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Microsoft Assures Gamers It's Not Abandoning Xbox Hardware

2 weeks 3 days ago
Microsoft said in a statement Monday it remains committed to developing first-party Xbox consoles. The reassurance came after rumors circulated suggesting the gaming division might abandon hardware manufacturing. The speculation gained traction following a 50% price increase for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and retailers including Costco removing Xbox products from their shelves. Microsoft said it is "actively investing in our future first-party consoles and devices designed, engineered and built by Xbox." The company's multi-year partnership with AMD for next-generation hardware also continues. Devices in development include the Xbox Ally range under codenames Omni and Horseman, according to Windows Central. Xbox Series X and Series S production has also not stopped, the report added.

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ChatGPT Now Has 800 Million Weekly Active Users

2 weeks 3 days ago
An anonymous reader shares a report: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said Monday that ChatGPT has reached 800 million weekly active users, marking an increase of adoption among consumers, developers, enterprises, and governments. ChatGPT's impressive growth comes as OpenAI is on a race to secure as many AI chips and build as much AI infrastructure as possible. In August, OpenAI said it was on the cusp of reaching 700 million weekly active users, already an increase from 500 million weekly active users at the end of March. "Today, 4 million developers have built with OpenAI," Altman said. "More than 800 people use ChatGPT every week, and we process over 6 billion tokens per minute on the API. Thanks to all of you, AI has gone from something people build play with to something people build with every day." Altman made the announcement during the keynote presentation for OpenAI's Dev Day, which also included announcement for new tools for building apps inside of ChatGPT, as well as constructing more complex agentic systems. "This will enable a new generation of apps that are interactive, adaptive, and personalized, that you can chat with," Altman said.

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Sharpie Found a Way To Make Pens More Cheaply - By Manufacturing Them in the US

2 weeks 3 days ago
An anonymous reader shares a report: Tucked in the foothills of Tennessee's Smoky Mountains is a factory that has figured out a way to manufacture in America that's cheaper, quicker and better. It's the home of a famous American writing implement: the Sharpie marker. Pen barrels whirl along automated assembly lines that rapidly fill them with ink. At least half a billion Sharpie markers are churned out here every year, each one made of six parts. Only the felt tip is imported, from Japan. It didn't used to be this way. Back in 2018, many Sharpies were made abroad. That's when Chris Peterson, who was the CFO of Sharpie maker Newell Brands challenged his team to answer a question: How could they keep Newell from becoming obsolete compared with factories in Asia? "I felt like we had an opportunity to dramatically improve our U.S. manufacturing," he said. Peterson is now the CEO. And these days, most Sharpies -- in all 93 colors -- are made at this 37-year-old factory. Newell did it without reducing the employee count, and without raising prices. But to get to this place took close to $2 billion in investments across the company, thousands of hours of training and a total overhaul of the production process. The result is a playbook for making low-cost, high-volume products domestically, albeit one that requires long-term planning and a lot of investment.

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