Techme101.com

FanDuel has confirmed an official partnership with NFL side Carolina Panthers, as the state of North Carolina prepares to usher in the beginning of the mobile sports betting market.
The launch is set for 11 March, after the green light was granted by the North Carolina State Lottery Commission, but fans aged 21 and over can pre-register on the Sportsbook app now.
FanDuel, the number one sports gambling brand in the United States, has signed terms on a multiyear agreement with the Panthers which will see the Flutter-owned company “leverage team marks across its marketing channels and partner with the team on digital and social media content.”
The official press release also indicated “fans can also expect digital signage and exclusive events at Bank of America Stadium.”
Reaction to the FanDuel x Carolina Panthers deal
North Carolina becomes the 22nd state in which FanDuel is active, reflecting the dominant position it enjoys with a market share of 43%. The further expansion of the company was welcomed by chief commercial officer, Mike Raffensperger.
“Bringing FanDuel to sports fans across North Carolina is an important moment for our business and we are thrilled to be able to work with the Carolina Panthers to introduce their fanbase to America’s number one sportsbook,” he said.
“We look forward to supporting the team next season and to engaging the passionate sports fans across North Carolina with our product,” added Raffensperger.
Kristi Coleman, Carolina Panthers president, welcomed the opportunities to be unlocked from the partnership.
“We are thrilled to welcome FanDuel as an official sports betting partner,” commented MS Coleman. ”
“As we look ahead to the 2024 season, we’re excited about the opportunities this partnership presents to deliver unique and engaging experiences to our fans while they are in North Carolina.”
The partnership will be celebrated in a special edition of FanDuel TV’s “Up & Adams” with sportscaster Kay Adams, broadcast live from the Bank of America Stadium on Wednesday 6 March. Panthers representatives will be present with other guests, including former NFL star Luke Kuechly.
Image credit: ML Football/X
The post FanDuel expands to 22nd state, confirms betting partnership with Carolina Panthers appeared first on ReadWrite.

Microsoft has filed a motion seeking to dismiss parts of The New York Times lawsuit against OpenAI, claiming it was “doomsday futurology.”
The New York Times initiated legal action against both companies, accusing them of using their articles for the training of ChatGPT’s large language models, as well as profiting from them.
In February, OpenAI requested a federal judge to dismiss parts of the same copyright lawsuit, accusing the newspaper of employing deceptive tactics to generate misleading evidence.
In the filing, lawyers representing the tech giant quoted the former head of the Motion Picture Association of America, Jack Valenti, who said, “The VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston Strangler is to the woman home alone.” They assert that the analogy represents “alarmism” against technology and note that the U.S. Supreme Court eventually rejected the motion on the same grounds.
Microsoft alluded that the VCR actually bolstered the entertainment sector by creating new avenues for revenue. Like OpenAI’s countersuit, the company elaborated on its stance regarding LLMs, describing them as a breakthrough in artificial intelligence. 
Through its partnership with OpenAI, Microsoft said it aimed to “help bring their extraordinary power to the public,” because it “believes in LLMs’ capacity to improve the way people live and work.”
It also accused the NYT of using “might and its megaphone to challenge the latest profound technological advance: the Large Language Model.” It called for their case to be dismissed on three grounds including unfounded copyright infringement through GPT tools, and unproven Digital Millennium Copyright Act violations. 
The Washington-based company also alleged that the news organization mischaracterized its copyright claims based on GPT-model outputs as state law misappropriation torts, suggesting that the GPT-based tools appropriate “time-sensitive” news and Wirecutter reviews.
What has The New York Times said?
Ian Crosby, a partner at Susman Godfrey and the lead attorney for The New York Times in this lawsuit, stated on Monday (March 6), “Microsoft doesn’t dispute that it worked with OpenAI to copy millions of The Times’s works without its permission to build its tools.
“Instead, it oddly compares L.L.M.s to the VCR even though VCR makers never argued that it was necessary to engage in massive copyright infringement to build their products,” he added.
Featured image: Canva
The post Microsoft seeks dismissal in New York Times lawsuit, cites ‘doomsday futurology’ appeared first on ReadWrite.

Customer service plays a central role in your business’s success, and it’s crucial that you improve customer service continually. For example, customers expect speedy responses from service representatives. If you make people wait, they will do business with a competitor.
Customers also expect to have their problems resolved quickly, which requires a proactive approach. You can’t outsource your customer service and expect the team to know how to help your customers.
If you do outsource, you’ll need to train your team so that they know how your products and services work. Otherwise, they won’t be able to help your customers with more than surface-level issues.
How to Improve Customer Service By Upgrading Your Tech
The good news is that technology can help you improve customer service in so many ways. Here are some of the top recommended tech upgrades that will improve customer service in your business.
1. Generative AI
Many businesses have started to use artificial intelligence to improve customer service outcomes. Historically, AI has been lackluster, and chatbots have earned a terrible reputation for being impersonal and unhelpful. However, all that has changed with generative AI, which has the ability to construct humanlike responses to queries.
With generative AI powering customer service chatbots and self-help centers, businesses are able to help customers solve their problems faster than if they had to wait for a human being. In fact, most people prefer self-help options and avoid talking to live agents, so it’s a win-win all around.
2. VoIP Phone Service
Whether or not you take calls directly from customers, it helps to have a VoIP phone service for your business. Even if your customer service center is online only, your employees will still need to communicate with each other, and voice over IP has become the standard in voice tech.
If you do take calls from customers, VoIP will provide you with some seriously useful features. For example, you’ll get the ability to route calls to anyone in the company. When a customer calls your support line, they’ll be greeted with an automated voice asking them to make a selection regarding their issue. Their selection will determine where their call is routed.
With call routing, you can forward each call to a pre-existing phone number without the customer ever knowing. This makes it easy and convenient to handle all customer service needs smoothly. The best part is you can set it up to be as simple or complex as you need.
3. Central Project Management System
Managing all of your company projects from one central location will do wonders for productivity and efficiency. Since project management software allows you to assign users to groups that have separate tasks and projects, you can put your entire team on one platform and your project managers can create tasks accordingly.
Having one project management suite will eliminate the silos in your company that otherwise slow you down. People can be added to group projects as needed. This means you can add your data security team to the software development process, for example.
No matter what industry you’re in, project management software is essential for effective task management. When you bring everyone together, collaboration will improve and as a result, so will business outcomes.
4. Virtual Call Center
If you don’t have a full-time staff to sit in your office and answer customer calls, you need a virtual call center. This will work to your advantage because with a virtual call center, you can hire expert customer service representatives from anywhere in the world. You won’t be stuck settling for local options if they don’t work for you.
Having a call center is a serious upgrade from just offering online support through email and service tickets, and it’s something many customers appreciate. There are some things that just can’t be resolved through chat or email. For those things, having access to a live support agent is a must.
5. Customer Relationship Management Tool
Customer relationship management (CRM) plays a huge role in eliminating the silos that hurt your customers. When your teams aren’t sharing customer data, for example, the customer will have to repeat themselves and give the same information to multiple people. That’s bad enough when they have to explain their issue over the course of several different phone calls, but it’s even worse when they have to retell their details when they get transferred to different people during the same call.
When you use a CRM platform, all customer data, including employee notes, will be accessible to every team member who interacts with that customer. For example, if they’re contacted by a customer service or sales rep, their entire history will be accessible by the team member making contact. The same information can be accessed when the customer initiates the call from a phone number in their customer record. This way, whoever speaks to the customer will have all their information in front of them as they speak.
6. Ticketing System
If you’re still using old PHP scripts you found on a free website to power your customer service support center, it’s time to upgrade. If you aren’t using anything at all, it’s time to get on board with an updated ticketing system.
Customer support tickets are one of the best tools to implement because they actually help people find answers to their questions without your intervention. For example, when someone interacts with your chatbot, it can provide them with self-help resources in the form of links to your blog or FAQ section. Much of the time, people will be able to solve their issue by clicking on those links. If not, the chatbot will give them the option to submit a ticket.
When you do it this way, you’ll get fewer support tickets. This will be less of a burden on your customer service team. Then, the tickets you do receive can be worked on with a higher priority because your team can spend more time working on more urgent customer issues.
7. Website
Your website is likely how customers will find and try to contact you, so make sure it’s easy to use. Even if you just paid to have your site updated with a new theme or design, make sure it’s user-friendly. Have various people test it out and report on what does or doesn’t work. Then, make the necessary changes.
If you’re not sure what might be getting in the way of a smoother customer service experience, check out this list of things people hate about websites. This list is not exhaustive, but it is pretty thorough. Essentially, anything that creates a barrier between the user and their ability to get the information they need or contact you will need to change.
Test Your Customer Service Periodically
As a business owner, it’s crucial that you know your customers are being taken care of. The easiest way to do that is to test your own system. Go undercover, buy a product, and then request support for some basic and advanced issues. See how your customer service team responds and take notes on what needs to be improved.
It’s possible that your team might not provide support according to your standards, but before you blame your service reps, consider that it might also be a problem with the system. They might be limited in terms of how they can handle requests because of the software they have to use, or information they aren’t getting from the intake process.
Once you identify the problem, it’s easy to implement a solution. If you aren’t sure what to do, you can always hire an expert. They will assess the situation and then create a whole new system designed to meet your specific needs.
Prioritize Your Customer Service
When your customers feel taken care of, they’ll be more likely to do repeat business with you, recommend you to their friends, and post positive reviews about you online. The best way to provide stellar customer service – the kind that makes people talk – is to embrace the technology that will streamline your business systems and customer service experience. It’s all connected, and when your internal operations are streamlined, your customers automatically benefit.
The post 8 Ways to Improve Customer Service Through Tech Upgrades appeared first on ReadWrite.

While AI has been around for some time, it’s only recently that workers in tech jobs started raising concerns about the negative impacts of job augmentation. Most technology fields implemented AI in an attempt to streamline processes and boost accuracy. All this happens with minimum human interference.
Typically, the sheer power of modern computer systems facilitates complex processes previously reserved for human professionals. As AI technology gets better, most tech jobs are likely to be dominated by AI.
Tech Jobs That AI Will Take Over
Here are a few tech jobs that are going to be affected by AI the most:
1. Coding and Development
Coding and programming skills are in high demand, but advanced AI tools will likely dominate these careers in the future. Most tech jobs like data science, software development, programming, and web development are amenable to AI. This means technology can replace some or most of the processes involved in the job.
Some AI tools are highly competent in crunching numbers with astounding accuracy. Therefore, AI can complete coding tasks faster than humans, meaning companies need fewer people to accomplish a project.
However, it might not be possible to eliminate the need for human workers in the entire process. Savvy professionals can leverage AI tools to improve their skills and become more valuable. However, if you are a victim of unfair termination, you have the right to legal redress, and a worker’s compensation attorney can help you with the process.
2. Graphic Design and Engineering
While some jobs that demand high creativity might be hard to automate, some tasks in graphic design are easily completed by AI tools. For instance, the Generative Fill feature in Photoshop is a perfect example of how AI can dominate the graphic design sector. This tool lets anyone with minimal editing experience execute photorealistic edits using simple prompts.
Generative design leverages AI to carry out the design process. Typically, the tool assists with the idea generation and then generates numerous possible solutions for the query. Regardless of the nature of the design, AI works within specific parameters to produce feasible designs within a short time.
3. Research Analysis
Artificial intelligence is already a powerful trend in research and data analysis. The technology is essential for streamlining the process and processing new data without external intervention.
Modern computers with advanced processing capabilities help in extrapolation and analysis of complex data sets. On the other hand, research analysts play an integral role in creating the right message and content for marketing purposes. However, AI tools can administer surveys, process the data, and compile necessary information more accurately within a short time.
While automated tools have the advantage of speed, scale, accuracy, and consistency, human experts have unique experiences that are hard to replicate with an algorithm. Researchers who leverage AI tools can ensure efficiency and relevance in their jobs.
4. Health Tech
Health tech is an essential part of the modern healthcare system since it helps develop and deliver advanced solutions. Advanced AI algorithms, trained on sufficient medical data, can surpass human capabilities. The technology solution can eliminate delays and optimize healthcare costs. Some models can accurately diagnose health conditions years before any symptoms manifest. In addition, AI algorithms can determine potential responses to medical interventions and customize some treatments.
Nevertheless, AI adoption in healthcare is sluggish due to regulations and costs. While medical AI holds a huge potential, replacing physicians may not be immediate. Instead, the technology will help streamline service delivery in the medical sector. This means healthcare providers won’t be overworked, and they can focus on delivering better services to patients.
The fundamental revolution will happen after the mass adoption of AI-based diagnostic and treatment solutions. This can eliminate late treatments and embrace early detection and prevention.
Artificial intelligence is a fast-evolving field that is creating a massive revolution in the technology sector. Consequently, the future workforce has no option but to go through a similar transformation to remain relevant in their jobs. While the changes lead to disruptions in conventional jobs, new opportunities will arise.
The post 4 Tech Jobs Likely to Be Dominated By AI appeared first on ReadWrite.

There have been reports that Sony has given full refunds for the first high-profile game since Cyberpunk 2077. Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, which holds an AAA rating, received mixed reviews upon its release in January, with some players complaining about game-breaking issues and a low player count.
Rocksteady Studios’ most recent release is a continuation of the Batman: Arkham franchise, taking place five years after 2015’s Batman: Arkham Knight. In an earnings discussion, Warner Bros. Discovery’s CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels informed analysts that Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League did not meet the firm’s anticipated sales figures, noting that its Steam player count was surpassed by their nine-year-old game Batman: Arkham Knight.

Playstation has started Refunding Suicide Squad pic.twitter.com/g2ylR9Jjrf
— PC_Focus (@PC_Focus_) March 4, 2024

As a result, a Reddit user was reportedly issued a refund upon request for the Suicide Squad game, although the post and a Twitter discussion about it appear to have been deleted. 
The player said that they managed to secure a refund for the game, even with Sony’s stringent refund policy in place. Sony allegedly honored the request and processed the full refund, potentially causing others to do the same.
The user, identified as Tris, explained that they contacted PlayStation’s customer service via the live chat on their website, providing details about the problems disrupting their gameplay. They said: “Once I did that, I was told my case would be sent to a specialist team and would be updated via email in a few days.” After a review, PlayStation reportedly processed a refund for the purchase. 
Within the Reddit thread, some users confirmed receiving refunds, whereas others reported their requests were declined, indicating that refunds are granted or denied on an individual basis.
How many people are playing Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League?
According to publicly accessible data, there has been a consistent decline in the Steam player count for Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League over the month. The game’s daily peak of concurrent players dropped from approximately 13,500 at launch to an average of 2,109 by March 5.
On top of this, due to technical problems affecting the game, Rocksteady Studios delayed the release of Joker as a playable character from the originally scheduled March 8 to March 28. The developer said it was committed to addressing the various stability and multiplayer glitches that are causing gameplay issues, so that all players have the best experience with the upcoming update.
Featured image: Warner Bros / Rocksteady
The post Sony ‘issues refunds’ for Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League appeared first on ReadWrite.