OpenAI on Thursday released a smaller and more affordable version of its flagship large language model that powers ChatGPT. The new model, called GPT-4o mini, will reportedly cost developers 60 percent less to build AI-powered apps and services with as compared to GPT-3.5 Turbo, Open's smallest model until today. But the big news here is for consumers. GPT-4o mini will replace GPT-3.5 Turbo for free users of ChatGPT starting today -- which means that your baseline ChatGPT experience will improve significantly. OpenAI claimed that GPT-4o mini achieved an 82 percent score on an industry benchmark called the MMLU, which stands for Measuring Massive Multitask Language Understanding, and includes 16,000 multiple-choice questions across 57 academic subjects.

At the end of I/O, Google's annual developer conference at the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, Google CEO Sundar Pichai revealed that the company had said "AI" 121 times. That, essentially, was the crux of Google's two-hour keynote -- stuffing AI into every Google app and service used by more than two billion people around the world. Here are all the major updates from Google's big event, along with some additional announcements that came after the keynote. Google announced a brand new AI model called Gemini 1.5 Flash, which it says is optimised for speed and efficiency. Flash sits between Gemini 1.5 Pro and Gemini 1.5 Nano, which its the company's smallest model that runs locally on device.

There's something quietly happening to Windows apps and services: They're being assimilated into existing Microsoft subscriptions, adding value but also introducing a paid tier of content into Windows apps that have traditionally been entirely free. Clicking through Microsoft's Clipchamp video editor this week, I discovered that its ongoing pricing odyssey has evolved, again: if you've previously signed up for Microsoft 365 and have logged in, you'll receive hidden additional benefits that aren't available to other users. Microsoft also has merged its Solitaire subscription (yes, a Solitaire subscription) into Xbox Game Pass, as well. Clipchamp's updated pricing structure is indicative of how Microsoft has struggled to integrate what was once a standalone subscription premium video editing solution, but under Microsoft is just part of its Windows app suite. Last March, Clipchamp updated its pricing model to include a free tier that was actually usable, but left in place three other pricing tiers that soared up to $39 per month.

Ford Motor Co. and Google announced a strategic partnership on Monday that's meant to more quickly modernize the 117-year-old automaker in unique ways and more aggressively use data to drive revenue and improve customer experience. Ford will start exploring this year the use of technology to provide oversight and quality control of factory robotics as well as additional training of United Auto Workers members on the plant floors, while Ford and Lincoln customers will start seeing new driver experiences in the 2023 calendar year. What does this all mean? Ford and Lincoln drivers will have access to voice technology, like Google Assistant, allowing them to keep their eyes on the road and hands on the wheel while multitasking. And Google Maps offers information on real-time traffic, automatic rerouting and lane guidance.

Take productivity to new heights by automating business processes across your entire organization. Microsoft Flow is now Power Automate--a versatile automation platform that integrates seamlessly with hundreds of apps and services. For example, with a few clicks capture tweets and add them as leads in Dynamics 365, subscribers in Mailchimp, and more... Create, use, and share automated approval workflows to quickly respond to and process requests, from time off and travel plans to documents and sales opportunities. Make decisions in your workflow, like running an action only when certain conditions are met. Power Automate lets you securely connect to on-premises data and cloud based services, so you can make the most of the data you already have.

Amazon's re:Invent 2019 conference is nearly two weeks out, but try telling that to Amazon Web Services (AWS) -- it's unveiling new products left and right. Following on the heels of Alexa on AWS Core and new languages Amazon Translate and Transcribe, AWS today detailed features designed to make adding AI predictions to apps and services easier than before. Amazon says that machine learning predictions will soon run on unstructured or relational data in Amazon S3 or Aurora, AWS' cloud-hosted MySQL and PostgreSQL-compatible relational database service. Customers will be able to train models in Amazon's SageMaker platform and run predictions against those models with SQL using Aurora or Athena, Amazon's interactive query service for analyzing data in Amazon S3. The benefits extend to QuickSight, the AWS component that lets customers create and publish dashboards that spotlight AI insights.

With a couple of notable exceptions (like big data processing using artificial intelligence algorithms), increases in computing power and improvements in storage technology have not necessarily meant that humans could work any faster or harder. But instead that technology is now able to shorten time-to-value for new apps and services, and managing that provision's infrastructure has got easier. In data centers, software-defined structures like convergence, hyperconvergence, and service abstractions are becoming more prevalent and mainstream. Perhaps the earliest example of software abstraction was the virtual server. Virtual machines now predominate in local, remote cloud and edge data centers/microcenters, and their presence has led to an uptick in utilization metrics.

For the last 50 years, the fundamental and largely unchanged model for identifying and authenticating users has been based on the combination of a username and password, sometimes augmented with "second factor" techniques. While this approach has mostly served financial and other high-security industries well, it's increasingly shown to suffer from five drawbacks: For example, it's well known that "passphrases" are more secure than "passwords." But with advent of mobile apps, user preferences have shifted to make these the most frequently-used access modes, making passphrases more impractical. Even when services enforce their own complex password requirements, "forgotten username and password" reset mechanisms often fall back to less secure personal email accounts as the primary identity verification point. For example, an unattended laptop or misplaced mobile phone may provide a malicious user with a window of opportunity to access services the victim has already signed into. Fortunately, there is an emergent approach that can address these concerns by shifting emphasis from asking "do we recognize the user's username and password?"

Without the software that powers them, iPhones and Android phones would be high-priced pieces of glass, metal and plastic. So let's see how the new mobile OSes from Apple and Google compare. On one side of the table, iOS 13 includes a systemwide dark mode, more control over privacy settings and a bushel of improvements designed to make the iPhone more secure and easier to use. On the other side, Google's Android 10 also brings on dark mode, a focus on privacy and useful AI enhancements. With the iPhone 11, 11 Pro and 11 Max Pro just announced, we'll soon see this the new iOS software absorbed into hardware.

Traditional client VPNs are growing long in the tooth. They are cumbersome to set up and manage and often create data flow inefficiencies. Because of this, many believe client VPNs will soon be a thing of the past. But, despite obvious flaws, client VPN technologies remain highly relevant. That's why client VPNs will more likely evolve rather than disappear.