This is the Daily Tech News for Friday, April 4th, 2025.

We tell you what you need to know, follow up in the context of those stories, and help each other understand.

Today, Andy Beach tells us about the intersection of AI and advertising today.

And more from your emails.

All right, I'm Jason Howell.

And I'm point to it now.

Let's start with what you need to know with the big story.

Today is Microsoft's 50th birthday.

I forgot to get a cake.

Oh, happy birthday, Microsoft.

On April 4th, 1975, Bill Gates and Paul Allen began the company as a venture to develop

software for the Altair 8800.

That was the creation of Microsoft Basic.

The company name was meant to imply a focus on micro processors.

That's the micro part.

And software, that's the soft part, as you can imagine.

Microsoft had a major breakthrough with MS DOS in the early 80s,

with thousands of programs depended upon it throughout the decade. That was, of course, followed

by the historic launch of Windows in 1995. That was a major shift from the command line interface

to a graphical user interface that made the computing experience much more widely

accessible.

And I mean, we see the impacts of that every single day nowadays.

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