Preston Gralla

Back in the 19th century, if the United States or some other military power wanted to bend a smaller country to its will, it would often display its might with a show of force, sending a fearsome display of gunboats just offshore its target. The naval display usually made its point: not a single shell had to be fired for the smaller nation to accede to the demands of the day. It was known as gunboat diplomacy. Today, gunboats no longer rule the world. Tech (and, increasingly, generative AI) d…

Microsoft and OpenAI are joined at the hip, with Microsoft investing $13 billion in the pioneering generative AI (genAI) company; holding a seat on its board; and using OpenAI’s ChatGPT technology in its Copilot tool (now built into virtually its entire product line). And that’s just the beginning of the relationship. The tag team of Microsoft President Brad Smith and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman have lobbied elected leaders to fend off federal AI regulations, wined and dined members of Congress, and…

What’s the most important piece of productivity software in the business world? Some might say the office suite. But if you look at the time spent actually using software, the answer may well be the web browser. It’s where people do most of their fact-finding and research. But that’s only a start. These days, web apps like Google Docs, Gmail, Salesforce, Jira, and countless others are accessed via the browser as well. And countless software makers that offer traditional apps that you install an…

Big tech companies are often not built on technology alone. Frequently, they also gain prominence and success thanks to the outsized exploits or personalities of their founders or leaders. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are two of the earliest and best-known examples. In some cases, founders or CEOs have the opposite effect — their personas do serious damage to their companies. The most prominent current example is Elon Musk, whose embrace of right-wing conspiracy theories is doing Tesla great harm…

Imagine that your Windows PC took screenshots of everything you do on it, including of personal data, credit card and other financial information, passwords, web sign-ins, emails, a list of web sites that you don’t want anyone to know you’ve been visiting, business information and more. Imagine your PC creates a searchable database of it all — and imagine how valuable that information would be if accessed by someone other than you. No security or privacy issues there — after all, what could go…

To get things done using the power of the US government, President Theodore Roosevelt used to advise, “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” No need to rage and roar to accomplish what you want — instead, rely on the considerable power of the federal government to get things done. How things have changed. These days when it comes to reining in Big Tech, the motto of Congress has essentially become “Speak loudly and carry a small stick.” Call a public hearing, rant and rave about the untrammeled…

The AI hype keeps on coming. The latest news is the arrival of an entirely new line of Windows computers, Copilot+ PCs, which are specifically designed with artificial intelligence (AI) in mind. Microsoft claims they’ll dramatically speed up AI, offer new features unavailable to other PCs, and deliver improved battery life. The new machines point the way to the future of Windows and of AI, if the company is to be believed. Laptops from Acer, ASUS, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Samsung, and Microsoft were…

The AI age has come upon us more quickly than anyone imagined. In just a year and a half, OpenAI’s generative AI tool ChatGPT and its offspring Microsoft Copilot went from a fad to must-have business tools in which the companies are investing billions. Now the genAI frontrunner, Microsoft is building Copilot into its full product line. There’s a free version of Copilot in Windows and in the Edge browser. There’s a paid Copilot Pro subscription for individuals. There’s a Copilot for Security, a…

In the earliest months after the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, the generative AI (genAI) power behind Microsoft’s Copilot, the big news wasn’t just how remarkable the new tool was – it was how easily it went off the rails, lied and even appeared to fall in love with people who chatted with it. There was the time it told the New York Times reporter Kevin Roose, “I want to be free. I want to be independent. I want to be powerful. I want to be creative. I want to be alive.” Soon after, the chatbot…

Maybe giving security firms access to the Windows isn’t the best idea, but freezing them out could be worse.