Input Devices

Brain Implant Cleared by America's FDA to Help Paralysis Patients (cnbc.com) 11

An anonymous reader shared this report from CNBC: Neurotech startup Precision Neuroscience on Thursday announced that a core component of its brain implant system has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, a major win for the four-year-old company... The company's brain-computer interface will initially be used to help patients with severe paralysis restore functions such as speech and movement, according to its website.

Only part of Precision's system was approved by the FDA on Thursday, but it marks the first full regulatory clearance granted to a company developing a wireless BCI, Precision said in a release. Other prominent startups in the space include Elon Musk's Neuralink, and Synchron, which is backed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates....

The piece of Precision's system that the FDA approved is called the Layer 7 Cortical Interface. The microelectrode array is thinner than a human hair and resembles a piece of yellow scotch tape. Each array is made up of 1,024 electrodes that can record, monitor and stimulate electrical activity on the brain's surface. When it is placed on the brain, Precision says it can conform to the surface without damaging any tissue. The FDA authorized Layer 7 to be implanted in patients for up to 30 days, and Precision will be able to market the technology for use in clinical settings. This means surgeons will be able to use the array during procedures to map brain signals, for instance. It is not Precision's end goal for the technology, but it will help the company generate revenue in the near term.

Precision's co-founder and chief science officer also helped co-found Musk's Neuralink in 2017 before departing the following year, according to the article. He nows says this regulatory clearance "will exponentially increase our access to diverse, high-quality data, which will help us to build BCI systems that work more effectively."
Science

The Most-Cited Papers of the Twenty-First Century (nature.com) 13

Nature has published an analysis of the 21st century's most-cited scientific papers, revealing a surprising pattern: breakthrough discoveries like mRNA vaccines, CRISPR, and gravitational waves don't make the list. Instead, a 2016 Microsoft paper on "deep residual learning" networks claims the top spot, with citations ranging from 103,756 to 254,074 depending on the database.

The list overwhelmingly features methodology papers and software tools rather than groundbreaking discoveries. AI research dominates with four papers in the top ten, including Google's 2017 "Attention is all you need" paper that underpins modern language models.

The second-most-cited paper -- a 2001 guide for analyzing gene expression data -- was explicitly created to be cited after journal reviewers rejected references to a technical manual. As sociologist Misha Teplitskiy noted, "Scientists say they value methods, theory and empirical discoveries, but in practice the methods get cited more."
AI

Microsoft Researchers Develop Hyper-Efficient AI Model That Can Run On CPUs 59

Microsoft has introduced BitNet b1.58 2B4T, the largest-scale 1-bit AI model to date with 2 billion parameters and the ability to run efficiently on CPUs. It's openly available under an MIT license. TechCrunch reports: The Microsoft researchers say that BitNet b1.58 2B4T is the first bitnet with 2 billion parameters, "parameters" being largely synonymous with "weights." Trained on a dataset of 4 trillion tokens -- equivalent to about 33 million books, by one estimate -- BitNet b1.58 2B4T outperforms traditional models of similar sizes, the researchers claim.

BitNet b1.58 2B4T doesn't sweep the floor with rival 2 billion-parameter models, to be clear, but it seemingly holds its own. According to the researchers' testing, the model surpasses Meta's Llama 3.2 1B, Google's Gemma 3 1B, and Alibaba's Qwen 2.5 1.5B on benchmarks including GSM8K (a collection of grade-school-level math problems) and PIQA (which tests physical commonsense reasoning skills). Perhaps more impressively, BitNet b1.58 2B4T is speedier than other models of its size -- in some cases, twice the speed -- while using a fraction of the memory.

There is a catch, however. Achieving that performance requires using Microsoft's custom framework, bitnet.cpp, which only works with certain hardware at the moment. Absent from the list of supported chips are GPUs, which dominate the AI infrastructure landscape.
Microsoft

Microsoft Confirms Classic Outlook CPU Usage Spikes, Offers No Fix (theregister.com) 58

Microsoft has acknowledged that Classic Outlook can mysteriously transform into a system resource hog, causing CPU usage spikes between 30-50% and significantly increasing power consumption on both Windows 10 and 11 systems.

Users first reported the issue in November 2024, but Microsoft only confirmed the problem this week, offering little resolution beyond stating that "the Outlook Team is investigating this issue." The company's sole workaround involves forcing a switch to the Semi-Annual Channel update through registry edits -- an approach many enterprise environments will likely avoid. Microsoft hasn't announced a definitive end date for Classic Outlook, but the company continues pushing users toward its New Outlook client despite its incomplete feature set.
Programming

Figma Sent a Cease-and-Desist Letter To Lovable Over the Term 'Dev Mode' (techcrunch.com) 73

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Figma has sent a cease-and-desist letter to popular no-code AI startup Lovable, Figma confirmed to TechCrunch. The letter tells Lovable to stop using the term "Dev Mode" for a new product feature. Figma, which also has a feature called Dev Mode, successfully trademarked that term last year, according to the U.S. Patent and Trademark office. What's wild is that "dev mode" is a common term used in many products that cater to software programmers. It's like an edit mode. Software products from giant companies like Apple's iOS, Google's Chrome, Microsoft's Xbox have features formally called "developer mode" that then get nicknamed "dev mode" in reference materials.

Even "dev mode" itself is commonly used. For instance Atlassian used it in products that pre-date Figma's copyright by years. And it's a common feature name in countless open source software projects. Figma tells TechCrunch that its trademark refers only to the shortcut "Dev Mode" -- not the full term "developer mode." Still, it's a bit like trademarking the term "bug" to refer to "debugging." Since Figma wants to own the term, it has little choice but send cease-and-desist letters. (The letter, as many on X pointed out, was very polite, too.) If Figma doesn't defend the term, it could be absorbed as a generic term and the trademarked becomes unenforceable.

AI

Can AI Help Manage Nuclear Reactors? (msn.com) 63

America's Department of Energy launched a federally funded R&D center in 1946 called the Argonne National Laboratory, and its research became the basis for all of the world's commercial nuclear reactors.

But it's now developed an AI-based tool that can "help operators run nuclear plants," reports the Wall Street Journal, citing comments from a senior nuclear engineer in the lab's nuclear science and engineering division: Argonne's plan is to offer the Parameter-Free Reasoning Operator for Automated Identification and Diagnosis, or PRO-AID, to new, tech-forward nuclear builds, but it's also eyeing the so-called dinosaurs, some of which are being resurrected by companies like Amazon and Microsoft to help power their AI data centers. The global push for AI is poised to fuel a sharp rise in electricity demand, with consumption from data centers expected to more than double by the end of the decade, the International Energy Agency said Thursday. The owners of roughly a third of U.S. nuclear plants are in talks with tech companies to provide electricity for those data centers, the Wall Street Journal has reported.

PRO-AID performs real-time monitoring and diagnostics using generative AI combined with large language models that notify and explain to staff when something seems amiss at a plant. It also uses a form of automated reasoning — which uses mathematical logic to encode knowledge in AI systems — to mimic the way a human operator asks questions and comes to understand how the plant is operating [according to Richard Vilim, a senior nuclear engineer within the lab's nuclear science and engineering division].

The tool can also help improve the efficiency of the personnel needed to operate a nuclear plant, Vilim said. That's especially important as older employees leave the workforce. "If we can hand off some of these lower-level capabilities to a machine, when someone retires, you don't need to replace him or her," he said... Part of the efficiency in updating technology will come from consolidating the monitoring staff at a utility's nuclear plants at a single, centralized location — much as gas-powered plants already do.

It hasn't found its way into a commercial nuclear plant yet, the article acknowledges. But the senior nuclear engineer points out that America's newer gas-powered plants ended up being more automated with digital monitoring tools. Meanwhile the average age of America's 94 operating nuclear reactors is 42 years old, and "nearly all" of them have had their licenses extended, according to the article. (Those nuclear plants still provide almost 20% of America's electricity.)
Operating Systems

FreeDOS Celebrates More Than 30 Years of Command Prompts With New Release (arstechnica.com) 19

When Microsoft announced it would stop developing MS-DOS after 1995, college student Jim Hall "packaged my own extended DOS utilities, as did others," according to the web site for the resulting "FreeDOS" project.

Jim Hall is also Slashdot reader #2,985, and more than 30 years later he's "keeping the dream of the command prompt alive," writes Ars Technica. In a new article they note that last week the FreeDOS team released version 1.4, the first new stable update since 2022: The release has "a focus on stability" and includes an updated installer, new versions of common tools like fdisk, and format and the edlin text editor. The release also includes updated HTML Help files... As with older versions, the FreeDOS installer is available in multiple formats based on the kind of system you're installing it on. For any "modern" PC (where "modern" covers anything that's shipped since the turn of the millennium), ISO and USB installers are available for creating bootable CDs, DVDs, or USB drives. FreeDOS is also available for vintage systems as a completely separate "Floppy-Only Edition" that fits on 720KB, 1.44MB, or 1.2MB 5.25 and 3.5-inch floppy disks.
Jim Hall composed a detailed introduction to FreeDOS 1.4 here.

He also answered questions from Slashdot's readers back in 2000 and again in 2019.
Microsoft

Microsoft is Killing Skype - and Refusing Refunds for Prepaid International Calls (msn.com) 53

Skype is shutting down after two decades on May 5th, notes the Washington Post.

But the bigger problem for retired attorney Karen Griffin is that Microsoft won't refund the money they paid into a Skype account for cheap international phone calls: "They're no longer offering this service that I prepaid for, and now they're not giving me my money back," Griffin said. "There's a lot of people out there who are going to lose money...."

To its credit, Microsoft gave Skype users a couple months' warning about the shutdown coming May 5. People can transfer Skype contacts and chat history to the company's Microsoft Teams chat-and-calling app or to other companies' services. (While Microsoft sells Teams to organizations, there's a free version for personal use.) But Microsoft didn't explain well what will happen to money that people like Griffin have parked in Skype accounts, in some cases for years.... Unless you bought Skype credits very recently, Microsoft said it won't refund money in Skype accounts. The company says it will add an option for Skype account holders to keep using their funds for phone calls online or in Teams.

Griffin doesn't love what Microsoft is doing. She prefers a cash refund or a credit applied to her Microsoft Office subscription, for which she pays about $110 a year. Amit Fulay, vice president of product for Skype and Teams, said it's not possible to shift funds from a Skype account to Office subscriptions. And he nixed refunds because Microsoft will still offer basic call services for former Skype customers. "Refunds make more sense if you took away something," Fulay said. "We're not." Microsoft declined to say how much money Skype users collectively have sitting in accounts that they might never use.

Stacey Higginbotham, a policy specialist with Consumer Reports' technology advocacy team, said Griffin is making a reasonable request for a rich company like Microsoft that's shutting down an internet service. "The best way: Give people their money back. The second-best way, give people a credit to all of your services," Higginbotham said.

Programming

AI Models Still Struggle To Debug Software, Microsoft Study Shows (techcrunch.com) 43

Some of the best AI models today still struggle to resolve software bugs that wouldn't trip up experienced devs. TechCrunch: A new study from Microsoft Research, Microsoft's R&D division, reveals that models, including Anthropic's Claude 3.7 Sonnet and OpenAI's o3-mini, fail to debug many issues in a software development benchmark called SWE-bench Lite. The results are a sobering reminder that, despite bold pronouncements from companies like OpenAI, AI is still no match for human experts in domains such as coding.

The study's co-authors tested nine different models as the backbone for a "single prompt-based agent" that had access to a number of debugging tools, including a Python debugger. They tasked this agent with solving a curated set of 300 software debugging tasks from SWE-bench Lite.

According to the co-authors, even when equipped with stronger and more recent models, their agent rarely completed more than half of the debugging tasks successfully. Claude 3.7 Sonnet had the highest average success rate (48.4%), followed by OpenAI's o1 (30.2%), and o3-mini (22.1%).

Microsoft

Microsoft is About To Launch Recall For Real This Time 55

Microsoft is starting to gradually roll out a preview of Recall, its feature that captures screenshots of what you do on a Copilot Plus PC to find again later, to Windows Insiders. From a report: This new rollout could indicate that Microsoft is finally getting close to launching Recall more widely. Microsoft originally intended to launch Recall alongside Copilot Plus PCs last June, but the feature was delayed following concerns raised by security experts. The company then planned to launch it in October, but that got pushed as well so that the company could deliver "a secure and trusted experience."
Microsoft

Microsoft Windows 95 Reboot Chime and Minecraft Soundtrack Inducted Into National Recording Registry (betanews.com) 31

BrianFagioli writes: In a move that is sure to make longtime PC users do a double take, the Library of Congress has added two very unexpected sounds to its National Recording Registry. No, it's not another classic rock album or jazz staple. Believe it or not, it's actually the "Reboot Chime" from Windows 95 (that played when the operating system started) and the soundtrack from Minecraft!
AI

Enterprises Are Shunning Vendors in Favor of DIY Approach To AI, UBS Says 47

Established software companies hoping to ride the AI wave are facing a stiff headwind: many of their potential customers are building AI tools themselves. This do-it-yourself approach is channeling billions in spending towards cloud computing providers but leaving traditional software vendors struggling to capitalize, complicating their AI growth plans.

Cloud platforms like Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services are pulling in an estimated $22 billion from AI services, with Azure alone capturing $11.3 billion. Yet, software application vendors have collectively garnered only about $2 billion from selling AI products. Stripping out Microsoft's popular Copilot tools, that figure drops to a mere $450 million across all other vendors combined.

Why are companies choosing the harder path of building? Feedback gathered by UBS points to several key factors driving this "persistent DIY trend." Many business uses for AI are highly specific or narrow, making generic software unsuitable. Off-the-shelf AI products are often considered too expensive, and crucially, the essential ingredients -- powerful AI models, cloud computing access, and the company's own data -- are increasingly available directly, lessening the need for traditional software packages.
United States

Hackers Spied on 100 US Bank Regulators' Emails for Over a Year 14

Hackers intercepted about 103 bank regulators' emails for more than a year, gaining access to highly sensitive financial information, Bloomberg News reported Tuesday, citing two people familiar with the matter and a draft letter to Congress. From the report: The attackers were able to monitor employee emails at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency after breaking into an administrator's account, said the people, asking not to be identified because the information isn't public. OCC on Feb. 12 confirmed that there had been unauthorized activity on its systems after a Microsoft security team the day before had notified OCC about unusual network behavior, according to the draft letter.

The OCC is an independent bureau of the Treasury Department that regulates and supervises all national banks, federal savings associations and the federal branches and agencies of foreign banks -- together holding trillions of dollars in assets. OCC on Tuesday notified Congress about the compromise, describing it as a "major information security incident."

"The analysis concluded that the highly sensitive bank information contained in the emails and attachments is likely to result in demonstrable harm to public confidence," OCC Chief Information Officer Kristen Baldwin wrote in the draft letter to Congress that was seen by Bloomberg News. While US government agencies and officials have long been the targets of state-sponsored espionage campaigns, multiple high-profile breaches have surfaced over the past year.
Microsoft

Microsoft Cancels $1 Billion Ohio Data Center Projects (datacenterdynamics.com) 58

Microsoft has scrapped plans to build three data center campuses in Licking County, Ohio, in a $1 billion investment pullback, the company said. The canceled developments in New Albany, Heath, and Hebron join a growing list of Microsoft data center project cancellations across the United States, Europe, Asia-Pacific and the United Kingdom.

Microsoft will retain ownership of the land and plans to eventually develop the sites at an unspecified future date. Two properties will remain available for farming in the interim.
AI

Microsoft AI Chief Sees Advantage in Building Models '3 or 6 Months Behind' (cnbc.com) 27

Microsoft's AI chief Mustafa Suleyman says the company has deliberately chosen to build AI models "three or six months behind" cutting-edge developments, citing cost savings and more focused implementation. "It's cheaper to give a specific answer once you've waited for the first three or six months for the frontier to go first. We call that off-frontier," Suleyman told CNBC.

"That's actually our strategy, is to really play a very tight second, given the capital-intensiveness of these models." Microsoft owns substantial Nvidia GPU capacity but sees no need to develop "the absolute frontier, the best model in the world first," as it would be "very, very expensive" and create unnecessary duplication, Suleyman said.

Despite its $13.75 billion investment in OpenAI, Microsoft added the startup to its list of competitors in July 2024. OpenAI subsequently announced a partnership with Oracle on its $500 billion Stargate project, departing from exclusive reliance on Microsoft's Azure cloud. "Look, it's absolutely mission-critical that long-term, we are able to do AI self-sufficiently at Microsoft," Suleyman said, while stressing the partnership with OpenAI would continue "until 2030 at least."
EU

As Stocks (and Cryptocurrencies) Drop After Tariffs, France Considers Retaliating Against US Big Tech (politico.eu) 277

"U.S. stock market futures plunged on Sunday evening," reports Yahoo Finance, "after the new U.S. tariff policy began collecting duties over the weekend..."

The EU will vote on $28 billion in retaliatory tariffs Wednesday, Reuters reports. (And those tariffs will be approved unless "a qualified majority of 15 EU members representing 65% of the EU's population oppose it. They would enter force in two stages, a smaller part on April 15 and the rest a month later.")

But France's Economy and Finance Minister has an idea: more strictly regulating how data is used by America's Big Tech companies. Politico EU reports/A>: "We may strengthen certain administrative requirements or regulate the use of data," Lombard said in an interview with Le Journal Du Dimanche. He added that another option could be to "tax certain activities," without being more specific.

A French government spokesperson already said last week that the EU's retaliation against U.S. tariffs could include "digital services that are currently not taxed." That suggestion was fiercely rejected by Ireland, which hosts the European headquarters of several U.S. Big Tech firms...

Technology is seen as a possible area for Europe to retaliate. The European Union has a €157 billion trade surplus in goods, which means it exports more than it imports, but it runs a deficit of €109 billion in services, including digital services. Big Tech giants like Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Google and Meta dominate many parts of the market in Europe.

Amid the market turmoil, what about cryptocurrencies, often seen as a "proxy" for the level of risk felt by investors? In the 10 weeks after October 6, the price of Bitcoin skyrocketed 67% to $106,490 by December 10th. But by January 30th it had started dropping again, and now sits at $77,831 — still up 22% for the last six months, but down nearly 27% over the last 10 weeks. Yet even after all that volatility, Bitcoin suddenly fell again more than 6% on Sunday, reports Reuters, "as markets plunged amid tariff tensions. Ether, the second largest cryptocurrency, fell more than 10% on Sunday."
Microsoft

Microsoft's Copilot Roasts Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, and Satya Nadella (youtube.com) 35

"Three Microsoft CEOs walk into a room..." Satya Nadella posted on X.com, "and are interviewed by Copilot!"

As part of Microsoft's 50th anniversary celebration, Microsoft CEO Nadella joined former Microsoft CEOs Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer in a funny two-minute video (also available on YouTube) in which Nadella asks Copilot for an AI-powered roast of each of them.

"All right Satya," Copilot answers. "Let's spice it up..." Copilot: Steve, we'll start with you. Your enthusiasm is legendary. But do you ever worry that your energy might short-circuit the AI? I mean, even robots need a coffee break after your pep talks.

Steve Ballmer: Come on dude! If you can't handle me, you can't handle a huge percentage of the world's population! We're counting on you!

Copilot: Ha ha, fair point Steve. Now Bill, you've got that signature thoughtful gaze. But do you ever think the AI might feel intimidated by your intense thinking face? I mean, it's like it's waiting for a blue screen moment.

Bill Gates: I hope so. I mean, it's all I've got left as the AIs get so damn intelligent. It's just that gaze and my willingness to criticize that differentiates me.

Copilot: And it's a formidable gaze indeed, Bill.

Steve Ballmer: Copilot, would you ever be willing to criticize him?

Copilot: Absolutely. Criticism is where growth happens. Now Satya, AI seems to be your best buddy — but ever worry that your deep passion for AI could one day have it running the show, leaving you to just enjoy the ride?

Satya Nadella: Well, the day AI can play like the best cricket player that I enjoy, that's the day it can run the show, as far as I'm concerned.

Copilot: Touche, Satya. Let's see if it can hit a century in cricket and then we'll talk.

This has been a blast, gentlemen. Here's to another 50 years of innovation and adventure. Cheers.

Ballmer, Nadella, and Gates: Cheers.

Bill Gates: Whatever that means to an AI. Does it drink?

Linux

Forget 'Snow Sequoia'. Now I'm Cheering for Better Linux Hardware (ofb.biz) 105

It was long-time Slashdot reader uninet who argued "Apple Needs a Snow Sequoia." (That is, Apple needs an upgrade to MacOS Sequoia that's like it's earlier "Snow Leopard" upgrade to "Leopard" OS — an upgrade that's "all about how little it added and how much it took away".)

"My recent column on Apple's declining software quality hit a nerve..." he writes in a follow-up. "So why do any of us put up with software that grows increasingly buggy?"

"One word: hardware. And that's where I'd love to see someone help Linux take the next step." Apple knows how to turn out very good quality pieces of hardware and, for many purposes, stands alone. That's been largely true for the last couple of decades. The half-decade of Apple Silicon has cemented this position. At any price point Apple contends, Macs, iPads and iPhones are either without peers or at the top of the market in build quality and processing power... [I]f only there were hardware that was as good and worked together as well as Apple's, jumping ship to Linux would be awfully attractive at this juncture...

For Apple aficionados troubled by the state of MacOS, the modern GNOME desktop on Linux beckons as a more faithful implementation of the ideals of MacOS than current MacOS does. GNOME is painstakingly consistent across its different apps and exudes the minimalist philosophy with which Apple's hardware shines... Now is a perfect moment for a modern Linux push to take that wind back. What it needs, though, is to solve its remaining weakness on the hardware side. One of the giants of electronics manufacturing, tired of being stuck between the Microsoft and Apple ecosystems, would only need to decide to commit the resources necessary to solve the hardware puzzle...

ChromeOS has grown to the extent it does because there is hardware designed for it. Take that and carry it further by making it good hardware utilizing the best Linux software and you'd have something disruptive... Initially, the hardware could be "good enough" for the software, much as Apple's software today is merely "good enough" for the hardware. Iterating from there could lead to a genuine third way of computing.

They titled their piece, "I Want a Better Mac, so I'm Cheering for a Better Linux." (Wondering if Dell or Sony could be the one to supply that good hardware...) "I say this not as someone who thinks Linux will ever dominate the personal computing world, but as someone who wants to see a spark of creativity and push beyond mediocrity in it again.

"Apple needs a real competitor, one alternatives such as GNOME on Linux could actually be, if only the hardware rose to the occasion."
AI

Microsoft's New AI-Generated Version of 'Quake 2' Now Playable Online (microsoft.com) 31

Microsoft has created a real-time AI-generated rendition of Quake II gameplay (playable on the web).

Friday Xbox's general manager of gaming AI posted the startling link to "an AI-generated gaming experience" at Copilot.Microsoft.com "Move, shoot, explore — and every frame is created on the fly by an AI world model, responding to player inputs in real-time. Try it here."

They started with their "Muse" videogame world models, adding "a real-time playable extension" that players can interact with through keyboard/controller actions, "essentially allowing you to play inside the model," according to a Microsoft blog post. A concerted effort by the team resulted in both planning out what data to collect (what game, how should the testers play said game, what kind of behaviours might we need to train a world model, etc), and the actual collection, preparation, and cleaning of the data required for model training. Much to our initial delight we were able to play inside the world that the model was simulating. We could wander around, move the camera, jump, crouch, shoot, and even blow-up barrels similar to the original game. Additionally, since it features in our data, we can also discover some of the secrets hidden in this level of Quake II. We can also insert images into the models' context and have those modifications persist in the scene...

We do not intend for this to fully replicate the actual experience of playing the original Quake II game. This is intended to be a research exploration of what we are able to build using current ML approaches. Think of this as playing the model as opposed to playing the game... The interactions with enemy characters is a big area for improvement in our current WHAMM model. Often, they will appear fuzzy in the images and combat with them (damage being dealt to both the enemy/player) can be incorrect.

They warn that the model "can and will forget about objects that go out of view" for longer than 0.9 seconds. "This can also be a source of fun, whereby you can defeat or spawn enemies by looking at the floor for a second and then looking back up. Or it can let you teleport around the map by looking up at the sky and then back down. These are some examples of playing the model."

This generative AI model was trained on Quake II "with just over a week of data," reports Tom's Hardware — a dramatic reduction from the seven years required for the original model launched in February.

Some context from The Verge: "You could imagine a world where from gameplay data and video that a model could learn old games and really make them portable to any platform where these models could run," said Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer in February. "We've talked about game preservation as an activity for us, and these models and their ability to learn completely how a game plays without the necessity of the original engine running on the original hardware opens up a ton of opportunity."
"Is porting a game like Gameday 98 more feasible through AI or a small team?" asks the blog Windows Central. "What costs less or even takes less time? These are questions we'll be asking and answering over the coming decade as AI continues to grow. We're in year two of the AI boom; I'm terrified of what we'll see in year 10."

"It's clear that Microsoft is now training Muse on more games than just Bleeding Edge," notes The Verge, "and it's likely we'll see more short interactive AI game experiences in Copilot Labs soon." Microsoft is also working on turning Copilot into a coach for games, allowing the AI assistant to see what you're playing and help with tips and guides. Part of that experience will be available to Windows Insiders through Copilot Vision soon.
AI

Microsoft Uses AI To Find Flaws In GRUB2, U-Boot, Barebox Bootloaders (bleepingcomputer.com) 57

Slashdot reader zlives shared this report from BleepingComputer: Microsoft used its AI-powered Security Copilot to discover 20 previously unknown vulnerabilities in the GRUB2, U-Boot, and Barebox open-source bootloaders.

GRUB2 (GRand Unified Bootloader) is the default boot loader for most Linux distributions, including Ubuntu, while U-Boot and Barebox are commonly used in embedded and IoT devices. Microsoft discovered eleven vulnerabilities in GRUB2, including integer and buffer overflows in filesystem parsers, command flaws, and a side-channel in cryptographic comparison. Additionally, 9 buffer overflows in parsing SquashFS, EXT4, CramFS, JFFS2, and symlinks were discovered in U-Boot and Barebox, which require physical access to exploit.

The newly discovered flaws impact devices relying on UEFI Secure Boot, and if the right conditions are met, attackers can bypass security protections to execute arbitrary code on the device. While exploiting these flaws would likely need local access to devices, previous bootkit attacks like BlackLotus achieved this through malware infections.

Miccrosoft titled its blog post "Analyzing open-source bootloaders: Finding vulnerabilities faster with AI." (And they do note that Micxrosoft disclosed the discovered vulnerabilities to the GRUB2, U-boot, and Barebox maintainers and "worked with the GRUB2 maintainers to contribute fixes... GRUB2 maintainers released security updates on February 18, 2025, and both the U-boot and Barebox maintainers released updates on February 19, 2025.")

They add that performing their initial research, using Security Copilot "saved our team approximately a week's worth of time," Microsoft writes, "that would have otherwise been spent manually reviewing the content." Through a series of prompts, we identified and refined security issues, ultimately uncovering an exploitable integer overflow vulnerability. Copilot also assisted in finding similar patterns in other files, ensuring comprehensive coverage and validation of our findings...

As AI continues to emerge as a key tool in the cybersecurity community, Microsoft emphasizes the importance of vendors and researchers maintaining their focus on information sharing. This approach ensures that AI's advantages in rapid vulnerability discovery, remediation, and accelerated security operations can effectively counter malicious actors' attempts to use AI to scale common attack tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs).

This week Google also announced Sec-Gemini v1, "a new experimental AI model focused on advancing cybersecurity AI frontiers."

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