Technology

Amid rising financial pressure and increasing consumer expectations, business leaders across all industries are turning to AI as the silver bullet to drive greater efficiency, reduce costs, and secure a competitive advantage. No longer seen as just another tech buzzword, today AI is considered a pivotal tool in an organization's digital armory, with 60% of CEOs expecting generative AI (GenAI), in particular, to improve product or service quality over the next year. As a result, nine-tenths (87%) of C-Suite executives feel pressured to rapidly implement GenAI solutions, at speed and scale.

The excitement surrounding GenAI – known for its ability to create text, images, and other media from simple prompts - is well-founded. It promises to revolutionize content creation, customer service, and numerous other domains. In fact, according to Gartner's research, global spending on AI is expected to reach £229 billion by 2027, with enterprise applications embedding of GenAI comprising a significant portion of this investment.

However, despite the hype, it is essential to approach GenAI with a balanced perspective. GenAI is one form of AI, and whilst it offers potentially significant opportunities, enterprise adoption is currently somewhat limited. In fact, to date, it delivers low returns for most organizations and many early projects have failed to deliver the expected benefits. Broader forms of “traditional” AI, such as Machine Learning, can be better suited, providing a better ROI and results in more transparent, explainable forms.

With pressure mounting to transform and implement AI rapidly, getting swept up in the promise of GenAI is understandable. However, using it to tick the AI box in your organization is not necessarily the answer – at least not the most effective, safe, and impactful one.

The reality is – the efficiency gains and increased productivity that can be obtained by standalone GenAI platforms are limited in the grand scheme of things. They won’t have a transformational impact on the vast majority of services delivered by organizations across all sectors.

An integrated approach

The true power of AI in the enterprise extends far beyond a few expensive GenAI-driven "co-pilots" assisting knowledge workers with administrative tasks and content generation. The future of AI lies in its seamless embedding within business processes and systems, ensuring that AI capabilities are integrated, not standalone.

Enterprise software applications, known for their high scalability and integration capabilities, offer organizations the perfect solution to AI deployment. In fact, Gartner predicts that by 2027, 70% of GenAI spend will be via these tools.

Customer engagement solutions that can embed GenAI with Enterprise Applications can deliver benefits safely. Such tools can allow simple creation of chatbots and virtual assistants, and provide valuable tools to workers such as content summarization, keyword extraction, sentiment analysis, translation, and text enhancements such as spelling, grammar, and tone of voice.

In addition to enabling a more secure approach, enterprise software applications can also allow businesses to incorporate multiple forms of AI such as pre-trained machine learning (ML), natural language processing (NLP) and AI-powered bots, as well as adjacent technologies such as RPA. ML models allow organizations to gain rich, bias-free insights that can predict future outcomes, whilst NLP can revolutionize omnichannel contact, and boost efficiency, personalization and satisfaction through AI-powered interactions. Meanwhile, RPA can increase customer service teams, and other departments efficiency, by completing mundane, time-consuming tasks that slow them down.

Ultimately, enterprise-wide AI adoption is about creating a cohesive ecosystem where AI enhances every aspect of operations, from customer service to decision-making. This approach ensures that AI tools are not isolated on desktops but are woven into the fabric of the organization's workflows, driving efficiency and innovation at every level.

Making an impact

In today’s turbulent landscape, where demand for AI expertise is extremely high, organisations face many challenges when trying to build in-house capabilities. Embedding AI technologies with enterprise applications therefore provides a practical approach to AI delivery.

Platform-based application solutions, that utilize low-code technology to build and develop optimized business processes and workflows, are particularly effective in this scenario, offering business-ready AI capabilities that can be deployed simply, safely and at scale.

Deploying AI safely and securely

Whilst the opportunities on offer from successful implementation are vast, there are also the inherent risks associated with AI – and GenAI in particular - that must be considered. Consumers are becoming increasingly aware of the potential pitfalls associated with AI, such as biased algorithms and invasive data collection practices. For organizations in high-risk industries such as education, healthcare, and essential public and private services, the way in which AI is deployed and the controls placed around it is critical.

The journey to successful and safe AI integration in the enterprise requires a nuanced approach, balancing innovation with risk management. While GenAI offers transformative potential, traditional AI and ML solutions continue to provide robust, lower-risk benefits. By adopting AI with enterprise applications, especially those with a platform approach, organizations can harness the power of AI efficiently and securely, navigating regulatory challenges and skill shortages effectively.

To be impactful, AI implementation should be treated as more than just a box-ticking exercise. As it continues to evolve, enterprises that adopt a strategic, well-governed approach will be well-positioned to lead in the digital age.

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This article was produced as part of TechRadarPro's Expert Insights channel where we feature the best and brightest minds in the technology industry today. The views expressed here are those of the author and are not necessarily those of TechRadarPro or Future plc. If you are interested in contributing find out more here: https://www.techradar.com/news/submit-your-story-to-techradar-proc

Bring the gift everyone will want to win from this year's holiday party, from a desk organizer shaped like a pear to magnets they'll wish they could eat.

Tiny Circuits made an impossibly smol retro-styled TV set, with fully functional knobs and a wee remote control.

Britain’s financial regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has advised institutions to better prepare themselves for disruptive IT meltdowns by strengthening their defences.

The warning follows the major Crowdstrike outage earlier in 2024, which affected 8.5 million Windows machines worldwide, and the FCA wants to make sure future incidents don’t bring the banking industry to a standstill.

The banking sector was hit hard by the outage, losing an estimated $1.15 billion in damages, second only to the healthcare sector which took a hit of around $1.94 billion.

Lessons learnt

Now, the FCA is urging firms to become ‘operationally resilient’ in line with their rules to prevent further losses.

The risk of more incidents is ‘severe but plausible’, the FCA warned, but even then businesses will need to continue to deliver crucial services.

This nudge from the FCA comes before a hard deadline, as in March 2025, it is introducing operational resilience requirements for the financial sector. These rules are aimed at mitigating the impact and limiting instability from any disruption, protecting consumers and market integrity.

There’s a dependence on unregulated third parties to deliver business services, says the FCA. This has put industries at risk, with just one update having the potential to cripple services around the world.

"These outages emphasise firms' increasing dependence on unregulated third parties to deliver important business services," the FCA said in a statement.

"We encourage all firms, regardless of how they were affected by the CrowdStrike incident, to consider these lessons, to improve their ability to respond to and recover from future disruptions." the regulator continued.

After the Crowdstrike incident, the FCA says the organisations that recovered quickest were those whose testing procedures were up to standard by prioritising which systems to bring online first, and minimising the impact across the board.

Via The Register

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What's got a Google TV and can't access the Freeplay app any more? The answer, it seems, is everybody.

Freeplay – not to be confused with the UK's Freeview Play – is Google's free TV app for US users, delivering FAST (Free Ad-Supported TV) channels. The latest version of the Freeplay app began rolling out in September, but as 9to5Google spotted last week it had disappeared from some users' TVs.

It turns out that the issue isn't an isolated one; Google is temporarily pulling the app for almost all users.

Where has the Freeplay app gone?

In a statement to 9to5Google, Google explained that it was recalling the app from all "affected devices" because of a crashing issue; the Google TV Streamer doesn’t appear to be one of the affected devices but Google TVs are.

Google says:

While rolling out the new Google TV Freeplay guide, we discovered an issue that can increase crashes for some users. We have disabled access to the new guide on affected devices until the fix is in place. The fix will begin rolling out soon, and the updated guide will be available for all Google TV devices in the coming months.

By "all Google TV devices" Google means US ones; there are no plans as yet to make Freeplay available outside the US.

Pulling the app is disappointing, because it's really rather good. But if the crashing is serious and frequent enough to make Google pull the app altogether it's clearly more serious than the odd system hang. And you still have access to your free channels, so at least you're not losing those too.

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Prime Video's new most-watched movie (at the time of writing) is the Spanish zombie action thriller Apocalypse Z: The Beginning of the End. The new Prime Video movie has topped the streamer's global top 10 chart since it was added on October 31, despite facing tough competition from the nearly 200 movies being added to Prime Video this month.

Now, I'm a fan of the undead (in the movie sense, of course), so much so that I re-watched my favorite zombie movie World War Z on Netflix and I couldn't help but write about my dismay of Netflix canceling the most realistic zombie show I've ever seen Black Summer.

But with a creature feature now making an appearance on one of the best streaming services, it's now time I devour some heart-pounding zombie horror that I love on Prime Video.

What is Apocalypse Z: The Beginning of the End about?

Apocalypse Z: The Beginning of the End (Apocalipsis Z: El principio del fin) sees a rabies-like disease spread across the planet and transform humans into aggressive creatures. Sound familiar?

In Apocalypse Z: The Beginning of the End, Manel (Francisco Ortiz) takes shelter at home with his cat, until they're forced to leave in search of food and reunite with his family while trying to avoid rabid zombies – please let the cat survive!

While it has a similar premise to many other zombie movies, if you're a fan of fast-paced action like me, this won't deter you from watching Apocalypse Z: The Beginning of the End. Especially since it's been compared to my favorite zombie flick World War Z, with user Alexander R writing on Rotten Tomatoes: "Just like World War Z but on steroids, the storyline is well made and the characters are amazingly put together."

The film is based on the novel by Manel Loureiro and another Rotten Tomatoes reviewer shared that it stays faithful to its source material. Yar Y commented: "I thoroughly enjoyed the books. And stoked they did a stellar job with the film. Beautifully done, tension and fear factor high, great acting, great cinematography. Great story telling. It's rare to feel connected to the main character(s) from the get go."

Apocalypse Z: The Beginning of the End currently sits at a 72% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, so we'll have to wait and see if it's named one of the best Prime Video movies. But for now, it seems that it has all the classic zombie movie tropes packaged up in a new setting that will keep me entertained for a couple of hours.

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Hackers were spotted abusing a high severity vulnerability in Microsoft SharePoint to gain access to corporate IT infrastructure.

A report from cybersecurity researchers Rapid7 revealed how unnamed cybercriminals leveraged a flaw tracked as CVE-2024-38094 to establish initial access on the target’s network.

This is a remote code execution (RCE) flaw in SharePoint, Microsoft’s web-based platform for collaboration and document management, with a severity score of 7.2, and was fixed in mid-July 2024 as part of a Patch Tuesday cumulative update.

Advanced reasoning

The vulnerability allowed the crooks to access the network, where they dwelled for two weeks.

During that time, they used a Fast Reverse Proxy to establish an outbound connection, ran Active Directory (AD) enumeration tools, and engaged in credential dumping via multiple tools such as NTDSUtil and Mimikatz.

Finally, they installed a Chinese antivirus solution to degrade, or disable, security tools on systems.

“This involved the service account installing the Horoung Antivirus (AV) software, which was not an authorized software in the environment,” the researchers said in the blog post.

“For context, Horoung Antivirus is a popular AV software in China that can be installed from Microsoft Store. Most notably, the installation of Horoung caused a conflict with active security products on the system. This resulted in a crash of these services. Stopping the system’s current security solutions allowed the attacker freedom to pursue follow-on objectives thus relating this malicious activity to Impairing Defenses.”

In the meantime, the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) added the RCE flaw to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog, giving federal agencies a tight deadline to address the flaw, or stop using SharePoint entirely.

Via BleepingComputer

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• Apple recently bought the popular photo editing app Pixelmator
• A new theory suggests it may ultimately become Apple 'Photos Pro'
• Pixemator's apps will continue in their current form "at this time"

Last week, Apple used some of its spare change to buy one of the Mac's best photo editors, Pixelmator – and since then, theories have been flying about what the deal means for iPhones, iPads, and Macs.

For now, the answer is not a lot, because the app's maker says there won't be "material changes to the Pixelmator Pro, Pixelmator for iOS, and Photomator apps at this time". But now Bloomberg's respected Apple commentator Mark Gurman has shared what he thinks the plan is in his Power On newsletter – and it's not quite as wallet-friendly as we'd hoped.

Gurman's Pixelmator prediction is that it will become "something like "Photos Pro" and gets offered as a subscription on the App Store alongside new iPad programs like Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro".

That move would dash hopes that Pixelmator's many appealing talents, including a powerful repair tool, AI background masks, and more, might be folded into Apple's free Photos app. However, it would also make perfect sense in the context of Apple's other creative apps.

As Gurman notes, creating a 'Photos Pro' would mean that Apple would "once again have both consumer and higher-end iterations of its video, music, and photo-editing apps (with Photos, GarageBand, and iMovie serving as the free downscale versions)". The Pro versions of the latter are Logic Pro and Final Cut Pro.

Lastly, he adds that "given Apple’s push to boost services revenue, I think you can rule out it giving away Pixelmator features for free in its current Photos app". We think some features may still end up in Photos as a taster for whatever Pixelmator becomes, but that theory does currently seem the most likely scenario.

The return of Aperture?

Pixelmator Pro looks likely to be the successor to Apple's Aperture app (above) which it discontinued in 2015. (Image credit: Apple)

Apple killed its pro photo editing app, Aperture, back in 2015. It was so popular that some fans still run the app on older Macs using open-source tools like Retroactive. So why has Apple bought Pixelmator almost ten years on from deciding to pull the plug on Aperture?

Services and subscriptions are now a big push for Apple and towards the end of Aperture's life it didn't seem keen to integrate the app with its iCloud Photo Library. Back then, apps tended to be one-time cost rather than subscription offerings (Aperture originally cost an eye-watering $499 in 2005), and that also throttled Aperture's popularity.

With the potential for charging a subscription cost for a new pro photo app and also using Pixelmator's existing iCloud integration to boost its cloud subscriber base, Apple clearly sees a financial opportunity to once again offer a pro-level photo app alongside its existing ones for music and video.

Still, for those of us who simply want to see Apple improve the editing features in the existing Photos app, the move could still bring some benefits in the form of free taster features. Apple certainly needs to continue offering tools like Clean Up if it's to keep up with the impressive pace set by Google and the likes of the Pixel 9 Pro when it comes to AI-powered editing features.

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Samsung could be working on a pared-down, cheaper version of its iconic Galaxy Z Flip folding phone, according to new rumors.

Korean blogger yeux1122 (via Android Police) hinted in a blog post that a potential Samsung Galaxy Z Flip FE could be released simultaneously with the rumored Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7.

Should this suggested Galaxy Z Flip FE follow the trend of other Samsung FE products, we’d likely see the phone offer a slightly reduced specs sheet at a solid discount compared to the flagship device on which it's based.

For example, the recently launched Samsung Galaxy S24 FE launched with a slightly slower processor and lower-resolution camera system than the standard Samsung Galaxy S24, at a price of $649 / £649 / AU$1,099 – a solid offer considering the $799 / £799 / AU$1,399 price tag of the latter model.

The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 in blue (Image credit: Philip Berne / Future)

The Galaxy Z Flip 6 is our pick for the best flip folding phone, and holds a spot on our list of the best Samsung phones, too, so a more affordable way to experience Samsung’s class-leading flip phone form factor would be most welcome.

The blog post, which is light on details, also lists a tentatively named Galaxy S25 Slim and Galaxy Z Fold 7 as possible upcoming models, which suggests Samsung's other flagship lineups could also see a shakeup this year.

According to a separate X post from noted tipster Jukanlosreve, a recent Samsung conference call saw executives speak about ways to lower barriers to entry for folding phones while working on “new form factors”.

Samsung Conference Call -“We are considering ways to lower entry barriers so that more customers can actually experience foldable products, given the high satisfaction among existing foldable users,” hinting at the preparation of budget-friendly foldable models.The Fold will…October 31, 2024

These rumors track with previously reported tipoffs from Jukanlosreve that suggest Samsung is working on a cheaper Z Flip phone alongside a possible tri-fold model in the style of the China-exclusive Huawei Mate XT.

Overall, then, rumors continue to point to a selection of new Samsung foldables being a real possibility. However, Samsung itself recently declared that it has no plans to issue a cheaper folding phone, so we can’t really say for sure how much weight these rumors have.

Until Samsung chooses to reveal official details, all of the above is subject to change – for the latest official updates as we hear them, be sure to check out our dedicated Samsung coverage.

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Windows Hello, Microsoft’s biometric authentication feature that enables Windows 11 users to sign into their devices and apps using facial recognition, their fingerprint, or a PIN, is getting a new look in a fresh Beta Channel preview build that’s now available to members of the Windows Insider Program.

The upgraded Windows Hello has a more visually appealing sign-in experience, better matching the design style of Windows 11’s modern look in a bid to make signing in and authenticating via Windows Hello feel easier and more seamless.

You’ll be able to see Windows Hello’s updated visuals in places like the Windows 11 sign-in screen, when using passkeys (another password-free sign-in method that makes use of Windows Hello), and in the Microsoft Store.

Microsoft is also adding a new Windows Hello credential experience for passkeys. With Windows Hello allowing you to authenticate passkeys more easily, you can switch between authentication methods and choose which passkey or device you’d like to log in with.

(Image credit: Microsoft) More changes and fixes in this Beta build

If you use Windows Hello, you’ll also have more options when choosing how you log in and authenticate permissions on your device, and there are other feature updates you can read more deeply about in the changelog for Beta Channel Preview Build 22635.4440 (KB5045889).

Other changes this upgrade brings include overall tweaks and fixes aimed at improving the overall experience of Windows 11, temporarily disabling a new game controller keyboard to address issues (after which, the feature will be included in a future update), and bug fixes.

These developments are currently being tested and monitored for feedback from members of the Windows Insider Program, which any Windows user with an eligible device can enroll in. You can join if you’re keen to experience Microsoft’s freshest features, albeit sometimes prone to glitches, or you can wait a little while longer until these changes and features are included in a future update after being fully tested.

I hope Microsoft gets Windows Hello and passkeys right g, as I would probably use something like this. Like almost every device user on Earth, I’m sick of having to remember multiple complex passwords. Something like Windows Hello has the potential to make a lot of people’s lives a little easier and steps like this redesign could open up the possibility to more people than before.

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Windows 11 users who were keen to get the new gamepad keyboard layout – to facilitate easy typing using an Xbox controller on your PC via the on-screen keyboard – will be disappointed to learn that the feature has been put on hold.

That probably includes a fair few handheld owners, who were doubtless excited to see this functionality appear in testing back at the start of September 2024, before it started to roll out with the latest Windows 11 update for 24H2 at the end of October (we should note that this is a preview update).

However, PhantomOfEarth, a well-known leaker on X, noticed that the mention of the gamepad keyboard layout has been removed from this preview update for 24H2, and that it’s being disabled on PCs which have already installed that update.

Heads up: the new Gamepad keyboard layout isn't rolling out to stable/retail anymore.It's no longer mentioned in the release notes for KB5044384 (26100.2161) and KB5044380 (22631.4391), and is being disabled on devices with that update installed.November 1, 2024

Neowin reports that Microsoft actually mentioned the rollout has been paused in a recent Beta channel preview build, informing us that: “We have temporarily disabled the new Gamepad keyboard layout for the on-screen keyboard in Windows 11 that began rolling out to Windows Insiders in the Beta Channel with Build 22635.4145 to address some issues. This feature will be roll out again in a future flight.”

(Image credit: Microsoft) Analysis: Patience is a virtual keyboard

In theory, with the gamepad keyboard appearing in last month’s preview update for Windows 11 24H2, the full rollout should have kicked off next week – with the release of the finished November patch 24H2. However, Microsoft appears to have taken the feature back to the drawing board for now, as clearly there are problems here – though Microsoft doesn’t drop any hints as to what these stumbling blocks might be.

What this means is that it’ll probably be a fair bit longer before the feature actually rolls out to Windows 11 users outside of testing. After all, Microsoft seemingly has a lot of fixing to do with Windows 11 24H2, which has encountered more than its fair share of bugs so far – and this appears to be another hitch to throw on the growing pile.

So, you’ll have to be patient for the feature to come to fruition, most likely, and we’ll be keeping an eye on the test channels to see when the controller keyboard layout returns into the mix with Windows 11 preview builds.

The gamepad on-screen keyboard allows you to type swiftly with the controller, and includes shortcuts to use buttons for functions like backspace, or pressing the spacebar (which Microsoft calls ‘button accelerators’). The keyboard also benefits from a tweaked layout that’s optimized for typing with your gamepad.

It’ll doubtless be a useful addition for those who regularly game with their controller on their PC, or indeed owners of Windows 11-powered handhelds like the Asus ROG Ally X.

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