Author: NY TIMES

Microsoft makes another bid for A.I. supremacyThe heavyweight fight to dominate artificial intelligence just entered a new round. Microsoft has poached an A.I. pioneer just as Apple and Google discuss forming a united front to make up lost ground.The latest maneuvers add serious firepower to Microsoft’s bid to lead in artificial intelligence. But they could lead to more regulatory scrutiny into the company’s deal making in this high-stakes sector.Microsoft hired a former Google executive to run its consumer A.I unit. Mustafa Suleyman co-founded DeepMind, a British start-up that was acquired by the search giant in 2014 and became the heart…

It was a performance of hard-won wisdom. When the eminent pianist Mitsuko Uchida and the tenor Mark Padmore teamed up for Schubert’s “Winterreise” on Friday at Zankel Hall, they brought the maturity of hindsight to a genre-defining work of young, unrequited love. The concert was part of Uchida’s Perspectives series with Carnegie Hall.Schubert’s cycle comprises 24 songs, most of them in minor keys, and derives from the natural world endless metaphors for heartache. The winter’s journey of the title begins with a breakup, and the narrator spends the rest of the time ruminating upon the fallout. The narrator’s beloved, he…

Ukrainian soldiers spent hours ducking in trenches as artillery exploded around them, then dashed for the safety of an armored personnel carrier — only to be chased through the open rear ramp of the vehicle by an exploding drone.“All I could see were sparks in my eyes,” said one of the soldiers, a sergeant, recounting how the pursuing drone blew up, leaving him and his team wounded but somehow still alive. He asked to be identified only by his first name, Oleksandr, according to military protocol.Fighting on the plain in southern Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, where Oleksandr’s vehicle was hit earlier…

In “Challengers,” Zendaya plays a tennis star named Tashi Duncan. Her clothes are central to her identity; the character is sponsored by Adidas and costumed in sporty-and-rich outfits by the designer Jonathan Anderson.“She’ll have a fashion line,” one of Tashi’s suitors predicts to another in the trailer. “She is going to turn her whole family into millionaires.”Fashion is equally important to the real-life Zendaya — a tool of both image-making and moneymaking. She has become a defining star of the modern movie press tour. Coverage of these appearances can be feverish, with thousands of articles and social-media posts produced for…

President Biden plans to announce on Wednesday that his administration will award up to $8.5 billion in grants to Intel, a major investment to bolster the nation’s semiconductor production, during a tour of battleground states meant to sell his economic agenda.Mr. Biden is set to make the announcement during a visit to the Intel campus in the Phoenix suburb of Chandler, Ariz., White House officials said. The award, which will go to the construction and expansion of Intel facilities around the United States, is the biggest the federal government has made with funding from the CHIPS Act, which lawmakers passed…

Los Angeles, to drivers, has never been for the faint of heart. A land where most cannot fathom life without wheels, it offers a daily parade of frustration: congestion, accidents, construction, road rage, tedium.Every transplant has a story about learning to adapt.“You get in the rhythm of matching everyone else’s energy,” said Tamara Siemering, 30, an actor who relocated from Sacramento a year ago. The difference in car culture here, she said, is wild.“It feels very self-centered,” she said. “Everyone is like, ‘I’ve got somewhere to be, out of my way.’ There’s not a lot of cooperative driving — there’s…

Mr. Janis withdrew from the concert stage — temporarily, as it turned out — and devoted himself to songwriting, a pastime of his youth that he had given up when his touring schedule became too demanding. With the encouragement of the folk singer Judy Collins, he sent a tape of his songs to Warner Chappell, the music publisher, which engaged him to compose 22 songs for a theatrical setting of “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” with lyrics by Hal Hackady and a book by Anthony Scully. The show had its premiere at the Westbeth Theater, in Manhattan, in 1993.Also among…

Eager to get a small piece of the billions of euros provided to his country by the European Union, a mayor in eastern Hungary applied for money to build a “treetop canopy walkway” that would provide panoramic views of the forest outside his village.Hungarian officials responsible for distributing European money liked the idea and in 2021 approved a grant worth about $175,000. The elevated walkway, in the village of Nyirmartonfalva, near the border with Romania, now stretches for nearly 100 yards, next to a wooden observation tower.There’s just one problem: The mayor, a supporter of Hungary’s governing Fidesz party who…

“I was more excited about that mariachi band and having that representation because my husband is African American and our families are coming together,” Ms. Tate said. “I feel like that’s what made the wedding. Without the band, I don’t know if it would’ve been the same.”The Rhythm of a CultureMariachi, as a word, has multiple meanings. The term can stand for the specific genre of music, for the ensemble playing it or for an individual group member.A mariachi musician “plays in a mariachi band playing mariachi music,” said Estevan Azcona, 51, an assistant professor at the Southwest Center at…

The French government said Tuesday that it was moving to protect Atos, a too-big-to-fail French technology giant that manages data and cybersecurity for the nation’s nuclear weapons programs and military as well as for the upcoming Paris Olympics, as the company veered toward financial uncertainty.Shares of Atos tumbled more than 20 percent after Airbus, the European aerospace giant, said it had called off talks to buy Atos’s cybersecurity assets for up to 1.8 billion euros (about $2 billion) following a review of the company’s finances. Later, Atos said it would postpone its earnings release, scheduled for Wednesday, “in order to…