Despite a few fake versions of the game’s trailer being released beforehand, which even included the watermark, Rockstar managed to upload the real trailer to their Rockstar Games YouTube channel.

In just 12 hours, the trailer has almost 60 million views on YouTube, 568 thousand comments and 7 million likes.

Fans of GTA 6 are fascinated by the way the game has been made and are eagerly awaiting its release, even though it is over a year away.

GTA 6 is expected to be released in 2025.

“Technology disruptions and socioeconomic uncertainties require willingness to act boldly and strategically enhance resilience over ad hoc responses. IT leaders are in a unique position to strategically lay down a roadmap where technology investments help their business’s sustenance of success amidst these uncertainties and pressures”, said Bart Willemsen, VP Analyst at Gartner.

“They and other executives must evaluate the impacts and benefits of strategic technology trends, but this is no small task given the increasing rate of technological innovation. For example, generative and other types of AI offer new opportunities and drive several trends. But deriving business value from the durable use of AI requires a disciplined approach to widespread adoption along with attention to the risks”, said Chris Howard, Distinguished VP Analyst and Chief of Research at Gartner.

The top strategic technology trends for 2024 are:

Democratized Generative AI
Generative AI (GenAI) is becoming democratized by the confluence of massively pretrained models, cloud computing and open source, making these models accessible to workers worldwide. By 2026, Gartner predicts that over 80% of enterprises will have used GenAI APIs and models and/or deployed GenAI-enabled applications in production environments, up from less than 5% early 2023.
GenAI applications can make vast sources of information — internal and external — accessible and available to business users. This means the rapid adoption of GenAI will significantly democratize knowledge and skills in the enterprise. Large language models enable enterprises to connect their workers with knowledge in a conversational style with rich semantic understanding.

AI Trust, Risk and Security Management
The democratization of access to AI has made the need for AI Trust, Risk and Security Management (TRiSM) even more urgent and clear. Without guardrails, AI models can rapidly generate compounding negative effects that spin out of control, overshadowing any positive performance and societal gains that AI enables. AI TRiSM provides tooling for ModelOps, proactive data protection, AI-specific security, model monitoring (including monitoring for data drift, model drift, and/or unintended outcomes) and risk controls for inputs and outputs to third-party models and applications.

Gartner predicts that by 2026, enterprises that apply AI TRiSM controls will increase the accuracy of their decision making by eliminating up to 80% of faulty and illegitimate information.

AI-Augmented Development
AI-augmented development is the use of AI technologies, such as GenAI and machine learning, to aid software engineers in designing, coding and testing applications. AI-assisted software engineering improves developer productivity and enables development teams to address the increasing demand for software to run the business. These AI-infused development tools allow software engineers to spend less time writing code, so they can spend more time on more strategic activities such as the design and composition of compelling business applications.

Intelligent Applications
Intelligent applications include intelligence — which Gartner defines as learned adaptation to respond appropriately and autonomously — as a capability. This intelligence can be utilized in many use cases to better augment or automate work. As a foundational capability, intelligence in applications comprises various AI-based services, such as machine learning, vector stores and connected data. Consequently, intelligent applications deliver experiences that dynamically adapt to the user.

A clear need and demand for intelligent applications exists. Twenty-six percent of CEOs in the 2023 Gartner CEO and Senior Business Executive Survey cited the talent shortage as the most damaging risk for their organization. Attracting and retaining talent is CEOs’ top workforce priority, while AI was named the technology that will most significantly impact their industries over the next three years.

Augmented-Connected Workforce
The augmented-connected workforce (ACWF) is a strategy for optimizing the value derived from human workers. The need to accelerate and scale talent is driving the ACWF trend. The ACWF uses intelligent applications and workforce analytics to provide everyday context and guidance to support the workforce’s experience, well-being, and ability to develop its own skills. At the same time, the ACWF drives business results and positive impact for key stakeholders.

Through 2027, 25% of CIOs will use augmented-connected workforce initiatives to reduce time to competency by 50% for key roles.

Continuous Threat Exposure Management
Continuous threat exposure management (CTEM) is a pragmatic and systemic approach that allows organizations to evaluate the accessibility, exposure and exploitability of an enterprise’s digital and physical assets continually and consistently. Aligning CTEM assessment and remediation scopes with threat vectors or business projects, rather than an infrastructure component, surfaces not only the vulnerabilities, but also unpatchable threats.

By 2026, Gartner predicts that organizations prioritizing their security investments based on a CTEM program will realize a two-thirds reduction in breaches.

Machine Customers
Machine customers (also called ‘custobots’) are nonhuman economic actors that can autonomously negotiate and purchase goods and services in exchange for payment. By 2028, 15 billion connected products will exist with the potential to behave as customers, with billions more to follow in the coming years. This growth trend will be the source of trillions of dollars in revenues by 2030 and eventually become more significant than the arrival of digital commerce. Strategic considerations should include opportunities to either facilitate these algorithms and devices, or even create new custobots.

Sustainable Technology
Sustainable technology is a framework of digital solutions used to enable environmental, social and governance (ESG) outcomes that support long-term ecological balance and human rights. The use of technologies such as AI, cryptocurrency, the Internet of Things and cloud computing is driving concern about the related energy consumption and environmental impacts. This makes it more critical to ensure that the use of IT becomes more efficient, circular and sustainable. In fact, Gartner predicts that by 2027, 25% of CIOs will see their personal compensation linked to their sustainable technology impact.

Platform Engineering
Platform engineering is the discipline of building and operating self-service internal development platforms. Each platform is a layer, created and maintained by a dedicated product team, designed to support the needs of its users by interfacing with tools and processes. The goal of platform engineering is to optimize productivity, the user experience and accelerate delivery of business value.

Industry Cloud Platforms
By 2027, Gartner predicts more than 70% of enterprises will use industry cloud platforms (ICPs) to accelerate their business initiatives, up from less than 15% in 2023. ICPs address industry-relevant business outcomes by combining underlying SaaS, PaaS and IaaS services into a whole product offering with composable capabilities. These typically include an industry data fabric, a library of packaged business capabilities, composition tools and other platform innovations. ICPs are tailored cloud proposals specific to an industry and can further be tailored to an organization’s needs.

This year’s top strategic technology trends highlight those trends that will drive significant disruption and opportunity for CIOs and other IT leaders within the next 36 months.

Some of the updates include tools for creating apps on top of Slack, including the Slack CLI – Slack’s command-line interface for interacting with apps – and the TypeScript SDK. More secure data storage and better sharing capability to connect created products with other users.

The new modular architecture includes three basic units: functions, triggers, and workflows.

The company is expected to update its no-code Workflow Builder later this year to allow users to automate Slack and integrate commonly used tools. Workflow Builder will let users create functions and workflows by mixing triggers, inputs and outputs with functions for their most commonly used software.

“The new architecture is very consistent with trends in IT infrastructure that promote composable solutions. And they are turning more controls over to users to innovate.”

said Dan Miller Opus Research analyst.

According to Miller, the next frontier for Slack will be generative artificial intelligence. Microsoft has already incorporated its Copilot generative AI into Teams to create reviews and task notes by synthesizing text from messages.

The updated developer platform comes two years after Salesforce acquired Slack for $27.7 billion. Salesforce’s own collaboration platform, Chatter, never really caught on, even after it was revamped to include social messaging tools for marketers.

U.S. policymakers are divided on many aspects of content moderation policies on social networks, but can find common ground on setting those policies. A bipartisan group of senators led by Brian Schatz and John Thune has introduced the Internet Platform Accountability and Consumer Transparency Act (Internet PACT), a bill that would set “clear” content moderation policies that they would consistently enforce.

The amendment to the Communications Act would require online services to explain their moderation in an “easily accessible” usage policy and share twice-yearly reports with anonymous statistics on content that has been pulled, demoted or demonetized. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) will lead the development of a voluntary framework to define industry-wide practices, Engadget wrote on the topic.

The bill would also prohibit companies from using Section 230 as a shield when the Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and other national regulators bring civil lawsuits.

State attorneys general could enforce federal civil laws when they are used against online platforms, while the Government Accountability Office (GAO) would have to study the viability of an FTC-run whistleblower program for companies operating online platforms.

It is not certain that the Internet PACT Act will be enacted into law. Still, bipartisan support could help. Whether the proposed amendments to Section 230 will satisfy politicians is another question. Both Democrats and Republicans have called for sweeping reforms before, but the changes here will be relatively limited. They will, however, put pressure on companies to act quickly on illegal content.

Meta’s last quarter showed not only the changes in Apple’s iOS privacy but also made it clear that the platform is no longer an interest for users.

The number of monthly active users did not change since the third quarter of last year. Facebook’s daily active users, however, fell from 1.93 to 1.929 billion for the same period.

The company is counting on its applications such as Instagram and WhatsApp which are also among the most used social platforms.

However, the rebranding from Facebook to Meta may have played its role in the user growth slowdown, especially when the company announced that its new plans are to focus on the metaverse experience.

Matt Navara, a social media consultant, posted:

“TikTok is working on a LinkedIn-like Profile Views feature.”

TikTok is working on a LinkedIn-like Profile Views feature

The feature will let you view who visited your TikTok profile in the past 30 days.

h/t @adrianokev1 pic.twitter.com/eMnYtgyUq0

— Matt Navarra (I quit X. Follow me on Threads) (@MattNavarra) January 23, 2022

The feature will let you view who visited your TikTok Profile in the past 30 days.”

However, it seems that the platform has already started testing its opt-in functionality. Navara has posted some screenshots that have been provided by Kev Adriano. They clearly show how the option works and what it will look like.

This social media had previously provided this option with the aim of boosting connections in the application. However, TikTok removed this feature early last year as there were some cases of TikTok stalkers who turned out to be a real problem around the world.

Probably by making the option opt-in, now it will be a kind of solution for that problem.

According to a Reddit user, a YouTube follow button has appeared in the address bar of YouTube pages. The new option makes its first steps and still, it doesn’t support all YouTube content creators. The feature is part of Edge’s “Collections” which allows users to see the latest posts from creators they like and follow.

At that moment, Microsoft is only testing the feature – “controlled rollouts”, as it is named  by the company. However, the plans for the followable web option are not clear yet.

The developers who won App Store Awards in 2021 harnessed their own drive and vision to deliver the best apps and games of the year — sparking the creativity and passion of millions of users around the world”

He also added:

“From self-taught indie coders to inspiring leaders building global businesses, these standout developers innovated with Apple technology, with many helping to foster the profound sense of togetherness we needed this year.”

Which are this year’s winners? 

The iPhone App of the Year is ‘Toca Life World’ from Toca Boca but when it comes to the iPad App of the year is ‘LumaFusion’ from Luma Touch.

The Mac App of the Year won ‘Craft’ from Luki Labs Limited. But if you are wondering which is the winner for the Apple TV App of the year – it’s ‘DAZN’ from DAZN Group. Last but not least, the Apple Watch App of the Year is ‘Carrot Weather’ from Grailr.

What about the games, you may ask… 

The iPhone Game of the Year’s award went to ‘League of Legends’ from Riot Games. The iPad Game Award was given to ‘MARVEL Future Revolution’ from Netramble Corporation. As for the Mac Game – ‘Myst’ from Cyan was the winner of this one. The Apple TV Game of the Year was given to ‘Space Marshals 3’ from Pixelbite, and for the Apple Arcade Game of the Year – the award went to ‘Fantasian’ from Mistwalker.

Besides, the best applications and games on Apple’s devices, Apple’s global App Store editors called ‘Trenda of the Year’. The aim behind that step was to identify a movement that has a lasting impact on people’s lives.

So, who are the ‘Connections’ winners? 

The first one is “Among Us!” From Innersloth. The application cultivated community through bite-size matches that urged users to talk — and listen — to each other via banter, bluffing, and teamwork.

The second one was ‘Bumble’, from Bumble Inc.

Bumble met the moment by adding and enhancing features designed to bridge the gap for users hoping to date, forge platonic friendships, and broaden their professional networks — all while fostering women-powered conversations.

‘Canva’ from Canva is the next winner which offers elegantly simple design tools and gorgeous templates. It helps its users tap into their entrepreneurial spirit by making design simple for professionals, students, job seekers, community leaders, and teams of every kind.

Who is next? Well, it is the ‘EatOkra’, from Anthony Edwards Jr. and Janique Edwards. The app builds a robust, user-driven guide to more than 11,000 Black-owned eateries that helps people find tasty ways to invest in their community.

Peanut, from Peanut App Limited

‘Peanut’ from Peanut App Limited. By launching social audio Pods led by experts on everything from pregnancy and menopause to relationships and self-care, Peanut is creating space for honest conversations on every aspect of womanhood at every stage of life.

This is not the first year when Apple has honored the best apps and games at the end of each year. To acknowledge the impact of the winning developer teams, last year, Apple designers began a tradition of celebration through meticulous craftsmanship with physical App Store awards for each winner. Inspired by the signature blue App Store icon, each award reveals the App Store logo set into the 100 percent recycled aluminum used to make Apple products, with the name of the winner engraved on the other side.

Dorsey co-founded Twitter in 2006, and served as CEO until 2008. He occupied various other positions at the company, including chairman and executive chairman before returning to the CEO role in 2015. In a statement posted on his Twitter account Dorsey said:

“I’ve decided to leave Twitter because I believe the company is ready to move on from its founders.”

Parag Agrawal, the company’s chief technology officer, will take over from Dorsey,  the company announced.

Twitter stock jumped 3 per cent on the news.

The ex CEO will remain a member of the Board until his term expires at the 2022 meeting of stockholders, the company said.

DJSI is compiled by the U.S. firm S&P Dow Jones. That was а sustainability index to assess a company’s corporate sustainability from the economic, environmental, and social development aspects.

This year, DJSI reviewed approximately 3,500 companies worldwide, selecting 322 companies to the DJSI World Index. As of November 12, 2021, Ricoh achieved the highest score out of 34 companies in the Computers & Peripherals and Office Electronics industry in the S&P Global Corporate Sustainability Assessment.

Ricoh is also committed to contributing to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals and becoming carbon neutral by 2050.