Microsoft Corporation has abruptly fired its Chief Information Officer Stuart Scott. Scott joined Microsoft in 2005 after a 17-year run at General Electric.
Microsoft declined to offer any specific reason for Scott’s dismissal. “Stuart Scott’s employment with Microsoft was terminated after an investigation for violation of company policies,” said Microsoft spokesman Lou Gellos, reading from a company statement Tuesday.
Microsoft plans to have corporate VP Alain Crozier and service group general manager Shahla Aly take over CIO duties until the company names a replacement.
At Microsoft, Scott headed up the groups responsible for the company’s security, infrastructure, business applications, and messaging; these groups were responsible for supporting Microsoft’s product and development groups, as well as the company’s sales and marketing organizations.
Needless to say, it is highly unusual for a high profile company like Microsoft to unceremoniously dismiss its CIO, without even attempting the tried-and-true escape that an officer is leaving a company to “pursue other interests” or “spend more time with his/her family.” The firing has led to rampant speculation about what policies, exactly, Scott may have violated, and whether those actions will have any impact on Microsoft’s business.
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.