Business Tech News: Get A Lifetime Version Of QuickBooks For $250
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Here are five things in business tech news that happened this week and how they affect your business. Did you miss them?
Intuit is offering a limited-time deal on QuickBooks Desktop Pro Plus 2024, providing a lifetime license for a single user at $249.99, significantly reduced from its regular price of $699. This version caters to small businesses, freelancers, and solo entrepreneurs seeking comprehensive financial management without ongoing subscription fees. This offer is available through StackSocial, but interested users should act promptly, as it's available only while supplies last. (Source: PCMag)
According to PCMag, the software encompasses a range of features, including invoice creation, expense tracking, detailed financial reporting, customer and vendor account management, job profitability analysis, fixed asset tracking, inventory management, and sales order processing. Enhanced bank feeds and time tracking functionalities streamline reconciliation and payroll preparation. It also integrates with other Intuit tools like TurboTax, ensuring synchronized financial operations. Too good to be true?
Microsoft's Recall AI tool – which captures and indexes screenshots of user activity every three seconds – is being reintroduced after facing significant privacy concerns after the initial announcement in 2024. Now available to Windows 11 Insiders, the feature requires users to opt-in and authenticate via Windows Hello, aiming to address earlier criticisms. However, privacy advocates remain apprehensive, noting that even with these measures, sensitive information from non-users can still be inadvertently captured and stored on others' devices. This raises ongoing concerns about data security and the potential for misuse, despite Microsoft's efforts to enhance privacy controls. (Source: Wired)
Of course there's data and privacy issues. Think about it: if you opt-in, then all of the activity on your device is being captured by Microsoft and then stored who-knows-where in the cloud. But on the upside it will make recovering from a problem – a malware attack, a natural disaster - much faster, which could reduce losses. Like everything in tech, there's a tradeoff. Do you give up your privacy and your confidential information for increased productivity? There's no right or wrong answer. Everything is judged by risk vs. reward. In case you're wondering, I'll opt-in.
ChatGPT's new feature – Library – provides users with a dedicated tab to store and manage their AI-generated images. This update is available across both the mobile app and web interface, for free and paid users alike. The Library collects all images created in past chats, allowing users to edit, download, or create new images directly from this section. While it currently lacks advanced search or filtering options, these may be added in the future. (Source: TechRadar)
According to TechRadar there are rumors of OpenAI's plans for a social network – possibly inspired by Instagram – where AI-generated images and videos play a central role. This latest move aligns with the growing trend of AI-generated content becoming more social and shareable. If this actually happens it could open up another channel for engagement and sales with new customers for small businesses.
Solutions platform Apply Digital shared research on how retailers are utilizing AI. Results showed that nine out of ten retailers are embracing artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance personalization in their operations. Retailers are utilizing AI in various ways – analyzing customer data to provide personalized product recommendations, optimizing inventory management, and streamlining supply chain operations. AI-driven tools are enabling businesses to forecast demand more accurately and automate customer service interactions, thereby improving efficiency and customer satisfaction. This widespread adoption reflects the industry's commitment to leveraging AI technologies to deliver more tailored customer experiences. (Source: Retail Technology Review)
My prediction is that AI will be the savior of brick and mortar. Sure, it's quicker to get some things online. But many people enjoy the experience of shopping. Having an advanced AI assistant on your smartphone that can shop along with you can be that friend you always wish you had: smart and non-judgmental! Small retailers should be keeping a close eye on what their bigger competitors are doing and tracking new applications like this that can keep them competitive.
Solutions software company Fourth has launched an AI-powered solution called the Restaurant Operations Suite, designed to streamline back-of-house operations for restaurants. This platform integrates workforce management, HR, payroll, and inventory management into a unified system. By leveraging AI, it provides real-time insights and actionable recommendations, helping restaurant managers make informed decisions. (Source: Verdict Food Source)
According to the company, the solution aims to enhance profitability by reducing labor costs by 5 percent, cutting the cost of goods sold by 20 percent, and potentially increasing profits by 3-5 percent. It simplifies manual tasks, allowing managers to focus more on customer service and creativity. Applications like this are becoming critical in this industry where every penny is important, finding labor is next-to-impossible and managing customer expectations is extremely difficult.
Every week I round up five business tech news stories and explain why they're important for small and mid-sized businesses.
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Geek Wire
2 hours ago
- Geek Wire
Xbox Ally vs. Nintendo Switch 2: Microsoft enters a handheld console war that lacks actual competition
(Xbox Image) This isn't quite what we expected to see last year, but the ROG Xbox Ally still marks a new chapter in the rapidly developing 'handheld war.' Microsoft's announcement of the Ally during its annual Xbox Showcase broadcast on Sunday only came a few days after Nintendo's release of its latest console, the Switch 2. While it's probably not intentional on Microsoft's part, that does set up a natural clash in the marketplace between the Xbox Ally and the Switch 2. Both are portable gaming systems, and both are major players in the international console market. At almost any other time in console history, this actually would've been a deliberate shot across Nintendo's bow. Microsoft is one of the few players who could actually hope to diminish Nintendo's hammerlock on the portable gaming scene. That's not what this is, however. Microsoft has shown a notable unwillingness to actually compete with Nintendo in recent years, instead preferring to publish former exclusives like Grounded and Hi-Fi Rush on the Switch. Further, the Xbox Ally from the jump is aimed at an established audience of PC gaming enthusiasts. One of its marquee features, in fact, is the ability to consolidate your games library into a single menu via the Xbox app. If you're at all into playing games on your computer, it's easy to end up with a big library spread out across a half-dozen storefronts: Steam, Epic, GOG, Itch, Microsoft Store, Game Pass, etc. As presented, the Ally can keep your entire collection in one easy-to-browse place, although individual games' compatibility with the Ally is not guaranteed. The Xbox Ally is also intended to ship with Copilot for Gaming integrated into the experience, so each Ally will come complete with an AI-powered 'companion.' If you grab the more expensive Ally X, it contains a high-end Ryzen chip that's apparently meant to future-proof the device to some extent against any further AI projects Microsoft might bring to the unit. Those two features are meant to appeal to a couple of specific audiences: people who already primarily play games on their PCs, and serious gadget hounds. The Xbox Ally is a huge new spoke in Microsoft's established 'Play Anywhere' initiative, but much of what it does is there to streamline the experience for people who are already heavily invested in the Xbox gaming platform. At Nintendo's Switch 2 launch event in San Francisco, executive VP Devon Pritchard hands a fan the first Switch 2 unit sold. (Nintendo Image) The Switch 2, by comparison, arguably has a different version of a similar issue. Nintendo famously does not follow the same sales plan with its consoles as Sony or Microsoft, preferring to put out cheaper devices with lower-end tech that can be produced for a per-unit profit. As a result, Nintendo's hardware tends to be dramatically less powerful than its competitors'. The original Switch was already having profound growing pains, as even some games by Nintendo itself (i.e. Pokemon Scarlet & Violet) did not run well on the Switch, especially in its portable mode. The difference is that Nintendo has, well, Nintendo. For 40 years, the biggest reason to buy a Nintendo console is to play Nintendo's exclusive in-house productions like Super Mario, The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, and Super Smash Bros. While some of Nintendo's franchises have appeared on mobile devices recently, the actual marquee titles — Breath of the Wild, Super Mario Odyssey, Mario Kart 8, etc. — have never been officially ported to anything besides official Nintendo systems. Unlike Sony, which has begun bringing first-party PlayStation games to PC via Steam in recent years, Nintendo wants you to have to buy its consoles to play its games. I could give you a laundry list of complaints about the Switch as a whole, not least of which is the peculiar and uncharacteristic fragility of its hardware, but Nintendo has always been its own biggest advantage. That does mean that the primary reason to buy a Switch 2 is the promise of whatever new first-party Nintendo games will eventually be released for the system. Like the Xbox Ally, it's already aimed at a specific, established audience: fans of the company's established franchises. The real X-factor in this discussion, however, is the Xbox Ally's price tag. The Switch 2 currently retails for an MSRP of $499.99, and while its launch lineup is fairly weak, it's backwards compatible with most if not all of the existing Switch library. The ROG Xbox Ally will ship with two separate SKUs: the cheaper, less powerful base model, and the higher-end Ally X. Microsoft has yet to reveal their respective prices at launch, but since the Xbox Ally is a customized model of the existing ROG Ally, it's hard to imagine either version will cost less than $650. In theory, the Xbox Ally can make up some of that difference through a cheaper software library. Digital storefronts have flash sales and free weekends all the time, and there's always Game Pass. Meanwhile, Nintendo has become infamous for almost never lowering the prices on its games, digitally or otherwise; the Switch 2 is significantly more expensive than its predecessor; and any die-hard Switch fan will tell you that you'll want to pick up a Pro Controller ($89) eventually. All in all, this is an unusually pricey console launch for Nintendo. At the end of the day, the Switch 2 and Xbox Ally are laser-focused on two separate, specific audiences. They have points of overlap, but only in the vaguest possible sense, and at least one of the two companies is less interested in active competition than ever before. If you're looking to break into portable gaming in 2025, it's going to come down to your particular fields of interest, as well as whatever Microsoft decides to charge for the Xbox Ally.
CNBC
2 hours ago
- CNBC
Asian markets set to open higher as investors await Beijing-Washington trade meeting and China data
China Shenzhen Real444 | E+ | Getty Images Asian markets were set to climb Monday as investors awaited trade talks between the U.S. and China later in the day, following accusations between the two over breaching deal terms agreed in Geneva last month. Trade tensions are seemingly easing as China has reportedly granted temporary approvals for the export of rare earths, while jetliner Boeing Co has begun commercial jet deliveries to the Asian superpower. China is also slated to release a slew of data, including its consumer and wholesale inflation readings for May. Economists polled by Reuters expect consumer prices to have fallen by 0.2% year on year, while PPI is forecast to have declined by 3.2% from a year earlier.. Futures for Hong Kong's Hang Seng index stood at 23,801 pointing to a marginally higher open compared to the HSI's last close of 23,792.54. Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 was set to open higher, with the futures contract in Chicago at 37,975 while its counterpart in Osaka last traded at 37,980, against the index's Friday close of 37,741.61. Australian markets are closed for a public holiday. U.S. equity futures were mostly flat in early Asian trade. All three key benchmarks on Wall Street jumped last Friday, after the non-farm payrolls data came in better-than-expected. U.S. payrolls climbed 139,000 in May, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday, above the Dow Jones forecast of 125,000 for the month but less than the downwardly revised 147,000 in April. The Dow Jones Industrial Average popped 443.13 points, or 1.05%, to close at 42,762.87. The blue-chip index was up more than 600 points at its highs of the session. Meanwhile, the the broad-based S&P 500 also gained 1.03% — surpassing the 6,000 level for the first time since late February — and settling at 6,000.36, while the Nasdaq Composite rallied 1.20%, to end at 19,529.95. — CNBC's Sean Conlon and Jesse Pound contributed to this report.
CNET
2 hours ago
- CNET
I Played With the Xbox ROG Ally, the Upcoming Xbox Handheld
Microsoft revealed its long-rumored Xbox handheld console running Windows 11 during the Xbox Games Showcase -- two models called the Xbox ROG Ally and Xbox ROG Ally X -- and I spent a short time playing around with one soon after. Unfortunately, I wasn't allowed to take any pictures or videos of the demo, since the hardware we got to test wasn't final. That became evident when our designated guide had HDMI connection issues with the unit. I was able to play around with the Xbox full- screen experience, the various settings menus and played the beginning minutes of Gears of War Reloaded, which comes out this summer. Watch this: Everything Announced at the Xbox Games Showcase in 16 Minutes 16:18 The device is quite comfortable to hold, with slightly textured grips. The face buttons, triggers, and analog sticks all felt familiar, very similar to what I'm used to on an Xbox controller. What's really exciting is that you can download your games, remote play from your Xbox, or stream from the cloud, making this more useful than PlayStation's Portal, which can only stream and play remotely. That's one of the major benefits of being inside Xbox's ecosystem: You can play a game on any of its devices, regardless of where you bought it, whether that be Xbox consoles, PC, cloud or this new handheld. This more open-platform approach makes the Xbox Ally closer in spirit to a Steam Deck compared to a Nintendo Switch, which can only run Nintendo games. When it ships -- expected in time for the winter holidays -- you'll be able to navigate via a full-screen Xbox app, which combines your Xbox game library with installed games from several other marketplaces into a single Xbox experience. The company specifically mentioned Xbox, Game Pass, (owned by Microsoft), and "other leading PC storefronts," which I'm hoping includes Steam. Much like on an Xbox, each game has icons depicting which platform they're from. In my demo, the only example of a different storefront was Hearthstone, which had a icon. Microsoft/Screenshot by CNET The Xbox Ally consoles use the Game Bar, and if you've used the Xbox app on PC then you'll find it familiar. In fact, pressing the new Xbox button opens an almost identical version of the guide when playing Xbox games on PC. However, there's also a new Command Center tab on the far left to adjust settings for power consumption and performance, similar to what we've seen on Steam Deck. In Game Bar you can quickly jump to the home screen, your library, launch games, open apps, chat with friends, adjust settings and more. And this Game Bar works alongside Asus's Armoury Crate overlay. This is a little worrisome, as Armoury Crate has usually felt more like unnecessary bloatware, but when we get to test the device later this year we'll see if Asus has stripped it down to the relevant functions rather than just added more on top. Since it's a Windows 11 device, you'll also be able to launch and use apps like Discord and Twitch and access game mods. The Xbox Ally boots directly into the "Xbox full screen experience" similar to how a Steam Deck launches into Big Picture mode. The full-screen experience is optimized specifically for handheld gaming, and Xbox told me the device minimizes background activity and allocates more system resources to gameplay like Game Mode does on Windows. This means more memory and potentially higher framerates for your games. Xbox The ROG Ally and Ally X have been out for a bit now, but the Xbox models have some unique features. In addition to the Xbox button, the Xbox ROG Ally also has larger, contoured grips. The previous ROG Ally is more rectangular; the Xbox Ally is closer to the design of the PlayStation Portal, with dedicated, slightly separated hand grips that mimic the look and feel of a standard game controller. They also have upgraded components over the Asus versions. The handheld comes in two options, a white Xbox Ally and the more powerful Xbox Ally X which comes in black. The lower-end Ally is powered by a AMD Ryzen Z2A processor, comes with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of SSD storage, weighs 23.6 oz/670g, and has a 60Wh battery. The Ally X has a AMD Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme processor, 24GB of RAM, 1TB of SSD storage, weighs a bit more at 25.2 oz/715g, and has a 80Wh battery. Both models are equipped with a 7-inch,120Hz 1080p screen, the same as on the original Asus versions of the devices. They also have RGB lights surrounding the analog sticks, something I hope I'll be able to turn off when I spend some real time playing on the device. The Ally X did feel on the heavier side, but then again the recently released Switch 2 and my Steam Deck OLED are also pretty heavy so I think that's just what handhelds weigh these days. Xbox hasn't yet revealed the pricing or release date, aside from "this holiday."
