Category: News and Views

Georgia’s Plant Vogtle debuts while Biden administration calls for more nuclear energy | Fast Company

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U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm on Friday called for more nuclear reactors to be built in the United States and worldwide. But the CEO of the Georgia utility that just finished the first two scratch-built American reactors in a generation at a cost of nearly $35 billion says his company isn’t ready to pick up that baton.

Speaking in Waynesboro, Georgia, where Georgia Power Co. and three other utilities last month put a second new nuclear reactor into commercial operation, Granholm said the United States needs 98 more reactors with the capacity of units 3 and 4 at Plant Vogtle to produce electricity while reducing climate-changing carbon emissions. Each of the two new reactors can power 500,000 homes and businesses without releasing any carbon.

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15 Major Legal Mistakes Made by Startups | AllBusiness.com

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When launching a new startup, you can face significant business and legal challenges. We have seen plenty of legal mistakes made by entrepreneurs and startup companies. The following are some of the more common and problematic legal mistakes made by small and growing companies. These mistakes are made at the initial formation of the business, in the early stages of growth, and when dealing with employees.

Legal mistake #1: Not making the deal clear with co-founders

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Zoom Enhances AI Capabilities to Boost Productivity and Collaboration | Small Biz Trends

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Zoom has announced the general availability of new AI capabilities across Zoom Workplace, including enhanced features for Zoom Meetings and Zoom Team Chat.

The AI Companion, Zoom’s generative AI assistant, now offers more customization, personalization, and quick reply capabilities. Since its launch in September 2023, over 700,000 accounts have enabled AI Companion, with adoption rates steadily increasing.

Here’s a look at some of the new features:

  • Quick Reply for Mobile: The AI Companion can now suggest short, contextual replies in Team Chat on mobile devices, helping users stay engaged and aligned from anywhere.
  • Custom AI Companion Notice: When an AI Companion feature is enabled in a meeting, a customizable notice informs attendees. This feature allows enterprises to tailor the notice with their own text, formatting, hyperlinks, and more, enhancing the Zoom experience for their needs.
  • External Collaboration Settings: New settings and a dashboard in Team Chat give admins better control over external users. Admins can enable or disable approvals for adding external users to group chats and channels and view all external connections in the External Connections dashboard.
  • Tedious tasks can hinder creativity and productivity. Zoom’s AI Companion helps relieve employees of these tasks, allowing them to focus on more meaningful work.

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GoDaddy Expands GenAI Prompt Library to Boost Small Business Support | Small Biz Trends

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GoDaddy has expanded its Small Business Generative AI (GenAI) Prompt Library to boost small business support and success. This enhanced library now offers over 185 prompts and introduces new features and languages, making it easier for entrepreneurs to leverage GenAI in their daily operations.

Empowering Entrepreneurs with GenAI

Keeping up with GenAI advancements can be daunting for small business owners. GoDaddy’s expanded GenAI Prompt Library (smallbusinessprompts.com) simplifies this process, providing tools to help entrepreneurs tackle common business challenges.

“GoDaddy’s GenAI Prompt Library is a powerful tool for small business owners interested in leveraging GenAI but don’t know where to start,” said Eugene Ware, Director of Engineering and Machine Learning at GoDaddy.

The new prompts in GoDaddy’s library are designed to be more interactive. When copied to a GenAI chatbot, these prompts now ask for specific information such as the business name, target audience, and location. This interactivity ensures that the output is highly relevant and useful.

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Green Energy’s Impact on the Economy | Business

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The world still depends heavily on coal, oil and natural gas to meet its energy needs. However, the use of these energy sources has a drastic impact on the environment. Furthermore, fossil fuels are nonrenewable, so they won’t last forever. As their supplies dwindle, they’ll become more expensive and challenging to retrieve while still damaging the environment.

In response, more countries are shifting away from nonrenewable energy sources and turning to “green energy” to mitigate environmental damage while benefiting the economy. We’ll explore green energy, its economic and environmental impacts and how businesses can take advantage of renewable resources.

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The 7 major things I expect to see at Computex 2024 | Digital Trends

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Computex will be big this year. Coming off a seismic shift in the world of PCs just a week ago with the introduction of Copilot+, Computex is the perfect place for the rest of the industry to show off what it’s been up to. This year, I’ll be on the ground in Taipei City, Taiwan, and there are some key products I expect to see.

It won’t be long before we have all the juicy details on what AMD, Intel, and Nvidia have been working on, with the show going from June 4 to June 7. There are already plenty of breadcrumbs for what we could see get announced though, so let’s get into it.

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Apple’s AI plans for the iPhone just leaked. Here’s what we know | Digital Trends

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Apple is the only major name in the world of Big Tech that hasn’t made its ambitious AI plans public yet. But that will change in a few weeks, with a focus on reimagining the iPhone experience. Bloomberg, citing internal sources, has detailed how Apple plans to integrate generative AI experiences with iOS 18, the next major build of its iPhone operating system.

The company plans to push new AI-powered capabilities not just in such in-house apps as Safari and Maps, but also in experiences like the notification system and a supercharged Spotlight search. Notably, Apple will push the bulk of AI processing to the iPhone’s silicon, and only a minor portion of it will be pushed to the cloud.

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People want ‘dumbphones’. Will companies make them?| BBC News

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Self-labelled neo-Luddites and the tech-stressed are searching for phones with fewer features. Industry experts cite precarious profit margins and a wobbly market around this niche need.

The iPhone turns 17 this year. The launch of the touchscreen-controlled device signalled a moment that has defined our expectations of smartphones ever since. Almost an entire generation has grown up never knowing life without a smartphone. Enough time has passed that people have learnt about the good and bad of these devices in their lives, whether from myriad scientific studies, or simply their own experiences.

Many people are now acutely aware of the costs of having the world at their fingertips. And they’re rejecting the ways these phones can sap concentration, impact sleep and exacerbate mental health concerns.

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BMW, Jaguar and VW imported banned Xinjiang parts – Senate probe | BBC News

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BMW, Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) and Volkswagen (VW) used parts made by a supplier on a list of firms banned over alleged links to Chinese forced labour, a US congressional report has said.

At least 8,000 BMW Mini Cooper cars were imported into the US with components from banned Chinese firm Sichuan Jingweida Technology Group (JWD), according to the report by Senate Finance Committee chairman Ron Wyden’s staff.

“Automakers’ self-policing is clearly not doing the job,” the Democrat Senator said.

BMW said it had “strict standards and policies regarding employment practices, human rights, and working conditions, which all our direct suppliers must follow”.

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Microsoft Build 2024: All the AI and hardware products Microsoft announced | TechCrunch

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Microsoft wants to bring generative AI to the forefront of Windows — and the PCs running it. At a keynote ahead of its annual Build developer conference this week, the company unveiled a new lineup of Windows machines it’s calling Copilot+ PCs, plus generative AI-powered features like Recall, which helps users find apps, files and other content they’ve viewed in the past. Copilot, Microsoft’s brand of generative AI, will soon be far more deeply integrated into the Windows 11 experience. And new Microsoft Surface devices are on the way. We’ve rounded up all the major announcements here.

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