Tag Archives: microsoft

8 February 2023
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AI, Open Source, Programming languages

ChatGPT’s new competitor

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More powerful than ChatGPT': Microsoft unveils new AI-improved Bing and Edge browser | ZDNET

Bing is an updated Microsoft search service based on artificial intelligence. It’s based on the OpenAI GPT language model, but Bing is newer than ChatGPT 3.5. Microsoft says it’s not just an updated search engine, but a new artificial intelligence-based search channel with a new chat interface that offers better searches, more complete answers and more relevant search results, so readers can spend less time on the page. Artificial intelligence will revolutionize every category of software, including the largest category — search. Bing can also create content and inspire creativity. Microsoft said: “The new Bing can generate useful content. Create a 5-day itinerary for your dream vacation to Hawaii, including links to write emails, book travel and accommodation, prepare for interviews and create quiz questions to help you The new Bing also cites all sources so you can see links to the web content you link to.”

Microsoft has also announced changes to Edge. Artificial intelligence has been added to Edge to help people do more with search and the internet. As for the new Bing search and the new Edge browser, Microsoft highlights some key features:

  • The best search. The new Bing offers an improved version of familiar search, providing more relevant results for simple things like sports scores, promotions and weather, as well as more complete when you need it. It also provides a new sidebar for displaying responses.
  • Full answer. Bing searches the web for results to find and summarize the answers you are looking for. For example, you can get step-by-step instructions on how to replace eggs with another ingredient in your current cake without looking at multiple results.
  • New chat. For more complex searches, such as planning a detailed travel itinerary or choosing a TV to buy, the new Bing offers a new interactive chat. Chat allows you to narrow down your search until you get the full answer you are looking for, asking for details, clarity and ideas. Links are available, so decisions can be made immediately.
  • New Microsoft Edge interface. We have updated the Edge browser with new artificial intelligence features, a new look and added two new features: chat and messaging. Use the Edge sidebar to request summaries of long financial reports to get the main conclusions, use the chat function to request comparisons with competitors’ financial reports, and automatically place them in a spreadsheet. You can also ask Edge to help you create content, such as posts for LinkedIn. Then you can get help updating the tone, format and length of your message. Edge can understand the web pages you are viewing and adapt accordingly.

However, Google issued a warning to its departments, and even the founders and shareholders of the tech giants Larry Page and Sergey Brin stepped up. On Monday, the company introduced its own alternative to ChatGPT called Bard. Google CEO Sundar Pichai called the software an “experimental artificial intelligence service” that is still being tested by a limited number of users and employees of the company and will be released to the general public in the coming weeks.

Microsoft Brings ChatGPT-Like AI Features to Bing, Edge - My TechDecisions

Thus, Bing have been developed to facilitate research and increase their reliability. Starting with the chat mode, you can ask literally any question using an interface very similar to GPT chat, and the answer will be sent in seconds.

Interestingly, when searching for information in real time on the Internet, responses are sent directly from various thematic sites. The source of information for constructing the answer is shown as a footnote, but the user is redirected to the main page of the site in question, and not to the page with the text.

Sources and references: https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2023/02/07/reinventing-search-with-a-new-ai-powered-microsoft-bing-and-edge-your-copilot-for-the-web/ https://habr.com/ru/news/t/715508/

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29 January 2023
5 Comments
AI, Business

The end of GOOGLE Empire?

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explostion of google
https://marketing.wtwhmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/End-of-Google.jpg

Google dominates the desktop search industry, currently holding 84% of the market share. This monopoly has existed for 7 years, with Google making the majority of its money through search ads (82% of its revenue). However, with the introduction of AI-powered search engines like chat GPT, the industry is undergoing a transformation.

Google was founded in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin Ph.D. students at Stanford University in California. It offers a diverse range of services and products such as search (what’s best known for), advertising, cloud computing, software, and hardware.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is image-9-1024x647.png
Global desktop market share of search engines 2015-2022 – www.statista.com

Often when we are trying to find something on the internet or find something out we’re googling. This’s so common and already ingrained in us. But it’s search current form hasn’t changed much over the past 20 years.

Just few days the Microsoft CEO Satyla Nadella confirmed its $10 billion investment in Open AI. They want to embed this technology not just in Microsoft web search, but they want to embed it across all their tech products systems/infrastructure like Microsoft Azure and so Word and Excel and all others.

Having a tool on with you type any type of question and it gives you conversional answer seem a threat to current engine leader and make them look old. But there are certain risks with future connection with linking chat, to the internet to Bing. When you google something, when you search it you still need to go through bunch of websites and find it by your own. Use your brain and critical thinking to evaluate which information is the good one. While chat GPT gives you single answer that may not be accurate and you don’t really know where it’s coming from.

Also Microsoft is going to face to the fact that computing power to run chat GPT search vs google search has been estimated 7 times as much bigger. This race may end up costing both companies a lot of money.

How is google reacting to this explosion of interest of chat GPT and Open AI. For sure they are worried about it. Few days ago they has announced Code Red and returned Larry Page and Sergey Brin Google’s founders.

The company knew that AI is the future, therefore acquired DeepMind, a UK-based AI research lab, nearly nine years ago. Google also plans to launch a series of AI programs, including image creation and something that can build and correct code in app development. But apparently they didn’t know that this boom would happen so soon which surprised them. In order to not fall out of the game, already this year, they plan to unveil more than 20 new products and demonstrate a version of its search engine with chatbot features.

They have also been working on something comparable to chat GPT for a long time. The LamDA system’s conversation proved really realistic. The illusion has gotten so good that one employee working on it freaked out thought he was speaking to a conscious being. He wrote. “I increasingly felt like I was talking to something intelligent.”

Emily M. Bender, a linguistics professor at the University of Washington said “We now have machines that can mindlessly generate words, but we haven’t learned how to stop imagining a mind behind them” . So that they are still just models that mimic human speech. These large language models “learn” by being shown a lot of text and predicting what word will come next, or by being shown text with words missing and filling them in. It will take some time, in my opinion, for them to become conscious and take over the world, whatever that means.

China is also set to play a big role in the AI revolution, with its access to data from 1.4 billion people. The country is poised to challenge tech companies in America and Europe, and it will be interesting to see what developments it has in store for the future.

Bing Hid Auto-Suggestions for Politically Sensitive Chinese Names, Even in the US | PCMag
https://i.pcmag.com/imagery/articles/008TGgRN9KmOIIkazQqjKnQ-1..v1653060214.jpg

Will Google maintain its position, or it has become too bureaucratic and too large organisation to deal with new and fresh start-ups? “For Google it’s a real problem if they write a sentence with hate speech in it and it’s near the Google name,” – said Ramaswamy. And cannot afford shortcomings that could ruin its prestige. Google and Microsoft are held to a higher standard than a start-up that might argue that its service is simply a summary of content available on the internet. It’s both responsible and risky to release AI products so quickly. But he who does not take risks does not drink champagne and it seems to me that Microsoft is about to surpass the giant.

Resources and references:

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10 November 2019
2 Comments
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Minecraft teaches future programmers

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This is not a secret that the IT industry is expanding very quickly. It causes a constant growth of demand for programmers. According to the speculations of the European Committee, EU labour market will not meet this demand until 2030. Because of the money earned by beginner programmists, more and more people older than 30 decide to change their occupancy to “junior programmist”. But it still isn’t enough. The solution is to put kids in the world of programming very early, so when they grow up, part of them will fill the shortage on the labour market.

Microsoft came up with an idea to make young people interested in coding. They developed a learning platform which is Minecraft: Education Edition. Of course, computer science is not the only subject, which can be taught via Minecraft EDU. The platform also contains contents for mathematics, art, science etc. The software is not only dedicated to schools, but also for private educators. Many private institutions have made the use of Minecraft education, creating courses for groups of children.

According to Linkedin data, such skills as mobile development or design of user interface will be in high demand in the coming years. Also, there is no doubt that thanks to programming young children can learn a set of other skills such as problem-solving. What is more teaching computer science in schools is recommended, because it allows students to gain information about the continuously developing technology. However not every child finds programming interesting, probably instead of learning it, they would rather… play some computer game. Here comes MINECRAFT: EE, which combines both, fun and learning. Creators of the content of the lessons of PYTHON developed a set of various tasks, which both make children engaged in it and doesn’t make them bored.

Microsoft and Code.org team up to bring ‘Minecraft’ to Hour of Code (PRNewsFoto/Microsoft Corp.)

The problems, which children need to solve are based on in-game issues. For example, they have to create a script, which will display the number of steps every 10 seconds or they have to build a program, which will build a house in Minecraft on its own. Of course, there are also more complex tasks related to some story: one of them shows a real-world use of AI on an example of predicting a chance of fire.

To conclude, thanks to Minecraft, young learners have an opportunity to gain various practical skills, such as analytical thinking, problem-solving, basics of coding, intermediate programming (AI and python) and understanding the technology. However, such an idea has its dark side. Programming is going to be the next subject in students’ schedule, while they already have plenty of them. Is it appropriate to make young students have more obligations?  Maybe we should abandon some other subjects to avoid making youngsters overworked?

references:

1.https://education.minecraft.net/class-resources/code-with-minecraft/

2.https://zielonalinia.gov.pl/-/boom-na-programistow-potrwa-do-2030-roku-prognoza-ekspertow

3.https://www.opencolleges.edu.au/informed/features/coding-education-important-implemented/

4.https://www.giganciprogramowania.edu.pl/?gclid=Cj0KCQiA2ITuBRDkARIsAMK9Q7PTgcrGDuP0XnNLAmT_gYWvDIuXFvuDQSfbmpnSP0lIz4Jonkca-EIaAko1EALw_wcB

5.https://education.minecraft.net/wp-content/uploads/HoC_Lesson-Plan.pdf

6.https://www.opencolleges.edu.au/informed/features/coding-education-important-implemented/

7.https://education.minecraft.net/lessons/teach-python-with-minecraft-pi/

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21 October 2019
3 Comments
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Is Minecraft going to revolutionise education?

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Znalezione obrazy dla zapytania minecraft classroom

Remind Yourself about lessons in Your primary or secondary school. Some of them were presumably boring and even if they took place only once a week, You did not want to participate in them at all. Such a phenomenon occurs because how the information is delivered, for instance, boring lectures, during which no one except a teacher is permitted to say anything. Nowadays it became very difficult to make young students interested in a subject with traditional teaching methods. That’s why more and more apps and educational platforms are being developed to help teachers to make their lessons impressing.

Following the trend of a growing number of interactive tools, which help to teach, Microsoft decided to get into the market introducing “Minecraft: Education Edition”. Most of today’s children know what Minecraft is and probably have played it. For those, who don’t know it, Minecraft is a computer game, with infinite possibilities to discover the world by building things and completing achievements. More and more teachers around the world start using this method.  All of them could easily introduce this approach on their lessons because there are special guides and scenarios of classes on the Internet and also everyone can consult a professional mentor, who will help to implement Minecraft Edu in real life.

Znalezione obrazy dla zapytania minecraft education

“It is better to build it and understand it than write it on paper and understand it”

Some people would probably doubt if Minecraft is appropriate for every school subject, but the idea is admired by teachers of various subjects, from all around the world. On the website of Minecraft: Education Edition there are special materials for teachers uploaded. Subject kits for Language Arts, Science, History and Culture, Computer Science, Math, Art and Design can be found there.

It has been proven that children, whose teacher implemented Minecraft Edu, tend to learn more efficient, but on the other hand, such way of learning cannot be introduced in every case. The first and main reason is that in some countries, schools have not enough money to provide their students with such facilities as computer labs and they cannot require children to have their laptops. Secondly, would old teachers, who have been teaching traditionally for all of their lives introduce such an innovative method? Probably most of them would not do that. Finally, teachers and parents are not always able to monitor how much time do children spend in front of the screen, so if this was neglected, young students could be exposed to “screen addiction”.

References:

1)https://minecrafteducation.zendesk.com/hc/en-us

2)https://www.microsoft.com/pl-pl/education/minecraft

3)https://education.minecraft.net

4)https://www.educationandbehavior.com/how-does-minecraft-education-edition-work-is-it-good-for-students/

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6 January 2019
1 Comment
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A look into the future

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A couple of days ago, I found a very interesting video released by Microsoft in 2009. In this video which was called “Look to the Future”, the American company tried to imagine what our daily life would look like in 10-15 years. And after so much time, it is very interesting to see which predictions come true and which have remained just dreams.

My first observation is that the online translator, which quickly translates everything you say, somehow exists on Skype. Of course, it is not as sophisticated as shown in the picture and there are no such transparent interfaces yet, but the idea itself is exactly implemented. It is also very funny to see that in 2009, Microsoft believed that translucent interfaces are our future, which in my opinion are terribly inconvenient to use in practice.

Now take a look at the electronic boarding pass where you can see different data about your flight. Today, of course, all this would not make any sense, because these functions easily can be performed by our smartphones.

In general, there is a persistent feeling that no one in 2009 could even imagine that in the near future, smartphones would completely replace all terminals with them. Why should I display information on the glass, poke into translucent interfaces if this is all in my pocket?

The video also showed a very interesting concept: augmented or even mixed reality around us. I think that something similar is waiting for us in the near future, and the guys from Microsoft were absolutely right about this.  Also in this video was shown one of the trends of the last year, bending and frameless smartphones.

The only thing that always confused me in these concepts has always been complete isolation from reality and minimalism. For example, where can we put the battery? The last couple of years the issue of energy for a mobile device becomes the most important.

For example, behind this newspaper a power bank must precisely hide in order all this technology miracle could work. If you are interested, you can view the full version of this video under this post.

Sources:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCc3pNIRzIZ8ynI38GO6H01Q

https://wylsa.com

 

 

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30 December 2018
2 Comments
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Facebook sells its users’ data!

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The fact that web portals manage the data of their users without their awareness is known not from today, but the way in which Facebook does, it’s just beyond comprehension.

The New York Times is showing the truth.

In connection with recent reports from The New York Times, we read that Facebook sold access to various types of “sensitive data” about its users to such companies as: Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo, Netflix, Spotify. Netflix and Spotify had even access to private correspondence. In most cases, the data obtained by the companies were to help in the selection and positioning of advertisements for users of the said portals. It does not change the fact that through the sale of these data Facebook broke an agreement from 2011 with the American Federal Trade Commission, which clearly states that Facebook can share user data only if it is given accurate and explicit consent.

Companies answer the allegations!

All companies mentioned in the report of The New York Times issued a special statement. One of them is the statement of the Netflix press office regarding access to private correspondence of Facebook users. We read in it about:

“Over the years, we’ve tested various solutions to help Netflix understand the wider community, one of which was a feature introduced in 2014 that allowed site users to recommend their favourite series and movies to their Facebook friends via Messenger or a Netflix account. It has not been that popular as we assumed, which is why we decided to remove it in 2015. At no time did we have access to private messages of Facebook users, or we asked for the possibility of receiving them. “ – Netflix press office says.

The New York Times was really well prepared for this investigation.

It doesn’t change the fact, that The New York Times interviewed more than 60 people, including former employees of Facebook and its partners, former government officials and privacy advocates. Thanks to that we can be sure that Facebook did something illegal and now tries to bury the truth.

“The Times also reviewed more than 270 pages of Facebook’s internal documents and performed technical tests and analysis to monitor what information was being passed between Facebook and partner devices and websites.” – as The New York Times said.

What is my view about this situation?

In my opinion, companies that have access to sensitive data of their users should make every effort to ensure that this data does not leak. In this way, eg. Apple, which extremely highly appreciates the safety of data users of their products and whenever they commit some “mistakes at work”, they plead the guilty and try to repair the whole situation (eg. icloud leaks affair).

Facebook approaches similar situations in a different way, which tries to whitewash the truth and pass the buck on others. The Cambridge Analytica scandal is a perfect example of frauds and deceptions, thanks to which we learned how Facebook can influence election results in one of the most powerful countries in the world, such as the USA is. That sort of stuff is not conducive to peace but exacerbates the conflict on the Facebook and Users relations.

Counter-argument to this whole situation is the fact that the majority of Facebook users do not care about privacy policy. They accept all consents without prior reading. They do not follow the basic security rules on the Internet. They share their private lives via Twitter, Instagram, YouTube etc. For this reason, it can be assumed that such users agree to full surveillance, which is not said to be bad. If we have nothing to hide, why should we be disturbed by the fact that someone can earn from it. I believe that if there is already such a situation, it would be great if the company / person who earns money on their users, would inform them about everything and admit theirs guilt when they fails.

Sources:

https://cnn.it/2LJ9ZYd
https://cnn.it/2EUlpGY

Photos:

https://bit.ly/2SuobXh
https://bit.ly/2EZFLiM
https://bit.ly/2CH3Zfx

author: Michał Żelazo

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