Microsoft hit with $242 million US verdict in Cortana patent lawsuit

By Blake Brittain (Reuters) – Microsoft must pay patent owner IPA Technologies $242 million, a federal jury in Delaware said on Friday after determining that Microsoft’s Cortana virtual-assistant software infringed an IPA patent. The jury agreed with IPA after a week-long trial that Microsoft’s voice-recognition technology violates IPA’s patent rights in computer-communications software. IPA is…

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OpenAI plans to announce Google search competitor on Monday, sources say

By Anna Tong (Reuters) -OpenAI plans to announce its artificial intelligence-powered search product on Monday, according to two sources familiar with the matter, raising the stakes in its competition with search king Google. The announcement date, though subject to change, has not been previously reported. Bloomberg and the Information have reported that Microsoft-backed OpenAI is…

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Fed’s Goolsbee says US interest rates are ‘relatively restrictive’

(Reuters) – Chicago Federal Reserve President Austan Goolsbee on Friday said he believes U.S. monetary policy is “relatively restrictive,” meaning that borrowing costs are putting downward pressure on inflation. Increased supply, including on the labor side, makes it difficult to interpret if strong job gains and economic growth indicate any worrisome overheating, he said at…

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Panama Papers law firm co-founder Ramon Fonseca dies in hospital, lawyer says

PANAMA CITY (Reuters) -Ramon Fonseca, who co-founded the now defunct law firm linked to the Panama Papers scandal, died overnight in hospital, his lawyer told Reuters on Thursday morning. “He had been hospitalized since the start of April,” Fonseca’s lawyer Guillermina McDonald said in a phone call, without saying for what Fonseca was being treated….

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