Microsoft has filed a motion seeking to dismiss key parts of a lawsuit The New York Times filed against the company and Open AI, accusing them of copyright infringement. From a report: If you'll recall, The Times sued both companies for using its published articles to train their GPT large language models (LLMs) without permission and compensation. In its filing, the company has accused The Times of pushing "doomsday futurology" by claiming that AI technologies pose a threat to independent journalism. It follows OpenAI's court filing from late February that's also seeking to dismiss some important elements on the case. Like OpenAI before it, Microsoft accused The Times of crafting "unrealistic prompts" in an effort to "coax the GPT-based tools" to spit out responses matching its content. It also compared the media organization's lawsuit to Hollywood studios' efforts to " stop a groundbreaking new technology:" The VCR. Instead of destroying Hollywood, Microsoft explained, the VCR helped the entertainment industry flourish by opening up revenue streams. LLMs are a breakthrough in artificial intelligence, it continued, and Microsoft collaborated with OpenAI to "help bring their extraordinary power to the public" because it "firmly believes in LLMs' capacity to improve the way people live and work."

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The U.S. government announced Tuesday sanctions against the founder of the notorious spyware company Intellexa and one of his business partners. From a report: This is the first time the U.S. government has targeted specific people, in addition to companies, with sanctions related to the misuse of commercial spyware. And it signifies an escalation of the White House and U.S. government's efforts to curb the spyware industry. "Today's actions represent a tangible step forward in discouraging the misuse of commercial surveillance tools, which increasingly present a security risk to the United States and our citizens," said Brian E. Nelson, U.S Treasury's under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, was quoted as saying in a press release. "The United States remains focused on establishing clear guardrails for the responsible development and use of these technologies while also ensuring the protection of human rights and civil liberties of individuals around the world." The U.S. Treasury imposed sanctions on Tal Dilian, the founder of Intellexa and a veteran of the spyware industry; and Sara Aleksandra Fayssal Hamou, who is not as well-known as Dilian. Hamou, according to the Treasury, has a leadership role in Intellexa, is an expert in off-shoring, and provided the company managerial services, such as renting office space in Greece.

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Google announced updates to its search ranking systems aimed at promoting high-quality content and demoting manipulative or low-effort material, including content generated by AI solely to summarize other sources. The company also stated it is improving its ability to detect and combat tactics used to deceive its ranking algorithms.

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Microsoft is ending support for its Android subsystem in Windows 11 next year. From a report: The software giant first announced it was bringing Android apps to Windows 11 with Amazon's Appstore nearly three years ago, but this Windows Subsystem for Android will now be deprecated starting March 5th, 2025. "Microsoft is ending support for the Windows Subsystem for Android (WSA)," reads a new support document from Microsoft. "As a result, the Amazon Appstore on Windows and all applications and games dependent on WSA will no longer be supported beginning March 5, 2025." If you currently use Android apps from the Amazon Appstore, then you'll continue to have access to these past the support cutoff date, but you won't be able to download any new ones once Microsoft makes its Android subsystem end of life next year. On March 6th (tomorrow), Windows 11 users will no longer be able to search for Amazon Appstore or associated Android apps from the Microsoft Store.

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Amazon's cloud services division is halting fees it has long charged customers that switch to a rival provider -- following in the steps of Google, which recently announced it was ending the practice. From a report: Amazon Web Services will no longer charge customers who want to extract all of their data from the company's servers and move them to another service, AWS Vice President Robert Kennedy said in a blog post on Tuesday. "Beginning today, customers globally are now entitled to free data transfers out to the internet if they want to move to another IT provider," Kennedy said.

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The SAT, a college admissions exam that for nearly a century was completed using paper and pencil, is now officially all-digital. From a report: This week, students in the U.S. will begin taking the new SAT on their own devices -- including a tablet or a laptop -- or on school devices. The test is also one hour shorter (down from three hours), has shorter reading passages and uses digital tools, like a highlighter, a graphing calculator and a bookmark to go back to skipped questions. The revamped test, which ditches the paper and pencil, aims to make cheating harder and grading easier. Students will still take the exam at a test center or at a high school. "Today's students, they do a lot of their living digitally, they do a lot of their learning digitally and they do a lot of their test taking digitally," says Priscilla Rodriguez, who oversees the SAT for the College Board, the organization behind the test. Throughout March and April, the College Board expects more than 1 million students to take the new digital SAT. Students can take the exam on Saturday test dates or during SAT School Days, where participating high schools offer the test to upperclassmen free of charge during the school day.

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The loss of Arctic sea ice has long been a graphic measure of human-caused climate change, with wrenching images of suffering polar bears illustrating a worsening planetary crisis. Now, new research has found that Arctic Ocean sea ice is shrinking even faster than previously thought -- and that the Arctic may start to see its first "ice-free" days within the current decade. From a report: That troubling milestone could occur before the end of the decade or sometime in the 2030s -- as many as 10 years earlier than previous projections, according to a study published Tuesday in the journal Nature Reviews Earth and Environment. The study defines "ice-free" as when the Arctic Ocean has less than 1 million square kilometers, or 386,000 square miles, of ice. By midcentury -- 2035 to 2067 -- the Arctic could see consistent ice-free conditions in September, the month when sea ice concentrations are typically at their minimum, the study found. The precise timing of such losses depends on how soon humanity is able to reduce fossil fuel emissions that are contributing to global warming. Under a high-emission scenario in which fossil fuel use continues unabated, the Arctic would be ice-free between the months of May and January by 2100, the study says. Even under a low-emission scenario, the Arctic would still be ice-free between August and October by that same year.

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A new report warns that a boom in computer chip manufacturing in the US could fuel demand for dirty energy, despite companies' environmental claims. The solution for manufacturers, surprisingly, might be to act more like other big tech companies chasing climate goals. From a report: New semiconductor factories being built in the US by four of the biggest manufacturers -- Intel, TSMC, Samsung, and Micron -- could use more than twice as much electricity as the city of Seattle once they're operational. These companies claim to run on renewable energy, but according to an analysis by nonprofit Stand.earth, that's not entirely true. Semiconductors happen to make up a big chunk of a device's carbon footprint. And unless companies turn to clean energy, they could wind up driving up greenhouse gas emissions as domestic chip manufacturing makes a comeback. The CHIPS and Science Act, which passed in 2022, set aside $52.7 billion in funding for domestic chip manufacturing. Now, the four companies scrutinized in the report have plans to build megafactories in Arizona, Ohio, Oregon, Idaho, Texas, and New York. Each of those megafactories alone could use as much electricity as a medium-sized town, according to the report. Cumulatively, nine facilities could eventually add 2.1 gigawatts in new electricity demand. "We're not slowing down on any of our sustainability commitments, even with our recently announced investments," Intel said in an email.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: On a late night in December, Shane Jones, an AI engineer at Microsoft, felt sickened by the images popping up on his computer. Jones was noodling with Copilot Designer, the AI image generator that Microsoft debuted in March 2023, powered by OpenAI's technology. Like with OpenAI's DALL-E, users enter text prompts to create pictures. Creativity is encouraged to run wild. Since the month prior, Jones had been actively testing the product for vulnerabilities, a practice known as red-teaming. In that time, he saw the tool generate images that ran far afoul of Microsoft's oft-cited responsible AI principles. The AI service has depicted demons and monsters alongside terminology related to abortion rights, teenagers with assault rifles, sexualized images of women in violent tableaus, and underage drinking and drug use. All of those scenes, generated in the past three months, have been recreated by CNBC this week using the Copilot tool, which was originally called Bing Image Creator. "It was an eye-opening moment," Jones, who continues to test the image generator, told CNBC in an interview. "It's when I first realized, wow this is really not a safe model." Jones has worked at Microsoft for six years and is currently a principal software engineering manager at corporate headquarters in Redmond, Washington. He said he doesn't work on Copilot in a professional capacity. Rather, as a red teamer, Jones is among an army of employees and outsiders who, in their free time, choose to test the company's AI technology and see where problems may be surfacing. Jones was so alarmed by his experience that he started internally reporting his findings in December. While the company acknowledged his concerns, it was unwilling to take the product off the market. Jones said Microsoft referred him to OpenAI and, when he didn't hear back from the company, he posted an open letter on LinkedIn asking the startup's board to take down DALL-E 3 (the latest version of the AI model) for an investigation.

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Carriers have gotten stricter about how many items you can take on board, no matter how small they are. From a report: Fanny packs. Cross-body bags. Shopping bags. Pillows and blankets. The Southwest Airlines gate agent rattled off so many items that counted toward the two carry-on bag limit on my flight to Baltimore, I thought it might be a playful jab at Spirit and Frontier and their rigid carry-on policing to collect more fees. But this was no joke. Southwest quietly began cracking down on carry-on bags on Feb. 22, ahead of the spring and summer travel rush, advising gate agents of the changes in a memo. This crackdown isn't about bag size. It is about how many bags you have. Southwest isn't alone in putting passengers' personal items in its crosshairs as a way to save precious bin space and speed up boarding. Delta and United agents have also recently asked me to stuff my small Lululemon bag in my backpack. One American Airlines frequent flier told me he watched gate agents in Sacramento, Calif., and Dallas list a litany of items that count as a personal item on weekend flights to Nashville, Tenn., last month. Carting all your stuff to the gate can save you time and often saves money, especially with some airlines' new, higher checked-baggage fees. Delta joined the club on Tuesday, announcing prices of $35 for your first bag and $45 for your second. But testing airlines' carry-on limits is now more likely to backfire, and lose you precious time as airlines make you consolidate items or check a bag at the gate.

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Alternative iOS app stores won't work (for long) outside of the EU. From a report: With iOS 17.4, iPhone users in the EU can now access third-party app marketplaces -- pending availability which is expected any day -- but extended overseas travel could change that, according to Apple.

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Spain has moved to block Sam Altman's cryptocurrency project Worldcoin, the latest blow to a venture that has raised controversy in multiple countries by collecting customers' personal data using an eyeball-scanning "orb." From a report: The AEPD, Spain's data protection regulator, has demanded that Worldcoin immediately ceases collecting personal information in the country via the scans and that it stops using data it has already gathered. The regulator announced on Wednesday that it had taken the "precautionary measure" at the start of the week and had given Worldcoin 72 hours to demonstrate its compliance with the order. Worldcoin, co-founded by Altman in 2019, has been offering tokens of its own cryptocurrency to people around the world, in return for their consent to have their eyes scanned by an orb. The scans are used as a form of identification as it seeks to create a reliable mechanism to distinguish between humans and machines as artificial intelligence becomes more advanced.

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During a recent Morgan Stanley conference, Warner Bros. Discovery gaming boss J.B. Perrette discussed some of the company's strategy for gaming going forward, and it includes more live-service, mobile, and free-to-play games. From a report: He said, "We're doubling down on games as an area where we think there is a lot more growth opportunity that we can tap into with the IP that we have and some of the capabilities we have on the studio where we're uniquely positioned as both a publisher and a developer of games." Perrette said WBD's recent gaming output has focused on AAA games for console, and that's great when a game like Hogwarts Legacy sells 22 million copies and becomes the best-selling game of the year, but this kind of success is never guaranteed in what Perrette said was a "volatile" market. He pointed out that one of WBD's latest big games, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, was a disappointment for the company. So the plan going forward, he said, is to help reduce volatility by focusing on core franchises and bringing at least some of them to the mobile and free-to-play space, as well as continuing to invest in live-service games that people play--and spend money on--over a long period of time. This will help WBD generate more consistent revenue, he said, going on to tease that WBD had some new mobile free-to-play games coming this year. Also worth noting is that just because WBD may push into new places, that doesn't necessarily mean it will stop making big single-player AAA games.

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Epic Games, in a blog post: We recently announced that Apple approved our Epic Games Sweden AB developer account. We intended to use that account to bring the Epic Games Store and Fortnite to iOS devices in Europe thanks to the Digital Markets Act (DMA). To our surprise, Apple has terminated that account and now we cannot develop the Epic Games Store for iOS. This is a serious violation of the DMA and shows Apple has no intention of allowing true competition on iOS devices. The DMA requires Apple to allow third-party app stores, like the Epic Games Store. Article 6(4) of the DMA says: "The gatekeeper shall allow and technically enable the installation and effective use of third-party software applications or software application stores using, or interoperating with, its operating system and allow those software applications or software application stores to be accessed by means other than the relevant core platform services of that gatekeeper." In terminating Epic's developer account, Apple is taking out one of the largest potential competitors to the Apple App Store. They are undermining our ability to be a viable competitor and they are showing other developers what happens when you try to compete with Apple or are critical of their unfair practices. If Apple maintains its power to kick a third party marketplace off iOS at its sole discretion, no reasonable developer would be willing to utilize a third party app store, because they could be permanently separated from their audience at any time. Apple said one of the reasons it terminated Epic's developer account only a few weeks after approving it was because the Fortnite-maker publicly criticized its proposed DMA compliance plan, Epic said.

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41 state attorneys general penned a letter to Meta's top attorney on Wednesday saying complaints are skyrocketing across the United States about Facebook and Instagram user accounts being stolen, and declaring "immediate action" necessary to mitigate the rolling threat. Wired: The coalition of top law enforcement officials, spearheaded by New York attorney general Letitia James, says the "dramatic and persistent spike" in complaints concerning account takeovers amounts to a "substantial drain" on governmental resources, as many stolen accounts are also tied to financial crimes -- some of which allegedly profits Meta directly. "We have received a number of complaints of threat actors fraudulently charging thousands of dollars to stored credit cards," says the letter addressed to Meta's chief legal officer, Jennifer Newstead. "Furthermore, we have received reports of threat actors buying advertisements to run on Meta." "We refuse to operate as the customer service representatives of your company," the officials add. "Proper investment in response and mitigation is mandatory."

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A washing-machine-sized satellite is to "name and shame" the worst methane polluters in the oil and gas industry. From a report: MethaneSat will provide the first near-comprehensive global view of leaks of the potent greenhouse gas from the oil and gas sector, and all of the data will be made public. It will provide high-resolution data over wider areas than existing satellites. Methane, also called natural gas, is responsible for 30% of the global heating driving the climate crisis. Leaks from the fossil fuel industry are a major source of human-caused emissions and stemming these is the fastest single way to curb temperature rises. MethaneSat was developed by the Environmental Defense Fund, a US NGO, in partnership with the New Zealand Space Agency and cost $88m to build and launch. Earlier EDF measurements from planes show methane emissions were 60% higher than calculated estimates published by US authorities and elsewhere. More than 150 countries have signed a global methane pledge to cut their emissions of the gas by 30% from 2020 levels by 2030. Some oil and gas companies have made similar pledges, and new regulations to limit methane leaks are being worked on in the US, EU, Japan and South Korea. The EDF's senior vice-president, Mark Brownstein, said: "MethaneSat is a tool for accountability . I'm sure many people think this could be used to name and shame companies who are poor emissions performers, and that's true. But [it] can [also] help document progress that leading companies are making in reducing their emissions." The oil and gas industry knows how to stop leaks and the cost of doing so is usually very modest, said Steven Hamburg, the EDF's chief scientist and MethaneSat project leader: "Some call it low hanging fruit. I like to call it fruit lying on the ground."

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JPMorgan helped some of its corporate customers slash manual work by almost 90% (alternative source) with its cashflow management tool that runs on AI, bringing the largest US bank one step closer to charging for this service. From a report: "We are going to keep investing into this solution because we see that we're starting to really crack this workflow," said Tony Wimmer, head of data and analytics at JPMorgan's wholesale payments unit, in an interview. Since launching about a year ago, his firm now has about 2,500 clients using the product, he said. The tool, which allows corporate treasuries to analyse and forecast cash flows, has seen "tremendous" interest from its clients who currently use it for free, Wimmer said. His firm is considering charging its customers in the future to use the solution, dubbed Cash Flow Intelligence. The world's biggest banks have been stepping up their use of artificial intelligence with the aim of lifting productivity and reducing costs. JPMorgan's Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon has said the technology could eventually allow employers to shrink the workweek to just 3.5 days. JPMorgan set a target of $1 billion in "business value" generated by AI in 2023, and the firm increased that goal to $1.5 billion at its investor day in May.

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Nikon, in a press statement: Nikon hereby announces its entry into an agreement to acquire 100% of the outstanding membership interests of RED.com, LLC (RED) whereby RED will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Nikon, pursuant to a Membership Interest Purchase Agreement with Mr. James Jannard, its founder, and Mr. Jarred Land, its current President, subject to the satisfaction of certain closing conditions thereunder. Since its establishment in 2005, RED has been at the forefront of digital cinema cameras, introducing industry-defining products such as the original RED ONE 4K to the cutting-edge V-RAPTOR [X] with its proprietary RAW compression technology. RED's contributions to the film industry have not only earned it an Academy Award but have also made it the camera of choice for numerous Hollywood productions, celebrated by directors and cinematographers worldwide for its commitment to innovation and image quality optimized for the highest levels of filmmaking and video production. This agreement was reached as a result of the mutual desires of Nikon and RED to meet the customers' needs and offer exceptional user experiences that exceed expectations, merging the strengths of both companies. Nikon's expertise in product development, exceptional reliability, and know-how in image processing, as well as optical technology and user interface along with RED's knowledge in cinema cameras, including unique image compression technology and color science, will enable the development of distinctive products in the professional digital cinema camera market.

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More than one-quarter of scholarly articles are not being properly archived and preserved, a study of more than seven million digital publications suggests. From a report: The findings, published in the Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication on 24 January, indicate that systems to preserve papers online have failed to keep pace with the growth of research output. "Our entire epistemology of science and research relies on the chain of footnotes," explains author Martin Eve, a researcher in literature, technology and publishing at Birkbeck, University of London. "If you can't verify what someone else has said at some other point, you're just trusting to blind faith for artefacts that you can no longer read yourself." Eve, who is also involved in research and development at digital-infrastructure organization Crossref, checked whether 7,438,037 works labelled with digital object identifiers (DOIs) are held in archives. DOIs -- which consist of a string of numbers, letters and symbols -- are unique fingerprints used to identify and link to specific publications, such as scholarly articles and official reports. Crossref is the largest DOI registration agency, allocating the identifiers to about 20,000 members, including publishers, museums and other institutions. The sample of DOIs included in the study was made up of a random selection of up to 1,000 registered to each member organization. Twenty-eight percent of these works -- more than two million articles -- did not appear in a major digital archive, despite having an active DOI. Only 58% of the DOIs referenced works that had been stored in at least one archive. The other 14% were excluded from the study because they were published too recently, were not journal articles or did not have an identifiable source.

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