Page 23 - ATD19DEC2015

TECHNOLOGY A23
Saturday 19 December 2015

In Tech:

AI research center, Android Pay, OneDrive storage

Tesla Motors Inc. CEO Elon Musk speaks at a conference in Paris. PayPal ringleaders Musk, Thiel past three years working only for American Express
and Reid Hoffman are joining forces with several other technology luminaries and companies to for Google’s “brain team” customers.
contribute $1 billion to finance a Silicon Valley research center that will dig deeper into the field that focused on machine Android Pay is Google’s
of artificial intelligence, or “machine learning.” The nonprofit company is called OpenAI. learning. answer to Apple Pay,
Although he first got rich as which requires an Apple
(AP Photo/Francois Mori) a PayPal co-founder, Musk device. Both let you make
has made far more money purchases by tapping the
The Associated Press panies to contribute $1 estimated fortune of $13 as CEO of electric car mak- phone next to a store’s
Three billionaires who billion to finance a Silicon billion, has been particu- er Tesla Motors and rocket payment machine — as
launched PayPal and then Valley research center larly outspoken about his ship maker Space X. long as it’s a newer ma-
went on to even greater that will dig deeper into fears that computers could Thiel, PayPal’s former CEO, chine with wireless capa-
success in their next ven- the field of artificial intelli- work against humans if the is better known as one of bilities known as NFC.
tures are now trying to gence, or “machine learn- efforts to develop artifi- Facebook’s early investors Samsung has its own pay-
make sure that artificial in- ing.” cial intelligence go awry. and a critic of college ed- ment service, Samsung
telligence does more good The nonprofit company, He made waves last year ucation. His fortune is cur- Pay, on its main Android
than harm to humans. called OpenAI, will focus when he described artifi- rently estimated at about phones. It goes further
PayPal ringleaders Elon on improving “digital in- cial intelligence as a po- $3 billion. than Android and Apple
Musk, Peter Thiel and Reid telligence in the way that tential “demon” and our Hoffman was one of Pay- Pay in working with many
Hoffman are joining forces is most likely to benefit hu- “biggest existential threat.” Pal’s first employees and machines that lack NFC.
with several other technol- manity as a whole.” OpenAI will be run by Ilya then went on to co-found That’s because it has a
ogy luminaries and com- Musk, who has amassed an Sutskever, who spent the professional networking backup mechanism to
service LinkedIn Corp., replicate old-school card
which accounts for most swipes.
of his estimated fortune of On Tuesday, Samsung an-
about $4 billion. nounced support for 19
-Michael Liedtke, AP Tech- additional banks, including
nology Writer PNC Bank and KeyBank.
Even as phone makers
Tap-and-pay services con- push their mobile-payment
tinue to expand gradually. services, financial institu-
Google said Tuesday that tions and retailers such as
it will start offering Android Wal-Mart have been work-
Pay in Australia in the first ing on their own services.
half of next year. Google -Anick Jesdanun, AP Tech-
Inc. says it’s working with nology Writer
leading financial institu-
tions with the goal of mak- After a backlash, Microsoft
ing it available to Master- is reversing part of its plan
Card and Visa card hold- to tighten free storage of-
ers. Apple Pay launched fered through its OneDrive
in Australia last month, but online storage service.q

Microsoft opens NY studio to showcase HoloLens headset

NEW YORK (AP) — Micro- won’t be open to the gen- This photo provided by Microsoft shows the Microsoft HoloLens studio in New York. Microsoft
soft is opening a studio in eral public, though. Rath-
New York to showcase its er, software developers is opening the studio to showcase its upcoming HoloLens headset for inserting holograms
upcoming HoloLens head- who want to preview the
set for inserting holograms next-generation technol- into real-world settings. At the studio, software developers will see a video and get hands-on
into real-world settings. ogy will have to make an
At the studio, software de- appointment at https:// demonstrations. (Microsoft via AP)
velopers will see a video www.microsoft.com/mi-
and get hands-on demon- crosoft-hololens .
strations. One is a game in The idea is to get develop-
which you shoot hologram ers to start thinking of the
alien robots in front of you. technology’s potential.
Another shows the tech- Microsoft had a travel-
nology’s potential in pre- ing exhibit in 11 cities, and
sentations and sales, using the company says all slots
a luxury watch as an exam- were booked within 90
ple of how holograms can minutes. The new studio in
give potential customers New York was designed as
more insights into features. a long-term home for the
A third demo highlights Ho- demos.
loLens’ graphical and edit- Microsoft Corp. will start
ing capabilities. selling developers editions
The studio, announced of the headset early next
Thursday, is located at year for $3,000. There’s no
Microsoft’s flagship retail release date for a consum-
store on Fifth Avenue. It er version yet.q