Unity has the latest version of its engine for developing games and interactive experiences. Unity 6 has new workflows for creating online multiplayer games and more tools for projects intended for mobile platforms, including mobile web support for Android and iOS browsers. The engine promises improved performance, particularly in graphics rendering, and adds several features for creating more realistic environments via global lighting and other VFX. And it wouldn’t be a tech announcement without some AI component; the company has also released the latest version of its Sentis neural network inference library for using AI models within the Unity engine.

The company took a real hit to its public perception when it attempted to revise its last September. The proposed payment model would charge devs a fee whenever a player downloaded their creation. The move led to outcry among game developers, particularly the indie scene. After a and a , the company most of the changes it had announced. This September, the controversial fee was entirely.

OpenAI, the artificial intelligence powerhouse behind ChatGPT, has taken another step in its quest for ubiquity by releasing a Windows desktop application for its popular AI chatbot. The move, announced Thursday, follows the earlier launch of a macOS client and marks a significant push by OpenAI to embed its technology more deeply into users’ daily workflows.

The new Windows app, currently available in preview to ChatGPT Plus, Enterprise, Team, and Edu subscribers, allows users to access the AI assistant via a keyboard shortcut (Alt + Space) from anywhere on their PC. This seamless integration aims to boost productivity by making AI assistance readily available without the need to switch to a web browser.

OpenAI’s desktop strategy: More than just convenience

OpenAI’s strategy of platform expansion goes beyond mere convenience. By creating native applications for major operating systems, the company is positioning ChatGPT as an indispensable tool in both personal and professional environments. This move serves multiple purposes: it increases user engagement, facilitates more extensive data collection for model improvement, and creates a sticky ecosystem that could be challenging for competitors to displace.

The desktop app approach also reveals OpenAI’s ambition to become the de facto AI assistant for knowledge workers. By integrating ChatGPT more deeply into users’ workflows, OpenAI is not just improving accessibility but potentially reshaping how people interact with computers and process information.

Enterprise ambitions: ChatGPT as the new office suite?

The Windows release comes at a critical juncture for OpenAI, as the company faces increasing competition in the AI space and scrutiny over its rapid growth and influential position. Recent reports suggest that OpenAI is exploring partnerships beyond its well-known Microsoft alliance, including discussions with Oracle for AI data center infrastructure and pitches to the U.S. military and national security establishment.

OpenAI’s aggressive expansion into desktop environments signals a potential shift in the enterprise software landscape. The company appears to be positioning ChatGPT as a fundamental productivity tool for businesses, potentially disrupting traditional enterprise software providers. This move, coupled with the recent partnership expansion with Bain & Company to sell ChatGPT to businesses, suggests OpenAI is not content with being merely an AI research lab but is actively pursuing a dominant position in the commercial AI sector.

The implications of this strategy are huge. If successful, ChatGPT could become the new “operating system” for knowledge work, fundamentally changing how businesses operate and potentially displacing or absorbing functions currently served by separate software suites.

Balancing Act: Innovation, ethics, and commercialization

However, OpenAI’s rapid growth and increasing influence have not been without controversy. The company’s AI models have faced scrutiny over potential biases and the societal implications of widespread AI deployment. Additionally, OpenAI’s dual status as a capped-profit company with significant commercial interests has raised questions about its governance and long-term objectives.

As OpenAI continues to expand its reach, the company faces a delicate balancing act. It must navigate the tensions between its stated mission of ensuring artificial general intelligence benefits humanity and its increasingly commercial focus. The Windows app release, while a seemingly straightforward product expansion, represents another step in OpenAI’s complex journey of shaping the future of AI in both consumer and enterprise contexts.

The success of this desktop strategy could cement OpenAI’s position as the leading AI company, but it also increases the urgency of addressing ethical concerns and potential monopolistic practices. As ChatGPT becomes more deeply integrated into daily work and life, the stakes for getting AI right — in terms of safety, fairness, and societal impact — have never been higher.

Byju Raveendran, the founder of the embattled edtech group Byju’s, acknowledged on Thursday afternoon that he made mistakes, mistimed the market, overestimated growth potential and that his startup, once valued at $22 billion, is now effectively worth “zero.”

Speaking to a group of journalists, Raveendran said the company’s aggressive acquisition of more than two dozen startups to expand into new markets proved fatal when financing dried up in 2022. Byju’s was planning to go public in early 2022 with several investment bankers giving the firm valuation as high as $50 billion, TechCrunch reported earlier.

He alleged that many of his more than 100 investors had urged him to pursue aggressive expansion into as many as 40 markets. But, he added, those very investors got cold feet when global markets tumbled following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, sending the venture capital market into a downward spiral.

Raveendran said many of his investors “ran away,” and the departure of three key backers – Prosus Ventures, Peak XV, and Chan Zuckerberg Initiative – from the company’s board last year made it impossible for the startup to raise additional funds.

Representatives of the aforementioned three firms as well as auditor Deloitte left the startup’s board last year, citing governance issues.

Byju’s has since entered insolvency proceedings, and Raveendran, who no longer controls the company, said: “It’s worth zero. What valuation are you talking about? It’s worth zero.”

Byju’s, once India’s most valuable startup, counts BlackRock, UBS, Lightspeed, QIA, Bond, Silver Lake, Sofina, Verlinvest, Tencent, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, General Atlantic, Tiger Global, Owl Ventures, and World Bank’s IFC among its backers. It has raised more than $5 billion to date.

Raveendran said he remains hopeful that his startup will make a comeback. “I have nothing to lose. I came from a small village. I invested everything I had into the startup.”

Activision says it has “disabled a workaround to a detection system” in Modern Warfare III and Call of Duty: Warzone that led to legitimate players getting banned by the Ricochet anti-cheat system. The company says the problem “impacted a small number of legitimate player accounts,” and all accounts affected were restored.

However, zebleer, who runs the Phantom Overlay store selling cheats, claims the problem is much bigger than Activision’s post makes it seem. In a detailed post on X, they write that when Ricochet scanned the memory of a player’s computer to find known cheat software, one of the signatures it scanned for was a plaintext string reading:

54 72 69 67 67 65 72 20 42 6f 74 (Trigger Bot)

As a result, zebleer says that “for quite some time,” it has been possible to get someone permanently banned simply by sending them a friend request with the phrase or posting a message like “Nice Trigger Bot dude!” in the game’s chat since it would then show up in their memory and get scanned by Ricochet.

Despite Activision saying a “small number” of legit accounts were affected, zebleer claims that “several thousand random COD players were banned by this exploit” before anyone started targeting big streamers.

Zebleer points to BobbyPoff, a Call of Duty streamer, as one of the people banned due to the person using the exploit since October 3rd before his account was suddenly unbanned yesterday. Like other players and streamers caught up in the bans, there had been intense speculation and discussion over whether or not BobbyPoff was a cheater, even as he maintained his innocence and some people posted jokey videos.

The Call of Duty Updates account says that the Ricochet team will share a blog post tomorrow, though the account didn’t specify if the post will discuss this exploit.

Activision didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

For those managing software development teams, balancing the need for cybersecurity with the pressure to deliver projects on time is no small task. There’s often a perception that security tasks will slow down the development process, introducing potential bottlenecks to release times. In fact, our recent research found that 61% of developers are concerned about security getting in the way of their workflow.

As with any project one of the most important aspects is aligning everyone towards the same goal which is, ultimately, safe and reliable applications. This means making the right choices when it comes to security so that their time is focussed on developing rather than fixing problems. After all, it’s far less disruptive and costly to deal with any software issues (including security ones) early on in the life cycle, rather than to have to rework an application, or pull it entirely to make fixes, once it’s running.

Space Perspective is preparing for the first crewed flight of its stratospheric balloon, and Virgin Galactic founder and adventurer Richard Branson will be going along for the ride.

Branson, who together with pilot and engineer Per Lindstrand made record-setting hot-air balloon flights across the Atlantic and the Pacific three decades ago, will serve as a co-pilot on the flight, which Space Perspective is aiming to conduct next year. Space Perspective founders Taber MacCallum and Jane Poynter will join Branson as co-pilots aboard the Spaceship Neptune balloon.

“Some of the most magnificent experiences of my life have happened on ballooning expeditions and I’m excited to support Space Perspective in its journey,” Branson, who flew to the edge of space with Virgin Galactic in 2021, said in a statement this week. “I’m passionate about adventure and helping fellow entrepreneurs reach their business dreams. I look forward to dusting off my old ballooning license ahead of some magnificent test flights.”

Space Perspective conducted a successful uncrewed test flight of its balloon last month. The pressurized capsule uses hydrogen power and can fly up to eight passengers to an altitude of 20 miles, equal to about 105,000 feet, or about three times that flown by a passenger jet in cruising mode.

The goal of the Florida-based company is to provide a luxurious tourism experience that offers epic views of Earth against the blackness of space over a six-hour journey from launch to landing. In 2021, Space Perspective started offering tickets for the ride at $125,000 per person.

Unlike Blue Origin’s New Shepard space tourism experience and Branson’s own Virgin Galactic ride, which both use rocket power to carry passengers to the edge of space, Space Perspective proposes an altogether gentler trip, with no rockets, weightlessness, heavy g-forces, or training, though it should be noted that it only reaches about a third of the altitude of the Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic experiences.

“Richard’s pioneering efforts in the ballooning industry were a key inspiration for us when we founded Space Perspective,” Poynter said. “We are now on a mission to give explorers breathtaking views of the Earth against a black sky, and do so gently in a way that only balloons enable.”