Xbox Insiders can start testing out mouse and keyboard support within Cloud Gaming from this week across Edge, Chrome, or the Xbox app on Windows PCs.

This Monday (Mar. 25) Microsoft released the news addressing the Insiders as they can start running this new support almost two years after the company first announced it was working on this addition to the service.

In a YouTube video titled ‘Xbox Game Streaming: Reducing Latency and Optimizing for the Best Mobile Experiences’ published a year ago, software engineer Morgan Brown said: “Xbox has been supporting keyword and mouse for a few years now, and we’re working on adding it to streaming for PC users.

“But you can start adding it to your game right now and your console keyboard and mouse users will appreciate it…”

For those on browsers, Microsoft says the “game stream needs to be in full screen mode to work with mouse and keyboard. Players can hold the ESC key at any time to exit full-screen mode.”

“The player must then click on the game stream element explicitly for it to capture your pointer. Otherwise, the mouse input won’t be sent to the game. Players can press F9 to exit mouse and keyboard use for the game.”

Some games will display controller UI elements, but this will be adapted to the sought-after mouse and keyboard input after the player has started to use this to interact with the game.

Mouse and keyboard to be available in numerous games

Not all games will be supported, at least to begin with. The currently supported titles include:

• Fortnite (browsers only)
• ARK Survival Evolved
• Sea of Thieves
• Grounded
• Halo Infinite
• Atomic Heart
• Sniper Elite 5
• Deep Rock Galactic
• High on Life
• Zombie Army 4 Dead War
• Gears Tactics
• Pentiment
• Doom 64
• Age of Empires 2

Featured Image: Photo by Onur Binay on Unsplash

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An artificial intelligence (AI) model has been developed to predict early mortality, among other things, but as interest in the app has risen, the founders have begun issuing stern warnings.

The fortune-telling AI bot, named Life2vec, uses the sequences of life events to predict the future. This is helped by several years’ worth of registry datasets from Denmark, where the business originates from.

Deep learning models analyze information related to health, education, income, occupation, address, and working hours to predict everything from major life events to personality nuances.

While some may say it sounds like a bleak way to gain insight into your future, the creators describe the tool as being “fun and innovative” on their website.

With its growing popularity, the researchers have issued a stark warning to people who are curious to test their fate.

A message has been added to the website stating: “But first a warning: We are aware of life2vec social media accounts, and there is at least one fraudulent website. We are not affiliated with these or any other entities that claim to use our technology.”

Concerns have arisen due to fraudsters saying people can try the calculator for free, but the researchers say the software cannot yet be accessed via the Internet.

“We are working on ways to share the model with the wider research communities, but as LLMs are known to potentially leak data, we have to do further research before we can do this.

“We have not yet studied how our results generalize to other countries/contexts, but are actively investigating this topic.”

Predictions of time of death from AI bot

The predictions follow on from answers to general questions such as: ‘Death within four years?’

While the team says this isn’t the sole focus, they “chose the topic of predicting death, because it is a problem so many people have worked on. (For example, due to insurance companies, and so on).”

Featured image: Photo by Aron Visuals on Unsplash

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Video game retailer GameStop has seen a major decline in revenue in the fourth quarter and say they’ve had to cut an unspecified number of jobs as a result, report Reuters.

As of February 3, the company had around 8,000 full-time salaried and hourly associates and between 13,000 and 18,000 part-time, hourly associates located worldwide. The amount of jobs cut isn’t yet known.

The fourth quarter revenue was reported as being $1.79 billion which is lower than last year’s $2.23 billion. Share prices have fallen by 16% in extended trade too.

Other cost-reduction measures are said to include an exit from operations in Ireland, Switzerland, and Austria.

A Wedbush Securities analyst, named Michael Pachter, gives Reuters a possible reason for the decline: “An increasing mix of digital downloads is hurting physical retail, and there is simply no reason to go to the store if a consumer can just order a game and download it immediately…

“I suspect that they will keep trimming costs to generate breakeven or better, but it is inevitable that their sales will decline to an unsustainable level.”

This news comes in sharp contrast to 2021 which was a wild year for the company as it became one of the most popular meme stocks in the world.

On the back of this, the GameStop NFT marketplace was launched in 2022 but this was wound down earlier this year. The company cites “the continuing regulatory uncertainty of the crypto space” as the reason behind this.

Gamers reactions to the GameStop market

People have taken to Reddit to share their thoughts about the Texas-based company from the sidelines.

One user suggests a shake-up is needed: “As a business, I still think GameStop could thrive, especially here in Canada, but not with the CEO they have now.

“Too many terrible decisions are being made. Video games are being overrun by Funko Pop stock.”

Other Redditors, like ‘AuthenticatedUser,’ suggest the format of the shop is causing the loss: “It’s because they don’t stock anything. It’s their policy now to not stock anything aside from pre-orders and AAA games…”

Featured image: Image by Sergei Tokmakov on Pixabay

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Apple is set to reveal its expansion into the world of artificial intelligence (AI) at the annual Worldwide Developers Conference, hosted at Apple Park from June 10 through June 14.

The iPhone maker announced the details of the event through a press release on the Apple Newsroom, stating the event will bring “insight into new tools, frameworks, and features.”

While AI hasn’t explicitly been mentioned in the release, it’s expected this will be heavily discussed as iOS 18 is rumored to involve the use of artificial intelligence.

Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook promised that Apple will ‘break new ground’ in AI this year, as others in the industry have already begun exploring this new technology.

The SVP of marketing at Apple Greg Joswiak teased the event further on X describing what’s to come as being “absolutely incredible!”

Mark your calendars for #WWDC24, June 10-14. It’s going to be Absolutely Incredible! pic.twitter.com/YIln5972ZD

— Greg Joswiak (@gregjoz) March 26, 2024

This year, the conference will provide developers the opportunity to watch the keynote, meet with Apple team members, and take part ‘in special activities.’

The latest iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, tvOS, and visionOS advancements will be discussed too. Developers are said to see “unique access” this year, to help them elevate their apps and games.

Apple’s vice president of Worldwide Developer Relations Susan Prescott said: “We’re so excited to connect with developers from around the world for an extraordinary week of technology and community at WWDC24.

“WWDC is all about sharing new ideas and providing our amazing developers with innovative tools and resources to help them make something even more wonderful.”

Students to play a role in Worldwide Developers Conference

Alongside experienced developers, the next generation will be present as winners of the Swift Student Challenge will be eligible to apply for the in-person experience at Apple Park.

Thousands of people have been given the opportunity to showcase their creativity and coding capabilities through app playgrounds within the challenge which will recognize 50 distinguished winners.

Featured Image: Via Apple press release.

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The island of Curaçao has come under criticism from a media watchdog as they asked authorities to cease allowing online casinos to target Australian consumers.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority (Acma) has banned offshore gambling companies from targeting its residents, with a large portion of the 1,000 blocked websites being licensed in Curaçao.

The Dutch island located north of the coast of Venezuela and in the south of the Caribbean has become a hub for online gambling.

According to The Guardian, an Acma spokesperson has said the agency had discussed its “investigations into individual services licensed in Curaçao” on six occasions since a meeting in June with the regulator to “establish contact.”

“Acam engages with overseas regulatory bodies for the purposes of assisting with our enforcement and disruption efforts against illegal services,” said the spokesperson.

“In relation to Curaçao, we have written to them about individual services licensed in their jurisdiction and about updates on the Curaçao regulatory framework.”

In response, the Curaçao Gaming Control Board has been reported as having said: “we take these breaches very seriously and will do all that is possible to stop them.”

Curaçao prominence in the world of gambling

This tiny island nation was one of the first to regulate online gambling and its ease of doing business, taxation scheme, and tolerant gambling legislation are three reasons why many gravitate to Curaçao for this area of business.

Regulated by the Ministry of Finance and the Financial Intelligence Unit, there are four master license holders on the island. New operators can then apply for a sublicense from one of these holders.

New changes to the process are incoming with the Curaçao Gaming Authority being the ones to grant licenses in the future and a shakeup of the framework to be implemented. They will assume greater control from March 31.

Featured image: Photo by Jorgen Hendriksen on Unsplash

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Elon Musk’s AI chatbot, Grok, is set to be rolled out to all premium X users starting from the end of this week.

Musk himself took to the social media platform on Tuesday (Mar. 26) to share the news, with the AI tool only previously being accessible to Premium+ subscribers who pay $168 per year for the social network.

Later this week, Grok will be enabled for all premium subscribers (not just premium+) https://t.co/4u9lbLwe23

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 26, 2024

Users can ask the chatbot any burning questions or queries and the answer can be directly posted onto X. An instructional video has been shared to give insight into how this will work and look alongside the Tesla-owner’s announcement post.

This news comes amidst an escalating rivalry with OpenAI and an ongoing lawsuit. Elon Musk is suing OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman, as well as others, accusing them of violating contractual commitments established during the company’s inception in 2015.

The entrepreneur helped to co-found the ChatGPT parent company but left in 2018 citing a conflict of interest with the AI in his business.

Now, his attention has turned to his startup xAI which has since developed the Grok software.

What is Grok AI?

Grok AI was introduced by Elon Musk in November 2023 and it quickly became hailed as a substitute for ChatGPT – except it’s only available via the X platform.

Unlike other artificial intelligence technology, Grok has been programmed to exhibit a politically incorrect and witty personality, drawing inspiration from conservative commentators like Tucker Carlson and Joe Rogan.

It has real-time knowledge of current events too, including developments in the world of AI technology. It can craft stories, summarize website content, translate language, and research and answer questions.

Historically, it’s only been available to X subscribers on the most exclusive and expensive tier. This is described as a ‘special group’ on the app website.

It’s not yet known when Grok AI will be available to everyone, with the team focusing on development throughout.

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Newly unsealed documents from a federal court in California are accusing Meta of snooping on Snapchat, YouTube, and Amazon users through their covert ‘Project Ghostbusters.’

The court released the documents on Tuesday (Mar. 26) from a class action lawsuit between consumers and Meta, revealing further insight into the technology conglomerate.

According to TechCrunch, the secret Facebook initiative was launched in 2016 and aimed to intercept and decrypt the encrypted network traffic between Snapchat’s app users and its servers.

It’s reported that the parent company of Facebook then extensively analyzed the network traffic patterns to gain an advantage over its competitors. It’s said this was able to be carried out through the VPN-like service Onavo that the Meta-based company acquired in 2013.

Onavo was eventually shut down just some years later in 2019 due to an investigation that revealed that Facebook had been secretly paying teenagers to use the software so the company could access all of their web activity.

Court documents suggest the technique was later used for the video-sharing website YouTube and online shopping site Amazon.

Facebook wanted ‘reliable analytics’ for Snapchat

Within the documents, it’s reported that emails discussing the project were also leaked. On June 9, 2016, Mark Zuckerberg is believed to have sent an email saying: “When someone asks a question about Snapchat, the answer is usually that because their traffic is encrypted we have no analytics about them.”

“Given how quickly they’re growing, it seems important to figure out a new way to get reliable analytics about them. Perhaps we need to do panels or write custom software. You should figure out how to do this.”

The Onavo team is then thought to have taken on the project which allowed them “to read what would otherwise be encrypted traffic so we can measure in-app usage.”

Not all of the Facebook team was in favor of the project, including the then-head of infrastructure engineering Jay Parikh and then-head of security engineering Pedro Canahuati.

An email is included in the court documents from Canahuati who wrote: “I can’t think of a good argument for why this is okay. No security person is ever comfortable with this, no matter what consent we get from the general public.

“The general public just doesn’t know how this stuff works…”

These documents come amidst numerous legal challenges against Meta. Just this month, the U.S. appeals court rejected Meta’s bid to halt a privacy investigation by the Federal Trade Commission.

Featured Image: Photo by Grant S on Unsplash

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It’s now easier to avoid seeing political content across Instagram and Threads thanks to the new opt-out setting.

This has been rolled out to accounts following Meta announcing the development of this feature in February via a blog post. They describe this as being an addition to their ‘existing approach’ to how they treat political content.

The feature has been added to the ‘Content preferences’ section under account settings on Instagram. Users can choose to toggle between ‘Limit political content from people you don’t follow’ and not limiting this. The default is set to the former option.

The photo-sharing app is synced to recently launched Threads so the update will apply to that platform too.

Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri took to Threads six weeks ago to update people on this new addition: “If you follow political accounts on Threads or Instagram, we want to avoid getting between you and their content.

“That said, we also don’t want to proactively amplify political content from accounts you don’t follow…

“Over the next few weeks we will be improving how we avoid recommending content about politics on recommendation surfaces – like Explore, Reels, and Suggested Users – across both Instagram and Threads…

“Our goal is to preserve the ability for people to choose to interact with political content, while respecting each person’s appetite for it.”

‘People want to see less politics’

This update comes after a report on the Meta Transparency Center which directly states that people “have told us they want to see less political content.”

The team at Meta says this has prompted a refinement in their approach on Facebook and then other apps too.

For Facebook, AI systems are used to consider personalized signals to understand what is meaningful for each individual user.

Meta says this is how political content is ranked within the main Facebook feed, moving away from a ranking system based on engagement signals like how likely someone is to comment on or share content.

They’ve discovered that those aren’t reliable indicators that the content is valuable to that specific person.

Featured image: Via the Instagram blog

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With the ban looming, TikTok’s parent company ByteDance is trying to diversify by promoting its other social media platform named Lemon8.

According to the New York Post, the company is paying influencers to suggest the other app via TikTok.

Often described as being similar to Pinterest, Lemon8 allows users to share photos and look for inspiration from others. It’s said to be very similar to the Chinese social media app Xiaohongshu.

A content creator spoke exclusively to The Post saying she was offered $200 for a brand deal where she was asked to upload ‘a video that promotes Lemon8 on TikTok.’

While she didn’t take ByteDance up on the offer, other influencers are starting to speak out about the Pinterest-like platform. It’s unclear whether there’s been a move to the app organically or if these creators have been paid to post.

In March of last year, Lemon8 was in the top 10 most downloaded apps. Just a month later the app’s daily active users almost halved from 11,930 to 6,360. The current statistics have not yet been publicized.

This all comes after ongoing debate around the ban of video app TikTok, with the US House of Representatives having passed a bill on March 13 that calls for the Chinese developer to divest from the company or be banned from US app stores.

Reactions to ByteDance’s other app Lemon8 aren’t too favorable

There seems to be some confusion around the app by TikTok users as people say they’re not sure what Lemon8 actually does. In one video by user Audreygentilee she asks her audience ‘wtf is lemon8.’

@audreygentilee

im so serious what is it #lemon8

♬ original sound – audreygentile

Some social media fans don’t seem to be too convinced as yet, with one person responding to that video saying “I wanted to get it at first bc it looks cool but idek what it is and now I’ve seen it too much I will never get it.”

Another said, “i downloaded it to see as well, and there was like a list you had to do to sign up it was so confusing so i just stopped and never got an account good luck if you find out lmk.”

Featured image: Via Apple App Store

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The Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has unveiled a program to support indie game developers, named the Sofu project.

This is targeted towards the ‘next generation of creators’ in the video game area who ‘have the motivation and ability to create and deliver original works,’ from the production to the full development of the project.

Game developer Takaaki Ichijo shared the news on the X platform.

I am proud to announce this, Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has started an acceleration program for Japanese indie game developers today!

The project is called So-Fu, it meaning Create a new wind, in Japanese. pic.twitter.com/Vfzms1Ogpj

— Ichijo (@ttwcodeout) March 22, 2024

He described the program as being a ‘breakthrough,’ because “until now there has been no direct support for indies from gov in Japan even though we already have many great game companies. And so happy to tell that I’m involved in this project as an executive member of the iGi indie Game incubator team.”

According to the Sofu website, the project officially began on March 22 2024 with an offering of a mentor, expenses and the ability to create a connection and network with like-minded people.

The government has created two departments within the scheme, one being the ‘game program’ and the other being the ‘video and film’ area which will run concurrently with the gaming side.

Participants will take part in lectures, with a mentor accompanying them to provide advice and technical support in the production process.

In October 2024, in Tokyo, the program will be halfway through and the people selected will present their results ahead of the final presentation in February 2025.

People who have graduated from junior high school and are under 35 years old are eligible.

The Japanese indie game scene is growing

Japan has long been a powerhouse for the gaming scene with giants like Sega and Nintendo being based out of there, but the pathway for developers hasn’t always been so concrete.

In 2023, the BitSummit event reached the 10 year mark since its inception. This introduces games from Japanese independent developers to fans and the rest of the world.

The last BitSummit event, which is the largest indie festival for developers in the country, saw more games and developers than ever before. In its inaugural year around 200 attendees were present, with 2023 seeing over 23,000 visitors.

Featured image: Photo by Joan Gamell on Unsplash

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WhatsApp is upping its game and focusing on its media sharing capabilities within the app, as updates are being tested for users.

The first to be improved is shared images which have notoriously seen a reduction in quality when sent to another user.

On Monday (Mar. 25) WhatsApp news site WABetaInfo found a new update that is being rolled out through the Google Play Beta Program which addresses this issue.

The feature focuses solely on media upload quality, with users soon able to have the option of choosing a higher grade of quality when sending over photos. This is available to some beta testers but will be accessible to more users over the coming days as part of version 2.24.7.17.

The Meta-owned company isn’t just leaving the multimedia upgrades there, as they’ve been turning its attention to videos too.

The latest iOS version that can be downloaded on the App Store is complete with a feature that has been under testing for some months now. Similar to video streaming platforms like Netflix and YouTube, you can now forward and rewind videos.

Double tapping on the right or left-hand side of the screen will move the video forward or backwards by 10 seconds.

The messaging company is reportedly working on other features too including filtering group chats, and sharing status updates and favorites.

WhatsApp developing AI features

With Meta as its parent company, it’s no surprise that the app is developing artificial intelligence (AI) features. Ask Meta AI is reportedly under development as part of version 2.24.7.14.

This would allow users to enter queries into the search bar, with WhatsApp enhancing the process by suggesting some prompts along the way.

When the command or question is submitted, Meta AI will answer and initiate a conversation. This should help people with common searches and obtain information quicker than having to exit the app and visit a browsing tool.

This hasn’t yet been tested, so will need to go through a beta testing program before it’s available to everyone. There isn’t a known date for this announcement or launch.

Featured image: Photo by Mourizal Zativa on Unsplash

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Millions of Americans have been caught up in a Chinese hacking ploy which has resulted in seven Chinese men being charged with conspiracy to commit computer intrusions and wire fraud.

Yesterday (Mar. 25) the indictment setting out the charges was announced via a press release from the Office of Public Affairs.

The seven men are said to be involved in a People’s Republic of China-based hacking group that has spent around 14 years targeting U.S. and foreign critics, businesses and political officials.

More than 10,000 ‘malicious’ emails were said to be sent within the hacking community known as Advanced Persistent Threat 31. Some of this activity resulted in compromises of peoples’ networks, email accounts, cloud storage accounts and telephone call records.

Court documents say the group’s activities have potentially compromised work and personal email accounts, cloud storage accounts and telephone call records belonging to millions of Americans.

Many of the emails were under the guise of news articles that were sent to the target. These emails contained hidden tracking links and once opened the hackers would then gain access to and information about the recipient. The group then used this information to engage in more direct targeted hacking.

People working in the White House, at the Departments of Justice, Commerce, Treasury, and State, the U.S. Senators and Representatives of both political parties were targeted.

Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco says: “The Department of Justice will relentlessly pursue, expose, and hold accountable cyber criminals who would undermine democracies and threaten our national security.”

Both the UK and New Zealand’s governments have also accused China of being responsible for cyber campaigns. A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington DC said: “without valid evidence, relevant countries jumped to an unwarranted conclusion” and “made groundless accusations.”

Embassy Spokesperson on the UK’s hype-up of so-called cyber attacks by China pic.twitter.com/TqACY7NSqq

— Chinese Embassy in UK (@ChineseEmbinUK) March 26, 2024

The international community responds to Chinese hacking allegations

The UK Government has now formally accused China of being behind cyber attacks against Members of Parliament and the Electoral Commission. As a result, sanctions have been imposed.

Two Chinese nationals and a company named Wuhan Xiaoruizhi Science and Technology Company Ltd have been sanctioned, resulting in a freezing of assets and a travel ban stopping them from entering or remaining in the UK. UK citizens and businesses have been barred from handling their funds or resources too.

The government says the company is affiliated with Advanced Persistent Threat Group 31.

Authorities in New Zealand have also accused China of targeting its parliamentary network in 2021.

Featured image: Ideogram

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Technology giant Intel is set to receive up to $8.5 billion in direct funding and $11 billion in loans from the U.S. Government to re-establish American leadership in semiconductor manufacturing.

Announced today (Mar. 20) from the Biden-Harris Administration, the investment under the CHIPS and Science Act, as well as Intel’s already proposed funding over the next five years, marks one of the largest investments ever announced in U.S. semiconductor manufacturing.

The CHIPS money is expected to include investments in Chandler in Arizona, Rio Rancho in New Mexico, New Albany in Ohio, and Hillsboro in Oregon.

In the Government-issued statement the impact of this funding is said to “directly create over 10,000 manufacturing jobs and nearly 20,000 construction jobs.”

The Under Secretary of Commerce for Standards and Technology and NIST Director Laurie E. Locascio says: “The innovation sparked by this proposed investment would strengthen America’s technological and research leadership and significantly help enhance our nation’s manufacturing capacity while strengthening communities and creating good-paying jobs.”

Intel’s CEO Pat Gelsinger describes this deal as being a “defining moment” as “AI is supercharging the digital revolution and everything digital needs semiconductors.

“CHIPS Act support will help to ensure that Intel and the U.S. stay at the forefront of the AI era as we build a resilient and sustainable semiconductor supply chain to power our nation’s future.”

The semiconductor competition wages on

There is fierce competition within the semiconductor industry as the likes of South Korea and the U.S. battle it out to become champions in the sector.

Earlier in the year, in January, Counterpoint Research released a study showing that South Korean Samsung has been ousted as the biggest earner from semiconductor manufacturing.

Intel took pole position with $50.5 billion in 2023 revenue, with the U.S. company taking a 9.7% market share that year. Samsung had an 8.3% share.

Featured Image: Photo by Slejven Djurakovic on Unsplash

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The British Virgin Islands (BVI) is hoping to lure crypto investment to the tiny Caribbean island as it sets its sights on becoming a hub for crypto activities, with a regulatory framework being developed to tap into the growing market.

In a keynote address at the BVI Arbitration Week 2024 on March 12, Minister for Financial Services, Labour, and Trade, Lorna Smith announced there have been significant milestones in the evolution of the area expanding into digital assets.

As reported by BVI News, she described the British Overseas Territory as being “poised to shape the future of digital asset innovation and regulation on the global stage.”

A few days later, on March 15, a statement was published by the Government of the Virgin Islands, written by Minister Lorna Smith. She says: “We, in the BVI, are conscious that the emergence of the digital assets business sector signifies a revolutionary shift in the financial world, one in which we aim to play a critical role…”

She later goes on to say the “design and effectiveness of the regulatory framework will be critical to our success.”

When digital asset funds were first making it to the market in 2015, the BVI Investment Fund Association worked closely with the Financial Services Commission to explore opportunities.

Lorna Smith describes the area as having “emerged as an epicenter for digital assets…”

The BVI Government aims to create an ecosystem filled with innovative and trusted providers with effective regulation.

How will the BVI attract Crypto investment?

The British Virgin Islands created and introduced the ‘Virtual Assets Service Providers Act’ in 2022 which became active in February of 2023.

This focuses on the types of virtual asset activities requiring registration, the criteria, and the duties and responsibilities of those who have registered. Authority was granted to the BVI Financial Services Commission and penalties for violations under the Act were established too.

In the published statement, Smith provides an update: “I am delighted to say that we have received over 60 applications for licenses under  VASP so far, and that we expect 2024 to be a critical year in the formation of this world-leading digital ecosystem within the BVI.

“For all these reasons, I believe that the BVI is perfectly situated to become a global hub for digital assets. The work we have done with the sector and the creation of the VASP framework represent a milestone in our journey to becoming a trusted and innovative digital assets ecosystem.”

Featured Image: Photo by Phil Hauser on Unsplash

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While Windows 11 has long been a focus of Microsoft, the software giant has started adding new widgets to the older Windows 10.

In January, the updates began with KB5034203 which saw an updated lock screen weather widget, as well as some regular bug fixes. Now, the tech giant is adding additional widgets for users of the operating system that came out in 2015.

These include traffic, sports, finance, and more which are displayed on a hidden feature ID that looks like the MSN home page.

To turn this feature on, go to Settings > Personalization > Lock Screen. This feature might not yet be available to all users as it’s being rolled out gradually.

Windows Insider who goes by @PhantomOfEarth on X has offered a sneak peek on the updated lock screen. They say: “Additional lock screen cards such as finance and sports are rolling out for Windows 10 in KB5035941 (19045.4235)…”

Additional lock screen cards such as finance and sports are rolling out for Windows 10 in KB5035941 (19045.4235), the feature can be enabled by running:

vivetool /enable /id:48801541 pic.twitter.com/yNamIO4ZE5

— PhantomOcean3 (@PhantomOfEarth) March 19, 2024

Update KB5035941 has been released to the Release Preview Channel for insiders who are on Windows 10, version 22H2.

Also in the March upgrade is the addition of Windows Spotlight to your desktop background. Microsoft describes this feature as being able to display “new images as your desktop wallpaper.” If you want to know more about an image, the ‘Learn More’ button will take you to Bing.

Microsoft is also using this time to invite Windows 10 users to upgrade to 11.

The end of Windows 10 is coming

Microsoft will officially end the support for the operating system Windows 10 on October 14, 2025.

‘Windows 10 Enterprise and Education,’ ‘Windows 10 Home and Pro,’ and ‘Windows 10 IoT Enterprise’ are all listed in the product retirements section on the Microsoft website.

This won’t impact the software’s ability to work, but there will be no more updates or assisted support.

However, Microsoft will be extending Windows 10 support through its Extended Security Updates program until 2028, but for a cost. The price hasn’t yet been announced.

Featured Image: Photo by Clint Patterson on Unsplash 

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Google DeepMind has officially launched a full AI system that focuses specifically on advising soccer coaches on corner kicks. TacticAI is described as being “an AI assistant for football tactics.”

Launched in collaboration with Liverpool FC, one of the best-performing teams in the UK, this is an artificial intelligence system that can provide experts with tactical insights through predictive and generative AI.

Announcing the news through a blog post on Google DeepMind yesterday (Mar. 19) the tool works by “using a geometric deep learning approach to help create more generalizable models.”

We're announcing TacticAI: an AI assistant capable of offering insights to football experts on corner kicks.

Developed with @LFC, it can help teams sample alternative player setups to evaluate possible outcomes, and achieves state-of-the-art results. … pic.twitter.com/8oVYtamGGe

— Google DeepMind (@GoogleDeepMind) March 19, 2024

This means teams worldwide could sample alternative player setups to evaluate possible outcomes to achieve the results they’re looking for.

To benchmark TacticAI, they have a dataset of 7176 corner kicks from the 2020 to 2021 Premier League seasons which are randomly shuffled and split into a training and a test set.

When in use, the tool is built to address three core questions. These include:

1. For a given corner kick tactical setup, what will happen? e.g., who is most likely to receive the ball, and will there be a shot attempt?

2. Once a setup has been played, can we understand what happened? e.g., have similar tactics worked well in the past?

3. How can we adjust the tactics to make a particular outcome happen? e.g., how should the defending players be repositioned to decrease the probability of shot attempts?

In a blind test with football experts, TacticAI’s suggestions were “indistinguishable” from real corners in previous games. When this group was asked to choose preferred tactical advice, they favored the AI’s ideas over the original 90% of the time.

Google and Liverpool FC’s multi-year partnership

Three years ago, Google announced a multi-year deal with the soccer club Liverpool F.C.

In their first joint paper from 2021, titled ‘Advancing sports analytics through AI research,’ soccer was then highlighted as being an interesting opportunity for AI. A year later, the Graph Imputer was created.

Graph Imputer showed how AI can be used with a prototype of a predictive system for downstream tasks in football analytics. The system was able to predict the movements of players off-camera when no tracking data was available.

The newly unveiled TacticAI is the third exploration into AI and sport by Google DeepMind and Liverpool FC.

Featured Image: Via Google DeepMind

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The AI startup Inflection closed a $1.3 billion funding round in 2023, but just a year later its main investor Microsoft has taken on some of its key employees.

In a blog post published by Microsoft yesterday (Mar. 19) the CEO Satya Nadella shares a message to its employees:

“I want to share an exciting and important organizational update today. We are in Year 2 of the AI platform shift and must ensure we have the capability and capacity to boldly innovate…

“In that context, I’m very excited to announce that Mustafa Suleyman and Karén Simonyan are joining Microsoft to form a new organization called Microsoft AI, focused on advancing Copilot and our other consumer AI products and research.”

Mustafa Suleyman and Karén Simonyan were the co-founders of Inflection. They will now head up Microsoft’s newly formed AI division.

As for the rest of the company, “several members of the Inflection team have chosen to join Mustafa and Karén at Microsoft.”

California-based Inflection is centered around creating a conversational AI that you could talk to. Last May, it released Pi – a personal AI, designed to be empathetic, helpful, and safe.

The $1.3 billion funding round was led by Microsoft, Reid Hoffman, Bill Gates, Eric Schmidt and Nvidia.

Inflection publishes an update

Taking to their website, a blog post titled ‘The new Inflection: An important change to how we’ll work’ was published on the same day of the Microsoft release.

They announce the news of the co-founders leaving and say “We’re grateful for all their amazing work in getting Inflection to this stage, and wish them luck for this new chapter.”

A new CEO has been welcomed, called Sean White, and the third co-founder Reid Hoffman is described as continuing on the board and “excited to take these next steps in building personal intelligence for everyone.”

Looking forward, the AI team has said they plan to “lean into our AI studio business, where custom generative AI models are crafted, tested, and fine-tuned for commercial customers.”

Inflection 2.5 will now be hosted on Microsoft Azure.

Featured Image: Photo by Matthew Manuel on Unsplash

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Apple’s Tim Cook is on a visit to Shanghai ahead of a new store opening in the city on Thursday (Mar. 21). This comes after recent reports of declining iPhone sales in China.

Sharing on the Weibo social media platform, the CEO has posted numerous times over the last few days as he has documented his week, just days before the new store is set to open its doors.

In one post, he says: “Nonghao Shanghai! Spent the morning walking the Bund with Zheng Kai and enjoying a classic Shanghai breakfast. I’m always so happy to be back in this remarkable city.”

Other posts show him meeting with the creators of the Nikki and Love series at Papergames who Cook says “make one of the most popular games on the App Store.”

A few weeks ago, at the beginning of March, reports emerged from Counterpoint Research suggesting sales of the iPhone in China have plunged in the first six weeks of the year.

They say Apple fell 24% over the period on stiff competition and an abnormally high January 2023.

Senior Analyst Mengmeng Zhang was quoted in the research explaining why this could have happened: “Primarily, it faced stiff competition at the high end from a resurgent Huawei while getting squeezed in the middle on aggressive pricing from the likes of OPPO, vivo, and Xiaomi….”

“Although the iPhone 15 is a great device, it has no significant upgrades from the previous version, so consumers feel fine holding on to the older-generation iPhones for now.”

Apple faces intense competition in China

In contrast to the sour Apple news, the researcher says the best-performing smartphone brands for the first six weeks were Huawei and its spinoff Honor.

Huawei smartphone unit shipments rose 64% year over year in the first six weeks of 2024. The drop in sales for Apple means the iPhone has so far lost its crown as having the best-selling smartphone in China. They only gained this status for the first time in 2023.

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Glassdoor has been providing job seekers with anonymous information about potential employers for years, but there are concerns this could soon be changing as users are required to verify their real names.

A Midwest-based software professional named Monica was one of the first to warn other users about this change via a personal blog as she urges people to “delete your Glassdoor account and data.”

She explains: “Glassdoor now requires your real name and will add it to older accounts without your consent if they learn it, and your only option is to delete your account…”

In 2021, Glassdoor acquired a professional networking app called Fishbowl which was then integrated onto the site last July. Every user signed up to the candid review platform was automatically signed up for a Fishbowl account. They require users to verify their identities which meant that Glassdoor’s terms of service had to be changed to require all users to be verified.

Currently, people’s reviews of employers remain anonymous but there are concerns around data privacy and anonymity. Monica says this change could put “people at risk with their employers.”

In a bid to learn more, Monica emailed customer support. After, she alleges that they “had updated my profile to add my real name and location, the name pulled from the email ‘From’ line I didn’t think to cloak because who does that?”

A manager within the Glassdoor content and community team emailed her back following further back-and-forth with other employees.

Monica shared their supposed response: “I stand behind the decision that your name has to be placed on your profile and it cannot be reverted or nullified/anonymized from the platform.

“I am sorry that we disagree on this issue. We treat all users equally when it comes to what is eligible to be placed on the profile and what is not, but we know that there are times our users, such as yourself, may not always agree with us.

“If you are not willing to allow your name on your profile, you will again need to complete Data erasure once you are able to. However, we cannot remove this for you or make the changes you wish to see for your name.”

Glassdoor’s data policy

The data policy at Glassdoor details the following:

“As a global company, Glassdoor is subject to a variety of privacy laws that confer a range of privacy rights upon our users. We are committed to working to support compliance with the requirements of these global privacy laws and ensuring the rights and protections they offer are available to all of our users regardless of their location. […]

“We allow you to learn about, access, and control the personal data that Glassdoor holds about you. This includes data related to your use of Glassdoor.com, Fishbowlapp.com, and our associated apps. Using the form at the bottom of this page, you can request that Glassdoor allows you to: […] Rectify your personal data. […] Delete your personal data.”

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A new study that looks into the influence of artificial intelligence in the workplace has shown negative results, indicating a decline in quality of life while the use of AI rises.

The U.K.-based Institute for the Future of Work (IFOW) has looked into the link between worker wellbeing and technology exposure, with almost 5,000 people who are representative of the working population being analyzed.

Results have shown that “quality of life negatively correlated with frequency of interaction with newer workplace technologies such as wearables, robotics, AI and ML software.”

The team goes on to say in their published report that “this is consistent with research that connects such technologies to exacerbated feelings of disempowerment, increased sense of insecurity, task intensification and stress and loss of meaning, as well as anxiety and poorer overall health.”

Not all technologies have a negative impact though, with some actually helping with employee wellbeing.

“Results showed that digital information and communication technologies correlated with improved quality of life, whereas newer and more advanced technologies were correlated with reduced wellbeing.”

So computers and messaging tools have been proven within this research to bring more freedom and flexibility to workers, but the use of smart devices or AI isn’t as well received.

Use of AI in the workplace

One of the main focuses of businesses appears to be around the productivity of their employees, with the use of artificial intelligence being implemented to handle repetitive tasks or speed up processes.

Some are even opting to replace workers with AI completely, including the likes of tech giant IBM. Back in 2023, the CEO publicly announced plans to replace nearly 8,000 jobs with technology.

At the time, he noted that back-office functions, specifically in the human resources sector, would be the first to face these changes.

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