By Najia Houssari - arabnews.com -- BEIRUT: The US has launched a $20 million fund to help Lebanese businesses install solar energy systems as owners struggle to stay afloat amid the collapse of the country’s electricity sector. US Ambassador to Lebanon Dorothy Shea launched the Solar & Renewable Energy Fund on Friday, saying it will help local businesses reduce operating costs, sustain their operations and maintain employment levels. “This fund will support the purchase and installation of solar power generation systems for at least 25 businesses,” she said. Lebanon’s crumbling power sector has forced businesses and households to rely largely on private diesel generators.

Power now is available for only four hours a day, thanks to a $60 million advance approved by the Cabinet in favor of the Electricite du Liban to supply fuel to operate the Deir Ammar and Zahrani plants. However, few trust the state’s sudden generosity. Jamal, a lawyer, said: “Increasing feeding hours to four hours may be a temporary trap to impose the new price on taxpayers, after which we will fall back into darkness.” Shea said: “Lebanese businesses are struggling in this current economic crisis. They have limited access to financing and their capital accounts, like those of all depositors, are trapped in Lebanese banks. For years, Lebanese enterprises relied on unsustainable and costly energy sources harmful to the environment. “The US Agency for International Development contributed $4 million in seed capital to the Solar & Renewable Energy Fund, and we are working to secure an additional $16 million from private investors and other donors.” She added: “The fund will lend capital to enterprises at commercial rates, anticipating that the loans will be repaid within two to three years. This will come from savings on reduced reliance on diesel generators. “We expect that these businesses will cut their operating costs by at least 20 percent, reducing their expenditures on electricity, and thereby boosting productivity and protecting Lebanese jobs.”

by microsoft.com -- Colette Stallbaumer, General Manager -- Today, we announced Microsoft 365 Copilot—your copilot for work. Copilot combines the power of large language models (LLMs) with your data in the Microsoft Graph—your calendar, emails, chats, documents, meetings, and more—and the Microsoft 365 apps to turn your words into the most powerful productivity tool on the planet. And it does so within our existing commitments to data security and privacy in the enterprise. Right now, we spend too much time on the drudgery of work and too little time and energy on the work that ignites our creativity and sparks joy.

Copilot is integrated into Microsoft 365 in two ways. It works alongside you, embedded in the Microsoft 365 apps you use every day—Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams, and more—to unleash creativity, unlock productivity, and uplevel skills. Today, we’re also announcing an entirely new experience: Business Chat. Business Chat works across the LLM, the Microsoft 365 apps, and your data—your calendar, emails, chats, documents, meetings, and contacts—to do things you’ve never been able to do before. You can give it natural language prompts like “tell my team how we updated the product strategy” and it will generate a status update based on the morning’s meetings, emails, and chat threads. Recent GitHub data shows that among developers who have used GitHub Copilot, 88 percent say they are more productive, 77 percent say the tool helps them spend less time searching for information, and 74 percent say they can focus their efforts on more satisfying work.1

Reinventing productivity for everyone

by Najia houssari - arabnews.com -- Bank du Liban governor attends meeting in Beirut at the Palace of Justice Pope Francis meets caretaker PM Mikati as tensions rise amid currency crisis, political deadlock BEIRUT: The governor of the banque du Liban, Riad Salameh, testified on Thursday before a European judicial delegation at the Palace of Justice in Beirut, as part of investigations into Salameh’s involvement in financial irregularities.

Strict security measures were taken in and around the palace. The army was deployed in the vicinity of the headquarters of the Military Court and the headquarters of the army intelligence near the National Museum, all the way to the Adliya Bridge. Salameh entered and exited through a gate far from the press, via an elevator that leads directly to the floor where the session took place. The European delegation, led by French judge Aude Buresi, who represented France and Luxembourg, did not question Salameh directly, with local judge Charbel Bou Samra questioning the governor as interpreters translated the answers. No Lebanese or foreign lawyer accompanied Salameh to the hearing. According to leaked information, Salameh answered all the questions and appeared comfortable while providing the delegation with explanations. The European delegation is investigating the laundering of some $330 million.

By Jake Perez, Editor at LinkedIn News –– OpenAI’s long-awaited GPT-4 was released on Tuesday. The new iteration of ChatGPT is multimodal …