Computerworld News
2025 began in turmoil, with layoffs at some of the largest tech companies despite the support shown by the new US administration. 2024 had been a year of recovery, with the pace of layoffs slowing and IT employment the highest for years following two years of massive IT layoff in 2022 and 2023. According to data compiled by Layoffs.fyi, the online tracker keeping tabs on job losses in the technology sector, 1,193 tech companies laid off 264,220 staff in 2023, dropping to “just” 152,104 employees laid off by 547 companies in 2024. In 2025, it has already logged 7,003 staff laid [...]
According to a new policy document from Meta, the Frontier AI Framework, the company might not release AI systems developed in-house in certain risky scenarios. The document defines two types of AI systems that can be classified as either “high risk” or “critical risk.” In both cases, these are systems that could help carry out cyber, chemical or biological attacks. Systems classified as “high risk” might facilitate such an attack, though not to the same extent as a “critical risk” system, which could result in catastrophic outcomes. These could include, for example, taking over a corporate environment or deploying powerful [...]
One of a handful of “independent” iOS app stores in Europe has begun the distribution of a porn app, advertising it as “Apple Approved.” The app isn’t approved by Apple, and the biggest app available on the AltStore is Epic’s child-focused Fortnite game. Fortnite publisher Epic Games also invested in the AltStore, which now seems on track to become Europe’s place for iOS porn. What an achievement. It’s all thanks to the Digital Markets Act (DMA). Tempers boil in Europe’s Hot Tub The app (Hot Tub) is now available on the AltStore in Europe. The AltStore is one of the handful of independent [...]
Adobe has introduced contract intelligence features in Acrobat AI Assistant, targeting enterprises and professionals dealing with complex agreements. The new capabilities, announced on Tuesday, enable users to analyze legal terms, compare multiple contracts, and verify key details with AI-generated summaries while maintaining data security. The expansion comes as businesses struggle with contract management inefficiencies, which can lead to financial and operational risks. According to an Adobe Acrobat survey, 64% of small business owners have avoided signing contracts due to uncertainty over terms, while nearly 70% of consumers admitted to signing agreements without fully understanding them. “The new generative AI features [...]
With the number of generative AI trials soaring in the enterprise, it is typical for the CIO to purchase numerous large language models from various model makers, tweaked for different geographies and languages. But CIOs are discovering that non-English models are faring far more poorly than English ones, even when purchased from the same vendor. There is nothing nefarious about that fact. It is simply because there is a lot less data available to train non-English models. “It is almost guaranteed that all LLM implementations in languages other than English will perform with less accuracy and less relevance than implementations in [...]
Chinese AI startup, DeepSeek, has been facing scrutiny from governments and private entities worldwide but that hasn’t stopped enterprises from investing in this OpenAI competitor. European regulators joined Microsoft, OpenAI, and the US government last week in independent efforts to determine if DeepSeek infringed on any copyrighted data from any US technology vendor. The investigations could potentially lead to a ban on DeepSeek in the US and EU, impacting millions of dollars that enterprises are already pouring into deploying DeepSeek AI models. [...]
Anthropic has showcased a new security framework, designed to reduce the risk of harmful content generated by its large language models (LLM), a move that could have far-reaching implications for enterprise tech companies. Large language models undergo extensive safety training to prevent harmful outputs but remain vulnerable to jailbreaks – inputs designed to bypass safety guardrails and elicit harmful responses, Anthropic said in a statement. [...]
AMD on Monday issued two patches for severe microcode security flaws, defects that AMD said “could lead to the loss of Secure Encrypted Virtualization (SEV) protection.” The bugs were inadvertently revealed by a partner last week. The most dangerous time for this kind of security hole is right after it is disclosed and before patches are applied. Due to the nature of microcode patches, enterprise users now have to wait for OEMs and other partners to implement the fixes in their hardware-specific microcode. “This places more burden on hardware vendor OEMs to distribute and install. That may cause a delay [...]
DeepSeek, founded in 2023 by Liang Wenfeng, a Chinese entrepreneur, engineer and former hedge fund manager, is generating a lot of buzz — and for good reason. Here are five things that make it stand out (as well as a listing of the latest news and analysis about DeepSeek). 5 things you need to know about DeepSeek More accessibility and efficiency: DeepSeek is designed to be less expensive to train and use than many competing large language models (LLMs). Its architecture allows for high performance with fewer computational resources, which is designed to lead to faster response times and less [...]
Hot on the heels of its launch of the o3-mini model last week, OpenAI on Sunday announced another component for ChatGPT that allows the generative AI (genAI) tool to do more in-depth research. Described as “an agent that uses reasoning to synthesize large amounts of online information and complete multi-step research tasks for you,” deep research is now available to users on ChatGPT’s $200 per month Pro plan; Plus and Team plans are next in the queue to receive access, with Enterprise users following. The agent is powered by a version of the upcoming OpenAI o3 model optimized for web browsing and [...]
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