Our news
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Microsoft quietly axes Skype credit and phone number sales to push subscriptions
Bad news for anyone out there who still uses Skype: the Microsoft-owned phone and messaging platform has quietly stopped letting users top-up accounts with credit and buy Skype phone numbers. Instead, Skype is locking into SaaS mode: it’s pushing users to take monthly subscriptions for regional and global Skype-to-phone plans, for a set monthly fee,…
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Cartesia claims its AI is efficient enough to run pretty much anywhere
It’s becoming increasingly costly to develop and run AI. OpenAI’s AI operations costs could reach $7 billion this year, while Anthropic’s CEO recently suggested that models costing over $10 billion could arrive soon. So the hunt is on for ways to make AI cheaper. Some researchers are focusing on techniques to optimize existing model architectures — i.e.…
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After Meta signals end to publisher payouts, Australia plots Big Tech news tax
A few years ago, Australia passed legislation requiring platform giants including Facebook-owner Meta and YouTube’s parent Google to negotiate with news publishers to pay for journalism reshares. The News Media Bargaining Code forced Big Tech to cut deals with local news outlets. However, Meta has since moved away from promoting news on its platforms globally…