Internet giant Yahoo has announced that company co-founder Jerry Yang has been named the company’s new Chief Executive Officer, replacing Terry Semel who will step into a role as non-executive chair of Yahoo’s board of directors.
Semel came to Yahoo as CEO in 2001 as the dot-com bubble burst and Yahoo was facing a nadir of its online businesses. Semel led the company in a significant turnaround; however, he has been facing mounting pressures as the company struggles to compete against the likes of Google and Microsoft for dominance of the Internet search, online advertising, and Internet software markets. Yahoo has seen its profits decline by 16 percent since the beginning of 2007, and currently commands roughly one quarter of U.S. online searches.
Yahoo’s board also named Sue Decker as Yahoo’s President. Decker previously served as a Yahoo executive VP and headed up the company’s advertising and publishing group.
Yahoo’s new CEO, Jerry Yang, founded Yahoo with David Filo in 1995; he has played a number of important roles within the organization, including overseeing technology development, international expansion, and overall corporate strategy.
“I’m delighted to assume this leadership role at the company David Filo and I started 12 years ago,” said Yang in a statement. “I want to thank Terry for his many contributions to Yahoo and for giving the company six of its best years. He has been not only a strong leader, but a consummate partner. And, Sue and I look forward to working with him to build on our firm foundation for future success and improved financial performance.”
Rumors have persistently put Yahoo and Microsoft in possible merger or takeover talks in an effort to mount a joint offensive against Google; however, discussions don’t seem to have ever evolved past an informal stage and it’s unknown, from a business perspective, how a combined company would resolve many online product and service redundancies, and neither company seems to have an outstanding property or an overall technology edge the other can’t live without. The industry will closely watch Yang for new strategies to spur Yahoo’s revenue growth and brand expansion.
In a release, Semel said: “I believe Jerry and Sue, with their superb talents and intense dedication to Yahoo and its people, are the perfect combination to carry us forward. This is the time for new executive leadership, with different skills and strengths, to step in and drive the company to realize its full potential—it is the right thing to do, and the right time is now.”
In 1950, Alan Turing asked whether machines can think. Rather than argue over definitions, he turned the question into a party game, where an interrogator trades typed messages with hidden players and tries to work out who is who. Since then, chatbots have gotten so good that they have already fooled humans in modern versions of the test.
So, four researchers from Paris Cité University asked the obvious follow-up question in a new study published in Computers in Human Behavior Reports: can AI at least catch its own kind?
Mozilla is giving Firefox’s Smart Window two new tricks. If you haven’t tried it yet, Smart Window is an optional AI mode in Firefox with a built-in chat that helps you get things done while you browse. With this update, it can fill out online forms using details from your tabs and keep an eye on websites for you.
Tired of typing the same details into every form?
The absolutely absurd idea of putting a touchscreen display on a mouse isn't exactly new. Turtle Beach already did it with its Command Series MC7, which features a 2.25-inch control screen. But apparently, even that wasn't ridiculous enough for Arctic Fox Technologies. Its new Super Mouse looks like someone took the chunky old Atari ST mouse, slapped a touchscreen and scroll wheel on it, and called it an upgrade.
The result is a rather unusual-looking mouse that is now on Kickstarter, starting at $199. And as ridiculous as it looks, some of its features are genuinely intriguing.