Category: Technology

It has been nearly a year since the European Commission opened its investigation into Microsoft and there’s finally a preliminary finding. The European Union’s executive body announced its “view” that the tech giant violated antitrust laws by tying Microsoft Teams to its Office 365 and Microsoft 365 business suites. Last October, Microsoft unbundled Teams for users in the European Union and Switzerland, but the European Commission’s Statement of Objections calls it “insufficient.”

The European Commission used its statement to detail its concern “that Microsoft may have granted Teams a distribution advantage by not giving customers the choice whether or not to acquire access to Teams when they subscribe to their SaaS productivity applications. This advantage may have been further exacerbated by interoperability limitations between Teams’ competitors and Microsoft’s offerings. The conduct may have prevented Teams’ rivals from competing, and in turn innovating, to the detriment of customers in the European Economic Area.”

Microsoft faces a fine equal to 10 percent of its annual worldwide turnover if the EU confirms its preliminary findings, so it’s no surprise the company is being cordial. “Having unbundled Teams and taken initial interoperability steps, we appreciate the additional clarity provided today and will work to find solutions to address the Commission’s remaining concerns,” said Brad Smith, Vice Chair and President of Microsoft, in a statement shared with Engadget.

This ordeal began in 2020 when Slack — now owned by Salesforce — filed an antitrust complaint against Microsoft, claiming it broke the EU’s competition rules in bundling Teams to its suites. In April 2023, Microsoft declared its intention to offer Teams on its own (albeit without a clear plan), but the European Commission still formally opened an investigation just three months later. Following October’s unbundling, Microsoft announced this past April that Teams would be available separately from Microsoft 365 and Office 365 to customers worldwide — current users could also switch plans. 

The European Commission’s Statement of Objections also mentions a complaint by Alfaview, another video-conferencing software, which filed a similar grievance to Slack in July 2023 and notes it has open proceedings based on that complaint.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/eu-finds-microsoft-violated-antirust-laws-by-bundling-teams-121520916.html?src=rss 

Google is making Gemini more easily accessible in its Workspace apps, if you’re a paying customer. The company is rolling out Gemini side panels for Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drive and Gmail, and it has also launched Gemini for the Gmail app on Android and iOS. When Google announced the Gemini side panels at I/O this year, it called the feature “the connective tissue across multiple applications with AI-powered workflow.”

The side panel in Docs will help you refine and rephrase what you’re writing, summarize information, suggest improvements and create new content based on other files. In Sheets, it can help you create tables, generate formulas and demystify various Sheets functions by teaching you how to do certain tasks. The side panel in Slides can help you generate custom images and summarize presentations, while in Drive, it can summarize several documents at once without you having to open any of them. 

Meanwhile, Gemini can summarize email threads in Gmail for you, suggest responses, help you draft new emails and help you find information from within your inbox or from your Drive files. Gemini in Gmail for Android and iOS can summarize your email threads, as well. There’s no side panel in the mobile apps, of course, but you’ll find a button near the top of your email that you can tap to generate a summary. Sometime next month, Gemini will offer contextual smart replies, which are one-tap response options based on the contents of your conversations. Gmail Q&A will also be available next month and will be able to find information from your emails when you type in questions like “What time does Chloe’s recital start on Saturday?”

You’ll be able to use these features if you’re paying for Google One AI Premium, or if you have access to Gemini add-in for Business, Enterprise, Education and Education Premium. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/google-rolls-out-gemini-side-panels-for-gmail-and-other-workspace-apps-123038034.html?src=rss 

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been released from prison and has agreed to plead guilty to violating the Espionage Act. The WikiLeaks account on X, formerly Twitter, has announced his release after being granted bail by the High Court in London. It also tweeted a video that appears to show Assange boarding a plane at Stansted Airport. The WikiLeaks founder and former editor-in-chief is expected to appear in a courtroom in the US Northern Mariana Islands on June 26 in order to finalize his plea deal with the US government. 

According to a letter from the US Department of Justice obtained by The Washington Post, Assange is specifically pleading guilty to “conspiring to unlawfully obtain and disseminate classified information relating to the national defense of the United States.” He will also be returning to Australia, his country of citizenship, right after the proceedings. CBS News reports that Justice Department prosecutors recommended a sentence of 62 months, and seeing as Assange already spent more than five years in a UK prison, he won’t be spending any time behind bars in the US. 

Assange was the editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks when the website published US classified information, obtained by whistleblower and former Army intelligence officer Chelsea Manning, about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In 2010, Sweden issued an arrest warrant for Assange over allegations of sexual assault by two women. Swedish authorities dropped their investigation into the rape allegations in 2017. 

Assange sought asylum at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London after losing his appeal against the warrant, and he lived there for seven years until he was evicted. Lenín Moreno, the president of Ecuador at the time, explained that his asylum was “unsustainable and no longer viable” because he displayed “discourteous and aggressive behavior.” London’s Metropolitan Police Service removed Assange from the embassy and arrested him on behalf of the US under an extradition warrant.

In WikiLeaks’ announcement of his release, it said Assange left Belmarsh maximum security prison “after having spent 1,901 days there.” The organization said that the “global campaign” by “press freedom campaigners, legislators and leaders from across the political spectrum” enabled “a long period of negotiations with the US Department of Justice” that led to the plea deal. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/julian-assange-has-been-released-from-prison-in-a-plea-deal-with-the-us-044226610.html?src=rss 

Amazon has officially announced the dates for its next annual shopping event. Amazon Prime Day 2024 will be on July 16 and 17 this year — the event will begin at 12AM PT/3AM ET on Tuesday, July 16, and conclude at the end of the day on Wednesday, July 17. As to be expected, Prime Day will actually last two full days and it will bring thousands of exclusive, Prime-only deals on everything from electronics to fashion. If you can’t wait a few more weeks, there are some Prime Day deals you can already shop now.

In addition to spurring a large number of sales in a short period of time, Amazon Prime Day has always been a way for the online retail giant to increase the overall number of Prime subscribers. Prime Day isn’t necessarily a perk of the service like access to Prime Video content or free two-day shipping are, but it certainly helps that most deals you’ll find on Amazon during the two-day event are exclusively available to Prime members. However, it’s worth noting that the cost of Prime has increased significantly since the service debuted in 2005: an annual membership will set you back $139 right now, nearly double the price it was at launch ($79 per year).

Prime Day in July has been the main shopping event for Amazon for a decade now, but that hasn’t stopped the company from expanding the event’s reach. For the past couple of years, we’ve seen a “fall Prime Day” of sorts pop up in October, presumably as Amazon’s official kickoff for the holiday shopping season. There’s no word on if October Prime Day will return for 2024, but since most online retailers have started their holiday sales earlier and earlier since 2020, we think there’s a good chance it’ll return this year as well.

If you do plan on putting that Prime membership to use next month, you can turn to Engadget to find the tech deals worth your month during the two-day event. Unsurprisingly, Amazon Prime Day is one of the best times of the year to get Amazon devices, since most of them will likely be down to all-time-low prices. But we also expect to see worthwhile sales on headphones, robot vacuums, laptops, SSDs and much more. You can also follow Engadget Deals on Twitter for the latest news during Prime Day, and sign up for the new Engadget Deals newsletter to get the best deals delivered right to your inbox.

Your Prime Day Shopping Guide: See all of our Prime Day coverage. Shop the best Prime Day deals on Yahoo Life. Follow Engadget for Prime Day tech deals. Hear from Autoblog’s experts on the best Amazon Prime Day deals for your car, garage, and home, and find Prime Day sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/amazon-prime-day-2024-returns-on-july-16-and-17-050559661.html?src=rss 

Google is reportedly building new AI-powered chatbots based on celebrities and YouTube influencers. The idea isn’t groundbreaking — startups like Character.ai and companies like Meta have already launched products like this — but neither is Google’s AI strategy so far.

Google’s celebrity chatbots will be powered by the company’s Gemini family of large language models according to The Information, which broke the story on Monday. The company is trying to strike partnerships with influencers as well as celebrities, and is also working on a feature that will let people create their own chatbots simply by describing their personalities and appearance — something that Character.ai already lets you do. A fun fact: Noam Shazeer, one of the co-founders of Character.ai, is a former Google engineer and one of the creators of “transformers,” the fundamental tech that made today’s generative AI possible.

It isn’t yet clear which celebrities or influencers Google might partner with. Meta’s chatbots, for instance, are based on personalities like TikTok star Charli D’Amelio, YouTube phenomenon Mr. Beast, Snoop Dogg, Tom Brady and Paris Hilton among others, while Character.ai’s characters include politicians, philosophers, fictional characters, and even objects like a block of cheese that talks. Google’s project is reportedly being led by a longtime executive called Ryan Germick who works on Google Doodles, and a team of ten.

It also sounds like Google’s bots could be just an experiment — according to the report, the bots might only show up on Google Labs, the company’s website for experimental products, instead of being available more broadly.

It isn’t clear why Google’s doing this. Meta’s AI chatbots based on celebrities never really took off despite the company stuffing them in every product it makes. As The Information pointed out, the company’s chatbot based on Snoop Dogg has only 15,000 followers on Instagram compared with 87.5 million followers who follow the human rapper.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/google-is-reportedly-building-ai-chatbots-based-on-celebrities-and-influencers-235731655.html?src=rss 

For the last month, Uber has been locking New York City drivers out of its apps during low-demand periods, and Lyft has threatened to do so, too. Bloomberg reports that the ride-hailing companies blame a New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC) rule for their behavior. At least one drivers’ union says it may consider striking if the lockouts continue.

The mid-shift lockouts stem from a six-year-old NYC pay rule that requires ride-sharing companies to pay drivers for idle time between fares. Capping how long drivers without passengers can be paid means Uber pays less, but it also means drivers are taking home much less money for the same amount of time on the clock. And they can’t predict when they’ll lose access to the app.

Drivers are understandably angry. “I used to work 10 hours and make $300 to $350,” Nikoloz Tsulukidze, a full-time Uber driver, told Bloomberg. “Now, I just worked 10 hours and barely made $170. I was so disappointed. I’m paying for my gas and cannot make money.”

Uber and Lyft are deploying the “Look what you made me do!” strategy, pointing fingers at the TLC’s pay rule (and each other) while trying to turn drivers into lobbyists against the regulation. An Uber email to its drivers from last month, viewed by Bloomberg, encouraged drivers to “let the TLC know the effect their rules have had” on their wages.

The way the rule affects the companies differently is also a factor in their blame games. Uber’s drivers have been busier this year, meaning its numbers have more weight on the city’s averages, which determine the minimum-pay limits. “The city’s rule bizarrely holds Uber responsible for Lyft’s failures,” Uber spokesperson Freddi Goldstein told Bloomberg. “With Lyft struggling to keep drivers busy, we don’t have other options.”

Meanwhile, Lyft (naturally) views the situation in reverse. “Uber wants to change the rules so that Lyft is penalized,” the company wrote in a June email to drivers. “The current NYC pay formula is broken,” Lyft spokesperson CJ Macklin told Bloomberg. “It forces rideshare companies to limit when drivers can earn, and therefore how much they can earn.”

A drivers’ union says Uber’s over-hiring is the root cause of the ordeal. Bhairavi Desai, president of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, told Bloomberg that the company “mismanaged” hiring by allowing too many drivers to join its ranks — and the workers are now left to foot the bill. She accused Uber of “gaming the system” by using the TLC’s rule to withhold “time that should be paid under the law and making it unpaid.” Desai says the union will consider striking if necessary.

Although Lyft hasn’t yet begun locking out drivers, it might. A June email to the company’s drivers warned that it would soon “have to” adopt a similar practice.

The current mess in NYC follows a long trail of ugly fights across the country between ride-sharing companies and city regulations. Uber and Lyft staged similar lockouts in 2019 in response to a flat minimum wage requirement for drivers that continued until the following spring. Earlier this year, the two companies threatened to pull out of Minneapolis after the city tried to force a driver pay raise that would push their rates up to the equivalent of minimum wage.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/uber-is-locking-new-york-drivers-out-of-its-apps-and-blaming-a-city-pay-rule-204737818.html?src=rss 

Apple will release its first premium podcast with early access available to Apple TV+ subscribers. The company made the announcement in a press release today that its first dual-language podcast, My Divo, will be the first podcast tied to an Apple TV+ subscription.

All eight episodes of My Divo will be available in English and Spanish for Apple TV+ subscribers when they connect their subscriptions to Apple Podcasts starting July 1. Non-subscribers will listen to new episodes every week. However, they will get access to the first two episodes on launch day. Apple indicated that My Divo will serve as an example of its new business model for podcast distribution going forward, saying that “all upcoming Apple TV+ podcasts will also be made available in full to subscribers.”

My Divo is a podcast about Mexican singer Juan Gabriel, also known as El Divo de Juárez (hence the title), hosted by award-winning journalist Maria Garcia as she tries to reconcile her identity with the legacy of the flamboyant Latino performer. She reexamines similarities within their Mexican heritage, including their sexualities and their upbringing in Ciudad Juárez.

Apple releasing a podcast behind an Apple TV+ paywall is similar to its plan of producing companion podcasts to Apple TV+ shows, which happened shortly after the launch of the streaming service four years ago. My Divo is the first Apple podcast not tied to an Apple TV+ show of the same name.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apple-tv-subscribers-will-get-early-access-to-the-companys-latest-original-podcast-195756992.html?src=rss