NerdNews

Google's parent company Alphabet plans to spend approximately $75 billion on capital expenditures in 2025, with a significant portion likely going towards AI infrastructure. This investment is a significant increase from the $32.3 billion spent in 2023. Google's AI ambitions include its Gemini AI assistant and other AI-powered products, which have contributed to the company's revenue growth.

Google researchers have found a way to load unofficial microcode into AMD processors, allowing them to modify the chip's behavior. This vulnerability, which affects all Zen-based AMD chips, can be used to compromise confidential computing workloads and undermine secure encrypted virtualization. AMD is rolling out a fix in the form of an official microcode update.

OpenAI and Microsoft have filed motions to dismiss Elon Musk's lawsuit, arguing that it lacks factual specificity and is an attempt to undermine a competitor. The lawsuit, which was filed in August, alleges that OpenAI breached its contracts and engaged in unfair business practices. However, OpenAI and Microsoft claim that the lawsuit is baseless and an attempt to advance Musk's own commercial interests.

Google has updated its AI principles to remove pledges not to design or deploy AI tools for use in weapons or surveillance technology. The new guidelines focus on responsible development and deployment, with human oversight and alignment with international law and human rights. This change comes after Google previously stated it would not develop AI for weapons or surveillance, and has sparked controversy among employees and critics.

OpenAI has partnered with the US National Laboratories to deploy its advanced AI model on a supercomputer, aiming to supercharge scientific breakthroughs in areas like materials science, renewable energy, and national security. The partnership will provide 15,000 scientists with access to OpenAI's latest reasoning models, with a focus on accelerating US global tech leadership and stabilizing the power grid.

Researchers at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology built a brain-inspired AI model and put it in a robot to help it understand the world. The AI learned concepts behind words by interacting with its environment, demonstrating compositionality and generalizing knowledge to new tasks.

Google's CEO Sundar Pichai stated that the company has 'very good ideas' for native ads in Gemini, but they will prioritize user experience. Ads are not expected to appear in Gemini at least through this year. Google plans to spend $75 billion on capital expenditures to keep up in the AI race.

Adobe has added a new 'contract intelligence' feature to its Acrobat AI Assistant, which can automatically recognize contracts, summarize complicated language, and surface key terms and dates. The feature is available as a $4.99 per month add-on for Acrobat users and aims to save users time spent understanding complex documents.

WhatsApp has updated its ChatGPT integration to include image and voice inputs, allowing users to upload images and send voice messages to the chatbot. Users can also link their free, Plus, or Pro ChatGPT plan to get more usage out of the service. This update expands the ways users can interact with the chatbot in the app, which debuted in December with text input only.

Adobe's Acrobat AI Assistant has been updated to understand and compare contracts, helping users make sense of complex terms and spot differences between agreements. The feature can recognize contracts, identify key terms, summarize contents, and recommend questions. It can also compare up to 10 contracts and check for discrepancies. The AI Assistant is available as a $5-a-month add-on.

GrubHub disclosed a data breach impacting customers, drivers, and merchants after attackers breached its systems using a third-party service provider account. The breach exposed names, email addresses, phone numbers, and partial payment card information, but no sensitive financial information was accessed.

A malicious Go package, boltdb-go, was found to be a backdoor that allows remote code execution. It was undetected for 3 years and was cached by the Go Module Proxy, making it available indefinitely. The package was a copycat of the legitimate BoltDB database module and used typosquatting to trick users into downloading it.

General Motors is cutting nearly half of the workforce at Cruise, its autonomous vehicle company, and abandoning the robotaxi business. The decision comes after GM completed a full acquisition of Cruise and decided to focus on autonomous technology for personal vehicles, specifically its Super Cruise system. The move is expected to save the company money and generate revenue through monthly or annual fees for the features.

AMD's CEO Lisa Su is optimistic about the company's Instinct accelerators, predicting they will drive tens of billions of dollars in annual revenue. Despite concerns over DeepSeek's impact on AI hardware sales, Su believes innovation in models and algorithms will increase AI adoption. AMD's Q4 earnings showed a 92% increase in profits and 14% increase in revenues, with the datacenter division accounting for the majority of revenues.

Palantir CEO Alex Karp stated that one of his goals was to 'power the West to its obvious innate superiority.' The company posted Q4 revenue up 36% to $828 million. Karp's comments have sparked controversy, with some criticizing his geo-historical bombast and others questioning the company's involvement in US defense and intelligence applications.

Birmingham City Council's Oracle finance system implementation has been delayed again, with the council's audit committee hearing that the new bank reconciliation system will not be ready until August, six months later than expected. The delay is the latest setback for the council's troubled Oracle project, which has been plagued by problems since its launch in 2022.

Nvidia has released a hotfix driver (version 572.24) to fix crashes in Valorant on the RTX 5080 and RTX 5090 graphics cards. The driver also addresses issues with Final Fantasy XVI freezing after exit. The update is available on Nvidia's support website.

Grubhub experienced a security incident due to a third-party service provider, resulting in unauthorized access to user contact information, including names, email addresses, phone numbers, and partial payment details. The company has taken steps to contain the situation and strengthen security controls.

A 22-year-old Canadian math prodigy, Andean Medjedovic, has been accused by US prosecutors of exploiting vulnerabilities in two decentralized finance protocols to fraudulently siphon around $65 million from investors. Medjedovic allegedly used automated smart contracts to enrich himself and then laundered the assets through a series of transactions. He is charged with wire fraud, unauthorized damage to a protected computer, attempted Hobbs Act extortion, and two money laundering charges.

A web skimmer campaign has compromised at least 17 e-commerce sites, including Casio UK, by exploiting vulnerabilities in Magento software. The malware captures credit card details through a fake payment form, using a technique known as double-entry skimming. The campaign was active from January 14-24 and was remediated after notification.