All posts tagged: Microsoft Corp

Microsoft report details Russia disinformation campaign against Harris

Microsoft report details Russia disinformation campaign against Harris

Published by Sam

Mashabuba | Getty | Getty Images The video was seen millions of times across social media but some viewers were suspicious: It featured a young Black woman who claimed Vice President Kamala Harris left her paralyzed in a hit-and-run accident in San Francisco 13 years ago. In an emotional retelling from a wheelchair, the alleged victim said she “cannot remain silent anymore” and lamented that her childhood had “ended too soon.” Immediately after the video was posted on Sept. 2, social media users pointed out reasons to be wary. The purported news channel it came from, San Francisco’s KBSF-TV, didn’t exist. A website for the channel set up just a week earlier contained plagiarized articles from real news outlets. The woman’s X-ray images shown in the video were taken from online medical journals. And the video and the text story on the website spelled the alleged victim’s name differently. The caution was warranted, according to a new Microsoft threat intelligence report, which confirms the fabricated tale was disinformation from a Russia-linked troll farm. The tech giant’s report released Tuesday …

Biden to unveil .3 billion Microsoft AI investment in battleground Wisconsin

Biden to unveil $3.3 billion Microsoft AI investment in battleground Wisconsin

Published by skeptic

Construction at Foxconn complex in Mt. Pleasant, Wisconsin in August 2020. Brian Snyder | Reuters President Joe Biden will visit the political battleground state of Wisconsin on Wednesday to announce plans by Microsoft Corp to build a $3.3 billion high-tech data center that will create thousands of jobs, the White House said. The Microsoft facility in Racine County, in southeastern Wisconsin, will be built on the same land where Taiwan electronics manufacturer Foxconn had planned to build a $10 billion factory that former President Donald Trump once called “the eighth wonder of the world,” before Foxconn drastically scaled back its plans. Microsoft’s plans will result in 2,300 union construction jobs and some 2,000 permanent jobs over time, the White House said. It said nearly 4,000 jobs had been added in Racine since Biden took office, while about 1,000 manufacturing jobs were lost during the Trump administration. Microsoft will partner with Gateway Technical College to train 1,000 people for data center and other roles by 2030, and will work to train 1,000 business leaders to adopt …

AI and automation justify shorter workweek, Democrats argue

AI and automation justify shorter workweek, Democrats argue

Published by skeptic

Senate Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders (I-VT) questions witnesses with ranking member Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) during a hearing about working hours in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill on March 14, 2024 in Washington, DC. Chip Somodevilla | Getty Images Sen. Bernie Sanders and Senate Democrats cited advances in artificial intelligence and automation Thursday in their argument for a bill that would mandate a 32-hour federal workweek. “Despite massive growth in technology and worker productivity, millions of workers in our country are working longer hours for low wages,” Sanders said after gaveling open a hearing of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. “The sad reality is Americans now work more hours than the people of any other wealthy nation,” the committee chair and Vermont independent said later. The bill introduced by Sanders and Sen. Laphonza Butler, D-Calif., would reduce the standard workweek from 40 hours to 32 hours over a four-year period. Employers would have to pay overtime compensation to nonexempt employees of 1.5 …

Kari Lake woos D.C. lobbyists as Arizona Senate race heats up

Kari Lake woos D.C. lobbyists as Arizona Senate race heats up

Published by skeptic

Arizona Republican Senate Candidate Kari Lake speaks with reporters after leaving the office of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on Capitol Hill on March, 6 2024 in Washington, DC.  Kent Nishimura | Getty Images Arizona Republican Senate candidate Kari Lake has been quietly meeting with lobbyists and raising money in Washington in recent weeks, according to people familiar with the matter. Lake has built her political brand around her willingness to buck the D.C. establishment wing of the GOP. On Tuesday, Lake met with about a dozen lobbyists in the nation’s capital, and the following day she attended a campaign fundraiser that was heavy with D.C. hired guns. Lake also met separately with a top GOP lobbyist recently to strategize how to get her in front of even more industry players, according to sources familiar with the meeting. Like others in this story, they were granted anonymity to describe private events. The Arizona Senate race is poised to be one of the most competitive and high profile contests in the nation this fall. President …

Google rebrands its AI services as Gemini, launches new app and subscription service

Google rebrands its AI services as Gemini, launches new app and subscription service

Published by skeptic

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Google on Thursday introduced a free artificial intelligence app that will enable people to rely on technology instead of their own brains to write, interpret what they’re reading and deal with a variety of other task in their lives. With the advent of the Gemini app, named after an AI project unveiled late last year, Google will cast aside the Bard chatbot that it introduced a year ago in an effort to catch up with ChatGPT, the chatbot unleashed by the Microsoft-backed startup OpenAI in late 2022. Google is immediately releasing a standalone Gemini app for smartphones running on its Android software. In a few weeks, Google will put Gemini’s features into its existing search app for iPhones, where Apple would prefer people rely on its Siri voice assistant for handling various tasks. Although the Google voice assistant that has been available for years will stick around, company executives say they expect Gemini to become the main way users apply the technology to help them think, plan and create. It marks …

FBI shuts down China ‘Volt Typhoon’ hackers targeting U.S.

FBI shuts down China ‘Volt Typhoon’ hackers targeting U.S.

Published by skeptic

FBI Director Christopher Wray testifies before a House Judiciary Committee hearing on “oversight of the Federal Bureau of Investigation” and alleged politicization of law enforcement, on Capitol Hill in Washington, July 12, 2023. Jonathan Ernst | Reuters The FBI shut down a major China-backed hacking group that attacked hundreds of routers and had been working to compromise U.S. cyber infrastructure, FBI Director Christopher Wray announced Wednesday at a House committee hearing. The group, code-named “Volt Typhoon,” hacked into hundreds of office and home office routers to allow the Chinese government to access their data, Wray told the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party. He said the routers were outdated, which made them “easy targets.” The hackers had been targeting U.S. water treatment plants, the power grid, oil and natural gas pipelines, and transportation systems, he added. “Today, and literally every day, they’re actively attacking our economic security, engaging in wholesale theft of our innovation, and our personal and corporate data,” he said. Microsoft in May helped surface the threat of the Volt Typhoon …