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Amazon’s Q AI assistant lets users ask questions about their company’s data

Amazon Q, currently available for contact centers, will be integrated to other AWS services soon.

Amazon’s cloud business AWS launched a chat tool called Amazon Q, where businesses can ask questions specific to their companies.


Amazon Q can work with any of the models found on Amazon Bedrock, AWS’s repository of AI models, which includes Meta’s Llama 2 and Anthropic’s Claude 2. The company said customers who use Q often choose which model works best for them; connect to the Bedrock API for the model; use that to learn their data, policies, and workflow; and then deploy Amazon Q.

AWS said Amazon Q was trained on 17 years’ worth of AWS knowledge and can be used to ask questions specific to AWS use. It can suggest the best AWS services for a project.

Currently, Amazon Q is available only for users of Amazon Connect, AWS’s service for contact centers. Eventually, it will be available on other services like Amazon Supply Chain, which helps customers track their supply chain management, and Amazon QuickSight, its platform for business intelligence. Amazon Q for supply chain and business intelligence is available on preview.

IonQ Named to Fast Company’s Third Annual List of the Next Big Things in Tech

IonQ earns spot in the prestigious list of 119 innovative companies for innovation in quantum computing

COLLEGE PARK, Md., November 28, 2023 —(BUSINESS WIRE)— IonQ (NYSE: IONQ), an industry leader in quantum computing, today announced that it has been named to Fast Company’s third annual Next Big Things in Tech list, honoring technology breakthroughs that promise to shape the future of industries—from healthcare and security to artificial intelligence and data. This is IonQ’s first time appearing on the list.

“This recognition is not only a tremendous honor but a testament to the transformative impact and potential of our technology,” said Peter Chapman, President and CEO of IonQ. “IonQ is committed to advancing quantum computing capabilities to drive technological breakthroughs and solve complex business problems across industries. This award fuels our drive to continue pushing boundaries and breaking barriers.”

Google Delays Release of Gemini AI That Aims to Compete With OpenAI

Google’s company-defining effort to catch up to ChatGPT creator OpenAI is turning out to be harder than expected.

Google representatives earlier this year told some cloud customers and business partners they would get access to the company’s new conversational AI, a large language model known as Gemini, by November. But the company recently told them not to expect it until the first quarter of next year, according to two people with direct knowledge. The delay comes at a bad time for Google, whose cloud sales growth has slowed while that of its bigger rival, Microsoft, has accelerated. Part of Microsoft’s success has come from selling OpenAI’s technology to its customers.

Survey Finds Half of Tech Workers Think AI Is a Bunch of Hype

As boosters say AI is primed to conquer entire sectors, from military to medicine, a significant portion of the tech world is surprisingly unconvinced by its utility, according to a new survey from software development business Retool.

In the survey of 1,500 people working in tech, Retool found that a startling 51.6 percent of people think AI is overrated, while 25.1 percent think it’s underrated, and another 23.4 percent think it’s fairly rated. The people surveyed include executives, software engineers, designers, and other positions in different industries.

Particularly striking was that workers in executive roles had a more favorable view of AI while people in the technical side “skewed a little more toward overrated” — perhaps not a surprise, since many business leaders have been crowing about the potential cost savings of AI and how it could generate more revenue.

The Exciting, Perilous Journey Toward AGI | Ilya Sutskever | TED

Just weeks before the management shakeup at OpenAI rocked Silicon Valley and made international news, the company’s cofounder and chief scientist Ilya Sutskever explored the transformative potential of artificial general intelligence (AGI), highlighting how it could surpass human intelligence and profoundly transform every aspect of life. Hear his take on the promises and perils of AGI — and his optimistic case for how unprecedented collaboration will ensure its safe and beneficial development. (Recorded October 17, 2023)

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Europe has lost the AI race. It can’t ignore the quantum computing one

Europe has become known as a second-place destination for business, and more recently, innovation.

Disruptive technologies like AI have hailed from the United States for decades with no European challenger in sight.

However, when a four-week-old French AI startup secured €105 million for its seed round, it demonstrated that Europe isn’t as disadvantaged as people think. While AI is a saturated market, quantum computing can allow Europe to survive in a century ruled by China and the US.

Arm Cortex-M52 chip brings AI acceleration to low-power IoT devices

Why it matters: While AI algorithms are seemingly everywhere, processing on the most popular platforms require powerful server GPUs to provide customers with their generative services. Arm is introducing a new dedicated chip design, set to provide AI acceleration even in the most affordable IoT devices starting next year.

The Arm Cortex-M52 is the smallest and most cost-efficient processor designed for AI acceleration applications, according to the company. This latest design from the UK-based fabless firm promises to deliver “enhanced” AI capabilities to Internet of Things (IoT) devices, as Arm states, without the need for a separate computing unit.

Paul Williamson, Arm’s SVP and general manager for the company’s IoT business, emphasized the need to bring machine learning optimized processing to “even the smallest and lowest-power” endpoint devices to fully realize the potential of AI in IoT. Despite AI’s ubiquity, Williamson noted, harnessing the “intelligence” from the vast amounts of data flowing through digital devices requires IoT appliances that are smarter and more capable.

YouTube Threatens to Become Even More Horrendous If You Have an Ad Blocker

YouTube has had it with you blocking the ads on its platform — and it’s willing to make the experience as miserable as possible until you give up.

As Business Insider reports, the company is encouraging viewers to turn off their ad blockers in their browsers or subscribe to YouTube Premium, which costs a whopping $13.99 a month, by degrading the experience of using the site.

“Ads are a vital lifeline for our creators that helps them run and grow their businesses,” a spokesperson told Insider. “That’s why the use of ad blockers violates YouTube’s Terms of Service.”

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