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Microsoft Is Charging Some Office 365 Customers 40% Extra to Test … – The Information

Microsoft and other software companies that recently launched artificial intelligence features now face the hard part: getting customers to pay for the features, which are costly to operate.

More than 600 of Microsofts largest customers, including Bank of America, Walmart, Ford and Accenture, are expected to testthe AI features in its Microsoft Office 365 productivity apps, and at least 100 customers are already paying a flat fee of $100,000 for up to 1,000 users for one year, according to a person with direct knowledge of the pilot program. That means the customerswith 1,000-seat subscriptions are paying at least 40% more versus the classic version for productivity software that automates tasks such as writing text in Word documents and creating PowerPoint slides.

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What Is a Datacenter Proxy Service? Why Do You Need One for … – Tech Funding News

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Foxconn Forecasts Big Surge For AI Server Business As It Gains From Rise Of Generative AI – Swarajya

Taiwanese tech giant Foxconn (officially known as Hon Hai Precision Industry), the world's biggest contract electronics manufacturer, has forecasted that its artificial intelligence (AI) server business will at least double in the second half of this year.

Best known for manufacturing and assembling Apple's iPhone products, Foxconn has recently moved to diversify beyond contract electronics manufacturing assembly by foraying into areas ranging from electric vehicles to semiconductors and servers.

"In 2022 alone, Hon Hai's revenue for servers reached $36 billion to obtain a 40 percent global market share," Chairman Young Liu told an annual shareholders' meeting in Taipei.

"For the second half of this year, we may have a three-digit growth, not two digits... We will continue to boost our market share for servers," Liu said.

In the first quarter, Foxconn's cloud and network products segment, which includes servers, accounted for 22% of revenue, second only to smart consumer electronics - which includes smartphones - at 56%.

AI servers made up about 20 per cent of Foxconn's total server sales last year, Liu said, adding that the company had taken advantage of solutions provided by Intel Corp, Advanced Micro Devices Inc and ARM Ltd to roll out AI servers.

Liu attributed the jump in demand to the rapid rise of generative artificial intelligence systems such as ChatGPT.

The huge surge in demand for AI servers catapulted chip designer Nvidia, albeit briefly, into the $1 trillion valuation club.

Foxconn's latest AI servers also use Nvidia chips.

In 2016, Foxconn and Nvidia formed a partnership to develop servers that offer artificial intelligence capabilities.

Foxconn has been aggressively foraying into semiconductor and EV business amid concern about its reliance on its low-margin business as an Apple supplier.

Foxconn is partnering with Infineon Technologies to develop silicon carbide (SiC) semiconductors, leveraging Infineon's automotive SiC innovations and Foxconn's expertise in automotive systems. Infineon is a world leader in power semiconductors.

It recently started trial production of a third-generation SiC semiconductor for use in electric vehicles for five clients. A 6-inch SiC wafer plant in Hsinchu acquired by it from Macronix International Co in 2021 has begun commercial production.

Foxconn also established a joint venture with Taiwanese electronics component maker Yageo in 2021 to design automotive chips, securing a foothold in front-end chipmaking.

Foxconn has set an ambitious goal of capturing at least a 5 per cent share of the global electric vehicle market by 2025, aiming to generate US$30 billion in EV sales. It will face tough competition from established players like Tesla, Volkswagen and General Motors.

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Elastics.cloud to Showcase Memory Pooling and Expansion Demonstration with MSIs CXL 1.1 Servers at Computex – EIN News

SANTA CLARA, CALIFORNIA, USA, May 30, 2023 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Elastics.cloud, a Smart Interconnect technology company focused on enabling efficient and performant composable architectures, today announced that it will be demonstrating its first-to-market rack-scale memory pooling and expansion solution with Compute Express Link (CXL) over Ethernet at Computex 2023 in partnership with MSI.

The CXL protocol provides connectivity for servers and devices and enables the sharing of memory and other resources. Addressing enterprise, cloud, fog, and edge markets, Elastics.clouds next-generation CXL-based solutions go beyond connectivity within the rack by allowing management of intra-rack and inter-rack traffic and hiding latency, driving overall system efficiency for demanding, data-intensive workloads and reducing TCO.

The demonstration at Computex 2023 will show two CXL 1.1 compliant MSI servers connected via a CXL interface over cables. Utilizing Elastics.cloud IP on FPGA, each server can access a low-latency pool of memory consisting of its own CXL-attached memory and the CXL-attached memory on the other server.

CXL is enabling the disaggregation of component resources in todays server architectures, said Elastics.cloud Founder and CEO George Apostol. Elastics.cloud delivers solutions that enable composable, rack-level architectures, resulting in greater utilization, performance, and efficiency of component resources, while bringing down the costs at scale.

The currently available memory pooling and expansion solution provides over 20x improvements in bandwidth, throughput, and latency with in-memory database workloads. Up to 100x performance improvements are expected with the upcoming ASIC solution.

Elastics.cloud will exhibit this solution with MSI at Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center, Hall 1, 4F, Booth #L0818 from 9:30am to 5:30pm from May 30 to June 2. Please stop by the booth to learn more about Elastics.cloud and to see the live demonstration.

About Elastics.cloud

Elastics.cloud, Inc. is a Smart Interconnect technology company focused on enabling efficient and performant architectures to create flexible, scalable, low latency composable systems. The company provides silicon, hardware, and software which leverages the Compute Express Link (CXL) interconnect standard to provide high-performance connectivity to a broad ecosystem of components and is first to market with CXL-enabled symmetric memory pooling.

http://www.elastics.cloud

Kishore Moturi, Sr. Director Corporate StrategyElastics.cloud+1 408-396-5962Kishore.Moturi@elastics.cloudVisit us on social media:LinkedIn

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Dell Intros New Edge, Generative AI, Cloud, Zero Trust Prods – The New Stack

At its annual Dell Technologies World conference in Las Vegas last week, Dell joined a spate of companies this year in releasing new products that address emerging needs in edge management, secure generative AI development, zero trust security and multicloud workload management. Its no surprise that these are the hottest sectors of enterprise IT products and services sales here in 2023.

New items Dell introduced include the NativeEdge platform; a partnership between itself and Nvidia to build Project Helix, a secure on-premises-based generative AI management package; Project Fort Zero, another new crack at providing an end-to-end zero trust security solution; and updates for its multicloud app-service management platform, Apex.

Dell had only a loosely coordinated edge strategy for a few years until last October when the company previewed a new development called Project Frontier, which was to result in a standalone edge operations software and hardware platform sometime in 2023.

Sometime in 2023 is now here. Project Frontier is now closed, and Dell said its replacement, dubbed NativeEdge, is the industrys only edge operations software platform delivering secure device onboarding at scale, remote management and multicloud application orchestration. Companies such as IBM, AWS, Google, HP, Microsoft, Hitachi, Oracle and several others may dispute the only claim, however. Here is Gartners most recent edge computing market report.

This is the industrys only edge operation platform that mixes up and delivers three things in parallel: secure device onboarding at scale; remote management of devices in those locations; and multicloud application orchestration to edge devices from data centers to make sure that the edge outcome end-to-end is deployed in the lifecycle, Dell SVP of Edge Solutions Gil Schneorson told reporters.

Edge operations, which make use of automated processes, are generally found in locations ranging from manufacturing floors and retail stores to remote wind turbines and long-distance hospital operating rooms.

Use cases for edge computing are growing because more organizations want to manage and secure data at the source but often have limited IT support to do it.

For example, a large manufacturer may need to automate packaging and shipping across its numerous factory sites in various geographies. This means connecting multiple technologies, such as IoT, streaming data and machine vision, which requires dedicated devices to run multiple software applications across locations. Testing and deploying infrastructure to run the applications can take months. With NativeEdge, the manufacturer can consolidate its technology stacks using existing investments and reduce the time to deploy edge assets and applications from months to weeks, Schneorson said. The platform uses automation to streamline edge operations and helps the manufacturer securely roll out new applications to all sites from a central location.

NativeEdge is designed to run any enterprise edge use case with automated deployment, Schneorson said, integrating with various Dell data center hardware nodes. NativeEdge includes built-in zero trust internal use-confidential capabilities, Schneorson said.

The NativeEdge software platform will be available in 50 countries beginning in August, the company said.

Everybody needs easier when it comes to incorporating generative AI into an enterprise system, no matter where its use is being considered. Pre-built AI data models are one major step in that direction.

Dell and Nvidia revealed that Project Helix will result in a series of full-stack solutions with technical expertise and prebuilt tools based on their own infrastructure and software. This includes a complete blueprint to help enterprises use their proprietary data and more easily deploy generative AI responsibly and accurately, Dell said.

Project Helix gives enterprises purpose-built AI models to more quickly and securely gain value from the immense amounts of data underused today, Jeff Clarke, Dell Technologies vice chairman and co-chief operating officer, said in a media advisory. With highly scalable and efficient infrastructure, enterprises can create a new wave of generative AI solutions that can reinvent their industries.

Blueprints for on-premises generative AI Project Helix will support the complete generative AI lifecycle, from infrastructure provisioning, modeling, training, fine-tuning, application development and deployment, to deploying inference and streamlining results, Dell said. The validated designs will use Dell PowerEdge servers, such as the PowerEdge XE9680 and PowerEdge R760xa, which are optimized to deliver performance for generative AI training and AI inferencing, the company said. They will combine with Nvidia H100 Tensor Core GPUs and networking to form the infrastructure backbone for these workloads.

Dell did not indicate whether the Helix models could be run optimally on other brands of servers. Dell Validated Designs based on the Project Helix initiative will be available through traditional channels and Apex flexible consumption options beginning in July.

Dell Apex software, introduced in May 2021, is designed to work across all cloud platforms, public cloud storage software, client devices and computing environments. New additions to the companys multicloud portfolio span data centers to public cloud and client devices include:

Dell, Microsoft, VMware and Red Hat platforms for specific cloud-based use cases:

Dell Apex Cloud Platform for Microsoft Azure features full-stack software integration and automated lifecycle management through Microsoft native management tools. The platform is designed for application modernization and is said to offer faster time to value of Azure based on Azure Arc-enabled infrastructure with consistent operations and governance across on-premises data centers, edge locations, and the Azure public cloud using Azure Arc.

Apex Cloud Platform for Red Hat OpenShift aims to simplify container-based application development and management, wherever applications are developed and deployed, through full stack software integration and automation with Kubernetes. Users can run containers and virtual machines side by side, natively within Kubernetes, for a wide variety of workloads including AI/ML and analytics, with broad GPU support across any hybrid cloud footprint, Dell said.

Apex Cloud Platform for VMware gives users the flexibility to deploy vSphere on a fully integrated system with Dell software-defined storage. It joins Dell Apex Private Cloud and Dell Apex Hybrid Cloud within the broader Dell Apex portfolio to offer more choices for VMware users.

This is still on the drawing and testing boards for the next year until further notice. Project Fort Zero is designed to make zero trust more available for mid-range and smaller enterprises and is engineered to provide a hardened end-to-end zero trust security solution for global organizations to protect against cyberattacks.

Fort Zero is part of an ecosystem of more than 30 technology companies and will result in a validated, advanced maturity zero trust solution within the next 12 months, Dell said. Zero trust is designed for decentralized environments, but integrating it across hundreds of point products from dozens of vendors is complex making it out of reach for most organizations, Herb Kelsey, industry CTO of government projects at Dell, told reporters. Were helping global organizations solve todays security challenges by easing integration and accelerating adoption of Zero Trust.

The fully configured Fort Zero solution will serve a variety of use cases, including on-premises data centers; remote or regional locations such as retail stores where secure, real-time analysis of customer data can deliver a competitive advantage; in the field, where a temporary implementation is needed in places with intermittent connectivity, such as airplanes or vehicles, for operational continuity.

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Google, Nvidia and Microsoft Offer What VCs Can’t – The Information

Welcome back,

Amid all the hype for generative artificial intelligence, some venture capitalists have refused to join the fray. These young companies need so much capital and so much computing resources, the VC skeptics say, that theyll have little chance of competing against Google, Amazon and other big tech companies that may soon have similar products.

Our recent reporting this week was a reminder of how the internet giants are staking out territory as investors in generative AI as well. While their interest isnt bad for investors that back the AI startups early, it makes things difficult for the late-stage firms pursuing the same rounds. Answer me this: Why would an AI startup choose a venture firm, which can offer only capital, over Google, Microsoft, AWS, Oracle or Nvidia? These companies, of course, can also write huge checksplus provide resources like cloud credits and graphics processing units.

If you want the donuts, you go to the baker, as one venture capitalist put it this week.

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Data Migration vs. ETL: What’s the Difference? – Datamation

When it comes to moving large volumes of data between storage locations, there are two main approaches: data migration and ETL. This article explains the differences and similarities of both methods, how they work, and the best tools on the market for each.

Data migration involves moving data from one system to another, often to upgrade or replace a legacy system. ETLwhich stands for Extract, Transform, and Loadis the process of pulling data from one or more sources, transforming it into a suitable format, and loading it into the target location. The key difference is scale. Data migration is typically used to transfer whole databases while ETL is often used for smaller datasets or parts of a database. Organizations are more likely to use data migration when replacing an outdated system, moving to the cloud, or merging with another company because it allows for better business continuity by moving all of the companys data wholesale.

At a high level, data migration is simply the process of moving a database from one storage system to another. There are several approaches, including transfering the data directly or exporting it externally and then importing it to the new system. The goal of the process is to ensure all data is retained during the move and that it remains consistent with the new systems data format.

One of the biggest challenges of data migration comes when moving it from an outdated system to a new system, which can increase the likelihood of data loss or corruption. Its important to have a migration strategy in place that takes both systems and transfer paths into consideration.

ETL is a migration process that involves extracting data from its sources, transforming it to fit the specific format of the target system, and loading it into the new system. Done in three separate steps, ETL is often used by smaller organizations or when smaller data sets are required for a hyper-specific purpose, such as annual reports or business intelligence.

The first step is data extraction, which can be done using a variety of methods from querying a database to directly reading a file. Once the data has been extracted, it may or may not need to go through a format transformation process using a series of rules and algorithms. Finally, the transformed data is imported, or loaded, into the target system.

ETLs advantage is that it allows the transfer of only specific data rather than an entire database, which can save time and resources and reduce the risk of error and inconsistencies. But the process tends to require more manual intervention than data migration and it can interrupt business continuity at times.

There are a number of tools available for data migration and ETL, each with its own strengths and weaknesseshere are a few of the most popular.

Microsoft SQL Server Migration Assistant simplifies the process of migrating data from to SQL servers. It supports a variety of database sources, such as Oracle, MySQL, and Access, as well as many data formats, including JSON, hierarchical data, spatial data, and XML data.

Kettle is Pentahos free, open-source data migration tool capable of performing ETL processes, data cleaning, and data synchronization tasks. It supports various data formats, including XML data, CSV, and JASON, and can extract data from sources ranging from SQL and NoSQL databases to APIs, applications, and web services.

Informatica PowerCenter is a comprehensive data integration solution that combines a wide range of proprietary and open-source data integration strategies and solutions. It enables companies to export, transform, and load data from a variety of sources, but its best used for real-time integration.

AWS Database Migration Service (DMS) is a cloud-based solution that facilitates the movement of data from old systems to the AWS cloud. It supports a variety of database sources, including Oracle, SQL Servers, MySQL, and PostgreSQL. Also, as a fully-managed service, it ensures minimal downtime and continuous replication as well as automation of scalable features.

Talend Open Studio is a free and open-source data integration tool that combines various data and application integration services, such as ETL, data quality, data profiling, and MDM (Master Data Management). It supports a wide range of data formats and can be used for batch and real-time data migration and integration.

Quest Migration Manager is a data migration and consolidation solution that facilitates and automates the process of moving data for active directories. Its best used for the migration and restructuring of user accounts, data, and systems with a minimal impact on business continuity.

While data migration and ETL may seem identical at first glance, there are a number of differences between the two approaches that better suit them for different tasks. Data migration is a good fit for moving entire databases, while ETL works best for limited or specific data sets. Choosing the right method depends on the volume of the data, the type of migration, and whether the data needs to be reformatted for the new database.

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Miss the Huge AI Rally? 7 Dividend Tech Stocks to Help Catch the Rest of the Run – 24/7 Wall St.

While on the surface it appears that the stock market has had an incredible first five months, especially compared with 2022, in reality it has just been a handful of stocks that have lifted the Nasdaq up a stunning 25% and the S&P 500 up almost 10%. Just to prove how narrow the rally has been, the venerable Dow Jones industrials were actually down 0.13% in 2023 as of Fridays close.

So what are growth stock investors to do? Chase the rally that has been driven by the innovations in artificial intelligence? There is always a chance it continues higher, but with Nvidias market cap over $1 trillion after Tuesdays close, it looks as though much of the money has been made.

We screened our 24/7 Wall St. technology universe looking for stocks that still have upside from current levels and are rated Buy but also come with dependable dividends. That way, if the rally stalls, there is a reason to hold on to these quality, and in some cases, old-school names.

It is important to remember that no single analyst report should be used as a sole basis for any buying or selling decision.

Investors who are more conservative may want to consider this mega-cap tech leader, which recently posted outstanding quarterly results. Cisco Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO) designs, manufactures and sells internet protocol (IP) based networking products and services related to the communications and information technology industry worldwide.

Cisco provides switching products, including fixed-configuration and modular switches, and storage products that provide connectivity to end users, workstations, IP phones, wireless access points and servers, as well as next-generation network routing products that interconnect public and private wireline and mobile networks for mobile, data, voice and video applications.

Its cybersecurity products give clients the scope, scale and capabilities to keep up with the complexity and volume of threats. Putting security above everything helps corporations innovate while keeping their assets safe.

The networking giant posted solid fiscal first-quarter results that beat earnings expectations, and it offered up strong forward guidance.

Investors receive a 3.13% dividend. Credit Suisse has a $69 target price on Cisco Systems stock, while the consensus target is $56.28 and Tuesdays closing share price was $50.17.

This company continues to be a huge player in the fiber optic world.Corning Inc. (NYSE: GLW) is a technology pioneer that manufactures LCD glass for flat-panel displays for multiple product lines.Telecommunications (30% of Cornings sales) produces optical fiber and cable, component hardware and equipment, and photonic components for the telecommunications, CATV and networking industry. In addition, the companys Environmental Technologies division (12% of sales) produces specialized glass, glass ceramic and polymer-based products for the automotive industry.

Shareholders receive a 3.55% dividend. J.P. Morgans price target is $40, and Corning stock has a consensus target of $37.00. The shares closed on Tuesday at $31.16 apiece.

This high-quality company pays a solid dividend, but its shares have been hit hard. Dell Technologies Inc. (NYSE: DELL) designs, develops, manufactures, markets, sells and supports information technology (IT) hardware, software and services solutions worldwide. It operates through three segments.

Infrastructure Solutions Group provides traditional and next-generation storage solutions, and rack, blade, tower and hyperscale servers. It also offers networking products and services that help its business customers to transform and modernize their infrastructure, mobilize and enrich end-user experiences and accelerate business applications and processes. It also offers attached software and peripherals, as well as support and deployment, configuration and extended warranty services.

The Client Solutions Group offers desktops, notebooks and workstations; displays and projectors; attached and third-party software and peripherals; as well as support and deployment, configuration and extended warranty services.

The VMware segment supports customers in the areas of hybrid and multi-cloud, modern applications, networking, security and digital workspaces, helping customers to manage IT resources across private clouds and complex multi-cloud, multi-device environments.

Dell also provides information security and cloud software and infrastructure-as-a-service solutions that enable customers to migrate, run, and manage mission-critical applications in cloud-based IT environments.

Dell Technologies stock comes with a 3.08% dividend. Credit Suisse has set a $50 price target. The consensus target is $48.67, and Tuesdays final trade was for $47.32 a share.

This blue chip giant still offers investors who are more conservative an incredibly solid entry point, a massive dividend and a degree of safety. International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM) provides integrated solutions and services worldwide through the following four business segments.IBMs Software segment offers hybrid cloud platform and software solutions, such as Red Hat, an enterprise open-source solutions; software for business automation, AIOps and management, integration, and application servers; data and artificial intelligence solutions; and security software and services for threat, data and identity. This segment also provides transaction processing software that supports clients mission-critical and on-premise workloads in banking, airlines and retail industries.

The Consulting segment offers business transformation services, including strategy, business process design and operations, data and analytics, and system integration services; technology consulting services; and application and cloud platform services.

The Infrastructure segment provides on-premises and cloud-based server and storage solutions for its clients mission-critical and regulated workloads; and support services and solutions for hybrid cloud infrastructure, as well as remanufacturing and remarketing services for used equipment.

The Financing segment offers lease, installment payment, loan financing and short-term working capital financing services.

The dividend yield here is 5.15%. The $158 Stifel price target is well above the $140.79 consensus target, and IBM stock closed on Tuesday at $129.48.

This is another familiar name that could offer among the best in total return potential. Juniper Networks Inc. (NYSE: JNPR) designs, develops and sells network products and services worldwide. The company offers various routing products, such as ACX series universal access routers to deploy new high-bandwidth services; MX series Ethernet routers that function as a universal edge platform; PTX series packet transport routers; and NorthStar controllers.

Juniper Networks also provides switching products, including EX series Ethernet switches to address the access, aggregation and core layer switching requirements of micro branch, branch office, and campus environments; QFX series of core, spine and top-of-rack data center switches; and Juniper access points, which provide wireless access and performance.

In addition, the company offers security products including SRX series services gateways for the data center; Branch SRX family provides an integrated firewall and next-generation firewall; virtual firewall that delivers various features of physical firewalls; and advanced malware protection, a cloud-based service and Juniper ATP.

Juniper Networks stock investors receive a 2.89% dividend. The J.P. Morgan price target is $42. The posted consensus target is $35.74. On Tuesday, shares closed at $30.69.

Seagate

This disk drive giant looks reasonable at current trading levels.Seagate Technology Holdings PLC (NASDAQ: STX) provides data storage technology and solutions in Singapore, the United States, the Netherlands and elsewhere.

The company offers hard disk and solid-state drives, including serial advanced technology attachment, serial attached SCSI and non-volatile memory express products; solid-state hybrid drives; and storage subsystems. Its products are used in enterprise servers and storage systems and edge compute and non-compute applications.

Seagate also provides an enterprise data solutions portfolio, comprising storage subsystems and mass capacity optimized private cloud storage solutions for enterprises, cloud service providers and scale-out storage servers and original equipment manufacturers. In addition, it offers external storage solutions under the Seagate Backup Plus and Expansion product lines, as well as under the LaCie and Maxtor brands in capacities up to 16 terabytes.

Shareholders enjoy a 4.66% dividend. Seagate Technology stock has an $82 price target at Mizuho Securities. The $62.83 consensus target is much closer to the most recent close at $61.00 a share.

This old-school semiconductor company offers solid value at current levels and is a great pick for investors who are more conservative. Texas Instruments Inc. (NASDAQ: TXN) is a broad-based supplier of semiconductor components, ranging from digital signal processors to high-performance analog components, to digital light-processing technology and calculators.

Some 65% of the companys sales are exposed to the well-diversified, business-to-business industrial, automotive, communications infrastructure and enterprise markets. While business from those sectors, especially automotive, could suffer in the near term, the analyst feels the solid dividend should support the shares.

The company is also a big Apple supplier, so the long-term outlook for this venerable leader makes it a safer bet for investors with less risk tolerance.

Investors receive a 2.81% dividend. BMO Capital Markets has a $215 price target. The consensus target is $180.82, and Texas Instruments stock closed at $176.55 on Tuesday.

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iOS 16.6 beta 2 now available to developers ahead of WWDC 2023 – BGR

After seeding iOS 16.6 beta 1 to developers, Apple is now releasing the second beta version. With that, this will probably be the last beta update of the iOS 16 cycle before iOS 17 is announced next week. With that, most developers will start testing the upcoming operating system version for the iPhone.

At the moment, there are no visible changes on iOS 16.6 beta. After a small iOS 16.5 update, Apple is still sharpening its software as the company awaits its next big thing.

iOS developer Steve Mosershared on his Twitter that Apple has added references forContact Key Verificationwith the first beta build of iOS 16.6. It shows as a search result in Settings but is still inactive.

iMessage Contact Key Verification is a feature announced by the company at the end of 2022. While Apple has already rolled out Security Keys for Apple ID and Advanced Data Protection for iCloud during the iOS 16 cycle, the firm still had to release that other function.

For those unaware, iMessage Contact Key Verification lets users verify if they are communicating only with whom they intend. This is especially helpful for journalists, human rights activists, and government members.

Apple says that conversations between users who have enabled iMessage Contact Key Verification receive automatic alerts if an exceptionally advanced adversary, such as a state-sponsored attacker, were ever to succeed breaching cloud servers and inserting their own device to eavesdrop on these encrypted communications. And for even higher security, iMessage Contact Key Verification users can compare a Contact Verification Code in person, on FaceTime, or through another secure call.

As of now, its unclear if iOS 16.6 will bring this feature, but Apple has already started testing it. In addition, Steve Moser says Apple continues to work onSports related features in the TV app, although he couldnt disclose whats new.

Besides iOS 16.6, Apple is also beta testing iPadOS 16.6, watchOS 9.6, macOS 13.5, and tvOS 16.6.BGRwill let you know throughout this beta cycle whats new.

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Hybrid AI concept would move AI generation from the cloud to our … – TechSpot

As exciting as AI tools like ChatGPT, Google's Bard and Microsoft's numerous Co-pilots may be, they all currently face the same restriction: you have to be connected to the Internet to use them. For most people and in most situations that isn't a big problem, but imagine how great it would be if you could use them on your computers and phones even if you have a poor connection or none at all?

Not only does this increase the situations where you could take advantage of these capabilities, but it can have a number of other important but not necessarily obvious benefits.

First, it turns out that the computing power and required electrical power to run these generative AI tools is currently massive. That means companies who are offering these services are spending a lot of money to enable them and, eventually, that could translate into having those costs passed onto users and businesses that use them.

Second, there are security and privacy benefits of not running everything in the cloud. In many of the early versions of these generative AI tools, whatever you type into them is tracked and fed into the large language models (LLMs) powering these services. It's part of what's called the model training process. They also use this information to better personalize the information that these tools generate for you.

In fact, some of the more advanced generative AI tools are likely going to evolve into something that's akin to digital personal assistants that can help plan and organize tasks and meetings for you. Unlike first generation tools like Cortana and Siri, however, these AI-powered tools will be able to do so with more context and knowledge about you (if you let them, of course).

Just as a real-world personal assistant needs to know a lot about a boss' schedule and work, so too does a digital assistant need to know about your work and schedule to be effective as possible. As more of the work powering these AI models shifts onto the devices, however, less of this information needs to be transferred to the cloud, thereby offering a more private solution.

The way to solve both the power and privacy issues with generative AI is to leverage a concept called distributed computing, where you essentially split and distribute the computing "work" across the cloud and devices.

When it comes to power, if some of the computations that only used to happen in the cloud can be done on devices, then it's cheaper for company to run these services in the cloud. On the privacy side, if your data, schedule, etc. can remain on your device, but services that know how to use that information for a customized personal assistant experience run on your device, then little to none of your information will go to the cloud.

Recently, a number of companies have been talking about this idea of distributed computing for generative AI. For example, at Microsoft's recent Build developer conference, they discussed what they're calling Hybrid AI. Think of it as the next generation of generative AI tools. Microsoft's version is called Hybrid Loop, and it leverages a software development platform called ONNX Runtime that developers can use to take advantage of the local device computing resources as well as Azure's cloud computing. In other words, it's offering a set of tools for software developers to do distributed computing.

Chipmaker Qualcomm, whose chips and modems are found in most smartphones sold in the US, has also been talking about the hybrid AI concept and its other benefits. The company has created a set of software services called the Qualcomm AI Stack that makes it easier to run generative AI tools on smartphones. In fact, the company has shown Stable Diffusion running on phones using its chips.

Speaking of semiconductors, as great as the concept of hybrid AI and distributed computing may sound, the only way to make it possible is to supercharge the capabilities of our devices. In order to run the foundation AI models that power generative AI apps and services on your devices, we're going to see a whole new range of AI accelerator chips coming into PCs and smartphones over the next year or so.

OS companies like Microsoft and Google need to develop more support for these chips, too. At the Build event, Microsoft pointed out that some of its underlying work for Hybrid AI will be able to leverage the CPU, GPU, NPU (neural processing unit), and potentially other specialized AI accelerators found on modern PCs. That means having newer processors from Intel, AMD and Qualcomm, as well as GPUs from Nvidia and AMD, is going to start to be more important than ever.

Many of the big chip companies have made announcements in this area. AMD announced the Ryzen 7040 that integrates a dedicated AI accelerator. Similarly, Intel's next generation CPU line, codenamed Meteor Lake, is rumored to be its first to include a dedicated AI accelerator. Both of these chips are expected later this year.

Qualcomm's Arm-based 8cx processors for PCs also include dedicated AI acceleration and they're expected to have a new version later this year as well. Qualcomm has also demonstrated that some of its newer Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processors for premium phones found in Android phones from Samsung and Motorola have the ability to run generative AI models and applications directly on the phone.

To be clear, at present, the vast majority of generative AI software and services still run on the cloud. The computing requirements that tools like ChatGPT need can only be met with huge amounts of cloud-based servers. Over time, however, we're going to see new types of smaller AI models and clever ways of shifting the computing workloads AI demands onto our devices. When we do, even more mind-blowing AI-powered capabilities will start to become available.

The world of generative AI is causing massive disruptions across the entire tech world, and its implications go far deeper than they first appear. While it can be a bit overwhelming, it's important to remember that we're embarking on one of the most exciting new eras of computing, across PCs, mobile, and all other devices, in quite some time. Hang on and enjoy the ride.

Bob O'Donnell is the founder and chief analyst of TECHnalysis Research, LLC a technology consulting firm that provides strategic consulting and market research services to the technology industry and professional financial community. You can follow him on Twitter @bobodtech

Masthead: Tyler Lastovich

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