Google Watermarks for AI Images; Apple Experiments With 3D Printing for Apple Watches; Pixel 8 Will Get More OS Updates; Air Force Looks to Build Fleet of AI-Controlled Drones

Before ChatGPT and all the rest, there was already a problem with deepfakes, which keep getting better all the time. Now, the Google DeepMind team is releasing a new tool. It’s called SynthID, and it’s designed to essentially watermark an AI-generated image in a way that is imperceptible to the human eye but easily caught by a dedicated AI detection tool. The watermark is embedded in the pixels of the image, but it doesn’t alter the image itself in any noticeable way. “It doesn’t change the image, the quality of the image, or the experience of it. It’s robust to various transformations — cropping, resizing, all of the things that you might do to try and get around normal, traditional, simple watermarks.” Google’s team says they will keep working on it to stay a step ahead of deepfake improvements. 

Apple is using 3D printers to build the chassis for some upcoming Apple Watch 9 models. That’s the word from Mark Gurman of Bloomberg. The 3D building process uses less material than is needed for CNC manufacturing, and it is faster to boot. Apple is able to print a device’s outline at close to its actual shape using a powdered substance. A second process uses heat and pressure to squeeze the material into a substance that feels like steel, and it is then refined with milling. Apple may start 3D printing titanium devices as soon as next year…like the Watch Ultra.

Google is finally going to cave and push out more OS updates to the Pixel phones starting with the Pixel 8. 9to5google.com notes that they have only been promising 3 years of updates…talk about planned obsolescence! Samsung started offering 4 years last year. Apple still supports 2015 phone models…that’s 8 years of support for security updates! Reports say that Google will shoot for matching or nearly matching Apple, and doing 7-8 years, which will give them a selling point over Samsung. I trade phones every 2-3 years, but a lot of people like to hold on to theirs for longer….both for expense reasons and because they just like their older phone and don’t see the need for the latest zoomy features. A gold star for Google…on this, anyway!

The Pentagon has announced a program to build out a fleet of AI Controlled drones. Engadget.com reports that they will be based on the EQ-58A Valkyrie unscrewed aircraft. The Air Force pays $143 million and $75 million each for the F-22 and F-35 fighters, but the Valkyrie drones cost a comparatively cheap $3 million each. The Air Force is asking for $6 billion to build a fleet of the AI-powered drones. The Pentagon was quoted as saying “Any Air Force drone [will be] designed to allow commanders and operators to exercise appropriate levels of human judgment over the use of force.” Buckle up, here we go! How long until an army of robots on the ground and these AI drones in the air fighting wars without humans directly involved? 

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.