, The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has set its sights on Microsoft in a new antitrust investigation, signaling growing scrutiny of the tech giant’s practices in cloud computing, artificial intelligence (AI), and cybersecurity.
Continue reading FTC Launches Antitrust Investigation Into Microsoft
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Ridgewood NJ, in a bold move to meet the skyrocketing energy demands of its data centers and AI projects, Amazon has announced a $500 million investment in nuclear power. This comes hot on the heels of Google’s own plans to buy nuclear energy and Microsoft’s decision to reopen the infamous Three Mile Island plant to fuel its artificial intelligence efforts.
Continue reading Big Tech Goes Nuclear: Amazon’s $500M Bet on Clean Energy
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Ridgewood NJ, the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania, infamous for the worst nuclear accident in U.S. history, is set to restart by early 2028. The undamaged reactor from the plant will soon be back online, fueling the ever-expanding energy needs of artificial intelligence. This revival is made possible by a 20-year power-purchasing agreement between Microsoft and Constellation Energy, aimed at supporting the tech giant’s growing AI operations.
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Ridgewood NJ, first it was AT&T, then Meta ,now LinkedIn goes down. LinkedIn, the professional networking platform, encountered technical difficulties this week, joining a list of internet sites facing similar issues.
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Ridgewood NJ, much like the movie “2001: A Space Odyssey” a science fiction film directed by Stanley Kubrick, released in 1968. The film follows a voyage to Jupiter with the sentient computer HAL after the discovery of a mysterious monolith on the Moon. It explores themes of evolution, artificial intelligence, and the potential consequences of human advancement.
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The New York Times filed a lawsuit against Microsoft and OpenAI, seeking damages estimated to be in the billions, marking the first major legal action of its kind against these entities. The lawsuit alleges that Microsoft and OpenAI utilized the newspaper’s articles to train artificial intelligence chatbots without obtaining proper permission.
Continue reading The New York Times filed a lawsuit against Microsoft and OpenAI
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Ridgewood NJ, given the numerous regulatory enforcement cases being brought against or contemplated for technology giants, it appears that the Biden administration has declared war on Silicon Valley. Now the long anticipated trial of the Justice Department’s antitrust lawsuit against Google, which began last Tuesday.
Continue reading BIDEN ADMINISTRATION TAKES ON SILICON VALLEY
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Ridgewood NJ, file this under what could possibly go wrong with this , several companies, including Microsoft, Google, and OpenAI, have committed to certain safeguards for their technology until Congress passes legislation to regulate AI. Officials want to make sure that the technology is developed responsibly and in a way that benefits society without negatively impacting the safety, rights, and democratic values of the public. The tech firms have agreed to eight measures, including letting independent experts test models for bad behavior, investing in cybersecurity, flagging societal risks, and watermarking AI-generated audio and visual content.
Continue reading AI Companies Commit to Safeguards at the White House’s Request
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Ridgewood NJ, Google CEO Sundar Pichai has announced an experimental conversational AI service called Bard. The ChatGPT competitor can answer users’ queries and take part in conversations. It is now available to a group of trusted testers and will be released more widely in the coming weeks. Bard will draw on information from the web to provide high-quality responses.
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Ridgewood NJ, ChatGPT is quickly going mainstream now that Microsoft, which recently invested billions of dollars in the company behind the chatbot, OpenAI ,is working to incorporate it into its popular office software and selling access to the tool to other businesses. The surge of attention around ChatGPT is prompting pressure inside tech giants including Meta and Google to move faster, potentially sweeping safety concerns aside, Big Tech was moving cautiously on AI. Then came ChatGPT .
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Ridgewood NJ, Microsoft announced yesterday it is expanding its partnership with OpenAI, the start-up behind the viral ChatGPT chatbot (see overview), with a multiyear, multibillion-dollar investment. Specific financial terms of the deal weren’t disclosed, but reports say Microsoft is expected to invest $10B, in addition to the $3B it has already invested since 2019.
Continue reading Microsoft Announces New Multibillion-dollar Investment in Artificial intelligence
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Ridgewwood NJ, Apple, Google, and Microsoft have launched a joint effort to kill the password and replace it with the passkey standard. The passkey standard allows users to log in to apps and websites through an authentication request sent to the user’s phone. It will use Bluetooth to verify physical proximity. Passkeys can be backed up to cloud services to make it easy to authenticate new devices and sync passkeys across devices. Users can set up multiple devices as authenticators.
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Newark NJ, Teams of Seton Hall and New Jersey students are being invited to join students around the globe and participate in a Solar Power Platform Hackathon from April 22-24, using Microsoft Power Platform and Azure Cloud platforms, in a virtual event sponsored by Microsoft and Seton Hall University. Registration is now open!
Continue reading Seton Hall University and Microsoft Announce Solar Power Platform Hackathon
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Ridgewood NJ, Microsoft is acquiring Activision Blizzard in a deal valued at $68.7 billion. Many of Activision’s games will be added to Xbox Game Pass once the deal closes in the fiscal year 2023. It will take a long time for the deal to close as Activision Blizzard operates in many markets, making receiving regulatory approval more complicated for Microsoft. Activision Blizzard was recently sued for promoting a culture of constant sexual harassment. Bobby Kotick will continue to serve as CEO of Activision Blizzard until the deal is fully closed.
Continue reading Microsoft to Acquire Video Game Maker Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion
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Ridgewood NJ, as we previously reported in January of 2021 , researchers discovered a Kremlin-backed hacking campaign that compromised SolarWinds’ servers in what was one of the worst data breaches in modern history. The group that performed the attack, dubbed ‘Nobelium’ by Microsoft, has since become more brazen and adept at hacking large numbers of targets in a single stroke. A recent report from security firm Mandiant details Nobelium’s numerous feats and a few mistakes made by the group.
