- The “world’s first ever pizza-scented controller” is part of a marketing effort for the upcoming Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem movie.
- Microsoft has designed custom TMNT Xbox controllers that have a scent diffuser strapped to the back in the shape of a slice of pizza.
- There are four variations in total, and thankfully, they’re just part of a sweepstakes giveaway, so we won’t be seeing or sniffing these controllers everywhere.
Read More at theverge.com
- Microsoft and Activision Blizzard on Wednesday agreed to extend the deadline for their merger agreement until Oct. 18, Activision said in a statement on Wednesday.
- The two companies had originally agreed to complete the transaction by July 18, but regulatory pushback from the U.S. and the U.K. delayed the takeover.
Read More at cnbc.com
- Microsoft announced the availability of Meta’s new language software at its Inspire conference Tuesday.
- A Meta spokesperson said the company is not “not focused on monetization for Llama 2,” and that businesses would need to pay Microsoft for the enterprise hosting capabilities.
- For Microsoft, the deal shows its willingness to throw some of its weight behind an AI language from a company other than OpenAI.
Read More at cnbc.com
- Users can now take or upload a photo to Bing Chat and ask for more information on it via desktop or the Bing app, since the AI can now “understand the context of an image, interpret it, and answer questions about it,” according to a release.
- The update comes as the AI arms race is heating up among chatbot leaders such as Microsoft, Google, OpenAI and Anthropic.
- Microsoft’s decision to allow images for Bing Chat follows Google’s recent debut of an image search feature for Bard, its AI chatbot.
Read More at cnbc.com
- Microsoft shares rallied to an all-time high after the company announced pricing for its new AI subscription service.
- Microsoft’s Copilot subscription service adds AI to the company’s popular Office products such as Word, Excel and Teams.
- It will cost an additional $30 per month and could increase monthly prices for enterprise customers as much as 83%, bringing in additional revenue through recurring subscriptions.
Read More at cnbc.com