Author: Art Ryan

Microsoft recently disclosed its involvement in providing advanced artificial intelligence and cloud computing services to the Israeli military during the conflict in Gaza. How Microsoft’s AI Helped Israeli Military In Its War Against Gaza Microsoft recently disclosed its involvement in providing advanced artificial intelligence and cloud computing services to the Israeli military during the conflict in Gaza. Read Time:3 mins Share Microsoft disclosed that it provided advanced AI and other services to the Israeli military Quick Reads Summary is AI generated, newsroom reviewed. Microsoft disclosed its support for the Israeli military in Gaza, providing AI and cloud services for hostage…

In a bold move to democratize access to cutting-edge technology, Google has officially launched a suite of free AI and tech courses — complete with certificates! Whether you’re an aspiring developer, data scientist, business leader, or simply curious about artificial intelligence, now is the perfect time to dive in. These courses are designed to equip learners with practical knowledge in AI, cloud computing, and emerging technologies. The best part? They’re 100% free and come with certificates, giving your résumé a serious boost in 2025. 🔟 Google’s Top Free AI Courses You Can Start Today 1. Introduction to Generative AI Explore…

Artificial Intelligence isn’t just transforming industries — it’s quietly reshaping the way we handle everyday tasks. From simplifying research to creating professional-level audio and video content, a new wave of AI tools is helping users work smarter, not harder. Here’s a curated list of 11 lesser-known AI gems that you’ll soon find yourself using every day. 1. Perplexity.ai – Your AI-Powered Research Assistant Perplexity functions like an advanced search engine, but with contextual understanding. Ask it a question, and it not only delivers an answer — it shows its sources and provides a concise summary. Perfect for students, journalists, or…

OpenAI’s artificial intelligence (AI) tools showed a surge in website traffic in the past two months, with Google a distant second and DeepSeek catching up quickly. According to new data from Similarweb, which tracks website traffic, daily average visits to ChatGPT and other OpenAI application programming interface (API) sites markedly jumped in April and continued to climb through May 9, the latest date tracked. From late March to early May, traffic rose 27% from around 150 million visits to 190 million for OpenAI. By May 9, OpenAI’s platforms accounted for an estimated 190 million of the 240 million daily average visits to all AI platforms. That’s nearly 80% of all generative…

Granola said Wednesday (May 14) that it raised $43 million in a Series B funding round and introduced the new version of its artificial intelligence notepad, Granola 2.0, which writes meeting notes and enables users to search through and chat with those transcripts. “With the new Granola, you get all the context from your team’s meetings, in one place, accessible to you with AI,” the company said in a Wednesday post on LinkedIn. “Because the most up-to-date picture of your company isn’t in any doc, wiki or spreadsheet. It’s in the conversations your team is having.” The company added in the post that…

Netflix is reportedly about to experiment with placing ads in the middle of its programming. The streaming service has created interactive “mid-roll” and pause ads that incorporate generative artificial intelligence (AI), the publication Media Play News reported Wednesday (May 15) from the company’s upfront to advertisers. “[Netflix] members pay as much attention to midroll ads as they do to the shows and movies themselves,” said Amy Reinhard, president of advertising at Netflix. Reinhard said that Netflix’s $7.99 monthly ad-supported subscription tier now has 94 million subscribers worldwide, up from 70 million in November and 40 million ad-supported subscriptions a year ago. This less-expensive option now accounts…

Every cloud has a silver lining, even those impacting the global economy. And in today’s macroeconomic climate clouded by ambiguity from tariffs, rising interest rates, and unpredictable policy shifts, small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) find themselves navigating not just a commercial maze, but also a technological inflection point. The gist of it: Thanks to artificial intelligence (AI), technology has become essential for business operations. That necessity is intensified by an economic atmosphere described with one word. Uncertainty. “What used to be a nice-to-have is a must-have. More and more SMB owners are inquiring about technologies that can help them with their day to day,” Kal…

Klarna’s CEO is reportedly attributing a 40% reduction in staff to the company’s AI investments. Sebastian Siemiatkowski told CNBC on Wednesday (May 14) that artificial intelligence (AI) was just one factor behind the shrinking headcount, saying the Swedish pay later FinTech had also seen some natural attrition. “The truth is, the company has shrunk from about 5,000 to now almost 3,000 employees,” said Siemiatkowski. “If you go to LinkedIn and look at the jobs, you’ll see how we’re shrinking.” As the report notes, Klarna has made no secret of its aggressive AI adoption, going as far as using an “AI-generated version” of Siemiatkowski…

Chinese tech giant Tencent says its artificial intelligence (AI) investments have begun paying off. In releasing its quarterly earnings on Wednesday (May 14), the company’s CEO noted that its AI capabilities had “contributed tangibly” to its gaming and advertising businesses. Revenue was up 13% year over year to 180 billion yuan ($25 billion). “We also stepped up our spending on new AI opportunities, such as the Yuanbao application and AI in Weixin,” CEO Ma Huateng said, referring to the company’s super app. “We believe the operating leverage from our existing high-quality revenue streams will help absorb the additional costs associated with these AI-related investments and contribute…

Walmart is gearing up for a shift in consumer behavior as artificial intelligence begins to take a more active role in how people shop. The retail giant is exploring how to make its products not only attractive to human buyers but also to autonomous AI agents that may soon handle shopping tasks on behalf of consumers, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported Thursday (May 15). These AI-powered bots, capable of acting independently, could disrupt the traditional online retail experience by bypassing the typical search-and-advertising methods used to influence shoppers, the report said. Instead of scrolling through ads or comparing product reviews, future consumers may rely on digital assistants, like OpenAI’s Operator, to…

Dubai, UAE – On May 15th, 2025, China International Capital Corporation Limited (“CICC”), China’s leading investment bank, officially launches its branch in Dubai International Financial Centre (“DIFC”), the leading global financial centre in the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia (MEASA). The new branch operates under China International Capital Corporation Hong Kong Securities Limited (Trade name: CICC (DIFC Branch)) (“CICC DIFC Branch”), holds a Category 4 license and regulated by the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA). DIFC is a strategic gateway for the region for Chinese financial institutions and multinational firms. The biggest names in the Chinese banking and financial…

At HODL 2025 in Dubai, where the brightest minds in Web3 and emerging technologies gather to shape the future, a keynote of extraordinary depth and foresight took center stage. Delivered by Paul Griffin, Associate Professor at Singapore Management University, the session titled “Quantum Meets Blockchain: Foundations, Threats and the Future” captivated a packed audience with its deep dive into the intersection of quantum computing and blockchain technology. This wasn’t just a talk about theory—it was a wake-up call on how quantum advances could reshape, challenge, and ultimately evolve the entire blockchain ecosystem. Quantum Computing: A Double-Edged Sword for Blockchain Griffin…

At HODL Dubai 2025, the conversation around blockchain shifted from speculative potential to real-world application. In one of the event’s most impactful sessions, titled “Blockchain: Cornerstone of Innovation – Unlocking Practical Business Applications,” a distinguished panel of industry leaders demonstrated that blockchain is no longer an experiment—it’s an enterprise tool already reshaping industries. Moderated by Abdallah Al Jouaid of CNN Business Arabic, the session brought together a high-powered lineup: Together, they delivered insights that cut through the noise and spotlighted the practical, strategic impact of Web3 technologies in today’s digital economy. Blockchain in Action: Use Cases Across Industries Each speaker…

In a thrilling finale that celebrated the brightest minds in global tech, Vbanq emerged as the Startup World Cup 2025 Champion at HODL Dubai, hosted by Pegasus Ventures. With its transformative approach to digital banking, Vbanq captured both the trophy and the imagination of a crowd filled with investors, technologists, and industry leaders. The Fintech Force Reimagining Global Banking Vbanq isn’t just another startup—it’s a revolutionary digital banking platform tailored for the complexities of global finance. Designed to function as a one-stop solution for cross-border financial operations, the platform enables businesses to manage crypto and fiat transactions, issue cards, and…

Cloud generative AI vendor Together AI on Thursday revealed it acquired startup Refuel.ai for an undisclosed amount. Refuel.ai specializes in transforming unstructured data into structured datasets for AI applications. Refuel and Together The data management vendor was founded in 2021 by Stanford alumni Rishabh Bhargava and Nihit Desai. It has a family of models for data tasks and a platform called Refuel Cloud that enables engineering teams to develop multi-step data workflows. The San Francisco-based startup has raised about $5.2 million since its founding four years ago. Meanwhile, Together AI has grown quickly since its founding in 2022. As an open source generative AI…

On Thursday, Windsurf, a startup that develops popular AI tools for software engineers, announced the launch of its first family of AI software engineering models, or SWE-1 for short. The startup says it trained its new family of AI models — SWE-1, SWE-1-lite, and SWE-1-mini — to be optimized for the “entire software engineering process,” not just coding. The launch of Windsurf’s in-house AI models may come as a shock to some, given that OpenAI has reportedly closed a $3 billion deal to acquire Windsurf. However, this model launch suggests Windsurf is trying to expand beyond just developing applications to also developing the…

Coders were hit hardest among Microsoft’s 2,000-person layoff in its home state of Washington, Bloomberg reports. Over 40% of the people laid off were in software engineering, making it by far the largest category, Bloomberg found based on state filings. Relatively few sales or marketing positions were affected, Bloomberg added. To be fair, coders are a big chunk of Microsoft’s workforce, although it doesn’t disclose the exact proportion. The cuts are part of recent layoffs at Microsoft affecting about 6,000 people. Still, these cuts come after CEO Satya Nadella said last month that up to 30% of the company’s code was now written by…

Google announced on Thursday that it’s rolling out new AI and accessibility features to Android and Chrome. Most notably, TalkBack, Android’s screen reader, now lets you ask Gemini about what’s in images and what’s on your screen. Last year, Google brought Gemini’s capabilities to TalkBack to give people who are blind or have low vision access to AI-generated descriptions for images, even when Alt text isn’t available. Now, people can ask questions and get responses about their images. For example, if a friend texts you a photo a their new guitar, you can get a description of it and ask questions about the brand…

Chips are a critical component of the AI industry. But new chips don’t hit the market with the same speed as new AI models and products. Cognichip has a lofty goal of creating a foundational AI model that can help bring new chips to market faster. San Francisco-based Cognichip is working to build a physics-informed foundational AI model that can be used by semiconductor companies to speed up the development process of new chips. The company is calling this approach “artificial chip intelligence” and hopes it can help speed up chip production times by 50% and reduce the associated costs as…

At HODL 2025 in Dubai, Tim Popplewell, CEO of Scintilla Network, introduced what may soon become one of the most prominent players in the regulated Web3 space. Describing Scintilla as “the regulated entity you’ve never heard of,” Popplewell gave attendees a sneak peek into the company’s ambitious roadmap, which includes a trifecta of broker-dealing, exchange services, and real-world asset (RWA) tokenization—all backed by full regulatory compliance. Though still operating in relative stealth mode, Scintilla is poised for a rapid ascent. As Popplewell made clear: “You’ve not heard of us today, but in five or six months, we’ll be everywhere.” The…