NexTech ?? - Meta AI vs Trump, Miss AI sparks controversary, Hackers never sleep and politicians must prove they are not AI!
It's hot outside, so what shall we do?
We read newsletters to cool our heads off, right? Spiral down the river of information and get amazed at some of the craziest things people do, while we work 9-6.
Anyway, just in time before some of you skedaddle to a well-deserved holiday!?
What's new?
Meta AI goes through hallucinations about the Trump incident
Meta AI is in trouble after it denied the assassination attempt of Donald Trump. Many sources have reported that the case was covered up or simply avoided in a conversation. As soon as you begin asking Meta AI about it, it's slowly starting to deduct various information from other stories, but never from the right one.
An official public statement was released by Joel Kaplan, Meta's global head of policy, who announces that initially the AI was programmed to not respond to questions about the assassination, but the company removed the restriction after people started noticing.
An AI error is called a "hallucination", which is an industry-wide issue we see across all generative AI systems.
It's not only Meta AI caught up here, there's also Google's search autocomplete feature, which is censoring results about the assassination.
It's interesting that in the 21st century, we can't access the raw, non-biased information about different incidents, events or situations that involve political figures.
Proton launches its own version of Google Docs
Proton has its own version of Google Docs in its Drive cloud storage service and it comes with end-to-end encryption. On top of that, it also has advanced formatting and image embed options like Google Docs has and can create, open and edit documents in multiple formats, including Microsoft .docx.
If you don't have a Proton account, you will be prompted to create one first, and why not? The free tier includes essential document features, so people don't have to pay for the service If they don't want to. Add comments to the document, reply to them, see other participants' presence with the cursor placement in real time.
OpenAI's latest foe: hackers
Have you ever lost interest in a game because of multiple hacking strikes? Well, we certainly did.
Open AI is going through that phase, with its reputation at stake. Somehow hackers gained entry to the company's internal messaging system all the way back in early 2023, stealing information related to its AI designs.
It seems that no customer or partner information was compromised and the individual had no government affiliation.
Still, it raises questions among users that Open AI's security is weak and could become a target to foreign adversaries (definitely pointing to China).
As a response to all the rumors, Open AI created a new safety and security committee, but things don't look brighter even with a former NSA director in charge.
The UK politician accused of being AI is actually a real person
As shady as it sounds, the issue was real.
Mark Matlock, a candidate for the far-right Reform UK party, aroused suspicion when he didn't show up for campaign events. Truth be told, the man suffered from pneumonia.
It's out of a Matrix sequel, because history repeats itself. During this election, an executive at an AI company used an AI persona to run for Parliament in the UK. He lost, however, getting just 179 votes.
He cleared the misunderstanding in "The Independent", explaining that he's a real person, not an AI bot. It turns out that the photo was edited purposefully, with the background being removed and the color of the tie changed. It does have an uncanny look to it, but that's a good lesson for elected officials to never edit their pictures in a way that looks like a MidJourney result.
Miss AI pageant
Miss Universe, Miss International beauty, but what about miss AI?
An influencer platform called Fanvue recently announced the results of its first "Miss AI" pageant. The winner is a fictional Instagram influencer from Morocco, named Kenza Layli (Once again, none of the participants exist).
She has more than 200.000 followers, acting like a real person - commenting, adding image descriptions, pictures showing her "life" and many other activities that only a real person would do.
This leading us nowhere, because critics around the world show no mercy to unrealistic beauty standards. They say the contest sets an unfortunate precedent and objectifies women.
This shouldn't be used as a beauty reference, instead it should be tagged as "fun-time" work.
We're certain that women won't fall into this trap and will continue to set their own beauty standards, real and unique.
What's up, Microsoft?
Courses for Microsoft EDU
Microsoft offers a wide range of educational resources and courses specifically designed for educators, students, and administrators under the "Microsoft EDU" umbrella.
These resources are aimed at enhancing digital literacy, integrating technology into the classroom, and empowering educators with the tools they need to create engaging learning environments.
The collection of training videos comprises web development, introduction to python and VS code. In case you want to practice what you learn, Microsoft has 2 coding activities dedicated to python users. Who knows, you might like it so much, you'll switch from your actual field to development and IT.
Terrible handwriting? Copilot AI understands everything!
Have people always complained that your writing is unreadable and hard to keep up with? Copilot is not judgmental, in fact, it finally understands your pain and got your back. Microsoft is preparing to enable Copilot in OneNote to read and analyze handwritten notes.
The AI-powered Copilot feature in OneNote will even be able to convert your handwritten notes into text for easy editing and sharing. If you use OneNote for handwritten to-do lists, then this feature definitely makes it easier to convert those into text at a later stage.
I’m not sure how Copilot will handle even worse handwriting, though. Samsung’s Galaxy AI has a similar feature that can automatically format handwritten lists, but it struggles with some of the worst handwriting we've ever seen. (Sorry!) We will see!
Notepad gets spellcheck and autocorrect after 40 years!
We're not talking about 3, 5 years, but 40 years! Microsoft is taking its time, it seems.
领英推荐
Good for you, windows 11 users, now you have a new Word-like spellcheck feature inside Notepad.
The spellcheck feature in Notepad is almost identical to how Word or Edge highlight misspelled words, with a red underline to clearly show mistakes.? Microsoft Word first had a spellcheck feature in 1985, when it was known originally as Multi-Tool Word for Xenix and MS-DOS systems. Microsoft originally created Notepad, which was first known as Multi-Tool Notepad in 1983.
You can enable or disable spellcheck on a file type basis in Notepad for Windows 11, so if you don’t want to see corrections in files like .md, .srt, .lrc, or .lic then those can be toggled in the settings menu.
Microsoft has been gradually adding more and more features to its Notepad app for Windows 11, just in time for the company to remove the built-in WordPad app from Windows 11 later this year!
Insight from all over the world
MCAPS Start for Partners
Have we told you before that Microsoft doesn't have a "stop" button?
Excellent, because they keep surprising us with great things, for example MCAPS, which is a preparation for Ignite and the start of Microsoft's fiscal year. It is designed for sellers in the global Microsoft Customer and Partner Solutions organization.
It's about empowering customer and partners through AI transformation, strategic investment, new priorities and key program changes.
What were the main digital engagement moments:
It was a partner-focused digital event, aimed to create synergy and drive collective success!
VMware in Azure
Migrate and optimize workloads in a rapidly evolving VMware landscape!
Microsoft is offering us a faster path to the cloud, while minimizing disruption with migration. What did this free digital event had in its basket?
Take into consideration that Microsoft has a long list with digital events that are bound to be streamed.
Every day there's a new event about different topics, such as Azure, Dynamics 365, Power Platform, Microsoft 365, you can find anything you like.
The I from business stands for "I choose what's best for me"
Let's revise the word "work culture". It's imperative when choosing a company, especially if you've had unpleasant past encounters with leaders that imposed their values, beliefs and attitudes without a feel of remorse. The way people communicate, interact and work with each other is the foundation of a work culture. So, what's the recommendation of our HR? How is it possible to find a sustainable environment?
Do a self-check and determine what your needs are. It mat be useful to know if you can thrive in a collaborative or a competitive work environment. Take into consideration professional development opportunities, working hours flexibility, work-life balance.
Most importantly, you should pay attention to how the recruiters formulate their answers. Don't let them off the hook and insist on placing the focus on work types (remote/hybrid/office), the rewarding system for teams/individual work, how the company addresses failures and if the employees are accepting of differences (diversity, race, gender, inclusion, value, attitudes, beliefs discrepancies).
The more you dig into the company, the quicker you understand how their work culture works.
Briefly, the more you understand about the leadership and culture before you start, the better you'll be positioned to make a smart choice!
What's new at Linksoft
We believe that delivering the best solutions is art.
Microsoft knows that very well, which is why it has an army of partners with many certifications and designations. In the latest blog article, we discuss about the benefits of collaborating with a Microsoft Partner and the 7-year journey of LINKSOFT as a Microsoft Solutions Partner.
The partnership stems from a reliable, collaborative and productive relationship with Microsoft. Consequently, it is well-known that valuable input can't be overlooked and the big tech company finds a way to empower other organizations to flourish and innovate.
Disability pride month
July is Disability Pride Month, a time to honor the contributions, achievements, and rich diversity of the disability community.?This month-long celebration serves to promote visibility, self-affirmation, and pride among people with disabilities.
Throughout this month, every company should be engaging in various activities and initiatives designed to raise awareness and celebrate the contributions of our colleagues with disabilities.
We should commit ourselves to creating a workplace where everyone can thrive!
Should people return to the office?
If you have an X account (R.I.P Twitter birdy), then you should follow this channel !
The topic of the month, that we found relevant and applicable to our current situation is ”Should people return to the office?”
This has been a classic debate since the pandemic, because neither side wants to give up. On one hand, we have the "office work is productive" companies and on the other hand we are invaded by the people who can't be persuaded to return to the office. It is continuously demonstrated that working from home has countless of benefits for anyone and it's the go-to selection norm for everyone when they are looking for a job.
This is a never-ending debate and we are heavily invested into observing in which direction this will move to, but for now we can all agree that we haven't heard of a company go bankrupt because the employees decided to work from home.
Spotify playlist for Marketing
Marketing has priority this month! We need to give credit to the "What does Marketing do?" people. We show respect to their work, their effort and the multi-tasking heroes that can handle various niches of Marketing (yes, all of them - design, copywriting, video editing, social media specialists etc. You heard us!).
What kind of music people from Marketing listen to?
It's just as diversified as their skills, knowledge and creativity!
Marketing high on music proposes to tickle the brain and give it a pat on the "back", just as much as it needs to offer valuable content!