Microsoft 365 ‘Copilot’: AI Assistant Integrated with Office Applications
March 17th, 2023Via: IT Pro:
Microsoft has integrated its AI technology into the entirety of the Microsoft 365 productivity suite, with businesses set to experience significant time savings with meetings.
Named 365 Copilot, the AI helper is being added across the Office apps and can cut down time spent writing up meeting notes, combing through inboxes, and drafting talking points.
Copilot was repeatedly branded a “time saver” during a livestreamed demonstration. It can prepare notes and talking points for upcoming client meetings, draft documents in Word, analyse and visualise dense Excel spreadsheets, and pick out key emails from a busy inbox.
Among the most notable features was Copilot’s ability to prepare documents ahead of meetings. It works by reading data from across the 365 suite to provide recommended reading and upcoming deadlines with which staff can familiarise themselves ahead of time.
More: Introducing Microsoft 365 Copilot – Your Copilot for Work
Polish MiG-29s to Ukraine
March 17th, 2023Via: The Warzone:
In the latest development in the saga of getting Polish Air Force MiG-29 Fulcrum fighter jets to Ukraine, the Polish president has confirmed that the first four examples will be handed over to Kyiv “within the next few days.” More MiGs will be transferred to Ukraine after that, Polish President Andrzej Duda said, adding that “The rest are being prepared, serviced.” According to a report from CNN, the total number of MiGs to be transferred is between 11 and 19.
Confidential Pfizer Documents Reveal Pharmaceutical Giant Had ‘Evidence’ Suggesting ‘Increased Risk of Myocarditis’ Following COVID-19 Vaccinations in Early 2022
March 17th, 2023Via: Project Veritas:
• “There is evidence that suggests patients who receive a COVID-19 vaccine are at an increased risk of myocarditis.”
• “Onset was typically within several days after mRNA COVID-19 vaccination (from Pfizer or Moderna), and cases have occurred more often after the second dose than the first dose.” [PAGE 19]
• “The reasons for male predominance in myocarditis and pericarditis incidence post COVID-19 vaccination remain unknown.” [PAGE 28]
• “The pattern of cases conform, as per the label, to a pattern of myocarditis cases occurring in majority of young males below 29 years of age within the first two weeks postvaccination…” [PAGE 19]
• “Since April 2021, increased cases of myocarditis and pericarditis have been reported in the United States after mRNA COVID-19 vaccination (Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna), particularly in adolescents and young adults (CDC 2021).” [PAGE 18]
• “Myocarditis events were defined as encounters with a billing or encounter diagnosis consistent with an ICD10-CM or SNOMED CT code for myocarditis which fell within two weeks of receiving dose 1, 2, or 3 of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine.”
• “Incidence rates of myocarditis were measured for each vaccine dose with denominator signifying the total number of patients receiving that dose and numerator signifying the total number of patients meeting the above criteria for an encounter for myocarditis following that dose.”
Minnesota Nuke Plant Admits To 400,000 Gallon Leak Of Radioactive Water
March 17th, 2023
Via: ZeroHedge:
Minnesotans are wondering why state regulators waited months to inform the public that hundreds of thousands of gallons of radioactive water leaked from Xcel Energy’s Monticello nuclear power plant.
Minnesota Department of Health released a statement Thursday about Xcel’s efforts to clean up 400,000 gallons of the water containing tritium that leaked from a water pipe running between two buildings at its plant.
Xcel first reported the leak to the Minnesota Duty Officer and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in November, but the spill was only made public this week.
“The leak was stopped and the company is monitoring the groundwater plume through two dozen wells. An estimated 20% of the tritium has been recovered through extraction wells, and contaminated water continues to be pumped from the groundwater,” the health department wrote.
Local officials said the leak “poses no health and safety risk to the local community or environment” and has not reached the Mississippi River or surrounding aquifers.
CDC Bought Phone Data to Monitor Americans’ Compliance With Lockdowns, Contracts Show
March 17th, 2023Via: Epoch Times:
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) purchased data from tracking companies to monitor compliance with lockdowns, according to contracts with the firms.
The CDC paid one firm $420,000 and another $208,000. That bought access to location data from at least 55 million cellphone users.
The contracts, approved under emergency review due to the COVID-19 pandemic, were aimed at providing the CDC “with the necessary data to continue critical emergency response functions related to evaluating the impact of visits to key points of interest, stay at home orders, closures, re-openings and other public heath communications related to mask mandate, and other merging research areas on community transmission of SARS-CoV-2,” the contracts, obtained by The Epoch Times, state.
The CDC said it would be using the tracking data to “assess home-by-hour behaviors (i.e. curfew analysis) by exploring the percentage of mobile devices at home during specific period of time.” The data could also be integrated with other information “to provide a comprehensive picture of movement/travel of persons during the COVID-19 pandemic to better understand mandatory stay-at-home orders, business closure, school re-openings, and other non-pharmaceutical interventions in states and cities.”
France: Rioters Outside Macron’s House After Forcing Through Retirement Age Increase Without Parliament Vote
March 17th, 2023Via: Daily Mail:
Rioters threatened the home of French president Emmanuel Macron after he bypassed parliament to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64.
Thousands took to the streets across France last night to express their fury at the move, setting fires to property and fighting the police.
The demonstrations in Paris, Lyon, Marseille and Nantes were triggered by Macron’s government using a controversial constitutional mechanism to crash a bill through the National Assembly.
The Senate adopted the bill on Thursday morning, but misgivings in the ruling party and reluctance by Right-wing opposition MPs to side with Macron meant the government risked losing a vote in the lower house. It instead chose to use article 49.3 of the constitution.
But the government now faces motions of no confidence as opposition politicians say France is on the edge of a ‘democratic breakdown’.
ICC Judges Issue Arrest Warrant for Putin Over War Crimes in Ukraine
March 17th, 2023Putin: Add it to the list.
Via: Reuters:
The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant on Friday against Russian President Vladimir Putin, accusing him of being responsible for war crimes committed in Ukraine.
Moscow has repeatedly denied accusations that its forces have committed atrocities during its one-year invasion of its neighbour.
In its first warrant for Ukraine, the ICC called for Putin’s arrest on suspicion of unlawful deportation of children and unlawful transfer of people from the territory of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.
The Kremlin did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Pentagon Mobilized to Support Tech Startups After Bank Failure
March 16th, 2023Via: Defense One:
In the hours after Silicon Valley Bank collapsed on March 10, Pentagon officials who work directly with startups that develop national-security technologies grew increasingly concerned.
Would startups that had money in the bank need to stop work? If that happened, would there be supply-chain disruptions? Would a company under financial stress put its intellectual property at risk?
Officials prepared different courses of action to get cash to companies, if needed.
“It was a busy weekend, for sure,” Michael Madsen, acting director of the organization that acts as conduit between startups and the military, said Tuesday at a Reagan Institute event in Washington.
No immediate action was needed. The Treasury Department stepped in on Sunday and said depositors with funds at Silicon Valley Bank would have access to their money.
…
Had the Biden administration not acted quickly to back up account holder funds at SVB, the United States—and the national-security community in particular—would have faced a major challenge in supporting and growing innovative new technologies, Michael Brown, a venture partner at Shield Capital and former head of the Defense Department’s Defense Innovation Unit, told Defense One.
MQ-9 Sensor Video Showing Collision With Russian Su-27 Released
March 16th, 2023Via: The Warzone:
The U.S. Department of Defense has released a video showing part of the encounter between a U.S. Air Force MQ-9 Reaper and two Russian Su-27 Flanker fighter jets over the Black Sea on March 14 that resulted in the drone being lost. This seems to confirm that one of the Su-27s struck the drone’s propeller, although it remains unclear to what degree that action was deliberate or a misjudgment.
Ohio, White Noise, and the Power of Words Over Things
March 16th, 2023Via: Truthstream Media:
