tech:

taffy

Oracle Buys RightNow For $1.5 Billion

Oracle has entered into an agreement to acquire RightNow, a provider of cloud-based customer service, for $43.00 per share or approximately $1.5 billion net of RightNow’s cash and debt.

The Board of Directors of RightNow Technologies has unanimously approved the transaction. The transaction is expected to close by late 2011 or early 2012, subject to RightNow stockholder approval, certain regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions. More information on the deal can be found here.

Thomas Kurian (Executive vice president, Oracle Development):“Oracle is moving aggressively to offer customers a full range of Cloud Solutions.

Just in

AI is ‘a new kind of digital species,’ Microsoft AI chief says — Quartz

Mustafa Suleyman, chief executive of Microsoft AI, said during a talk at TED 2024 that AI is the newest wave of creation since the start of life on Earth, and that “we are in the fastest and most consequential wave ever,” writes Britney Nguyen in Quartz.

It’s baaack! Microsoft and IBM open source MS-DOS 4.0 — ZDNet

Microsoft and IBM have joined forces to open-source the 1988 operating system MS-DOS 4.0 under the MIT License, writes Steven Vaughan-Nichols. 

Generative AI arrives in the gene editing world of CRISPR — NYT

New AI technology is generating blueprints for microscopic biological mechanisms that can edit your DNA, pointing to a future when scientists can battle illness and diseases with even greater precision and speed than they can today, writes Cade Metz.

Mark Zuckerberg says Meta will offer its virtual reality OS to hardware companies, creating iPhone versus Android dynamic — CNBC

Meta will partner with external hardware companies, including Lenovo, Microsoft and Asus, to build virtual reality headsets using the company’s Meta Horizon operating system, writes Kif Leswing.