Microsoft
Microsoft has benefited substantially from the rise of AI. Its partnership and close relationship with OpenAI has continued through 2024, as it looks to establish its Copilot chatbot as a go-to tool across its software and hardware offerings, even dedicating a button to it on future Windows device keyboards. TechCrunch covers those developments, and its other recent moves like unbundling Teams and Office and successfully defeating an antitrust challenge against its acquisition of Activision Blizzard.
Here are the hottest product announcements from Apple, Google, Microsoft and others so far in 2024
We’ve poked through the many product announcements made by the biggest tech companies and product trade shows of the year, so far, and compiled them into this list.
Microsoft’s Mustafa Suleyman says he loves Sam Altman, believes he’s sincere about AI safety
Microsoft’s AI CEO has a cozy relationship with the man who used to be his rival, he said on Tuesday.
A researcher has found a bug that allows anyone to impersonate Microsoft corporate email accounts, making phishing attempts look credible and more likely to trick their targets. As of this…
FTC Chair Lina Khan on startups, scaling, and ”innovations in potential lawbreaking”
FTC Chair Lina Khan was the youngest person appointed to her position when she assumed the job in 2021. But once her term ends in September — after which she’ll…
Enveda raises $55M to combine ancient remedies with AI for drug discovery
For centuries, people chewed willow tree bark to relieve pain, but scientists at chemical firm Bayer didn’t isolate its active ingredient until the 1800s and eventually patented its modified version…
LinkedIn to limit targeted ads in EU after complaint over sensitive data use
LinkedIn has confirmed it will no longer allow advertisers to target users based on data gleaned from their participation in LinkedIn Groups. The move comes more than three months after…
Microsoft hit with EU privacy complaints over schools’ use of 365 Education suite
Microsoft’s education-focused flavor of its cloud productivity suite, Microsoft 365 Education, is facing investigation in the European Union. Privacy rights nonprofit noyb has just lodged two complaints with Austria’s data…
Tech giants form an industry group to help develop next-gen AI chip components
Microsoft, Meta, Intel, AMD and others have formed a new group to design next-gen interconnects for AI accelerator hardware.
Microsoft’s Copilot, a generative AI-powered tool that can generate text as well as answer specific questions, is now available as an in-app chatbot on Telegram, the instant messaging app. Currently…
Bing’s API was down, taking Microsoft Copilot, DuckDuckGo and ChatGPT’s web search feature down too
Bing, Microsoft’s search engine, was working improperly for several hours on Thursday in Europe. At first, we noticed it wasn’t possible to perform a web search at all. Now it…
Truecaller partners with Microsoft to let its AI respond to calls in your own voice
AI has already started replacing voice agents’ jobs. Now, companies are exploring ways to replace the existing computer-generated voice models with synthetic versions of human voices. Truecaller, the widely known…
Bolster, creator of the CheckPhish phishing tracker, raises $14M led by Microsoft’s M12
A dodgy email containing a link that looks “legit” but is actually malicious remains one of the most dangerous, yet successful, tricks in a cybercriminal’s handbook. Now, an AI startup…
Microsoft wants to make Windows an AI operating system, launches Copilot+ PCs
Copilot, Microsoft’s brand of generative AI, will soon be far more deeply integrated into the Windows 11 experience.
Microsoft’s new ‘Volumetric Apps’ for Quest headsets extend Windows apps into the 3D space
Microsoft announced on Tuesday during its annual Build conference that it’s bringing “Windows Volumetric Apps” to Meta Quest headsets. The partnership will allow Microsoft to bring Windows 365 and local…
Microsoft’s big focus at this year’s Build conference is generative AI. And to that end, the tech giant announced a series of updates to its platforms for building generative AI-powered…
Microsoft wants to put its Copilot everywhere. It’s only a matter of time before Microsoft renames its annual Build developer conference to Microsoft Copilot. Hopefully, some of those upcoming events…
Microsoft wants to make its brand of generative AI more useful for teams — specifically teams across corporations and large enterprise organizations. This morning at its annual Build dev conference,…
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Microsoft dodges UK antitrust scrutiny over its Mistral AI stake
Microsoft won’t be facing antitrust scrutiny in the U.K. over its recent investment into French AI startup Mistral AI.
EU warns Microsoft it could be fined billions over missing GenAI risk info
The EU’s warning comes after Microsoft failed to respond to a legally binding request for information that focused on its generative AI tools.
Microsoft will launch its custom Cobalt 100 chips to customers as a public preview at its Build conference next week, TechCrunch has learned. In an analyst briefing ahead of Build,…
Microsoft will launch its own mobile game store in July, the company announced at the Bloomberg Technology Summit on Thursday. Xbox president Sarah Bond shared that the company plans to…
Microsoft and OpenAI have announced a $2 million fund to combat the growing risks of AI and deepfakes being used to “deceive the voters and undermine democracy.” This year will…
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Cloud revenue accelerates 21% to $76 billion for the latest earnings cycle
The numbers are in, and the cloud infrastructure market grew at a brisk pace this quarter driven by increasing interest in generative AI.
Microsoft bans US police departments from using enterprise AI tool for facial recognition
Microsoft has reaffirmed its ban on U.S. police departments from using generative AI for facial recognition through Azure OpenAI Service, the company’s fully managed, enterprise-focused wrapper around OpenAI tech. Language…
Microsoft, it seems, is hedging its bets when it comes to general-purpose robotics AI. At the end of February, the Windows maker spearheaded a massive $675 million Series B in…
UK probes Amazon and Microsoft over AI partnerships with Mistral, Anthropic and Inflection
The UK is launching initial enquiries into Amazon and Microsoft over partnerships with AI companies Mistral, Anthropic, and Inflection.
US says Russian hackers stole federal government emails during Microsoft cyberattack
CISA said the latest theft of government email — blamed on Russian government hackers — presents “a grave and unacceptable risk” to U.S. federal agencies.
TechCrunch Minute: Google’s Gemini Code Assist wants to use AI to help developers
Can AI eat the jobs of the developers who are busy building AI models? The short answer is no, but the longer answer is not yet settled.
Microsoft employees exposed internal passwords in security lapse
The tech giant secured a cloud storage server that was inadvertently spilling Microsoft internal data and credentials to the open internet.
TechCrunch Minute: Quantum computing’s next era could be led by Microsoft and Quantinuum
The tech world is incredibly focused on AI and its applications today, but artificial intelligence is hardly the only place where progress is being made. If you want to get…
