Author: Computerworld

Ever have one of those moments where you see some new tech twist — an app, a feature, an idea of some sort — and you just stop in your tracks and think: “Whoa. Now, that’s clever”?I won’t lie: Those moments come up far less frequently than they once did. By and large lately, we just haven’t been seeing the same sort of awe-inspiring advancements in the mobile-tech arena that we did a decade ago. And most companies — Google very much included — are currently obsessed with chasing a very specific flavor of AI that’s overhyped, frequently impractical, and…

US companies announced 82,307 job cuts in January — more than double the number in December — and layoffs are expanding beyond tech companies and media. About half the companies that have announced layoffs in the first two months of 2024 are in finance and other industries.Some of the companies cutting jobs this year include Alphabet/Google, Amazon, Cisco, Citigroup, Citrix, DocuSign, eBay, Estée Lauder, Grammarly, Instacart, iRobot, Levi Strauss, Macy’s, Mattel, Microsoft, Morgan Stanley, Pixar, NASA, Nike, Okta, Paramount Global, PayPal, REI,  Rivian, Salesforce, Snapchat, Toast, Twitch, UPS, Unity Software, Wayfair, and Zoom. (In addition to Computerworld’s layoff tracker, you…

Unified endpoint management (UEM) is a strategic IT approach that consolidates how enterprises secure and manage an array of deployed devices including phones, tablets, PCs, and even IoT devices.As remote and hybrid work models have become the norm over the past two years, “mobility management” has come to mean management of not just mobile devices, but all devices used by mobile employees wherever they are. UEM tools incorporate existing enterprise mobility management (EMM) technologies, such as mobile device management (MDM) and mobile application management (MAM), with tools used to manage desktop PCs and laptops.Like the EMM suites they evolved from,…

Generative artificial intelligence (genAI) has become a focal point for many organizations over the past year, so it should come as no surprise that the technology is moving into the enterprise mobility space, including unified endpoint management (UEM).“Generative AI is the latest trend to impact the UEM space,” says Andrew Hewitt, principal analyst, Forrester. “This has been the main topic of interest in the last year. We see generative AI having impacts in multiple areas, such as script creation, knowledge-based article creation, NLP [natural language processing]-based querying of endpoint data, and help desk chatbots. All of these are considerations for…

Google Cloud has joined AWS and Europe-based Cloud Infrastructure Services Providers in Europe (CISPE) in protesting Microsoft’s anticompetitive cloud software licensing practices in the EU.“Microsoft’s cloud licensing restrictions restrict choice and create harmful downstream impacts for companies, ranging from higher costs to more security breaches to a chilling effect on smaller cloud and software providers including European AI startups,” Amit Zavery, vice president of platforms at Google Cloud, wrote on X.Microsoft should end the arbitrary “Listed Provider” designation and allow customers to run their previously purchased software on any platform without paying as much as 5x more to use non-Azure…

To get some sense of the future for Apple’s new Vision devices, early adopters might  want to explore ARway.ai, which seems to deliver some of the elements of the augmented reality (AR) vision we think Apple will eventually achieve.What it provides is mapped and location-based AR content to your surroundings as you ambulate through them wearing the Apple headset. There’s a video to provide a sense of these experiences here.Why is this early-adopter territory? At this time — and at the current Vision Pro price — few of us will want to walk through crowded shopping malls for fear of…

Dell has unveiled a range of new laptops and PCs featuring neural processing units (NPUs) designed to run AI workloads on-device for improved video call quality and better laptop battery life.  Dell is one of several hardware vendors looking to benefit from growing interest in so-called “AI PCs.” The moniker refers to the inclusion of NPUs that are more adept than CPUs or GPUs when it comes to processing generative AI (genAI) and other AI-based workloads.These NPUs are set to become the norm in the coming years, analysts say, with major players such as Intel, AMD, Nvidia, and Qualcomm all…

Microsoft has partnered with Mistral AI to make the latter available to its Azure customers, adding more options to enterprise customers.Mistral AI is set to enrich Azure’s AI offerings, introducing its premium models via Azure AI Studio’s Models as a Service (MaaS) and the Azure Machine Learning model catalog.This move complements the existing array of OpenAI models, broadening the catalog with a versatile mix of open source and proprietary AI solutions, thereby enhancing the options available to Azure customers.“This latest addition of Mistral AI’s premium models into Models as a Service (MaaS) within Azure AI Studio and Azure Machine Learning provides Microsoft…

Of all the potential nightmares about the dangerous effects of generative AI (genAI) tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Microsoft’s Copilot, one is near the top of the list: their use by hackers to craft hard-to-detect malicious code. Even worse is the fear that genAI could help rogue states like Russia, Iran, and North Korea unleash unstoppable cyberattacks against the US and its allies.The bad news: nation states have already begun using genAI to attack the US and its friends. The good news: so far, the attacks haven’t been particularly dangerous or especially effective. Even better news: Microsoft and OpenAI are…

Apple’s 2024 Proxy Statement for its annual shareholder’s meeting reveals several little-known initiatives it’s been following to improve artificial intelligence (AI) across its product range, and the company seems to go a little further than others to attend to the details.The company shared insights into how it thinks in response to a shareholder proposal supported by two corporate investors — Legal & General Investment Management (one of the top 25 Apple stockholders) and Abrdn.The investors want Apple to publish a transparency report on the company’s AI usage and ethical frameworks. Apple had tried to exclude the resolution, but the US…