microsoft

microsoft-cto-kevin-scott-thinks-llm-“scaling-laws”-will-hold-despite-criticism

Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott thinks LLM “scaling laws” will hold despite criticism

AI, AI research, AI scaling laws, Biz & IT, chatbots, GPT-4, GPT-5, Kevin Scott, large langauge models, machine learning, microsoft, Microsoft CTO, openai, scaling laws / /

As the word turns —

Will LLMs keep improving if we throw more compute at them? OpenAI dealmaker thinks so.

–

Kevin Scott, CTO and EVP of AI at Microsoft speaks onstage during Vox Media's 2023 Code Conference at The Ritz-Carlton, Laguna Niguel on September 27, 2023 in Dana Point, California.

Enlarge / Kevin Scott, CTO and EVP of AI at Microsoft speaks onstage during Vox Media’s 2023 Code Conference at The Ritz-Carlton, Laguna Niguel on September 27, 2023 in Dana Point, California.

During an interview with Sequoia Capital’s Training Data podcast published last Tuesday, Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott doubled down on his belief that so-called large language model (LLM) “scaling laws” will continue to drive AI progress, despite some skepticism in the field that progress has leveled out. Scott played a key role in forging a $13 billion technology-sharing deal between Microsoft and OpenAI.

“Despite what other people think, we’re not at diminishing marginal returns on scale-up,” Scott said. “And I try to help people understand there is an exponential here, and the unfortunate thing is you only get to sample it every couple of years because it just takes a while to build supercomputers and then train models on top of them.”

LLM scaling laws refer to patterns explored by OpenAI researchers in 2020 showing that the performance of language models tends to improve predictably as the models get larger (more parameters), are trained on more data, and have access to more computational power (compute). The laws suggest that simply scaling up model size and training data can lead to significant improvements in AI capabilities without necessarily requiring fundamental algorithmic breakthroughs.

Since then, other researchers have challenged the idea of persisting scaling laws over time, but the concept is still a cornerstone of OpenAI’s AI development philosophy.

You can see Scott’s comments in the video below beginning around 46: 05:

Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott on how far scaling laws will extend

Scott’s optimism contrasts with a narrative among some critics in the AI community that progress in LLMs has plateaued around GPT-4 class models. The perception has been fueled by largely informal observations—and some benchmark results—about recent models like Google’s Gemini 1.5 Pro, Anthropic’s Claude Opus, and even OpenAI’s GPT-4o, which some argue haven’t shown the dramatic leaps in capability seen in earlier generations, and that LLM development may be approaching diminishing returns.

“We all know that GPT-3 was vastly better than GPT-2. And we all know that GPT-4 (released thirteen months ago) was vastly better than GPT-3,” wrote AI critic Gary Marcus in April. “But what has happened since?”

The perception of plateau

Scott’s stance suggests that tech giants like Microsoft still feel justified in investing heavily in larger AI models, betting on continued breakthroughs rather than hitting a capability plateau. Given Microsoft’s investment in OpenAI and strong marketing of its own Microsoft Copilot AI features, the company has a strong interest in maintaining the perception of continued progress, even if the tech stalls.

Frequent AI critic Ed Zitron recently wrote in a post on his blog that one defense of continued investment into generative AI is that “OpenAI has something we don’t know about. A big, sexy, secret technology that will eternally break the bones of every hater,” he wrote. “Yet, I have a counterpoint: no it doesn’t.”

Some perceptions of slowing progress in LLM capabilities and benchmarking may be due to the rapid onset of AI in the public eye when, in fact, LLMs have been developing for years prior. OpenAI continued to develop LLMs during a roughly three-year gap between the release of GPT-3 in 2020 and GPT-4 in 2023. Many people likely perceived a rapid jump in capability with GPT-4’s launch in 2023 because they had only become recently aware of GPT-3-class models with the launch of ChatGPT in late November 2022, which used GPT-3.5.

In the podcast interview, the Microsoft CTO pushed back against the idea that AI progress has stalled, but he acknowledged the challenge of infrequent data points in this field, as new models often take years to develop. Despite this, Scott expressed confidence that future iterations will show improvements, particularly in areas where current models struggle.

“The next sample is coming, and I can’t tell you when, and I can’t predict exactly how good it’s going to be, but it will almost certainly be better at the things that are brittle right now, where you’re like, oh my god, this is a little too expensive, or a little too fragile, for me to use,” Scott said in the interview. “All of that gets better. It’ll get cheaper, and things will become less fragile. And then more complicated things will become possible. That is the story of each generation of these models as we’ve scaled up.”

Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott thinks LLM “scaling laws” will hold despite criticism Read More »

microsoft-asks-many-game-pass-subscribers-to-pay-more-for-less

Microsoft asks many Game Pass subscribers to pay more for less

game pass ultimate, gaming, microsoft, Xbox Game Pass / /

Raking it in —

Launch day access to first-party titles now restricted to $19.99/month “Ultimate” tier.

–

Artist's conception of Microsoft executives after today's Game Pass pricing announcements.

Enlarge / Artist’s conception of Microsoft executives after today’s Game Pass pricing announcements.

Getty Images

For years now, Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass has set itself apart by offering subscribers launch-day access to new first-party titles in addition to a large legacy library of older games. That important “day one” perk is now set to go away for all but the highest tier of Game Pass’ console subscribers, even as Microsoft asks for more money for Game Pass across the board.

Let’s start with the price increases for existing Game Pass tiers, which are relatively straightforward:

  • “Game Pass Ultimate” is going from $16.99 to $19.99 per month.
  • “Game Pass for PC” is going from $9.99 to $11.99 per month.
  • “Game Pass Core” (previously known as Xbox Live Gold) is going from $59.99 to $74.99 for annual subscriptions (and remains at $9.99 for monthly subscriptions).

Things get a bit more complicated for the $10.99/month “Xbox Game Pass for Console” tier. Microsoft announced that it will no longer accept new subscriptions for that tier after today, though current subscribers will be able to keep it (for now) if they auto-renew their subscriptions.

In its place, Microsoft will “in the coming months” roll out a new $14.99 “Xbox Game Pass Standard” tier. That new option will combine the usual access to “hundreds of high-quality games on console” with the “online console multiplayer” features that previously required a separate Xbox Game Pass Core subscription (“Core” will still be available separately and include access to a smaller “25+ game” library).

Quick and dirty chart by me to display the new Xbox Game Pass structure (subject to correction).

I hope this helps. pic.twitter.com/Qj6CX7i4kG

— Klobrille (@klobrille) July 10, 2024

But while the current Xbox Game Pass Console option promises access to Xbox Game Studios games “the same day they launch,” those “Day One releases” are conspicuously absent as a perk for the replacement Xbox Game Pass Standard subscription.

“Some games available with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate on day one will not be immediately available with Xbox Game Pass Standard and may be added to the library at a future date,” Microsoft writes in an FAQ explaining the changes.

Players who want guaranteed access to all those “Day One” releases will now have to subscribe to the $19.99/month Game Pass Ultimate. That’s an 81 percent increase from the $10.99/month that console players currently pay for similar “Day One” access on the disappearing Game Pass Console tier.

To be fair, that extra subscription money does come with some added benefits. Upgrading from Game Pass Console/Standard to Game Pass Ultimate lets you use Microsoft’s cloud gaming service, access downloadable PC games and the EA Play library, and get additional “free perks every month.” But it’s the launch day access to Microsoft’s system-selling first-party titles that really sets the Ultimate tier apart now, and which will likely necessitate a costly upgrade for many Xbox Game Pass subscribers.

More problems, more money

When Game Pass first launched in 2017, it was focused on legacy games, not day one launch titles.

Enlarge / When Game Pass first launched in 2017, it was focused on legacy games, not day one launch titles.

While Xbox Game Pass launched in 2017, launch-day access to all of Microsoft’s new first-party games wasn’t promised to subscribers until the beginning of 2018. Since then, loyal Game Pass subscribers have been able to play dozens of new first-party titles at launch, from major franchises like Halo, Forza, and Gears of War to indie darlings like Hi-Fi Rush, Sea of Thieves, and Ori and the Will of the Wisps and much more.

Sure, access to hundreds of older games was nice. But the promise of brand-new major first-party titles was instrumental in driving Xbox Game Pass to 34 million subscribers as of February. And Sony found itself unwilling to match that “day one” perk for its similar PlayStation Plus service, which only includes a handful of older PlayStation Studios titles.

In a 2022 interview with GamesIndustry.biz, PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan said throwing new first-party games on their subscription service would break a “virtuous cycle” in which new full game purchases (at a price of up to $70) help fund the next round of game development. “The level of investment that we need to make in our studios would not be possible, and we think the knock-on effect on the quality of the games that we make would not be something that gamers want.”

And Microsoft may come to a similar conclusion. Including first-party titles with cheaper, console-focused Game Pass subscriptions probably seemed like a good idea when Microsoft was still trying to attract subscribers to the service. But Game Pass subscriber growth is starting to slow as the market of potential customers has become saturated. Microsoft now needs to extract more value from those subscribers to justify Game Pass cannibalizing direct sales of its own first-party games.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 to a Game Pass subscription.” height=”360″ src=”https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/codblops6-640×360.jpg” width=”640″>

Enlarge / Microsoft paid a lot of money to add the value of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 to a Game Pass subscription.

Activision

And let’s not forget Activision, which Microsoft recently spent a whopping $69 billion to acquire after lengthy legal and regulatory battles. Recouping that cost, while also offering Game Pass subscribers launch day access to massive sellers like Call of Duty, likely forced Microsoft to maximize Game Pass’ revenue-generating opportunities.

“Let’s put it this way: If 7 million Xbox Game Pass subscribers were planning to buy ‘Call of Duty’ for $70 but now have no reason to (as it’s part of their subscription), that leaves almost half a billion dollars of revenue on the table,” MIDia analyst Rhys Elliott told The Daily Upside by way of illustrating the significant numbers involved.

For players who enjoy a wide variety of games and would likely purchase all or most of Microsoft’s first-party titles at launch anyway, Xbox Game Pass Ultimate it still probably a good deal at its increased price. But players who subscribed to a relatively cheap console Game Pass option years ago may want to reevaluate if maintaining that launch day access is now worth $240 a year.

Microsoft asks many Game Pass subscribers to pay more for less Read More »

the-president-ordered-a-board-to-probe-a-massive-russian-cyberattack-it-never-did.

The president ordered a board to probe a massive Russian cyberattack. It never did.

Biz & IT, cyberattack, microsoft, russian hacking, Security, solarwinds, syndication / /
In this photo illustration, a Microsoft logo seen displayed on a smartphone with a Cyber Security illustration image in the background.

This story was originally published by ProPublica.

Investigating how the world’s largest software provider handles the security of its own ubiquitous products.

After Russian intelligence launched one of the most devastating cyber espionage attacks in history against US government agencies, the Biden administration set up a new board and tasked it to figure out what happened—and tell the public.

State hackers had infiltrated SolarWinds, an American software company that serves the US government and thousands of American companies. The intruders used malicious code and a flaw in a Microsoft product to steal intelligence from the National Nuclear Security Administration, National Institutes of Health, and the Treasury Department in what Microsoft President Brad Smith called “the largest and most sophisticated attack the world has ever seen.”

The president issued an executive order establishing the Cyber Safety Review Board in May 2021 and ordered it to start work by reviewing the SolarWinds attack.

But for reasons that experts say remain unclear, that never happened.

Nor did the board probe SolarWinds for its second report.

For its third, the board investigated a separate 2023 attack, in which Chinese state hackers exploited an array of Microsoft security shortcomings to access the email inboxes of top federal officials.

A full, public accounting of what happened in the Solar Winds case would have been devastating to Microsoft. ProPublica recently revealed that Microsoft had long known about—but refused to address—a flaw used in the hack. The tech company’s failure to act reflected a corporate culture that prioritized profit over security and left the US government vulnerable, a whistleblower said.

The board was created to help address the serious threat posed to the US economy and national security by sophisticated hackers who consistently penetrate government and corporate systems, making off with reams of sensitive intelligence, corporate secrets, or personal data.

For decades, the cybersecurity community has called for a cyber equivalent of the National Transportation Safety Board, the independent agency required by law to investigate and issue public reports on the causes and lessons learned from every major aviation accident, among other incidents. The NTSB is funded by Congress and staffed by experts who work outside of the industry and other government agencies. Its public hearings and reports spur industry change and action by regulators like the Federal Aviation Administration.

So far, the Cyber Safety Review Board has charted a different path.

The board is not independent—it’s housed in the Department of Homeland Security. Rob Silvers, the board chair, is a Homeland Security undersecretary. Its vice chair is a top security executive at Google. The board does not have full-time staff, subpoena power or dedicated funding.

Silvers told ProPublica that DHS decided the board didn’t need to do its own review of SolarWinds as directed by the White House because the attack had already been “closely studied” by the public and private sectors.

“We want to focus the board on reviews where there is a lot of insight left to be gleaned, a lot of lessons learned that can be drawn out through investigation,” he said.

As a result, there has been no public examination by the government of the unaddressed security issue at Microsoft that was exploited by the Russian hackers. None of the SolarWinds reports identified or interviewed the whistleblower who exposed problems inside Microsoft.

By declining to review SolarWinds, the board failed to discover the central role that Microsoft’s weak security culture played in the attack and to spur changes that could have mitigated or prevented the 2023 Chinese hack, cybersecurity experts and elected officials told ProPublica.

“It’s possible the most recent hack could have been prevented by real oversight,” Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democratic member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said in a statement. Wyden has called for the board to review SolarWinds and for the government to improve its cybersecurity defenses.

In a statement, a spokesperson for DHS rejected the idea that a SolarWinds review could have exposed Microsoft’s failings in time to stop or mitigate the Chinese state-based attack last summer. “The two incidents were quite different in that regard, and we do not believe a review of SolarWinds would have necessarily uncovered the gaps identified in the Board’s latest report,” they said.

The board’s other members declined to comment, referred inquiries to DHS or did not respond to ProPublica.

In past statements, Microsoft did not dispute the whistleblower’s account but emphasized its commitment to security. “Protecting customers is always our highest priority,” a spokesperson previously told ProPublica. “Our security response team takes all security issues seriously and gives every case due diligence with a thorough manual assessment, as well as cross-confirming with engineering and security partners.”

The board’s failure to probe SolarWinds also underscores a question critics including Wyden have raised about the board since its inception: whether a board with federal officials making up its majority can hold government agencies responsible for their role in failing to prevent cyberattacks.

“I remain deeply concerned that a key reason why the Board never looked at SolarWinds—as the President directed it to do so—was because it would have required the board to examine and document serious negligence by the US government,” Wyden said. Among his concerns is a government cyberdefense system that failed to detect the SolarWinds attack.

Silvers said while the board did not investigate SolarWinds, it has been given a pass by the independent Government Accountability Office, which said in an April study examining the implementation of the executive order that the board had fulfilled its mandate to conduct the review.

The GAO’s determination puzzled cybersecurity experts. “Rob Silvers has been declaring by fiat for a long time that the CSRB did its job regarding SolarWinds, but simply declaring something to be so doesn’t make it true,” said Tarah Wheeler, the CEO of Red Queen Dynamics, a cybersecurity firm, who co-authored a Harvard Kennedy School report outlining how a “cyber NTSB” should operate.

Silvers said the board’s first and second reports, while not probing SolarWinds, resulted in important government changes, such as new Federal Communications Commission rules related to cell phones.

“The tangible impacts of the board’s work to date speak for itself and in bearing out the wisdom of the choices of what the board has reviewed,” he said.

The president ordered a board to probe a massive Russian cyberattack. It never did. Read More »

notepad’s-spellcheck-and-autocorrect-are-rolling-out-to-everybody-after-41-years

Notepad’s spellcheck and autocorrect are rolling out to everybody after 41 years

microsoft, notepad, Tech, Windows 11, windows 11 23h2, windows 11 24h2 / /

notrpad spelchexk —

It’s still bare-bones by most standards, but Notepad has evolved a lot recently.

–

  • Testing spellcheck in the latest version of Windows Notepad.

  • Right-clicking and expanding the Spelling menu also presents more options.

    Andrew Cunningham

  • Like other recent Notepad additions, spellcheck and autocorrect can be tweaked or disabled entirely in the settings.

    Andrew Cunningham

In March, Microsoft started testing an update to the venerable Notepad app that added spellcheck and autocorrect to the app’s limited but slowly growing set of capabilities. The update that adds these features to Notepad is now rolling out to all Windows 11 users via the Microsoft Store, as reported by The Verge.

The spellcheck feature underlines words in red when they’re misspelled, and users can either left-click the words to see a list of suggestions or right-click words and see suggestions under a separate “spelling” menu item. Autocorrect works automatically to fix minor and obvious misspellings (typing “misspellign” instead of “misspelling,” for example), and changes can be reverted manually or by using the Undo command.

Either feature can be disabled from within Notepad’s settings. The spellchecker can also be switched on and off for a few different individual file extensions in case you want to see spelling suggestions for .txt files but not for .md or .lic files. The Verge also reports that spellchecking is turned off by default for log files or “other file types associated with coding.” Neither feature worked when I opened a batch file in Notepad to edit it, for example.

Microsoft often rolls out new app updates gradually, so you may or may not be seeing the new features yet. I can currently see the spellcheck and autocorrect features in Notepad version 11.2405.13.0 running on a fully updated Windows 11 23H2 PC, but your mileage may vary.

Notepad has received several updates over the course of the Windows 11 era, starting with dark mode support and other theme options. Eventually, it also added a tabbed interface that supported automatically reopening files when relaunching the app. These kinds of additions count as “major” for Notepad, which for years had only received relatively minor under-the-hood updates (when it was being updated at all).

The Notepad improvements come as Microsoft prepares to stop shipping WordPad with Windows 11. WordPad was previously Windows’ preinstalled basic word processor, but it has seen few (if any) significant updates since Windows 7 was released in 2009. WordPad is still available in Windows 11 22H2 and 23H2, but is no longer included in current versions of the upcoming Windows 11 24H2 update. After WordPad is gone, users looking for basic word processing will need to look to the more-capable Notepad, the free-to-use online version of Microsoft Word, or a free alternative like LibreOffice.

Notepad’s spellcheck and autocorrect are rolling out to everybody after 41 years Read More »

brussels-explores-antitrust-probe-into-microsoft’s-partnership-with-openai

Brussels explores antitrust probe into Microsoft’s partnership with OpenAI

AI, antitrust, brussels, European Union, microsoft, microsoft openai, openai, Policy, syndication / /

still asking questions —

EU executive arm drops merger review into US tech companies’ alliance.

–

EU competition chief Margrethe Vestager said the bloc was looking into practices that could in effect lead to a company controlling a greater share of the AI market.

Enlarge / EU competition chief Margrethe Vestager said the bloc was looking into practices that could in effect lead to a company controlling a greater share of the AI market.

Brussels is preparing for an antitrust investigation into Microsoft’s $13 billion investment into OpenAI, after the European Union decided not to proceed with a merger review into the most powerful alliance in the artificial intelligence industry.

The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, began to explore a review under merger control rules in January, but on Friday announced that it would not proceed due to a lack of evidence that Microsoft controls OpenAI.

However, the commission said it was now exploring the possibility of a traditional antitrust investigation into whether the tie-up between the world’s most valuable listed company and the best-funded AI start-up was harming competition in the fast-growing market.

The commission has also made inquiries about Google’s deal with Samsung to install a modified version of its Gemini AI system in the South Korean manufacturer’s smartphones, it revealed on Friday.

Margrethe Vestager, the bloc’s competition chief, said in a speech on Friday: “The key question was whether Microsoft had acquired control on a lasting basis over OpenAI. After a thorough review we concluded that such was not the case. So we are closing this chapter, but the story is not over.”

She said the EU had sent a new set of questions to understand whether “certain exclusivity clauses” in the agreement between Microsoft and OpenAI “could have a negative effect on competitors.” The move is seen as a key step toward a formal antitrust probe.

The bloc had already sent questions to Microsoft and other tech companies in March to determine whether market concentration in AI could potentially block new companies from entering the market, Vestager said.

Microsoft said: “We appreciate the European Commission’s thorough review and its conclusion that Microsoft’s investment and partnership with OpenAI does not give Microsoft control over the company.”

Brussels began examining Microsoft’s relationship with the ChatGPT maker after OpenAI’s board abruptly dismissed its chief executive Sam Altman in November 2023, only to be rehired a few days later. He briefly joined Microsoft as the head of a new AI research unit, highlighting the close relationship between the two companies.

Regulators in the US and UK are also scrutinizing the alliance. Microsoft is the biggest backer of OpenAI, although its investment of up to $13 billion, which was expanded in January 2023, does not involve acquiring conventional equity due to the startup’s unusual corporate structure. Microsoft has a minority interest in OpenAI’s commercial subsidiary, which is owned by a not-for-profit organization.

Antitrust investigations tend to last years, compared with a much shorter period for merger reviews, and they focus on conduct that could be undermining rivals. Companies that are eventually found to be breaking the law, for example by bundling products or blocking competitors from access to key technology, risk hefty fines and legal obligations to change their behavior.

Vestager said the EU was looking into practices that could in effect lead to a company controlling a greater share of the AI market. She pointed to a practice called “acqui-hires,” where a company buys another one mainly to get its talent. For example, Microsoft recently struck a deal to hire most of the top team from AI start-up Inflection, in which it had previously invested. Inflection remains an independent company, however, complicating any traditional merger investigation.

The EU’s competition chief said regulators were also looking into the way big tech companies may be preventing smaller AI models from reaching users.

“This is why we are also sending requests for information to better understand the effects of Google’s arrangement with Samsung to pre-install its small model ‘Gemini nano’ on certain Samsung devices,” said Vestager.

Jonathan Kanter, the top US antitrust enforcer, told the Financial Times earlier this month that he was also examining “monopoly choke points and the competitive landscape” in AI. The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority said in December that it had “decided to investigate” the Microsoft-OpenAI deal when it invited comments from customers and rivals.

© 2024 The Financial Times Ltd. All rights reserved. Please do not copy and paste FT articles and redistribute by email or post to the web.

Brussels explores antitrust probe into Microsoft’s partnership with OpenAI Read More »

patent-document-showcases-the-cloud-only-streaming-xbox-console-that-never-was

Patent document showcases the cloud-only streaming Xbox console that never was

cloud gaming, gaming, keystone, microsoft, Tech, xbox, xbox cloud gaming, xbox series s / /

keystone revealed —

Microsoft couldn’t get the price of its streaming Xbox low enough to release it.

–

  • The streaming-only Xbox would have looked like a smaller, squarer relative of the Series S.

    Microsoft

  • The console had cutouts on the bottom and back, presumably for air cooling.

    Microsoft

  • Front-mounted Xbox button and USB port, much like the Series S.

    Microsoft

  • Rear-mounted Ethernet, HDMI, and power. The console would likely have worked over Wi-Fi, too, but wired Ethernet does help with latency and consistency when streaming games.

    Microsoft

  • Controller sync button on the side.

    Microsoft

  • There was a logo and a Series S-ish circle on the top of the Keystone Xbox, but there are no cutouts depicted, so this may have been a stylistic choice rather than a place for the console to vent hot air.

    Microsoft

Microsoft’s mid-generation plans for the Xbox Series S and X consoles looked a whole lot different a couple of years ago than it does now. A leaked slide deck from the FTC v. Microsoft case last year outlined detailed plans for a spruced up Series S, an overhauled Series X, and even a redesigned controller. Another part of that roadmap included a streaming-only version of the Xbox, codenamed Keystone, that was designed to connect to Microsoft’s Xbox Cloud Gaming servers rather than rendering games locally.

Microsoft has talked openly about this version of the Xbox before. Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer told The Verge that the Keystone console was designed and fully functional, but that it wasn’t launched because Microsoft had a hard time getting the price down low enough that it made sense next to the $299 Series S (which already occasionally goes on sale in the $200 to $250 range).

We’ve already seen glimpses of Keystone—once on Spencer’s shelf, and again in the FTC v. Microsoft documents. Both of those depictions were partial, or seen from a distance. But a new design patent document (PDF) unearthed by Windows Central shows even more detailed renderings of what the cloud Xbox would have looked like.

Series S meets Apple TV

Keystone’s styling was strongly reminiscent of the disc-drive-less Series S, with the same boxy white design and front-mounted Xbox button and USB port. There’s also a similar circular cutout on top, though it may not be an air vent as it is in the Series S—all of the holes depicted in the patent are on the back and bottom, and a streaming box certainly wouldn’t have needed the same cooling capacity as the AMD-designed CPU and GPU in the Series S.

The console also would have been square-shaped and considerably smaller than a Series S—not quite as small as a dedicated video-streaming box like an Apple TV or Roku Ultra, but not too far off either (the patent document doesn’t list dimensions, but we’ve done a rough size comparison using the HDMI and Ethernet ports on the Keystone box and an Apple TV 4K). The console’s controller sync button would have been mounted on its side, rather than in front, as it is on the Series S.

The cloud Xbox compared to a current-generation Apple TV 4K, with sizes roughly normalized based on the sizes of the HDMI and Ethernet ports. The Xbox console would have been a bit larger, but not dramatically so.

Enlarge / The cloud Xbox compared to a current-generation Apple TV 4K, with sizes roughly normalized based on the sizes of the HDMI and Ethernet ports. The Xbox console would have been a bit larger, but not dramatically so.

Apple/Microsoft/Andrew Cunningham

In the alternate reality of the FTC v. Microsoft slide deck, all of these new consoles and the new controller would have been announced or launched by now. But as Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer said shortly after those documents leaked, the company’s plans have changed substantially in the interim. A disc-less version of the Series X is coming, but it looks exactly like the current version of the console without a disc drive; Microsoft is also pursuing a strategy where it takes more of its internally developed games multi-platform, rather than restricting them to the Xbox and to Windows PCs. These moves are at least partially in response to sliding revenue from Microsoft’s console business, which has seen its revenue decline by double digits year over year for the last couple of years.

Neither Spencer nor Microsoft has ever said never about the Keystone console, leaving the door open to an eventual release if and when the price of manufacturing the console comes down. In the meantime, the streaming-only Xbox lives on as an app for newer Samsung smart TVs.

Listing image by Microsoft

Patent document showcases the cloud-only streaming Xbox console that never was Read More »

microsoft-risks-huge-fine-over-“possibly-abusive”-bundling-of-teams-and-office

Microsoft risks huge fine over “possibly abusive” bundling of Teams and Office

alfaview, anticompetitive behavior, Antitrust law, Digital Markets Act, European Commission, European Union, Google, microsoft, monopoly, Policy, SaaS, slack, software as a service / /
A screen shows a virtual meeting with Microsoft Teams at a conference on January 30, 2024 in Barcelona, Spain.

Enlarge / A screen shows a virtual meeting with Microsoft Teams at a conference on January 30, 2024 in Barcelona, Spain.

Microsoft may be hit with a massive fine in the European Union for “possibly abusively” bundling Teams with its Office 365 and Microsoft 365 software suites for businesses.

On Tuesday, the European Commission (EC) announced preliminary findings of an investigation into whether Microsoft’s “suite-centric business model combining multiple types of software in a single offering” unfairly shut out rivals in the “software as a service” (SaaS) market.

“Since at least April 2019,” the EC found, Microsoft’s practice of “tying Teams with its core SaaS productivity applications” potentially restricted competition in the “market for communication and collaboration products.”

The EC is also “concerned” that the practice may have helped Microsoft defend its dominant market position by shutting out “competing suppliers of individual software” like Slack and German video-conferencing software Alfaview. Makers of those rival products had complained to the EC last year, setting off the ongoing probe into Microsoft’s bundling.

Customers should have choices, the EC said, and seemingly at every step, Microsoft sought instead to lock customers into using only its software.

“Microsoft may have granted Teams a distribution advantage by not giving customers the choice whether or not to acquire access to Teams when they subscribe to their SaaS productivity applications,” the EC wrote. This alleged abusive practice “may have been further exacerbated by interoperability limitations between Teams’ competitors and Microsoft’s offerings.”

For Microsoft, the EC’s findings are likely not entirely unexpected, although Tuesday’s announcement must be disappointing. The company had been hoping to avoid further scrutiny by introducing some major changes last year. Most drastically, Microsoft began “offering some suites without Teams,” the EC said, but even that wasn’t enough to appease EU regulators.

“The Commission preliminarily finds that these changes are insufficient to address its concerns and that more changes to Microsoft’s conduct are necessary to restore competition,” the EC said, concluding that “the conduct may have prevented Teams’ rivals from competing, and in turn innovating, to the detriment of customers in the European Economic Area.”

Microsoft will now be given an opportunity to defend its practices. If the company is unsuccessful, it risks a potential fine up to 10 percent of its annual worldwide turnover and an order possibly impacting how the leading global company conducts business.

In a statement to Ars, Microsoft President Brad Smith confirmed that the tech giant would work with the commission to figure out a better solution.

“Having unbundled Teams and taken initial interoperability steps, we appreciate the additional clarity provided today and will work to find solutions to address the commission’s remaining concerns,” Smith said.

The EC’s executive vice-president in charge of competition policy, Margrethe Vestager, explained in a statement why the commission refuses to back down from closely scrutinizing Microsoft’s alleged unfair practices.

“We are concerned that Microsoft may be giving its own communication product Teams an undue advantage over competitors by tying it to its popular productivity suites for businesses,” Vestager said. “And preserving competition for remote communication and collaboration tools is essential as it also fosters innovation” in these markets.

Changes coming to EU antitrust law in 2025

The EC initially launched its investigation into Microsoft’s allegedly abusive Teams bundling last July. Its probe came after Slack and Alfaview makers complained that Microsoft may be violating Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), “which prohibits the abuse of a dominant market position.”

Nearly one year later, there’s no telling when the EC’s inquiry into Microsoft Teams will end. Microsoft will have a chance to review all evidence of infringement gathered by EU regulators to form its response. After that, the EC will review any additional evidence before making its decision, and there is no legal deadline to complete the antitrust inquiry, the EC said.

It’s possible that the EC’s decision may come next year when the EU is preparing to release new guidance to more “vigorously” and effectively enforce TFEU.

Last March, the EC called for stakeholder feedback after rolling out “the first major policy initiative in the area of abuse of dominance rules.” The initiative sought to update TFEU for the first time since 2008 based on reviewing relevant case law.

“A robust enforcement of rules on abuse of dominance benefits both consumers and a stronger European economy,” Vestager said at that time. “We have carefully analyzed numerous EU court judgments on the application of Article 102, and it is time for us to start working on guidelines reflecting this case law.”

Microsoft risks huge fine over “possibly abusive” bundling of Teams and Office Read More »

microsoft-removes-documentation-for-switching-to-a-local-account-in-windows-11

Microsoft removes documentation for switching to a local account in Windows 11

microsoft, Tech, Windows 10, Windows 11, windows 11 23h2, windows 11 24h2 / /

you’re *sureyou don’t want to use a Microsoft account?? —

But most Microsoft account sign-in workarounds for Windows 11 continue to work.

–

A laptop PC running Windows 11 sitting next to a coffee mug.

Enlarge / A PC running Windows 11.

Microsoft

One of Windows 11’s more contentious changes is that, by default, both the Home and Pro editions of the operating system require users to sign in with a Microsoft account during setup. Signing in with an account does get you some benefits, at least if you’re a regular user of other Microsoft products like OneDrive, GamePass, or Microsoft 365 (aka Office). But if you don’t use those services, a lot of what a Microsoft account gets you in Windows 11 is repeated ads and reminders about signing up for those services. Using Windows with a traditional local account is still extremely possible, but it does require a small amount of know-how beyond just clicking the right buttons.

On the know-how front, Microsoft has taken one more minor, but nevertheless irritating, step away from allowing users to sign in with local accounts. This official Microsoft support page walks users with local accounts through the process of signing in to a Microsoft account. As recently as June 12, that page also included instructions for converting a Microsoft account into a local account. But according to Tom’s Hardware and the Internet Wayback Machine, those instructions disappeared on or around June 17 and haven’t been seen since.

Despite the documentation change, most of the workarounds for creating a local account still work in both Windows 11 23H2 (the publicly available version of Windows 11 for most PCs) and 24H2 (available now on Copilot+ PCs, later this fall for everyone else). The easiest way to do it on a PC you just took out of the box is to press Shift+F10 during the setup process to bring up a command prompt window, typing OOBEBYPASSNRO, rebooting, and then clicking the “I don’t have Internet” button when asked to connect to a Wi-Fi network.

Other workarounds include using the Rufus tool to create a USB installer that will automatically bypass the Microsoft account sign-in requirement, or (for Windows 11 Pro users) indicating that you want to join the PC to a corporate domain and then not actually joining it to a domain. Setting the PC up with a Microsoft account and then signing out afterward is also still an option.

There is one workaround that has allegedly stopped working—it used to be that trying to “sign in” with a nonexistent email account would get you a local sign-in option. But as of earlier this month, according to Windows Central editor Zac Bowden, it looks like the Windows 11 setup screen will just ask you to try another email address instead.

To be fair to Microsoft, all the big tech companies want you to sign in with an account before you can use all the features of the software, but neither Apple nor Google goes as far as to mandate account sign-in to access basic functionality. Macs, iPhones, and iPads will all let you complete the setup process without signing in, though you do have to know which buttons to click. Google will allow you to use Chromebooks in guest mode, and Android phones and tablets are still usable without signing in (though this does make it more difficult to find and install apps). Microsoft’s pushiness remains unique; there’s definitely a difference between a company that would really prefer that you sign in, and one that forces you to.

Microsoft removes documentation for switching to a local account in Windows 11 Read More »

music-industry-giants-allege-mass-copyright-violation-by-ai-firms

Music industry giants allege mass copyright violation by AI firms

AI, AI lawsuit, audio synthesis, Biz & IT, generative ai, Google, machine learning, Michael Jackson, microsoft, music synthesis, openai, Policy, Reuters, sony music, Suno, Udio, Univeral Music Group, voice synthesis, Warner Records / /

No one wants to be defeated —

Suno and Udio could face damages of up to $150,000 per song allegedly infringed.

–

Michael Jackson in concert, 1986. Sony Music owns a large portion of publishing rights to Jackson's music.

Enlarge / Michael Jackson in concert, 1986. Sony Music owns a large portion of publishing rights to Jackson’s music.

Universal Music Group, Sony Music, and Warner Records have sued AI music-synthesis companies Udio and Suno for allegedly committing mass copyright infringement by using recordings owned by the labels to train music-generating AI models, reports Reuters. Udio and Suno can generate novel song recordings based on text-based descriptions of music (i.e., “a dubstep song about Linus Torvalds”).

The lawsuits, filed in federal courts in New York and Massachusetts, claim that the AI companies’ use of copyrighted material to train their systems could lead to AI-generated music that directly competes with and potentially devalues the work of human artists.

Like other generative AI models, both Udio and Suno (which we covered separately in April) rely on a broad selection of existing human-created artworks that teach a neural network the relationship between words in a written prompt and styles of music. The record labels correctly note that these companies have been deliberately vague about the sources of their training data.

Until generative AI models hit the mainstream in 2022, it was common practice in machine learning to scrape and use copyrighted information without seeking permission to do so. But now that the applications of those technologies have become commercial products themselves, rightsholders have come knocking to collect. In the case of Udio and Suno, the record labels are seeking statutory damages of up to $150,000 per song used in training.

In the lawsuit, the record labels cite specific examples of AI-generated content that allegedly re-creates elements of well-known songs, including The Temptations’ “My Girl,” Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” and James Brown’s “I Got You (I Feel Good).” It also claims the music-synthesis models can produce vocals resembling those of famous artists, such as Michael Jackson and Bruce Springsteen.

Reuters claims it’s the first instance of lawsuits specifically targeting music-generating AI, but music companies and artists alike have been gearing up to deal with challenges the technology may pose for some time.

In May, Sony Music sent warning letters to over 700 AI companies (including OpenAI, Microsoft, Google, Suno, and Udio) and music-streaming services that prohibited any AI researchers from using its music to train AI models. In April, over 200 musical artists signed an open letter that called on AI companies to stop using AI to “devalue the rights of human artists.” And last November, Universal Music filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Anthropic for allegedly including artists’ lyrics in its Claude LLM training data.

Similar to The New York Times’ lawsuit against OpenAI over the use of training data, the outcome of the record labels’ new suit could have deep implications for the future development of generative AI in creative fields, including requiring companies to license all musical training data used in creating music-synthesis models.

Compulsory licenses for AI training data could make AI model development economically impractical for small startups like Udio and Suno—and judging by the aforementioned open letter, many musical artists may applaud that potential outcome. But such a development would not preclude major labels from eventually developing their own AI music generators themselves, allowing only large corporations with deep pockets to control generative music tools for the foreseeable future.

Music industry giants allege mass copyright violation by AI firms Read More »

ifixit-says-new-arm-surface-hardware-“puts-repair-front-and-center”

iFixit says new Arm Surface hardware “puts repair front and center”

copilot+ PC, microsoft, Microsoft Surface, qualcomm, snapdragon x elite, Tech, Windows 11, windows 11 24h2, windows on arm / /

how things have changed —

Both devices make it relatively easy to get at the battery and SSD.

–

Microsoft's 11th-edition Surface Pro, as exploded by iFixit. Despite adhesive holding in the screen and the fact that you need to remove the heatsink to get at the battery, it's still much more repairable than past Surfaces or competing tablets.

Enlarge / Microsoft’s 11th-edition Surface Pro, as exploded by iFixit. Despite adhesive holding in the screen and the fact that you need to remove the heatsink to get at the battery, it’s still much more repairable than past Surfaces or competing tablets.

For a long time, Microsoft’s Surface hardware was difficult-to-impossible to open and repair, and devices as recent as 2019’s Surface Pro 7 still managed a repairability score of just 1 out of 10 on iFixit’s scale. 2017’s original Surface Laptop needed to be physically sliced apart to access its internals, making it essentially impossible to try to fix the machine without destroying it.

But in recent years, partly due to pressure from shareholders and others, Microsoft has made an earnest effort to improve the repairability of its devices. The company has published detailed repair manuals and videos and has made changes to its hardware designs over the years to make it easier to open them without breaking them and easier to replace parts once you’re inside. Microsoft also sells some first-party parts for repairs, though not every part from every Surface is available, and Microsoft and iFixit have partnered to offer other parts as well.

Now, iFixit has torn apart the most recent Snapdragon X-powered Surface Pro and Surface Laptop devices and has mostly high praise for both devices in its preliminary teardown video. Both devices earn an 8 out of 10 on iFixit’s repairability scale, thanks to Microsoft’s first-party service manuals, the relative ease with which both devices can be opened, and clearly labeled internal components.

Beneath the Surface

To open the Surface Laptop, iFixit says you only need to undo four screws, hidden beneath the laptop’s rubber feet; at that point, the bottom of the machine is only attached by magnets, rather than breakable retention clips. Opening the bottom of the laptop provides easy access to the battery and an M.2 2232 SSD. Labels inside the device indicate which screws need to be removed to replace which parts, and what kind of screwdriver you’ll need to do the job; scannable barcodes also make it easier to find repair manuals and parts on Microsoft’s site. Most other parts are easy to remove and replace once the bottom of the laptop is off.

The Surface Pro’s best repairability feature remains its easily accessible M.2 2232 SSD, present under a pop-off cover on the back of the tablet. From there, things get more difficult—accessing the battery and other components requires removing the screen, which is still held in place with adhesive rather than screws or magnets. This adhesive needs to be removed—iFixit cut it away with a thin plastic tool, and closing the tablet back up securely would likely require new adhesive to be applied. Once inside, the parts and screws are still labeled clearly, but you do need to remove the entire heatsink before you can replace the battery.

iFixit uses slightly different criteria for evaluating the repairability of laptops and tablets since tablets are more tightly integrated devices. So despite the identical repairability scores, the Surface Pro remains slightly more difficult to open and fix than the laptop; iFixit is just comparing it to devices like the iPad Air and Pro rather than other PC laptops, and the Surface Pro still looks better than other tablets by comparison despite the use of adhesive.

The teardown video didn’t detail exactly why iFixit knocked points off of each device’s repairability score, though iFixit took note of the soldered-down non-upgradeable RAM and Wi-Fi/Bluetooth modules. Both devices also use way more screws and clips than something like the Framework Laptop, which could also be a factor.

We’ve been using the new Snapdragon-powered Surface devices for a few days now, and we’ll have more thoughts to share about the hardware and its performance in the coming days.

iFixit says new Arm Surface hardware “puts repair front and center” Read More »

microsoft-delays-recall-again,-won’t-debut-it-with-new-copilot+-pcs-after-all

Microsoft delays Recall again, won’t debut it with new Copilot+ PCs after all

AI, copilot, copilot+ PC, microsoft, microsoft recall, recall, Tech, Windows 11, windows 11 24h2, windows recall / /

another setback —

Recall will go through Windows Insider pipeline like any other Windows feature.

–

Recall is part of Microsoft's Copilot+ PC program.

Enlarge / Recall is part of Microsoft’s Copilot+ PC program.

Microsoft

Microsoft will be delaying its controversial Recall feature again, according to an updated blog post by Windows and Devices VP Pavan Davuluri. And when the feature does return “in the coming weeks,” Davuluri writes, it will be as a preview available to PCs in the Windows Insider Program, the same public testing and validation pipeline that all other Windows features usually go through before being released to the general populace.

Recall is a new Windows 11 AI feature that will be available on PCs that meet the company’s requirements for its “Copilot+ PC” program. Copilot+ PCs need at least 16GB of RAM, 256GB of storage, and a neural processing unit (NPU) capable of at least 40 trillion operations per second (TOPS). The first (and for a few months, only) PCs that will meet this requirement are all using Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Plus and X Elite Arm chips, with compatible Intel and AMD processors following later this year. Copilot+ PCs ship with other generative AI features, too, but Recall’s widely publicized security problems have sucked most of the oxygen out of the room so far.

The Windows Insider preview of Recall will still require a PC that meets the Copilot+ requirements, though third-party scripts may be able to turn on Recall for PCs without the necessary hardware. We’ll know more when Recall makes its reappearance.

Why Recall was recalled

Recall works by periodically capturing screenshots of your PC and saving them to disk, and scanning those screenshots with OCR to make a big searchable text database that can help you find anything you had previously viewed on your PC.

The main problem, as we confirmed with our own testing, was that all of this was saved to disk with no additional encryption or other protection and was easily viewable and copyable by pretty much any user (or attacker) with access to the PC. Recall was also going to be enabled by default on Copilot+ PCs despite being a “preview,” meaning that users who didn’t touch the default settings were going to have all of this data recorded by default.

This was the version of Recall that was initially meant to ship out to reviewers this week on the first wave of Copilot+ PCs from Microsoft and other PC companies. After security researcher Kevin Beaumont publicized these security holes in that version of Recall, the company promised to add additional encryption and authentication protections and to disable Recall by default. These tweaks would have gone out as an update to the first shipments of Copilot+ PCs on June 18 (reviewers also wouldn’t get systems before June 18, a sign of how much Microsoft was rushing behind the scenes to implement these changes). Now Recall is being pushed back again.

A report from Windows Central claims that Recall was developed “in secret” and that it wasn’t even distributed widely within Microsoft before it was announced, which could explain why these security issues weren’t flagged and fixed before the feature showed up in a publicly available version of Windows.

Microsoft’s Recall delay follows Microsoft President Brad Smith’s testimony to Congress during a House Committee on Homeland Security hearing about the company’s “cascade of security failures” in recent months. Among other things, Smith said that Microsoft would commit to prioritizing security issues over new AI-powered features as part of the company’s recently announced Secure Future Initiative (SFI). Microsoft has also hired additional security personnel and tied executive pay to meeting security goals.

“If you’re faced with the tradeoff between security and another priority, your answer is clear: Do security,” wrote Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella in an internal memo about the SFI announcement. “In some cases, this will mean prioritizing security above other things we do, such as releasing new features or providing ongoing support for legacy systems.”

Recall has managed to tie together all the big Windows and Microsoft stories from the last year or two: the company’s all-consuming push to quickly release generative AI features, its security failures and subsequent promises to do better, and the general degradation of the Windows 11 user interface with unwanted apps, ads, reminders, account sign-in requirements, and other cruft.

Microsoft delays Recall again, won’t debut it with new Copilot+ PCs after all Read More »

microsoft-is-reworking-recall-after-researchers-point-out-its-security-problems

Microsoft is reworking Recall after researchers point out its security problems

microsoft, Tech, Windows 11 / /

recalling recall? —

Windows Hello authentication, additional encryption being added to protect data.

–

Microsoft's Recall feature is switching to be opt-in by default, and is adding new encryption protections in an effort to safeguard user data.

Enlarge / Microsoft’s Recall feature is switching to be opt-in by default, and is adding new encryption protections in an effort to safeguard user data.

Microsoft

Microsoft’s upcoming Recall feature in Windows 11 has generated a wave of controversy this week following early testing that revealed huge security holes. The initial version of Recall saves screenshots and a large plaintext database tracking everything that users do on their PCs, and in the current version of the feature, it’s trivially easy to steal and view that database and all of those screenshots for any user on a given PC, even if you don’t have administrator access. Recall also does little to nothing to redact sensitive information from its screenshots or that database.

Microsoft has announced that it’s making some substantial changes to Recall ahead of its release on the first wave of Copilot+ PCs later this month.

“Even before making Recall available to customers, we have heard a clear signal that we can make it easier for people to choose to enable Recall on their Copilot+ PC and improve privacy and security safeguards,” wrote Microsoft Windows and Devices Corporate Vice President Pavan Davuluri in a blog post. “With that in mind we are announcing updates that will go into effect before Recall (preview) ships to customers on June 18.”

First and most significantly, the company says that Recall will be opt-in by default, so users will need to decide to turn it on. It may seem like a small change, but many users never touch the defaults on their PCs, and for Recall to be grabbing all of that data by default definitely puts more users at risk of having their data stolen unawares.

The company also says it’s adding additional protections to Recall to make the data harder to access. You’ll need to enable Windows Hello to use Recall, and you’ll need to authenticate via Windows Hello (whether it’s a face-scanning camera, fingerprint sensor, or PIN) each time you want to open the Recall app to view your data.

Both the screenshots and the SQLite database used for Recall searches are being encrypted and will require Windows Hello authentication to be decrypted. Microsoft described Recall data as “encrypted” before, but there was no specific encryption used for any of the screenshots or the database beyond the Bitlocker full-disk encryption that is turned on by default for most PCs when they sign into a Microsoft account.

That last change should address the biggest problem with Recall: that any user signed in to a PC (or any malware that was able to gain access to the filesystem) could easily view and copy another user’s Recall screenshots and database on the same PC. The text database’s size is measured in kilobytes rather than megabytes or gigabytes, so it wouldn’t take much time to swipe if someone managed to access your system.

Microsoft also reiterated some of its assurances about the privacy and security of Recall writ large, saying that all data is processed locally, that it’s never sent to Microsoft, that you’ll know when Recall has been enabled thanks to taskbar and system tray icons, and that you can disable the feature or exclude specific apps or sites from being snapshotted at your discretion.

All of the new additions to Recall are still being actively developed—current testing builds of Windows 11 still use the unsecured version of Recall, and our review units of the new Surface hardware are being delayed by a week or so, presumably so Microsoft can update them.

Microsoft reiterated that Recall is being released as a preview, a label the company also applies to the Copilot chatbot to deflect criticism of some of its early and ongoing missteps. We’ll need to use the updated version of Recall to see whether the new protections work like they’re supposed to, but it’s at least mildly encouraging to see Microsoft take a beat to rework Recall’s security and default settings before releasing it to the public, even though these are protections should have been present in the first place.

Recall is normally only available on Copilot+ PCs, a new branding banner from Microsoft that applies to PCs with sufficiently fast neural processing units (NPUs), at least 16GB of RAM, and at least 256GB of storage. Existing Windows 11 PCs won’t get Recall, though it can currently be enabled forcibly by the third-party AmperageKit script on Arm PCs that are running version 26100.712 of Windows 11 24H2. It’s possible that tools will exist to enable it on other unsupported PCs later on.

The first wave of Copilot+ PCs will use Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite and X Plus processors exclusively. Intel and AMD systems that meet the Copilot+ requirements won’t be available until later this year, and Microsoft hasn’t said when the Copilot+ features will actually be available for these non-Arm PCs.

Microsoft is reworking Recall after researchers point out its security problems Read More »