Today’s Cache | Microsoft announces devices and AI releases; AI companies making legally safer products; DuckDuckGo founder testifies against Google

Microsoft announces devices and AI releases [File] | Photo Credit: AP

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Microsoft announces devices and AI releases

Microsoft this week announced the Surface Laptop Go 3, the Surface Laptop Studio 2, the Surface Go 4 For Business, and the Surface Hub 3 interactive whiteboard. Along with the hardware releases, the tech giant announced what it called a unified AI for Windows 11, named ‘Copilot.’ The new tool will be compatible with Bing, Edge, and the Microsoft 365 bundle of products. The software will be released with an upgraded Windows 11 on September 26 and will come to Microsoft 365 Copilot on November 1. A version of the 365 Copilot was previewed earlier this year.

In addition to this, Microsoft will be adding OpenAI’s DALL-E 3 to its revamped and AI-powered Bing search experience. The ChatGPT-maker’s text-to-image tool allows users to create hyper-realistic images and art in a matter of seconds. Currently, DALL-E 2 is available for the public to use for free, but with limits.

AI companies making legally safer products

Companies such as Adobe which are infusing their services with generative AI and text-to-image generators are not just enhancing the technology behind their offerings, but also making them more business-friendly. While generative AI pioneers such as OpenAI and Stability AI have released text-to-image generators, they have been sued by multiple creators who claimed their copyrighted works were scraped without consent to build the models. This has scared off businesses which might otherwise choose generative AI art for uses such as product photography or campaigns.

On the other hand, Adobe said its image generation program is based on its Adobe Stock image collection and thus enjoys more legal protection. OpenAI also plans to add safeguards to prevent the work of living artists from being misused through its platform.

DuckDuckGo founder testifies against Google

The founder of the privacy-focused internet search engine DuckDuckGo testified against Google in the Big Tech giant’s antitrust trial. Gabriel Weinberg claimed that his business was hurt because phone and other hardware makers offered Google as the default to users, and made it difficult to switch to a rival search engine or browser. DuckDuckGo’s scale of operations is a fraction of Google’s own and its revenue is over $100 million while Google deals in hundreds of billions of dollars. DuckDuckGo is privately held and mostly appeals to users who want fewer ads and are concerned by the amount of information that Google collects about them.

Google has in turn claimed that it does not stop users from switching to rival companies’ internet search offerings and that its users choose to stay simply because their product is better than competitors such as Bing.