The UK's Competition and Markets Authority is opening a formal investigation into whether Microsoft's bundling of Windows, Office, Teams, Copilot, and related products harms competition. Engadget reports: "Our aim is to understand how these markets are developing, Microsoft's position within them and to consider what, if any, targeted action may be needed to ensure UK organizations can benefit from choice, innovation and competitive prices," CMA Chief Executive Sarah Cardell said in a statement published by Reuters.

She also stressed the importance of the investigation by noting that hundreds of thousands of UK residents use business software and Microsoft products. The organization will take a look into the company's cloud licensing practices. The CMA has stated that the inquiry will conclude by February. At that point, Microsoft could get slapped with a strategic market label.

Microsoft says it's "committed to working quickly and constructively with the CMA to facilitate its review of the business software market." A strategic market designation doesn't automatically assume wrongdoing, but will give the CMA more leeway when conducting further interventions.

An anonymous researcher known as Nightmare-Eclipse, who has already leaked several Windows zero-days this year, has disclosed two more: YellowKey and GreenPlasma. The Register reports: Nightmare-Eclipse described YellowKey as "one of the most insane discoveries I ever found." They provided the files, which have to be loaded onto a USB drive, and if the attacker completes the key sequence correctly, they are granted unrestricted shell access to a BitLocker-protected machine. When it comes to claims like these, we usually exercise some caution, as this bug requires physical access to a Windows PC. However, seeing that BitLocker acts as Windows' last line of defense for stolen devices, bypassing the technology grants thieves the ability to access encrypted files. Rik Ferguson, VP of security intelligence at Forescout, said: "If [the researcher's claim] holds up, a stolen laptop stops being a hardware problem and becomes a breach notification."

Despite the physical access requirement, Gavin Knapp, cyber threat intelligence principal lead at Bridewell, told The Register that YellowKey remains "a huge security problem for organizations using BitLocker." Citing information shared in cyber threat intelligence circles, he added that YellowKey can be mitigated by implementing a BitLocker PIN and a BIOS password lock. Nightmare-Eclipse hinted at YellowKey also acting as a backdoor, allegedly injected by Microsoft, although the people we spoke to said this was impossible to verify based on the information available. The researcher also published partial exploit code for GreenPlasma, rather than a fully formed proof of concept exploit (PoC).

Ferguson noted attackers need to take the code provided by the researcher and figure out how to weaponize it themselves, which is no small task: in its current state it triggers a UAC consent prompt in default Windows configurations, meaning a silent exploit remains a work in progress. Knapp warned that these kinds of privilege escalation flaws are often used by attackers after they gain an initial foothold in a victim's system. "These elevation of privilege vulnerabilities are often weaponized during post-exploitation to enable threat actors to discover and harvest credentials and data, before moving laterally to other systems, prior to end goals such as data theft and/or ransomware deployment," he said. "Currently, there is no known mitigation for GreenPlasma. It will be important to patch when Microsoft addresses the issue." The other zero-days leaked include RedSun, a Windows Defender privilege escalation flaw; UnDefend, a Windows Defender denial-of-service bug; and BlueHammer, a separate Microsoft vulnerability tracked as CVE-2026-32201 that was patched in April.

According to The Register, RedSun and UnDefend remained unfixed at the time of publication, and proof-of-concept code for the flaws was reportedly picked up quickly and abused in real-world attacks.

After three weeks of testimony, the Musk v. Altman trial is nearing its end. OpenAI has rested its case, closing arguments are set for Thursday, and jury deliberations are expected to begin afterward. An anonymous reader quotes a report from Business Insider: Joshua Achiam, OpenAI's chief futurist, was probably the most memorable witness of the day. He told jurors about a companywide meeting where Musk answered questions about his planned departure from OpenAI in 2018. Musk told the crowd of 50 or 60 people that he was leaving OpenAI to start his own competing AI. He said he wanted to "build it very fast, because he was very worried that someone else, if they got it, would do the wrong thing with it," Achiam said. Achaim said he challenged Musk on the safety of this approach, which he called "unsafe and reckless." "How did Musk respond," OpenAI's lawyer Randall Jackson asked. "Defensively," Achiam said. "We had a pretty tense exchange, and he snapped and called me a jackass."

In an effort to prove Achiam's story, OpenAI's lawyers brought a trophy to court that the futurist said he received after his heated exchange with Musk. On the witness stand, Achiam described the trophy as "a small golden jackass, inscribed with: 'never stop being a jackass for safety.'" He said his then-colleagues, Dario Amodei and David Luan, gave it to him as a thank-you for standing up to the Tesla CEO. Lead OpenAI attorney William Savitt told reporters after the day's session that Wednesday had been the first time he'd touched the statue. The futurist had to do without the visual aid, however. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers did not accept the trophy as evidence, so it did not appear before the jury.

Musk and Altman have presented dueling experts on a question at the core of the trial -- was the nonprofit that runs OpenAI hurt or helped by its $13 billion partnership with Microsoft? Musk's expert testified last week that the partnership was indeed hurt, supporting the Tesla CEO's contention that in partnering with Microsoft, OpenAI betrayed the company's nonprofit origins and mission. But on Thursday, OpenAI's expert, John Coates, used Musk's expert's own pie chart and testimony against him. The partnership has "generated value for the nonprofit that I believe he himself accepted was in the $200 billion range in his own testimony," Coates said, referencing Musk expert Daniel Schizer. "If that's not faring well, I don't know what faring well is."

In a scored point for Musk, the jury learned Thursday that Microsoft's own CTO once raised concerns about how OpenAI's early nonprofit donors, including LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman, would react to a partnership. "I wonder if the big OpenAI donors are aware of these plans," Chief Technology Officer Kevin Scott said in a 2018 email he was asked to read aloud to jurors. In it, Scott said he doubted donors would appreciate OpenAI using their seed money to "go build a for-profit thing." Scott was being questioned by an OpenAI lawyer, who may have wanted jurors to quickly hear Scott's explanation: that he only had a "vague awareness" of what was happening at OpenAI at the time. Scott also told the jury he wasn't thinking about Musk when he made the remark. "Primarily, I was thinking about Reid Hoffman. He was the OpenAI donor I knew," Scott said, adding, "I wasn't thinking about anyone besides him." Recap:
Sam Altman Testifies That Elon Musk Wanted Control of OpenAI (Day Ten)
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella Testifies In OpenAI Trial (Day Nine)
Sam Altman Had a Bad Day In Court (Day Eight)
Sam Altman's Management Style Comes Under the Microscope At OpenAI Trial (Day Seven)
Brockman Rebuts Musk's Take On Startup's History, Recounts Secret Work For Tesla (Day Six)
OpenAI President Discloses His Stake In the Company Is Worth $30 Billion (Day Five)
Musk Concludes Testimony At OpenAI Trial (Day Four)
Elon Musk Says OpenAI Betrayed Him, Clashes With Company's Attorney (Day Three)
Musk Testifies OpenAI Was Created As Nonprofit To Counter Google (Day Two)
Elon Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman Head To Court (Day One)

Microsoft is adding a Windows Update feature called Cloud-Initiated Driver Recovery that can automatically roll back faulty drivers to a previously known-good version without waiting for hardware makers or users to fix the problem manually. PCWorld reports: The way faulty drivers work today is that the hardware partner is responsible for pushing an updated driver, or the end user is responsible for manually uninstalling the problematic driver. "This creates a gap where devices may remain on a low-quality driver for an extended period," says the blog post. With Cloud-Initiated Driver Recovery, Microsoft will be able to remotely trigger a rollback of the faulty driver to a previously "known-good" version of the driver via the Windows Update pipeline. Microsoft says that testing and verification of Cloud-Initiated Driver Recovery will continue until August this year, aiming to deliver this feature to Windows PCs starting in September.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: LinkedIn planned to inform staff of layoffs on Wednesday, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters, in a widening of technology sector cuts this year. The Microsoft-owned social network plans to cut about 5% of its headcount as it reorganizes teams and focuses personnel on areas where its business is growing [...].

LinkedIn employs more than 17,500 full-time workers globally, its website says. Reuters was unable to determine the teams affected. The cuts come as revenue at LinkedIn, which sells recruiting tools and subscriptions, rose 12% in the just-ended quarter from a year prior, in an acceleration of growth in 2026, according to Microsoft's securities filings. The layoff rationale was not for artificial intelligence to replace jobs at LinkedIn, one of the people told Reuters. The specter of AI-fueled disruption has nonetheless hung over software incumbents and workers generally.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman took the stand Tuesday in Elon Musk's trial against the company, testifying that Musk repeatedly sought control of OpenAI before leaving in 2018. Altman said he opposed putting AI "under the control of any one person," while Musk's lawyer used a pointed cross-examination to attack Altman's trustworthiness. An anonymous reader shares updates from the testimony via the New York Times: Before Elon Musk left OpenAI in a power struggle in 2018, he wanted to merge the nonprofit artificial intelligence lab with Tesla, his electric car company. Mr. Musk and other OpenAI co-founders met several times to discuss the merger. OpenAI's chief executive, Sam Altman, was even offered a seat on Tesla's board of directors, according to a court document. But folding OpenAI into Tesla would have eliminated the lab's nonprofit status, and that, Mr. Altman said on the witness stand on Tuesday, was something he wanted to avoid. [...] "I believed that A.I. should not be under the control of any one person," Mr. Altman said. [...] Mr. Altman testified about his feud with Mr. Musk. He said he had become worried that Mr. Musk, who provided the early investment money for OpenAI, wanted to take control of the lab. He described what he called a "particularly harrowing moment" when his OpenAI co-founders asked Mr. Musk what would happen to his control of a potential for-profit when he died. Mr. Altman said Mr. Musk had replied that the control would pass to his children. "I was not comfortable with that," Mr. Altman said. When Mr. Musk lost a power struggle for control of the lab, he left, forcing Mr. Altman to find another big financial backer in Microsoft.

But Mr. Altman ran into trouble in 2023 when OpenAI's board fired him because, as several of its members have testified in the trial, it didn't trust him. Steven Molo, Mr. Musk's lead lawyer, homed in on Mr. Altman's trustworthiness during an aggressive cross-examination. "Are you completely trustworthy?" Mr. Molo asked. "I believe so," Mr. Altman answered. After questioning Mr. Altman's trustworthiness for nearly 20 minutes, Mr. Molo turned to Mr. Altman's relationship with Mr. Musk. Mr. Altman said that after he met Mr. Musk in the mid-2010s, Mr. Musk had occasionally expressed concern about the dangers of A.I. But Mr. Musk spent far more time saying he was worried that companies like Google would get ahead in A.I. development, Mr. Altman said. (Mr. Musk testified in the trial that he had wanted to create OpenAI to prevent Google from controlling the technology.)

Mr. Altman, the lawyer intimated, took advantage of Mr. Musk's concerns and was never sincere about his own A.I. fears. "Are you a person who just tells people things they want to hear whether those things are true or not?" Mr. Molo asked. The lawyer also questioned whether Mr. Atman, who became a billionaire through years of tech investments, was self-dealing through OpenAI. Mr. Molo showed a list of Mr. Altman's personal investments across a number of companies that stand to benefit from their association with OpenAI. They included Helion Energy, a start-up that has deals with Microsoft and OpenAI, and Cerebras, a chip maker in business with OpenAI. Mr. Molo asked if Mr. Altman, who is on OpenAI's board as well as its chief executive, would ever fire himself. "I have no plans to do that," Mr. Altman said.

OpenAI's odd journey from nonprofit lab to what it is today -- a well-funded, for-profit company that is still connected to a nonprofit called the OpenAI Foundation with an endowment that could be worth more than $130 billion -- provided grist for Mr. Molo's questions about Mr. Altman's motivations. He implied that Mr. Altman could have continued to build OpenAI as a pure nonprofit. But the only way to build such a valuable charity was to raise billions through a for-profit venture, Mr. Altman responded. Still, the giant sums being raised appeared to upset Mr. Musk. In late 2022, according to court documents, Mr. Musk sent a text to Mr. Altman complaining that Microsoft was preparing to invest $10 billion in OpenAI. "This is a bait and switch," Mr. Musk said at the time. But Mr. Altman, under questioning from his own lawyers, said: "Every step of the way, I have done my best to maximize the value of the nonprofit. I would point out that there are not a lot of historical examples of a nonprofit at this scale." Before Altman took the stand, OpenAI board chair Bret Taylor continued his testimony that began on Monday. He said Elon Musk's 2024 bid to buy the company's assets appeared to conflict with his lawsuit and was rejected because the board did not believe OpenAI's mission should be controlled by one person. "We did not feel like it was appropriate for one person to control our mission," he said.

Recap:
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella Testifies In OpenAI Trial (Day Nine)
Sam Altman Had a Bad Day In Court (Day Eight)
Sam Altman's Management Style Comes Under the Microscope At OpenAI Trial (Day Seven)
Brockman Rebuts Musk's Take On Startup's History, Recounts Secret Work For Tesla (Day Six)
OpenAI President Discloses His Stake In the Company Is Worth $30 Billion (Day Five)
Musk Concludes Testimony At OpenAI Trial (Day Four)
Elon Musk Says OpenAI Betrayed Him, Clashes With Company's Attorney (Day Three)
Musk Testifies OpenAI Was Created As Nonprofit To Counter Google (Day Two)
Elon Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman Head To Court (Day One)

Microsoft and G42's planned $1 billion AI data center in Kenya has stalled amid disagreements over power commitments, with President William Ruto saying the country would need to "switch off half the country" to support the project at full scale. Tom's Hardware reports: The project, announced in May 2024 during Ruto's visit to Washington, was supposed to bring a geothermal-powered data center to the Olkaria region in Kenya's Rift Valley. G42 was to lead construction, with the facility running Microsoft Azure in a new East Africa cloud region. The first phase targeted 100 megawatts of capacity and was expected to be operational by this year, with a long-term goal of scaling to 1 gigawatt.

President Ruto isn't exaggerating about shutting off half the country's power. Kenya's total installed electricity capacity sits between 3,000 and 3,200 megawatts, and peak demand reached a record 2,444 megawatts in January, according to data from KenGen, the country's government-owned electricity producer. The full 1 gigawatt build would therefore have consumed roughly a third of the country's total capacity, and even the first 100 megawatts would have required a significant share of the Olkaria geothermal complex's output, which currently generates around 950MW across all its plants.

John Tanui, principal secretary at Kenya's Ministry of Information, told Bloomberg that the project hasn't been withdrawn and that talks are continuing, adding that the "scale of the data center they [Microsoft] wanted to do still requires some structuring." A separate 60-megawatt project with local developer EcoCloud is also still under discussion. [...] Microsoft is spending $190 billion on capex in 2026, and the company adds approximately 1 gigawatt of data center capacity every three months globally. But power constraints are proving to be a universal bottleneck: nearly half of planned U.S. data center builds this year have been delayed or canceled due to shortages of electrical infrastructure.

The Musk v. Altman trial entered its third week Monday, with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and former OpenAI co-founder and renowned AI researcher Ilya Sutskever taking the stand. Nadella testified that Elon Musk never raised concerns to him that Microsoft's investments in OpenAI violated any special commitments, and said he viewed the partnership as clearly commercial from the start. He also described OpenAI's 2023 board crisis as "amateur city."

Meanwhile, Sutskever testified that he had raised concerns about Sam Altman because he feared OpenAI could be "destroyed." He expressed concerns about Altman's behavior to the board, in part because he said he felt "a great deal of ownership" over the startup. "I simply cared for it, and I didn't want it to be destroyed," Sutskever said. CNBC reports: Nadella said he was "very proud" that Microsoft took the risk to invest in OpenAI when "no one else was willing" to bet on the fledgling lab. Musk, who testified late last month, said Microsoft's $10 billion investment was the key tipping point that made him believe OpenAI was violating its nonprofit mission. He testified that the scale of the investment bothered him, and it prompted him to open a legal investigation into OpenAI. "I was concerned they were really trying to steal the charity," Musk said from the stand.

Nadella said he did not believe Microsoft's investments in OpenAI were donations, and that there was a clear commercial element to their partnership from the outset. He said during the partnership's early years, Microsoft gave OpenAI sharp discounts on computing resources, and Microsoft believed it would reap marketing benefits from doing so. During a separate video deposition that was played on Monday morning, Michael Wetter, a corporate development executive at Microsoft, said the company has recognized approximately $9.5 billion in revenue to date through its partnership with OpenAI as of March 2025.

[...] Nadella said he was "pretty surprised" by the board's decision [to fire Altman in November 2023], and that his priority was to try and figure out how to maintain continuity for Microsoft customers. Immediately after Altman was removed, Nadella said he made an effort to learn more about what happened, adding that he suspected jealousy and poor communication was at play. During conversations with OpenAI board members after the firing, Nadella said he was simply trying to understand the language in the OpenAI's statement about Altman being "not consistently candid" while communicating with the board. That language, Nadella said, "just didn't sort of suffice, because this is the CEO of a company that we are invested in and we're deeply partnered with, and so I felt that they could have explained to me what are the incidents or what is the detail behind it." There must have been instances of jealousy or miscommunication that could have justified pushing out Altman, Nadella said. He wanted more depth from the board members after the remark about candor, but no such information was available, he said. "It was sort of amateur city, as far as I'm concerned," Nadella testified.

[...] Musk testified that he is not entirely against OpenAI having a for-profit unit, but he said it became "the tail wagging the dog." He repeatedly accused Altman and Brockman of enriching themselves from a charity while also reaping the positive associations that come from running a nonprofit. "Microsoft has their own motivations, and that would be different from the motivations of the charity," Musk said from the stand. "All due respect to Microsoft, do you really want Microsoft controlling digital superintelligence?"

During a videotaped deposition shown in court last week, former OpenAI director Tasha McCauley recalled a discussion with Nadella and her fellow board members after the 2023 decision to dismiss Altman as OpenAI's CEO. "To the best of my recollection, Satya wanted to restore things to as they had been," McCauley said. The board members didn't think that was the right move, she said. But as a court witness on Monday, Nadella said he never demanded that the board reinstate Altman as OpenAI CEO. Recap:
Sam Altman Had a Bad Day In Court (Day Eight)
Sam Altman's Management Style Comes Under the Microscope At OpenAI Trial (Day Seven)
Brockman Rebuts Musk's Take On Startup's History, Recounts Secret Work For Tesla (Day Six)
OpenAI President Discloses His Stake In the Company Is Worth $30 Billion (Day Five)
Musk Concludes Testimony At OpenAI Trial (Day Four)
Elon Musk Says OpenAI Betrayed Him, Clashes With Company's Attorney (Day Three)
Musk Testifies OpenAI Was Created As Nonprofit To Counter Google (Day Two)
Elon Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman Head To Court (Day One)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Business Insider: As the trial between Elon Musk and OpenAI ended its second week, the Tesla CEO started scoring points against Sam Altman. His witnesses landed three solid punches in testimony about how Altman runs OpenAI as CEO, raising concerns about his dedication to AI safety, the nonprofit's mission, and his honesty as a leader of the organization. [...] This week, Musk's legal team called a parade of witnesses who questioned whether Altman was acting in the interest of the nonprofit. On Thursday, that included a former OpenAI safety researcher, who described a slow erosion of the company's safety teams, which prompted her to leave the company. Witnesses also shared stories about the company launching products without the proper safety reviews -- or the knowledge of the board. Rosie Campbell, a former AI safety researcher at OpenAI, testified that the company became more product-focused during her time there and moved away from the long-term safety work that had initially drawn her in. She said both long-term AI safety teams were eventually eliminated, and that she supported Altman's reinstatement only because she feared OpenAI might otherwise collapse into Microsoft: "It was my understanding at the time that the best way for OpenAI to not disintegrate and fall about would be for Sam to return." Still, Campbell's testimony wasn't entirely favorable to Musk. She also said xAI, Musk's AI company, likely had an inferior approach to safety than OpenAI.

Helen Toner, another former OpenAI board member, also testified about the board's concerns leading up to Altman's removal. She said the board was not primarily worried about ChatGPT's safety, but about Altman's leadership and investor relationships, saying, "The issues that we were concerned about in our decision to fire Sam were exacerbated by relationships with investors." Toner also described concerns that Altman was misrepresenting what others had said, telling the court, "We were concerned that Sam was inserting words into other people's mouths in order to get people to do what he wanted."

Meanwhile, Tasha McCauley, a former OpenAI board member, described a deep loss of trust in Altman and accused him of creating "chaos" and "crisis" inside the company. She said Altman fostered a "culture of lying and culture of deceit," including allegedly misleading others about whether GPT-4 Turbo needed internal safety review before launch.

Musk's lawyers then called to the stand David Schizer, a Columbia Law professor and nonprofit-governance expert, who framed Altman's alleged behavior as a serious governance problem for an organization that was supposed to be mission-driven. Asked about claims that products were launched without full board awareness or safety review, he said, "The board and CEO need to be partnering, working together, to make sure the mission is being followed," adding that "if the CEO is withholding that information, it's a big problem."

The day ended with the start of a Microsoft executive's deposition. Microsoft VP Michael Wetter said Azure had integrated OpenAI technology, that Microsoft saw strategic value in having AI developers build on Azure, and that a 2016 agreement allowed OpenAI to use Microsoft tools for free even though it could mean a loss of up to $15 million for Microsoft. Testimony ended early, with no court on Friday and the trial set to resume Monday.

Recap:
Sam Altman's Management Style Comes Under the Microscope At OpenAI Trial (Day Seven)
Brockman Rebuts Musk's Take On Startup's History, Recounts Secret Work For Tesla (Day Six)
OpenAI President Discloses His Stake In the Company Is Worth $30 Billion (Day Five)
Musk Concludes Testimony At OpenAI Trial (Day Four)
Elon Musk Says OpenAI Betrayed Him, Clashes With Company's Attorney (Day Three)
Musk Testifies OpenAI Was Created As Nonprofit To Counter Google (Day Two)
Elon Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman Head To Court (Day One)

joshuark shares a report from Linux Magazine: Microsoft has issued a warning that a vulnerability with a CVSS score of 7.8 has been found in the Linux kernel. The vulnerability in question is tagged CVE-2026-31431 and, according to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), "This Linux Kernel Incorrect Resource Transfer Between Spheres Vulnerability is a frequent attack vector for malicious cyber actors and poses significant risks to the federal enterprise."

The distributions affected are Ubuntu, Red Hat, SUSE, Debian, Fedora, Arch Linux, and Amazon Linux. This could also affect any distribution based on those in the list, which means pretty much every Linux distro that isn't independent. The flaw is found in the Linux kernel cryptographic subsystem's algif_aead module of AF_ALG. The problem is that a particular optimization has led to the kernel reusing the source memory as the destination during cryptographic operations. What this means is that attackers can take advantage of interactions between the AF_ALG socket interface and a splice() system call. Until patches are released, Microsoft is advising that the affected crypto feature should be disabled, or AF_ALG socket creation should be blocked. The vulnerability is also known as "Copy Fail," which has been shared on Slashdot and detailed in a technical report. The vulnerability affects almost every version of the Linux OS and is now being exploited in the wild. U.S. cybersecurity agency CISA has ordered all civilian federal agencies to patch any affected systems by May 15.

A LinkedIn user in the EU is challenging Microsoft's refusal to provide a full list of profile visitors under GDPR Article 15, arguing that the data should be available for free because LinkedIn processes it and sells a more complete version to Premium users. Privacy group Noyb says the case could set a broader precedent over whether companies can monetize user-related data while denying access to the same data through GDPR requests. "Selling data to its own users is a popular practice among companies," Noyb data protection lawyer Martin Baumann said of the case. "In reality, however, people have the right to receive their own data free of charge." The Register reports: Take a look at the language of Article 15, and it's pretty clear: data subjects (i.e., users) have the right to a copy of any and all data concerning them that's been processed by the provider. A full list of profile visitors seemingly should fall under Article 15 data -- even if it's normally reserved for paying users and presented to them in a nicer way, it should still be accessible to free users who actually request it. [...] Noyb acknowledges there's a clear bit of legal fuzz stuck in this corner of the GDPR when it comes to premium service offerings. "If any business processes a person's personal data, this information is generally covered by their right of access under the GDPR," Baumann told The Register. "It does not matter that the business would prefer to sell the data to the data subject or that it would be harmful for their business model if they would."

There's only one exception in Article 15 that would give LinkedIn an out, Baumann told us, and that's the last paragraph, which says a person's right to their data can't adversely affect the rights and freedoms of others. Were LinkedIn to argue that it had to protect the identities of people who visited a data subject's profile, they could have an excuse. But not a good one, in Baumann's opinion. "Since LinkedIn does provide information about profile visits to paying Premium members, it cannot consider that disclosing the data would adversely affect the rights of the visitors whose data is disclosed," the Noyb lawyer explained. "Otherwise, providing this information to Premium users would be unlawful too."

What seems to be the sticking point here is where right of access begins and a company's right to make money off data they hold (data that was, ahem, supplied by users) ends. Baumann said he hopes this case can clear the legal air. "We expect a clarification concerning the fact that personal data that can be accessed when a user pays for it is also covered by their right of access," he explained. [...] Baumann said there are numerous other cases where similar legal clarification would be appreciated, citing the example of a bank that is unwilling to provide access to account statements in response to a GDPR request, but is happy to hand over similar data for a fee. "A precedent would be welcomed," Baumann said. A LinkedIn spokesperson told The Register: "Not only is it incorrect that only Premium members can see who has viewed their profile, but we also satisfy GDPR Article 15 by disclosing the information at issue via our Privacy Policy."

Longtime Slashdot reader UnknowingFool writes: Security researcher Tom Joran Sonstebyseter Ronning has found that Microsoft Edge stores passwords in plaintext in RAM. After creating a password and storing it using Edge's password manager, Ronning found that he could dump the RAM and recover his password which was stored in plaintext. Part of the issue is Edge loads all passwords to all sites upon a single verification check, even if the user was not visiting a specific site. This is very different from Chrome, which only loads passwords for specific websites when challenged for the site's password. Also, Chrome will delete the password from memory once the password has been filled. Edge does not delete the passwords from memory once they are used.

Microsoft downplayed the risk noting access would require control over a user's PC like a malware infection: "Access to browser data as described in the reported scenario would require the device to already be compromised," Microsoft said. Ronning countered that it was possible to dump passwords for multiple users using administrative privileges for one user to view the passwords for other logged-on users. "Design choices in this area involve balancing performance, usability, and security, and we continue to review it against evolving threats," Microsoft said. "Browsers access password data in memory to help users sign in quickly and securely -- this is an expected feature of the application. We recommend users install the latest security updates and antivirus software to help protect against security threats."

Microsoft is winding down Xbox Copilot on mobile and ending development of Copilot on console, reversing plans to bring the gaming-focused AI assistant to current-generation Xbox consoles this year. "The move follows [new Xbox CEO Asha Sharma's] reorganization of the Xbox platform team earlier on Tuesday, which added executives from Microsoft's CoreAI team -- where Sharma worked before taking over Xbox -- to the Xbox side of the company," reports The Verge.

Sharma said in a post on X: Xbox needs to move faster, deepen our connection with the community, and address friction for both players and developers. Today, we promoted leaders who helped build Xbox, while also bringing in new voices to help push us forward. This balance is important as we get the business back on track. As part of this shift, you'll see us begin to retire features that don't align with where we're headed. We will begin winding down Copilot on mobile and will stop development of Copilot on console. Since taking over for former Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer in February, Sharma has scrapped the Microsoft Gaming brand and cut the price of Xbox Game Pass.

Longtime Slashdot reader UnknowingFool writes: On April 15, 2026, a Microsoft employee made a change to Visual Studio Code and pushed it within 8 hours without review, notification, or documentation. The change added "Co-authored-by: Copilot" by default to the end of commit messages in Git when Copilot was used in creating the code. However, the implementation was bugged, and the message was added to every commit regardless if Copilot was used or disabled. Since this message was automatically added to the end of commit messages, users were not aware of it as the UI does not show this addition when making commits. The change as been reverted as of May 3, but not before 1.4 million commits were made. Unfortunately, those messages cannot be cleansed and are permanent.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: A new, bipartisan bill introduced (PDF) by Democratic Senator of California Adam Schiff and endorsed by the biggest AI developers in the world -- including OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft -- would change the K-12 curriculum to shoehorn in "AI literacy," something that young people and teachers alike already hate in schools. The Literacy in Future Technologies Artificial Intelligence, or LIFT AI Act, would empower the new director of the National Science Foundation (NSF) to make grant awards "on a merit-reviewed, competitive basis to institutions of higher education or nonprofit organizations (or a consortium thereof) to support research activities to develop educational curricula, instructional material, teacher professional development, and evaluation methods for AI literacy at the K-12 level," the bill says.

It defines AI literacy as using AI; specifically, "having the age-appropriate knowledge and ability to use artificial intelligence effectively, to critically interpret outputs, to solve problems in an AI-enabled world, and to mitigate potential risks." The bill is endorsed by the American Federation of Teachers, Google, OpenAI, Information Technology Industry Council, Software & Information Industry Association, Microsoft, and HP Inc. [...] The grant would support "AI literacy evaluation tools and resources for educators assessing proficiency in AI literacy," according to the bill. It would also fund "professional development courses and experiences in AI literacy," and the development of "hands-on learning tools to assist in developing and improving AI literacy." Most importantly for real-world implications, it would fund changing the existing curriculum "to incorporate AI literacy where appropriate, including responsible use of AI in learning."

"Vibe coding just got a whole lot more adorable," writes Engadget: OpenAI introduced AI-generated pets to the Codex app, its agentic tool that helps with coding. These "optional animated companions" don't do any coding themselves, but serve as a floating overlay that can tell you what Codex is working on, notify you when Codex completes a task or whether it needs your input on something. The new feature lets developers see Codex's active thread, without having to switch away from your current open app.
"The feature ships with eight built-in variations — including a cat and dog," reports Mashable. "But the more interesting play is the custom pet creator." Users can prompt Codex directly to generate their own companion, then share it online. A quick scroll through the homepage reveals the community has already gotten to work. Current creations include Goku, Patrick Star, Microsoft's long-retired Clippy, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, and — naturally — a goblin.
There's also Grogu, Dobby, a tiny Bob Rossi, and a "Doge-style Shiba Inu dog"...

In 2016 an online "swarm intelligence" platform generated a correct prediction for the Kentucky Derby — naming all four top finishers in order. (But its 2017 predictions weren't even close.) Slashdot checked in again on how modern AI systems performed in 2023, 2024, and 2025 — but their predictions were still pretty bad. Would AI-generated Derby predictions be any better in 2026?

This year's winner was 24-to-1 longshot "Golden Tempo" — though a lot of oddsmakers had favored a horse named Further Ado (which ultimately only finished 11th). So when USA Today prompted Microsoft Copilot for its own picks for the Kentucky Derby, Copilot also went with Further Ado. (Even worse, it predicted Golden Tempo would come in... 13th.)

Here's how Copilot's picks actually performed...

1. Further Ado (finished 11th)
2. Chief Wallabee (finished 4th)
3. The Puma (SCRATCHED)
4. Renegade (finished 2nd)
5. Commandment (finished 7th)
6. So Happy (finished 9th)
7. Emerging Market (finished 10th)
8. Danon Bourbon (finished 5th)
9. Potente (finished 12th)
10. Incredibolt (finished 6th)
11. Robusta (finished 14th)
12. Ocelli (finished 3rd)
13. Golden Tempo (finished 1st)
14. Pavlovian (finished 18th)
15. Great White (SCRATCHED)
16. Wonder Dean (finished 8th)
17. Litmus Test (finished 17th)
18. Albus (finished 15th)
19. Six Speed (finished 13th)
20. Intrepido (finished 16th)

Copilot was told to use the latest odds, conditions, and analysis of favorites, best bets, expert picks, previous results and race history with the post positions, according to USA Today. And meanwhile, Yahoo Sports asked Claude "to simulate the race using the opening odds, draw and potential track conditions. We also asked it to factor in some human predictions."

Like Microsoft Copilot, Claude also picked Further Ado to finish first (though it came in 11th) — and predicted that Golden Tempo (the eventual first-place finisher) would finish 12th.

1. Further Ado (finished 11th)
2. The Puma (SCRATCHED)
3. Commandment (finished 7th)
4. Chief Wallabee (finished 4th)
5. Renegade (finished 2nd)
6. Emerging Market (finished 10th)
7. So Happy (finished 9th)
8. Incredibolt (finished 6th)
9. Danon Bourbon (finished 5th)
10. Potente (finished 12th)
11. Pavlovian (finished 18th)
12. Golden Tempo (finished 1st)
13. Litmus Test (finished 17th)
14. Albus (finished 15th)
15. Wonder Dean (finished 8th)
16. Six Speed (finished 13th)
17. Intrepido (finished 16th)

Microsoft is rolling out Xbox mode to all Windows 11 PCs, bringing a full-screen Xbox PC app interface similar to Steam's Big Picture Mode. "Some players in select markets will be able to download the Xbox mode experience today, with availability expanding to more players in those markets over the next several weeks," says the Xbox team. The Verge reports: Xbox mode aims to try and bridge the gap between Xbox consoles and Windows, but its original debut felt like a beta on the Xbox Ally devices. "Since first introducing Xbox mode, formerly known as 'full screen experience,' on Windows handhelds, we've been listening closely to player feedback and continuing to evolve the experience across devices," says the Xbox team. "Those learnings directly shaped Xbox mode on Windows 11 PCs."

Microsoft is also rolling out improvements to the Xbox Ally X handheld today, including a preview of its Auto SR upscaling technology. Xbox console owners are also getting a new dashboard update today, with the ability to disable Quick Resume on individual games and a feature to add custom colors to the dashboard.

The Pentagon says it has reached deals with seven AI companies -- SpaceX, OpenAI, Google, Nvidia, Reflection AI, Microsoft, and AWS -- to deploy their tools on classified Defense Department networks. The odd one out is Anthropic, which remains excluded after being labeled a supply-chain risk amid a dispute over military-use guardrails. Reuters reports: SpaceX, OpenAI, Google, Nvidia, Reflection, Microsoft, and Amazon Web Services (AWS), several of which already work with the Pentagon, will be integrated into its secret and top-secret network environments, providing more military access to their products for use on sensitive topics, the Pentagon said in a statement. The lesser-known Reflection AI, which raised $2 billion in October, is backed by 1789 Capital, a venture capital firm in which Donald Trump Jr. is a partner and investor.

Since the Pentagon deemed Anthropic's products a "supply-chain risk" in March and the two sides became embroiled in a lawsuit, the military has expressed increasing interest in AI startups. Since the blow-up, newer AI entrants have said the military has sped up the process of incorporating them onto secret and top-secret data levels to less than three months. The process previously took 18 months or longer.

By expanding AI services offered to troops, who use it for planning, logistics, targeting and in other ways to streamline huge operations and perform more quickly, the Pentagon said in its statement it will avoid "vendor lock," a likely nod to its overdependence on Anthropic or other dominant service providers. [...] AI has become increasingly important for the U.S. military. The Pentagon's main AI platform, GenAI.mil, has been used by over 1.3 million Defense Department personnel, the agency noted in its release, after five months of operation. Further reading: Google and Pentagon Reportedly Agree On Deal For 'Any Lawful' Use of AI

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: Elon Musk wrapped up his testimony on Thursday as the trial in his lawsuit against OpenAI CEO Sam Altman continued into its fourth day. OpenAI's attorney, William Savitt, cross-examined Musk in the morning. He asked Musk about the capped nature of Microsoft's investments in OpenAI, his involvement in negotiations about the company's structure, and whether he knew about the OpenAI nonprofit's recent initiatives. "I don't know what's going on at OpenAI," Musk testified.

Savitt also asked Musk about his competing artificial intelligence startup, xAI. While not the main focus of the case, Musk said it is "partly" true that xAI used some of OpenAI's models to train its own models, a process known as distilling. Musk also suggested that xAI has used OpenAI's technology to help build the company. Musk sued OpenAI, Altman, and Greg Brockman, the company's president, in 2024, alleging that they went back on their commitments to keep the artificial intelligence company a nonprofit and to follow its charitable mission. He claims that the roughly $38 million he donated to seed OpenAI, a company he co-founded, was used for unauthorized commercial purposes.

Once Musk wrapped up his testimony after roughly two hours of questioning on Thursday, his attorneys called Jared Birchall, who manages Musk's billions at his family office, as their next witness. Birchall testified about his knowledge of Musk's specific donations to OpenAI. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers oversaw the proceedings from federal court in Oakland, California. The trial will resume on Monday. Recap:
Elon Musk Says OpenAI Betrayed Him, Clashes With Company's Attorney (Day Three)
Musk Testifies OpenAI Was Created As Nonprofit To Counter Google (Day Two)
Elon Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman Head To Court (Day One)