Tech
Microsoft Launches AI-Powered Dynamics 365 Copilot – TechDecisions
After beginning to integrate generative AI tools from ChatGPT throughout its product portfolio, Microsoft is launching Microsoft Dynamics 365 Copilot, bringing interactive, AI-powered assistance across business functions and to CRM and ERP systems.
According to Microsoft, Dynamics 365 Copilot is designed to take advantage of generative AI to automate tedious tasks like data entry, content generation and notetaking. It brings advanced AI features to Dynamics 365 Sales and Viva Sales, Dynamics 365 Customer Service, Dynamics 365 Customer Insights, dynamics 365 Marketing, Dynamics 365 Business Central and Supply Chain Center.
The Redmond, Wash. tech giant says Copilot in Dynamics 365 Sales and Viva Sales leverages AI to help reduce time sellers spend on clerical tasks, such as writing emails to customers and creating an email summary of a Teams meeting in Outlook. Meeting summaries pull in details from the seller’s CRM, such as product information and pricing, as well as insights from recorded Teams calls.
Copilot in Dynamics 365 Customer Service drafts contextual answers to queries in both chat and email, and provides an interactive chat experience over knowledge bases and case history. In addition, customer service departments can build virtual agents with conversation boosters in Power Virtual Agents to leverage Azure OpenAI Service and Bing to provide answers from company websites and internal knowledge bases, the company says.
Meanwhile Copilot in Dynamics 365 Customer Insights and Dynamics 365 Marketing are designed to help marketers simplify their workflows in data exploration, audience segmentation and content creation. According to Microsoft these tools allow marketers to curate highly personalized and targeted customer segments by having a dialogue with their customer data platform using natural language and describe their customer segment in their own words to create a target segment with the query assist feature, respectively, among other functions.
In Dynamics 365 Business Central, Copilot will help streamline the creation of product listings for online commerce, and users can create product descriptions for online storefronts in seconds, Microsoft says.
With Copilot in Microsoft Supply Chain Center, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management customers can leverage features that flag external issues such as weather, financials and geography that may impact key supply chain processes. Predictive insights will surface impact orders across materials, inventory, carrier, distribution network and more, and partners can automatically draft an email generated by Copilot to alert impacted partners.
In a blog, Emily He, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of business applications marketing, says Copilot features are currently in preview across Dynamics 365 apps and Viva Sales.
“Copilot brings the power of next-generation AI capabilities and natural language processing to Dynamics 365, working alongside business professionals to help them create ideas and content faster, complete time-consuming tasks, and get insights and next best actions—just by describing what’s needed,” writes He.
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Tech
Aaron Sluchinski adds Kyle Doering to lineup for next season – Sportsnet.ca
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Tech
Venerable Video App Plex Emerges As FAST Favorite – Forbes
With cord cutters and streamers becoming more selective about where they invest their subscription dollars and the costs of premium services like Netflix
NFLX
rising, FAST (Free Ad-Supported TV) services that offer thick bundles of niche channels and vintage content are on the rise with consumers. One of the more interesting contenders is Plex, a privately-held company that started in the late aughts as an app to help video enthusiasts organize and share their home libraries. Plex expanded into the FAST space in 2018, and today announced it has surpassed a thousand channels (1112, in fact, including a just-announced NFL Channel) in its free-to-stream lineup, making it one of the largest inventories in the market.
The rising popularity of the FAST model, which also appeals to advertisers looking to combine the sizzle of a 30-second spot with the data targeting of an online platform, has drawn a lot of players into the space, each with its own spin on a service that can appear very similar to viewers. After all, how many channels of British murder mysteries, 2000s-era prestige shows and Hallmark tearjerkers can providers squeeze through a fiberoptic cable before viewers cease to care exactly where it’s coming from?
The companies that emerge on top need to deliver a unique and special experience for consumers, combined with a strong value proposition for advertisers. Each big player comes with its own advantages: Roku’s OTT experience, Tubi’s origins as an ad-tech platform, Samsung and LG’s ownership of the TV interface, Amazon
AMZN
Prime’s connection to consumers, and so on. Plex’s edge, according to the company’s executives, is its community.
“We began as a personal media management software,” said Plex CEO Keith Valory, who joined the company in 2012 at the invitation of co-founder and current chief product officer Scott Olechowski. “Eventually, we thought that the more interesting problem to solve over time is media chaos. People shouldn’t have to go to 20 different apps to get the content they want.”
Valory says Plex had grown a fanbase of hardcore videophiles who use the product to keep track of extensive media libraries. These enthusiasts pushed the company to develop rich capabilities around content management, discovery, recommendations, reviews and shareability, which turn out to be important differentiators when viewers are faced with thousands of choices.
Valory says he and Olechowski began building the framework for the AVOD (ad-supported video on demand) strategy in 2017, doing business development deals with studios and building relationships. They launched the service in 2019, just in time to benefit from the COVID streaming boom. “We launched our FAST channels and continued to accelerate the business,” he said. Over time, Plex has added live content, sports and hyperlocal channels to the service, which is available in over 180 countries worldwide, offered through the familiar Plex interface.
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According to Gavin Bridge, VP of Media Research for CPG Global and a FAST-focused analyst who tracks the number of FAST channels in the United States via his monthly FASTMaster report, there were more than 1,963 FAST channels in the U.S. alone as of March 2024. Currently, Plex accounts for 847 of them, and it’s growing every day.
Building click-appeal for viewers is one part of the FAST equation, but the other critical component is serving that audience up to advertisers in the narrowest, most targeted slices possible. Every FAST platform has its own proprietary algorithms for targeting and programmatic placement of the right spots to the right viewers, based on what it knows about its audience’s behavior and proclivities. Sponsors need to weigh that when deciding how to allocate their media dollars.
Valory says Plex’s edge comes from its data. “We’re very open about and transparent about sharing data with both our content partners and our advertising partners within privacy limits,” he said. “But we also have a different, more affluent set of users because they’re coming in to manage a number of their subscriptions and whatnot. We can identify them in aggregate [preserving privacy] and essentially create high-end profiles of what users are watching across every device, every country and every service.”
Because of its unique heritage, Plex has data that no one else has, relating to user behavior behind the firewall in consuming their owned video content. Valory says that many users opt in to sharing this data to improve recommendations and relevance. “We have an opportunity to help advertisers target those users on other platforms like TikTok or Facebook,” Valory said.
The company has also invested in its ad delivery capabilities. “We’re making sure we’ve optimized our ability to stay in the programmatic market, to the point that our programmatic auctions are vastly outperforming our direct sales,” said Todd Hay, VP of Revenue and Engagement for Plex. “The next step was to enrich what that inventory looks like. Advertisers like having that visibility for brand safety.”
Hay says the company uses its detailed data about viewer behavior to help micro-target in-stream trailers, native advertising, sponsored hubs, and opportunities to insert content into a viewer’s watch list with a one-click popup. He says this helps brands target consumers by their affinities: for example, correlating cruise ads to food programming because of the high correlation between those viewers and that product.
The frequency, duration and interruptive nature of these spots – even if they are highly targeted and relevant – has irritated some users, including many in the hardcore Plex fan community, who look askance at the company’s shift in focus away from their beloved media app and toward the streaming market. Many have asked for a premium ad-free paid tier, but that is precluded by FAST content distribution and licensing agreements, according to the company.
Valory acknowledges the concerns of the community. “We love our superfans and their needs are very important,” he said. “I think many of them understand that, realistically, for us to grow and thrive, we can’t just be a personal media server running at home. But at the same time, the largest development team in the company still services the personal media product even though it is not the largest revenue business, and we’re only able to do that because of all the other things we’re doing.
“People will say oh, that’s just the CEO giving a political answer, but I assure you, we talk about this all the time internally, and some of the biggest superfans and loudest users of the product are the people who work here.”
Valory said that Plex, which currently does not disclose financial information, generates roughly 20 percent of its revenues from member subscriptions, which unlock premium capabilities of its media platform, compared to 80 percent from the ad business.
Moving forward, Valory says the company sees opportunities in bundling paid subscription models, using Plex’s detailed knowledge of user tastes and behavior. “Some services are paying insane amounts on user acquisition,” said Valery. “I think our better opportunity is to help other subscriptions bundle and create discounts for end users. We don’t need to take a dime of that; we will make our money on advertising and helping people get the content they want.”
The shakeout of premium SVOD services is just getting underway, and the FAST/AVOD market, with its range of players and distinct value propositions, makes it a difficult environment for advertisers, investors and consumers to place their bets. But whatever the future of streaming holds, Plex is betting that the best strategy is to build out from the center
.
Tech
New Realme Narzo 70 series phone coming soon, teasers promise faster charging, lag-free performance – gizmochina
Realme recently launched the Narzo 70 Pro 5G smartphone in India, featuring an appealing design and the Dimensity 7050 chip. The brand has teased the release of a new Narzo phone through its X handle, suggesting it could be another addition to the Narzo 70 series.
New Narzo 70 series phone teased
The above teaser reveals that the upcoming Narzo phone will provide a lag-free experience. The other teaser suggests that the device will arrive with fast charging support. It states that a few minutes of charging will allow it to run for a couple of hours.
The Narzo 70 Pro packs a 5,000mAh battery with 67W fast charging. It is unclear whether the upcoming phone will offer faster charging capabilities than the Narzo 70 Pro. It is advisable to wait for further teasers to confirm the phone’s moniker.
To recall, the Realme Narzo 70 Pro 5G features a 6.7-inch FHD+ 120Hz AMOLED display with a peak brightness of 2000nits. Powered by the Dimensity 7050 chip, it comes with LPDDR4x RAM and UFS 3.1 storage for smooth performance. It packs a 5000mAh battery and 67W fast charging support.
On the front, the device features a 16-megapixel selfie camera. Its back panel has a 50-megapixel Sony IMX890 primary camera with OIS support, an 8-megapixel ultra-wide lens, and a 2-megapixel macro camera. The phone runs on Realme UI 5-based Android 14.
The Narzo 70 Pro offers other features, such as an IP54-rated chassis, an in-display fingerprint scanner, rainwater smart touch technology, dual speakers, a 3D VC cooling system, and 8GB virtual RAM.
In terms of pricing, the 8GB+128GB variant of the Narzo 70 Pro retails at Rs 17,999 (~$215). On the other hand, the 8GB+256GB variant costs Rs 21,999 (~$265). It comes in Glass Green and Glass Gold shades.
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