Microsoft is celebrating its 50th anniversary, and the company is having some fun with it. The iconic Windows 95 logo was resurfaced, there is a themed version of Solitaire available, and Bill Gates even posted the source code for the company's first operating system, Altair Basic. Microsoft's Copilot is even getting some love. Actually, it would be more accurate to say that Microsoft has been showing Copilot a lot of love over the last few days. Announcements have been flying left and right, culminating in a livestream from Microsoft's global headquarters in Redmond, Washington, with even more information about current and upcoming Copilot features. Microsoft also had Copilot interview three Microsoft CEOs.

It was natural that the recent boom in video game adaptations would yield a new film based on the best-known virtual universe of the modern era. Minecraft, the Microsoft-owned digital sandbox that holds the record as the bestselling video game of all time, is finally taking its place in the annals of beloved gaming franchises--like Super Mario Bros. and Sonic the Hedgehog--that have earned the Hollywood studio treatment, celebrity stars and special effects and all. Helmed by Napoleon Dynamite director and friend of Slate Jared Hess, A Minecraft Movie throws Jack Black, Jason Momoa, Danielle Brooks, Emma Myers, and Jennifer Coolidge into the titular game's pixelated universe, subjecting their real-life bodies to the simplistic physics, creative engineering, and bizarre supernatural life forms that make up the expansive worlds of Minecraft. It took about a decade to get this flick off the ground, so the anticipation is high--especially among younger gamers addicted to the online playgrounds that gained such traction during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns. Already, the film is breaking box-office records held by previous game adaptations, and if you have a child who spends a lot of time playing on the computer, chances are they're definitely ready and excited to catch A Minecraft Movie--even if you barely know what Minecraft is.

Wikipedia is one of the greatest knowledge resources ever assembled, containing crowdsourced contributions from millions of humans worldwide – and it faces a growing threat from artificial intelligence developers. The non-profit Wikimedia Foundation, which operates Wikipedia, says since January 2024 it has seen a 50 per cent increase in network traffic requesting image and video downloads from its catalogue. That surge mostly comes from automated data scraper programs, which developers use to collect training data for their AI models.…

At least 14 people, including six children, have been killed in a Russian missile attack on a residential area of the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih, according to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, making it one of Moscow's deadliest strikes this year. Friday's attack on Zelenskyy's hometown, which comes as United States President Donald Trump is pushing for a ceasefire in the war, damaged residential blocks and caused fires, Dnipropetrovsk Governor Serhiy Lysak wrote on the Telegram messaging app. The dead and wounded could be seen lying on the pavement, one of them by a playground, in unverified videos circulating on Telegram as grey smoke rose into the sky. At least 50 people were wounded, the emergency services said, adding that the figure was growing. More than 30 people, including a three-month-old baby, were admitted to hospital, Lysak said.

In 50 years, Microsoft has evolved -- in our own Ed Bott's words -- from "nerds writing code to help other nerds write code" into a global technology behemoth, transforming how the world works and staying at the forefront of innovation. Naturally, when the AI boom hit, Microsoft seized the opportunity and became a leading player, unveiling Bing Chat, now known as Copilot. Since the first version of Microsoft's AI chatbot, numerous updates -- including Copilot Voice, Copilot Vision, Deep Research, and more -- have transformed Copilot into a competitive offering. Now, to celebrate its 50th anniversary, the company has added many new features that improve the AI tool even further. The memory feature allows Copilot to remember basic information about you.

TL;DR: Get lifetime access to 1min.AI's Advanced Business Plan, which offers a collection of almost all the major AI models for only 62.19 (reg. There's been talk about AI taking people's jobs, and we're here to say you should let it -- at least when it comes to time-consuming or tedious tasks. Rather than use your time writing rejection emails or proofreading sales reports, AI could do it for you. All you need to have AI become your new favorite coworker is to grab this 1min.AI subscription for 62.19 (reg. User-friendly interface: This makes it easy to dive in and start creating, whether you're familiar with or new to AI tools.

Microsoft just announced several updates to its Copilot AI assistant, and some sound downright useful. For the uninitiated, this software originally launched for the Edge web browser and gave Copilot the ability to "see" and comment on the contents of websites. The company is upping its game for the mobile version, adding some multimodal functionality. It'll be able to integrate with your phone's camera to "enable an interactive experience with the real world." Microsoft gives an example of Copilot Vision analyzing a video of plants to determine if they are healthy or not and suggesting actions to take. We'll see if it can actually perform that kind of nuanced reasoning.

Sign up for our daily newsletter to get the best of The New Yorker in your inbox. The microchip maker Nvidia is a Silicon Valley colossus. After years as a runner-up to Intel and Qualcomm, Nvidia has all but cornered the market on the parallel processors essential for artificial-intelligence programs like ChatGPT. "Nvidia was there at the beginning of A.I.," the tech journalist Stephen Witt tells David Remnick. "They really kind of made these systems work for the first time. We think of A.I. as a software revolution, something called neural nets, but A.I. is also a hardware revolution."

Microsoft turns the big 5-0 today (April 4), and the company is kicking off the celebration with a live Copilot event, rumored to include a suite of new announcements for the AI tool, as well as a nostalgic look back on the tech giant's storied history. Windows fans can expect an appearance from Copilot CEO Mustafa Suleyman -- and select deals on Microsoft products -- but the real star of the show is the iconic Windows 95 logo, back in all its glory to honor Microsoft's more humble beginnings. The live event will start at 12:30pm ET (9:30am PT). The Copilot event will stream live on the Microsoft Copilot YouTube page and the Microsoft website. Viewers can also catch birthday content, stories, and updates on Microsoft's 50th anniversary landing page.

Most people know that the famous Turing Test, a thought experiment conceived by computer pioneer Alan Turing, is a popular measure of progress in artificial intelligence. Many mistakenly assume, however, that it is proof that machines are actually thinking. The latest research on the Turing Test from scholars at the University of California at San Diego shows that OpenAI's latest large language model, GPT-4.5, can fool humans into thinking that the AI model is a person in text chats, even more than a human can convince another person that they are human. Also: How to use ChatGPT: A beginner's guide to the most popular AI chatbot That's a breakthrough in the ability of gen AI to produce compelling output in response to a prompt. But even the researchers recognize that beating the Turing Test doesn't necessarily mean that "artificial general intelligence," or AGI, has been achieved -- a level of computer processing equivalent to human thought.