The tech giant’s executives are making headlines this week as Salesforce’s CEO dubbed Copilot the “new Microsoft Clippy” and NVIDIA’s CEO called Elon Musk “superhuman.” Unsurprisingly, AI continues to be the main topic on everyone’s mind, but we also saw Qualcomm cancel its Snapdragon X Elite Dev Kit this week and Microsoft’s shadow fall on two Xbox games.
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Salesforce CEO Says “Copilot Is Just the New Microsoft Clippy”
Microsoft has several Copilots available for general users and in the enterprise, but one major tech CEO believes that Copilot is the new Microsoft Clippy. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff claimed that “Salesforce can beat Microsoft in AI” in a recent podcast.
“When you look at how Copilot has been sold to our customers, it’s disappointing. It’s not working,” Benioff said. “It’s spewing data across our floors, it’s not adding value. I haven’t found a customer that has transformational work with Copilot. Copilot is just the new Microsoft Clippy.”
Salesforce’s CEO is of course far from unbiased on the subject. Salesforce’s Agentforce competes in the same field as Microsoft’s AI offering. Specifically, the tool helps create customized AI agents.
It’s pretty common to see CEOs promote their own products or downplay the competition, although Benioff was a bit more direct than some CEOs. We’ll have to see if the Salesforce CEO’s prediction that Copilot won’t be around for long comes true.
“Elon Musk is superhuman,” says NVIDIA CEO
If I told you that a tech CEO said Elon Musk is superhuman, you’d probably assume Musk was praising himself. But in a recent interview, it was NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang who praised Musk’s AI efforts.
“As far as I know, there’s only one person in the world who could do that; Elon is unique in his understanding of engineering and construction and large systems and pooling of resources; it’s just incredible.”
Huang’s praise for Musk focused on the xAI team that set up a powerful supercomputer in 19 days. NVIDIA’s CEO said the process would normally take years, not weeks. He went on to emphasize that the networking, wiring and engineering required to create a supercluster with 100,000 H200 Blackwell GPUs is massive.
Elon Musk is superhuman. What would take everyone else a year took him only 19 days. pic.twitter.com/q51sM48lsu13 October 2024
Normally I remind people on the internet that praising Musk won’t get the celebrity to offer him a job, but that advice doesn’t apply here. NVIDIA is working closely with Musk, including collaborations with the xAI team across engineering, networking, infrastructure and software. It’s safe to say that stroking Musk’s ego is a sound strategy for NVIDIA’s CEO.
Qualcomm Cancels Snapdragon X Elite Dev Kit
Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite Dev Kit was supposed to be in the hands of consumers and reviewers this week, but the chipmaker canceled the device instead. While a small handful of people were lucky enough to get a Snapdragon X Elite Dev Kit, the vast majority of those who ordered the mini PC will not receive a device.
Qualcomm sent an email to customers this week clarifying that the Snapdragon X Elite Dev Kit did not meet its “usual standards of excellence.” As a result, Qualcomm canceled the product and will issue refunds to anyone who purchased one of the devices.
Anyone who has placed an order will receive a refund, including anyone who has already received a Snapdragon X Elite Dev Kit. The developer kit was supposed to ship in June, but it faced delays. In the end, the PC was not shipped at all.
The Snapdragon X Elite Dev Kit faced many challenges, including the removal of an HDMI port at the last minute and Qualcomm not being able to pass FCC regulation before devices shipped.
While there are other Snapdragon X Elite-powered PCs available, Qualcomm’s dev kit was the only device to run on the top-end X Elite SoC (X1E-00-1DE) with a higher 4.3GHz boost frequency.
Microsoft shadow drops two Xbox games
While the majority of the announcements from Microsoft’s Xbox Partner Preview event in October focused on upcoming games, Microsoft did sneak out some titles under the event. Blindfire and Animal Well are now available to play on Xbox Series X|S, although the former is in early access.
Blindfire is a PvP shooter with a unique gameplay mechanic that has defeated players who can control cameras and traps in the arena. These defeated players can take revenge on those who killed them, help certain players, or help a certain team (Blindfire has both solo and team modes).
Animal Well launched earlier this year on PC, PS5 and Nintendo Switch. It’s now available on Xbox Series X|S, giving those in the Xbox ecosystem a way to play the Metroidvania platformer.
Reviews
Our senior editor Ben Wilson got behind the wheel over the past week, literally. Wilson reviewed the MOZA R3 racing wheel, which received a perfect score.
“There’s nothing close to MOZA’s offering for Xbox gamers eager to try super-realistic sim racing with a high-end direct-drive wheelbase,” said Wilson. “Some alternatives offer PlayStation support, but leave Microsoft’s console out in the cold with the natural carryover to PC support that most peripherals exhibit passively. Ultimately, it’s the best racing wheel for Xbox because it offers unmatched value for money and the best force feedback technology you can get.”
Metaphor: ReFantazio also earned high marks from our Zachary Boddy, who praised the game for its “excellent world-building and narrative direction, captivating and engaging characters and relationships, and fun, tactical turn-based combat with flexible strategies.”
Boddy started their review by saying “Metaphor: ReFantazio has cemented itself as the best game I’ve played this year so far.” That’s high praise from someone who spends hours playing the best Xbox games.
Offer
Prime Day and Anti-Prime Day may be behind us, but there are still plenty of great deals going on. Discounts on Samsung Galaxy Book4 Edge and Dell XPS provide good opportunities to upgrade to a new laptop. You can also save big on mini PCs, gaming desktops and more.
