Beneath the hyperbole around Apple Intelligence and intensifying regulation, you might have missed that Apple recently introduced a new MacBook Air equipped with an M4 chip. It’s a compelling upgrade to the world’s best-selling laptop, and I’ve had time to put it through its paces. It’s an important Mac, given that the Air is probably Apple’s…
Non-tech companies trying out AI agents in the field said the technology still has a lot of challenges to overcome before it can be used practically. Some of the early uses of agentic AI are in the area of customer service, which was part of a panel discussion at Nvidia’s GTC conference, held last week in San Jose. The main problem…
We’re now in the century sci-fi writers made their fortunes writing about — and hardware manufacturers seem keen to explore new products and processes that make some of those predictions a reality. Just as Minority Report comes pretty close to predicting visionOS and Spatial Computing, so too will a whisper of Ringworld be reflected in the hard but soft…
In a strategic move that could reshape the future of computing, Nvidia is establishing the Nvidia Accelerated Quantum Research Center (NVAQC) in Boston, where the worlds of quantum hardware and AI supercomputing will converge to tackle what many consider computing’s final frontier. The initiative represents one of the most significant corporate investments in quantum computing…
Adobe is working with Microsoft to develop an AI agent that can generate graphics and design content from within the Microsoft 365 interface. The Adobe Express Agent, still under development, will allow users to create and embed graphics directly within productivity applications such as Word and PowerPoint, according to Aubrey Cattell, vice president for Adobe’s Creative Cloud…
The European Commission has concluded that Google’s search service violates the EU Digital Markets Act (DMA) by favoring its own products and services at the expense of competitors. The commission also considers the Google Play app store to be in breach of the DMA, partly because fees are too high and partly because developers are…
Sales of virtual reality (VR) headsets fell by 12% in 2024 compared to the previous year, according to a new report from analyst firm Counterpoint. The decline markers the third year in a row sales have fallen — and it is mainly on the consumer side that demand is low. The best performer is Meta,…
With its latest Digital Markets Act (DMA) action against Apple, the European Commission (EC) proves it is bad for competition, bad for consumers, and bad for business. It also threatens Europeans with a hitherto unseen degree of data insecurity and weaponized exploitation. The information Apple is being forced to make available to competitors with cynical interest in…
When you receive an email with an invoice, wouldn’t it be nice if it automatically saved the file to your finance folder, logged the amount in your tracking spreadsheet, and notified your manager? That’s exactly what Microsoft Power Automate can do, along with a host of other automated actions. Like its competitors IFTTT and Zapier,…
New PCs introduced Tuesday by Dell sport high-powered Nvidia GPUs designed to help workers test AI models before deployment. The new AI PC lineup includes laptops and desktops with Nvidia’s latest Blackwell Ultra and Blackwell GPUs, which provide the muscle needed to test compute-intensive AI models. AI PCs are designed to run generative AI tools and models…