Author: Computerworld

The business environment is better than ever, but that isn’t stopping many tech companies from laying off employees. At the same time, numerous other organizations — often poorly run ones — insist remote workers return to the office (RTO) in the name of better productivity. The reality is that incompetent leaders are scapegoating employees working from home for bad company performance.And then, there are the companies doing both.Dell is the latest example of a business that appears to be trying to force workers back into the office with the ulterior motive of getting them to quit. It did this by…

Microsoft will add a range of artificial intelligence (AI) features to Windows 11, with new ways to edit content and control PC settings.Later this month, Windows 11 users will be able adjust settings within the operating system with text commands via the Copilot AI assistant. Here, users can type “enable battery saver” or “show Wi-Fi network” and the Windows Copilot will perform the action. Other skills include “display IP address,” “launch voice input,” and “show system information.”There are also new ways to edit content in two Windows apps: Photos and Clipchamp. For video-editing tool Clipchamp, gaps in conversation can be…

I really need to upgrade my brain’s internal storage.I’m only partially kidding: Just like a hard drive, I’m pretty sure my mind reached maximum capacity at some point in the past decade. The only way I can remember anything these days is by making and maintaining a million notes, both physical and digital. (My wife can confirm this: “I told you that a week ago” is an all-too-common phrase ’round these parts.)I’m still waiting for Western Digital to start selling SSD implants for the noggin, but in the meantime, Google Keep has become my repository for notes of the non-sticky…

One of the oldest IT jokes is the CIO who says, “IT operations would go so much more smoothly if I wasn’t for these end-users mucking everything up.” It’s true: humans have a tendency to not do what they are should or — more likely — what someone in IT wants them to do.This is a lesson now being learned by the major food delivery services, which have run into some of the same authentication and security issues other industries face daily.What started out as a perfectly reasonable authentication effort intended to make customers feel safer — because they could…

Eight European consumer organizations have filed complaints against Facebook parent Meta accusing it of breaching the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) with its so-called “pay-or-consent” policy and opaque internal policies.The organizations are all members of BEUC, the European Consumer Organization.  Their complaints, publicized Thursday, argue that the large-scale consumer data collection practiced by Meta violates the GDPR, and that the company has abused its dominant market position to essentially coerce customers into accepting its terms. Each of the eight groups filed their complaints with their national data protection authorities, as there is no pan-European office to accept such complaints.Facebook…

Even after Google fixes its large language model (LLM) and gets Gemini back online, the generative AI (genAI) tool may not always be reliable — especially when generating images or text about current events, evolving news, or hot-button topics.“It will make mistakes,” the company wrote in a mea culpa posted last week. “As we’ve said from the beginning, hallucinations are a known challenge with all LLMs — there are instances where the AI just gets things wrong. This is something that we’re constantly working on improving.”Prabhakar Raghavan, Google’s senior vice president of knowledge and information, explained why, after only three weeks, the…

With Vision Pro out the door and the recent cancellation of work on a car, it’s becoming crystal clear that Apple is shifting huge resources into its forthcoming introduction of something like generative AI (genAI).This is a big deal — so big that Apple CEO Tim Cook once again discussed it during the company’s most recent annual shareholder’s meeting.“Later this year, I look forward to sharing with you the ways we will break new ground in generative AI, another technology we believe can redefine the future,” he said. Apple will redefine the future?We know Cook seldom discusses unannounced products without good reason.…

By 2030, companies will spend $42 billion a year on generative artificial intelligence (genAI) projects such as chatbots, research, writing, and summarization tools. And while the technology has been heralded as a boon to productivity, nailing down a return on investment (ROI) in genAI could prove to be elusive.“Capturing and measuring the exact productivity improvements has been a challenge for many of our clients,” said Rita Sallam, a distinguished vice president analyst at Gartner. “For [genAI], we are not saying that finding ROI may be difficult, but expressing ROI has been difficult because many benefits like productivity…have indirect or non-financial impacts that…

Fresh claims that Apple has shelved its project to build a semi-autonomous vehicle have emerged, and this time they ring true. But the company will be enjoying the benefits of its efforts for years to come.What happened to the Apple car?Bloomberg claims Apple has halted development on the Apple Car project (Project Titan) because the company no longer thinks the project is viable. Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams allegedly told the 2,000-strong team that no more work will be done on the vehicle. Some members of the team will be shifted to work in Apple’s Artificial Intelligence division, as it…

Even as more and more office workers access AI-based tools in their jobs, employers have been slow to issue guidance on how to use the technology effectively and safely.That’s according to a survey of around 10,000 desk workers commissioned by collaboration software vendor Slack; the survey focused on attitudes towards the use of AI and automation in the workplace.The findings aren’t limited to generative AI (genAI), though OpenAI’s ChatGPT and DALL-E were included in examples of “AI tools” given to respondents, Slack said.The survey noted a 24% increase in AI use during the past quarter, compared to the previous quarter. That means…