Techme101.com

Microsoft’s Copilot AI will now directly read your files, with the ability to provide a summary, locate specific data, and even search the internet for more information.
This assistant-like tool is intended to offer you a huge helping hand at work, with this new feature being available for OneDrive in late April.
Announced in a blog post via the Microsoft website, the upgrade is detailed as being able to ‘extract answers from your documents, presentation, spreadsheets, and other files.’
This comes just a year after the AI expansion was first announced, with competitors like Adobe Acrobat recently adding a similar element as their online assistant can help users sift through documents and summarize large reports into highlights.
Microsoft’s offering will now be able to achieve similar with Copilot-generated summaries being available when you share documents with your colleagues. This will be added this month.
Initially, it’ll only be available when sharing a Word document from the web, with support in the desktop client and the mobile app taking place later this year.
Microsoft says this ‘is just the start,’ as they likely have more plans up their sleeve to ‘push the boundaries of file interaction.’
What are Microsoft’s Copilot AI new features?
Other features in this update include CoPilot creating outlines, tables, and FAQs from your content and improving your content too, offering suggestions along the way.
To get information and insights from your files, Microsoft shares some examples of how this is made possible. Some possible prompts include:

What were the total beverage sales last week? Put responses in a table view by day.
Compare the main differences between the selected files and put the differences in a table view.

CoPilot will be able to create new content based on these files too. According to Microsoft’s own guidance, this is done through:

Using the /sales-enablement.docx as reference, create an outline of a sales pitch to a new customer.
For these selected resumes, create a table with names, current title, years of experience, educational qualifications, and current location.
Create a list of frequently asked questions about project Moonshot.
Look at /proposal1.docx and /proposal2.docx and create a table outlining the differences in cost, milestones, and date of delivery.

Improving content that is structured in a document, spreadsheet, or presentation will be the new thing too, with prompts like ‘what suggestions do you have to improve the deck?’
To explore the file summaries, available this month, you’ll have to provide the AI with prompts like ‘summarize the key points from [document] List out its 3 main points and tell me about the industry risks and open questions.’
Featured Image: Direct from Microsoft’s blog announcement
The post Microsoft’s Copilot AI can now read your files directly appeared first on ReadWrite.

Angry Coinbase users slammed the cryptocurrency trading app after it crashed again on Tuesday (Mar.5), the same day Bitcoin hit a new all-time high price of $69,000 after over two years of waiting.
At 3:44pm ET, Coinbase posted on Twitter: “We are aware that some users may be experiencing errors when transacting. Our team is investigating this issue and will provide an update shortly. Your assets are safe.”

We are aware that some users may be experiencing errors when transacting. Our team is investigating this issue and will provide an update shortly. Your assets are safe.
— Coinbase Support (@CoinbaseSupport) March 5, 2024

The outage comes just six days after a previous incident where customers of the world’s second biggest crypto exchange reported seeing a zero balance in their accounts, despite Bitcoin spiking in value on February 28th.
This time around, as Bitcoin soared to a record high of $69,200 around 10am ET on Tuesday, surpassing its previous peak from November 2021, many traders were left unable to buy or sell.
Is Coinbase down?
Frustrated Coinbase users voiced their anger on X. One customer wrote: “We can’t buy and we can’t sell and my accounts not being credited sales that went through.”
Coinbase responded to another user’s complaint: “We understand that this is not an ideal experience. Although we don’t have an estimated time to resolution, rest assured that our team is working on getting everything back to normal as soon as possible.”
At 4:27pm ET, Coinbase provided an update stating: “We are seeing recovery in customer transactions. Advanced Trade API users may see increased throttling while we experience increased trade volume.” However, reports of continuing issues persisted after that.

Customer transactions have fully recovered, we will continue to monitor activity. Advanced Trade API users may continue to see increased throttling while we experience increased trade volume. https://t.co/dOWxljnSvX
— Coinbase Support (@CoinbaseSupport) March 5, 2024

After initially climbing, Bitcoin’s price tumbled, hitting a low of $60,793 in the early afternoon before recovering somewhat to trade around $62,780 at 3:30pm ET, still down nearly 7% from its highs.
The launch of spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the United States is widely seen as the catalyst that fueled the latest cryptocurrency bull run, with institutional investor demand and money flows into these funds exceeding even the most optimistic projections.
Featured image: Ideogram
The post Coinbase crashed as Bitcoin soared to record high appeared first on ReadWrite.

Blizzard has pushed a new patch, v1.3.3 to all versions of Diablo IV, It is a sizeable beastie and fixes a lot of issues, along with performing a lot of balance changes and introducing some new content which was recently mentioned in a dev talk.
The patch notes are way too big to replicate in full, so if you want to pursue them yourself you can check them out on Blizzard’s site, but we have gone through them with a fine tooth comb to bring you the top 20 highlights` we think are most important to Diablo IV players.
With the current season well underway, it won’t be long before we start hearing what Blizzard has in store for us for the season. This could be the last major patch before we get to the point.
Diablo IV 1.3.3 Patch Notes – Highlights
Gameplay Updates: Vampiric Powers

Vampiric Powers have been adjusted and reintroduced, now available as Legendary Aspects across all tiers.
Of Accursed Touch & Metamorphosis: Enhancements to skills like evading turning into a cloud of bats and a chance to inflict Vampiric Curse.

Balance Updates: General & Barbarian

Unique Items Adjustments: Significant changes to items like Ring of Starless Skies and Penitent Greaves for better utility.
Barbarian Enhancements: Increases in damage and Fury gain for skills such as Bash, Frenzy, and enhancements to Battle Bash.

Druid Changes

Druid Skills Boost: Upgrades to Earth Spike, Claw, and Maul for increased damage and Spirit generation.
Passive Skills: Enhancements like Bestial Rampage now offer a bigger damage bonus in Werebear form.

Necromancer Updates

Book of the Dead: Increased damage and life for Skeleton minions.
Skills Adjustments: Changes in Blood Surge and Supernatural Blood Surge to enhance power and reduce enemy numbers’ impact.

Sorcerer Modifications

Skills Enhancement: Significant boosts to Incinerate, Hydra, and Ball Lightning for damage output.
Paragon Glyph Adjustments: Updates like Frostbite Glyph and Invocation Glyph for increased critical strike chance and damage reduction.

Rogue Revisions

Skills & Passives: Heartseeker and Forceful Arrow now have increased attack speed, along with improvements to Flurry and Rapid Fire.
Legendary Aspects: Adjustments like Of Encircling Blades and Of Branching Volleys for enhanced damage and effects.

Unique Item and Legendary Aspect Overhauls

Gohr’s Devastating Grips & Storm’s Companion: Enhanced ranks and damage for specific skills.
Aspect Modifications: Changes to Aspect of Hardened Bones and Blood-Bathed Aspect for better damage reduction and Blood Surge efficiency.

User Interface and Experience Improvements

Player Profile Updates: Now displays equipped skills and emblems, alongside cosmetic and seal information.
Miscellaneous: Reduction in the cost to craft Uber Unique items.

Bug Fixes: Gameplay and UI

Gameplay Fixes: Addressed issues affecting skills, passives, and unintended interactions for a more stable experience.
User Interface Fixes: Rectified problems related to profile editing and description inaccuracies.

Developer’s Notes

Adjustments for Balance: Notes on the intention behind changes to maintain game balance and ensure enjoyable gameplay.
Bug Fixing Philosophy: Explanation of fixes aimed at preventing exploits that could unfairly enhance player power.

The post Diablo IV updates game to version 1.3.3 – what’s in the new patch? appeared first on ReadWrite.

More than 200 of the world’s leading researchers in artificial intelligence (AI) have signed an open letter calling on big players in AI  like OpenAI, Meta, and Google to allow outside experts to independently evaluate and test the safety of their AI models and systems.
The letter argues that strict rules put in place by tech firms to prevent abuse or misuse of their AI tools are having the unintended consequence of stifling critical independent research aimed at auditing these systems for potential risks and vulnerabilities.
Prominent signatories include Stanford University’s Percy Liang, Pulitzer-winning journalist Julia Angwin, Renée DiResta from the Stanford Internet Observatory, AI ethics researcher Deb Raji, and former government advisor Suresh Venkatasubramanian.
What are the AI researchers concerned about?
The researchers say AI company policies that ban certain types of testing and prohibit violations of copyrights, generation of misleading content, or other abuses are being applied in an overly broad manner. This has created a “chilling effect” where auditors fear having their accounts banned or facing legal repercussions if they push the boundaries to stress-test AI models without explicit approval.
“Generative AI companies should avoid repeating the mistakes of social media platforms, many of which have effectively banned types of research aimed at holding them accountable,” the letter states.
The letter lands amid growing tensions, with AI firms like OpenAI claiming that The New York Times’ efforts to probe for copyright issues in ChatGPT amounted to “hacking.” Meta has updated terms threatening revocation if its latest language model is used to infringe intellectual property.
Researchers argue companies should provide a “safe harbor” allowing responsible auditing, as well as direct channels to responsibly report potential vulnerabilities found during testing, rather than having to resort to “gotcha” moments on social media.
“We have a broken oversight ecosystem,” said Borhane Blili-Hamelin of the AI Risk and Vulnerability Alliance. “Sure, people find problems. But the only channel to have an impact is these ‘gotcha’ moments where you have caught the company with its pants down.”
The letter and accompanying policy proposal aim to foster a more collaborative environment for external researchers to evaluate the safety and potential risks of AI systems impacting millions of consumers.
Featured image: Ideogram
The post 200 AI researchers urge OpenAI, Google, Meta to allow safety checks appeared first on ReadWrite.