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Microsoft's Copilot AI is coming to your Office apps - and it won't come cheap
Microsoft has begun expanding the reach of its Copilot feature set, bringing its AI capabilities to Office apps for anyone currently subscribed to Microsoft 365 Personal or Family. For customers in the US and Europe, those features are only available with an extremely pricey Copilot Pro subscription. For Personal and Family subscribers, the upgrade costs an extra 20 monthly, which is more than double the cost of the basic Microsoft 365 subscription. But that's all about to change. Also: Microsoft Copilot vs. Copilot Pro: Is the subscription fee worth it?
How the 'ChatGPT of healthcare' could accelerate rheumatoid arthritis treatment
Following the success of OpenAI's GPT series of large language models, an increasing number of institutions are proposing "foundation" models for artificial intelligence that, like GPT, are "pre-trained" to have very broad capabilities in a domain of knowledge. We saw this last week with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang proposing a "world foundation model" for autonomous vehicles and robots. On Tuesday, at the annual JP Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco, AI computer startup Cerebras Systems and medical research powerhouse Mayo Clinic presented findings of what they're calling a foundation model for genomics that can tease out the genetic root of inherited conditions. The goal is to "build the ChatGPT of healthcare," according to Cerebras and Mayo Clinic. The first breakthrough of the year-long collaboration is the potential capability to predict drug response from patients with rheumatoid arthritis.
Fox News AI Newsletter: AI health tech will transform your fitness routine
Fox News chief national security correspondent Jennifer Griffin reports on what the United States and Israel are doing to stay ahead of adversaries in A.I. on'Special Report.' FUTURE HEALTH TECH: CES 2025 has once again showcased a remarkable array of health and fitness technology that promises to transform our well-being. 'UNPRECEDENTED AND MISGUIDED': Tech giant Nvidia is pushing back on a new executive order by the Biden administration that seeks to prevent artificial intelligence technologies developed in the U.S. from falling into the hands of adversarial countries. 'CHIP' ON THEIR SHOULDER: The Biden White House on Monday announced its "final rule" placing export controls on artificial intelligence chips before President-elect Donald Trump takes office next week, drawing swift condemnation from industry leaders who argue the Democratic administration is effectively undermining America's leadership in the emerging technology. FILE - Amazon Web Services data center is seen on Thursday, Aug. 22, 2024, in Boardman, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane, File) 'LEAD THE WORLD': President Biden on Tuesday signed an ambitious executive order that he says will keep both national security and climate change in mind while fast-tracking the build-out of large-scale artificial intelligence infrastructure in the United States.
Why 'Beating China' In AI Brings Its Own Risks
The Biden administration this week introduced new export restrictions designed to control AI's progress globally and ultimately prevent the most advanced AI from falling into China's hands. The rule is just the latest in a string of measures put in place by Donald Trump and Joe Biden to keep Chinese AI in check. With prominent AI figures including OpenAI's Sam Altman and Anthropic's Dario Amodei warning of the need to "beat China" in AI, the Trump administration may well escalate things further. Paul Triolo is a partner at DGA Group, a global consulting firm, a member of the council of foreign relations, and a senior adviser to the University of Pennsylvania's Penn Project on the Future of US-China Relations. Alvin Graylin is an entrepreneur who previously ran China operations for the Taiwanese electronics firm HPC.
The Acura RSX calls dibs on Honda's proprietary Asimo OS
Honda has announced that its first original EV design, the Acura RSX, will use its proprietary Asimo operating system, according to The Verge. If those names sound familiar it's because RSX is a Honda nameplate from the early 2000s, and Asimo was a Honda project to build humanoid robots from the area, which was finally mothballed in 2018. Everything old is new again. Asimo OS was mentioned at CES 2025 alongside its 0 Series SUV and Saloon sedan EV concepts, but the Acura RSX will be the first production vehicle to get it. The operating system uses technology similar to its namesake robot to recognize external environments and understand people's intentions, according to the company.
Axios partners with OpenAI, forgetting the scorpion stung the frog
Axios is expanding its local newsletter presence from 30 to 34 cities. In its continued pretense of benefiting newsrooms, OpenAI has partnered with Axios in a three-year deal to cover Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Kansas City, Missouri; Boulder, Colorado; and Huntsville, Alabama. What does OpenAI get in exchange for its funding? Oh, just the ability to use Axios content to answer users' questions. Like the close to 20 newsrooms that OpenAI has already partnered with, Axios seems to have forgotten that the scorpion did end up stinging the frog.
Ukraine captures North Korean soldiers; Russia readies for talks with Trump
Russia appeared to ready itself for talks on the future of Ukraine with United States President-elect Donald Trump ahead of his swearing-in on Monday. "No special conditions are needed for this. What is required is the mutual intent and political will to have a dialogue," said Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Saturday. But Russia expressed its parameters very quickly. Putin aide Nikolai Patrushev told Russian news outlet KP that a Ukraine settlement should be reached by the US and Russia, without Ukraine and without the European Union.
DJI will no longer block US users from flying drones in restricted areas
DJI has lifted its geofence that prevents users in the US from flying over restricted areas like nuclear power plants, airports and wildfires, the company wrote in a blog post on Monday. As of January 13th, areas previously called "restricted zones" or no-fly zones will be shown as "enhanced warning zones" that correspond to designated Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) areas. DJI's Fly app will display a warning about those areas but will no longer stop users from flying inside them, the company said. In the article, DJI wrote that the "in-app alerts will notify operators flying near FAA designated controlled airspace, placing control back in the hands of the drone operators, in line with regulatory principles of the operator bearing final responsibility." It added that technologies like Remote ID [introduced after DJI implemented geofencing] gives authorities "the tools needed to enforce existing rules," DJI's global policy chief Adam Welsh told The Verge.
Writers voice anxiety about using AI. Readers don't seem to care
What does it mean for a writer, such as a novelist, to have a unique "voice"? And does artificial intelligence (AI) help or hurt that voice? Microsoft researchers set out to answer that question with a small study using 19 fiction writers, 30 readers, and short passages written with the help of OpenAI's GPT-4. The research takes its title from a comment by one of the writers -- "it was 80% me, 20% AI." What prompted the study are "concerns that vast transformations of the writer economy are likely underway" as a result of generative AI, writes lead author Angel Hsing-Chi Hwang of the University of Southern California, who collaborated with five scholars from Microsoft Research Montréal.
Tim Cook reveals his surprising first job - as the Apple CEO says he has been working since he was just 11
He is best known for being CEO of one of the world's largest companies. But before Tim Cook took the reins at Apple, he started his career in a very surprising place. Speaking on the Table Manners podcast, Mr Cook revealed that he started working when he was just 11 years old. He says: 'A lot of [his upbringing] was centred on work and the belief that hard work was essential for everybody, regardless of your age. 'And so I started working when I was probably 11 or 12 on the paper route.'