Boardroom Tech Talk: Microsoft Pauses Activision Blizzard Merger
In the latest edition of the Boardroom Tech Talk newsletter, Boardroom’s Michelai Graham discusses ChatGPT’s latest update, an AI news writer, Meta’s impending Norway fines, and more.
Apparently, Google is testing an AI tool that can write news articles and is marketing it as a personal assistant for journalists, but I’m just not convinced that’s the real goal of the new tech.
A peek into today’s edition:
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Microsoft Pauses Activision Blizzard Merger + Other Updates
In a twisted turn of events, Microsoft has decided to delay its $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard to get approval from the UK’s antitrust regulators. Microsoft and Activision extended the closing of the deal until Oct. 18, with hopes that they can make it over this last hurdle and change the gaming landscape forever.
Here are some more news updates from Microsoft’s world:
- After months of feuding, Microsoft and Sony inked a deal to keep Call of Duty titles exclusively on PlayStation devices for the next decade.
- Microsoft and Meta announced the release of Llama 2, the tech giants’ open-source large language AI model, which is free for research and commercial use.
- Microsoft is expanding its Bing AI chatbot with Bing Chat Enterprise for work with commercial data protection.
THIS WEEK IN TECH
ChatGPT’s New Memoery Feature
OpenAI added a new feature to ChatGPT that enables users to customize prompts and add preferences for all their chats. The custom instructions feature gives the AI system a basic memory function that allows ChatGPT to tailor and influence responses based on what users want. The feature is in beta testing with ChatGPT Plus plan users, and a broader rollout to all users could happen in the next few weeks.
Also, keep an eye out. There’s a ChatGPT clone called WormGPT that hackers are using to launch email phishing attacks.
Will Threads Survive the Hype?
Daily active users on Meta’s Threads fell as much as 50% from 49 million on July 7 to 23.6 million on July 14 following a highly successful launch earlier this month. Despite the dip in usage, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said he’s still optimistic about the app’s community growing.
Threads got its first major iOS app update to reel users in, adding more columns to the activity feed, including a Follows tab, text translation, follower subscriptions, and more. Meta also took away the set of numbers on Instagram pages that signaled a Threads account is attached to that user. Instead, each Threads user now has a logo on their Instagram page that leads to their Threads account. There’s no word on when Android users will get an equivalent update.
