Software giant Microsoft has offered to license portions of its Windows source code in an effort to fend off antitrust penalties from the European Commission, which says the Redmond company has failed to comply with antitrust requirements.
Just yesterday, Microsoft got a few week’s breathing room from the European Commission as it decided to take a little extra time to study Microsoft’s response to a threat to impose fines of up to $2 million per day for failing to comply with requirements of a landmark 2004 antitrust ruling. And now we can see why the European Commission wanted a little more pondering time: Microsoft has raised the bar by offering to license Windows Server source code to satisfy technical documentation requirements.
“We have now come to the conclusion that the only way to be certain of satisfying the Commission’s demands is to go beyond the 2004 Decision and offer a license to the source code of the Windows server operating system,” said Brad Smith, Microsoft’s General Counsel. “The Windows source code is the ultimate documentation of Windows Server technologies. With this step our goal is to resolve all questions about the sufficiency of our technical documentation.”
The European Commission found that technical documentation provided by Microsoft regarding key server and workgroup technologies has been, to date, inaccurate and incomplete. According to Professor Neil Barret, the EC’s monitoring trustee, “The documentation appears to be fundamentally flawed in its conception, and in its level of explanation and detail
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.