This illustration picture shows icons of Google’s AI (Artificial Intelligence) app BardAI (or ChatBot) (C-L), OpenAI’s app ChatGPT (C-R), and other AI apps on a smartphone screen in Oslo, on July 12, 2023. (Photo by OLIVIER MORIN / AFP)
NEW YORK, United States — The second biggest teachers union in the United States unveiled a groundbreaking partnership Tuesday with AI powerhouses Microsoft, OpenAI, and Anthropic to develop a comprehensive training program helping educators master artificial intelligence.
“Teachers are facing huge challenges, which include navigating AI wisely, ethically and safely,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers during a press conference in New York.
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“In the absence of rules of the game and guardrails (from the US government)…we are working with these partners so that they understand the commitment we have to our students,” she added.
The AFT represents 1.8 million members across the United States, from kindergarten through high school.
The announcement came as generative AI has already begun reshaping education, with students using tools like ChatGPT for everything from essay writing to homework help.
Meanwhile, teachers grapple with questions about academic integrity, plagiarism, and how to adapt traditional teaching methods.
The AI giants are investing a total of $23 million in creating a New York training center to guide teachers through generative AI learning.
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Microsoft is contributing $12.5 million, OpenAI $10 million, and Anthropic $500,000.
The five-year initiative won’t develop new AI interfaces but intends to familiarize teachers with existing tools.
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“What we’re saying to the world and to teachers across the country is you now have a place, you now have a home, a place where you can come and co-create and understand how to harness this tool to make your classroom the best classroom it possibly can be,” said Gerry Petrella, Microsoft’s general manager for US public policy.
The National Academy for AI Teaching will launch its training program this fall, aiming to serve 400,000 people over five years.
Microsoft staff are already participating in a tech refresher session this week.
AFT affiliates include the United Federation of Teachers (UFT), which represents about 200,000 New York teachers.
UFT President Michael Mulgrew drew parallels between AI and social media, which generated excitement at launch but proved to be “a dumpster fire,” in his view.
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“We’re all very skeptical, but we also are very hopeful,” he added.
Sony’s latest top-of-the-range Bluetooth headphones seek to reclaim the throne for the best noise cancellers money can buy with changes inside and out.
The Sony 1000X series has long featured some of the best noise cancelling you can buy and has been locked in a battle with rival Bose for the top spot.
The WH-1000XM6 replace the outgoing XM5 model and cost £399 (€449/$449/A$699) – far from cheap but not the most expensive among peers either.
The outside design looks very similar to their predecessors, with smooth, soft-touch plastic bodies, plush earpads and headband, and a subtle Sony logo on the arms. The earcups now swivel and fold to allow the headphones to be more compact for travel in a redesigned hard fabric case with a magnetic clasp.
The case is excellent, closing with a satisfying snap, ready for travel. Photograph: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardian
The new headphones are light but feel solid and ready for the rigours of travel or a commute. They fit well, with enough pressure to keep them in place without any discomfort, though the Bose QC Ultra are more comfortable. The earcups of the XM6 are slightly shallow compared with the Bose, which made getting a proper fit with glasses a little trickier.
The right earcup has a responsive touch panel to handle playback and volume controls with swipes and taps, which works well unless you’re wearing gloves. The left earcup has a power button, a 3.5mm headphones socket and a button for toggling noise-cancelling modes.
The XM6 can connect with two devices simultaneously through Bluetooth 5.3 and support the SBC, AAC and LDAC audio formats. They also support Bluetooth LE (LC3), the next generation of Bluetooth audio connectivity, which has yet to see widespread adoption but is good for future-proofing. Call quality is very good, sounding natural and full in either quiet or noisy environments, with the option of side tone, where you can hear yourself through the headphones.
Buttons for power and noise-cancelling modes are on the left ear cup, while the right ear cup controls playback and volume via a touch panel. Photograph: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardian
Specifications
Weight: 254g
Drivers: 30mm
Connectivity: Bluetooth 5.3 with multipoint, 3.5mm, USB-C charging
Bluetooth codecs: SBC, AAC, LDAC, LC3
Rated battery life: 30 hours ANC on
The headphones lasted slightly longer than their rated 30 hours in testing, managing more than 32 hours between charges using noise cancelling, which is very competitive and certainly long enough for a couple of weeks of commuting. They charge via USB-C in about 3.5 hours and can be used via Bluetooth or the headphones jack while being charged.
Impressive noise cancelling
Inside the XM6 is the first chip upgrade in quite a few years. The new QN3 processor is seven times as fast as the previous model and supports 12 microphones for detecting unwanted noise, delivering some of the most impressive noise cancelling I’ve experienced in a long time.
Most good noise-cancelling headphones handle the low rumbles of engines and other roar-type sounds well, but even the best struggle with higher pitch tones such as keyboard taps and background chatter. Here is where the XM6 have raised the bar, doing a better job than others of neutralising those annoying higher tones, so much so that train and bus announcements were almost inaudible, particularly when listening to music.
They also have a very good, natural-sounding ambientmode allowing you to clearly hear the outside world. There are 20 different levels to choose from or a system to automatically adjust it depending on the background noise. It can also allow voices through while blocking other sounds.
The Sony Sound Connect app controls modes, adjust settings, has a full EQ and performs updates. It also enables location and activity-based modes. Composite: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardian
The headphones produce the sort of rounded, well-controlled and detailed sound you should expect from a market leader. They deliver power and solid bass when needed, while preserving detail across the range with excellent separation of tones. They can be a little clinical in some tracks that require a more raw sound, such as Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit. They have a warm and slightly bass-accentuated profile out of the box that is a great listen, but a full equaliser allows you to adjust the sound to taste.
The XM6 also support various sound modes, including a novel background music feature that makes it sound as if you’re in a cafe or living room, plus a cinema audio mode for movies. They can also be used with Sony’s 360 Reality Audio system or Android’s built-in spatial audio system including head tracking with supported phones.
Sustainability
The black soft-touch plastic picks up fingerprints quite easily but is easy to polish. Photograph: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardian
The headphones are generally repairable and were praised for a more repairable design by the specialists iFixit. The earcups can easily be removed. The headphones are made with recycled plastic.
Sony has set a new bar for noise cancelling with its sixth-generation 1000X series headphones. The WH-1000XM6 cut out more of the difficult higher-tone noise such as background chatter better than any other rivals.
The rest is a refinement on previous models. Quality sound makes them a delight to listen to. They are light and comfortable to wear with good controls. Solid 32-plus-hour battery life, a folding design and an excellent case make them easy to live with.
Bose still holds the comfort crown with the QC Ultra, Sony’s design is a bit boring and they certainly aren’t cheap at £400, even if some rivals cost a lot more. But if you want the best noise cancelling money can buy, the WH-1000XM6 are it.
Pros: new best-in-class noise cancelling, great sound, spatial audio, light and comfortable, fold up for travel with great case, Bluetooth multipoint, Bluetooth LE/LC3 support, 32-hour battery life, good controls, good cross-platform control app, more repairable design.
Cons: expensive, dull-looking, no water resistance, spatial audio limited with an iPhone.
Advance, which develops artificial intelligence (AI) technology specializing in commerce, announced AI commerce solution “CommerceOS” at DevCon 3 of Palantir Technologies, a global AI platform company, held last month.
DevCon, held by Palantir, is a conference for developers and is an event where developers and Palantir partners attend to share the latest technologies.
Founded in 2021, Startup Ens is a company that provides commerce automation solutions using LAM, which performs real actions with AI.
Unlike Large Language Model (LLM), which specializes in language generation, LAM is characterized by performing real tasks directly and self-judging and executing tasks that can improve sales and operating profit.
By utilizing AI models specialized in commerce and retail, InS supports the entire process of data collection and refining, AI inference and analysis, and automation execution.
The “Commerce OS” announced at DevCon 3 is a solution specialized in the retail and e-commerce markets, where AI optimizes inventory and sets prices while monitoring sales of competitors’ products in real time on online marketplaces.
In May, Ince, which was selected as Palantir’s ‘Startup Fellowship’, showed the practicality and scalability of AI agent technology in the commerce area through the demonstration of ‘Commerce OS’, an AI-based commerce solution built in cooperation with Palantir at the Devcon.
“Through the announcement of DevCon 3, we have introduced our technical capabilities as a ‘Palantir in the commerce world’ to the world,” said Lee Seung-hyun, CEO of Ins. “We will spread cases of global business use in the commerce sector and open the era of AI agents in earnest.”
Amadeus has partnered with Microsoft and is leveraging OpenAI’s models on Azure to develop a suite of AI integrations that enhance its Hospitality portfolio. The two latest AI tools will provide hoteliers of any background easy access to industry-leading insights and dramatically improve the efficiency of group bookings.
Amadeus Advisor chat is coming to Demand360: Making sophisticated insights instantly available
To help hoteliers stay agile and respond quickly to the fast-changing travel industry, Amadeus is integrating Advisor Chat, its Gen AI chatbot, into its industry-leading Demand360 data product. Powered by Azure OpenAI, Advisor chat offers immediate and intuitive access to crucial insights for teams across various functions, including sales, operations, marketing, and distribution.
Demand360 currently captures the most comprehensive view of the hospitality market to inform hotel strategies. Based on insights from 44,000 hotels and 35 million short-term rental properties, Demand360 provides a 12-month, forward-looking view of a hotel’s occupancy and its market ranking as well as two years of retrospective data.
Amadeus Advisor chat was rolled out to Amadeus Agency360® in 2024. In the year since, customers have enjoyed instantaneous insights. In some cases, Amadeus Advisor has saved analysts approximately a day each week as the bulk of requests can now be handled directly by the wider team. Amadeus plans to make Advisor available within Microsoft Teams, making it easier than ever to understand performance and make informed decisions.
Transforming group sales with AI: Email to RFP
Amadeus is introducing new AI functionality, Email to RFP, within MeetingBroker to help hotels streamline the handling of inbound group booking requests, a valuable, growing segment of the market.
With Email to RFP, customers will be able to email inbound RFPs directly to MeetingBroker, where AI is then used to evaluate it and create an instant RFP response. To provide accurate, up-to-date information that is specific to each location, Email to RFP will be trained to retrieve additional, relevant information from reliable sources. Email to RFP is powered by Azure OpenAI.
Omni Atlanta Hotel, the first pilot customer, has seen significant returns with faster responses and near autonomous RFP handling.
This builds on the current functionalities of Amadeus MeetingBroker, a centralized hub for managing all group inquiries, no matter how or where they originate. By consolidating leads into a single workflow, MeetingBroker helps hotel sales teams respond faster, reduce missed opportunities, and convert more business.
Amadeus plans to introduce individual AI agents for each of its products, helping travel companies to gain more value by answering queries more easily and more quickly. Amadeus is also working to develop AI agents that will draw on multiple sources when responding to queries, unlocking new levels of insight from across Amadeus’ portfolio.
“As an industry, we’re at an important juncture where the next year of AI development and implementation will shape decades of travel and hospitality. It’s becoming increasingly clear that AI is here to make sense of complexity and support productivity in order to enhance efficiency, return on investment and ultimately increase conversions,” says Francisco Pérez-Lozao Rüter, President of Hospitality, Amadeus.
