Win 11 Updates Inadvertently Delete Copilot; Apple Wanted iPhone 17 Air to be Portless; Google-New AI Can Remove Watermarks; Ultralight EVs Revealed by Startup Longbow

Posted: March 18, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment

As software gets more and more complex, and companies are turning attention to their AI models, some things can slip through the cracks. That is apparently true with this month’s Windows 11 update. Arstechnica.com reports that the update removes the Copilot app from some Windows 11 PCs…unpinning it from the task bar. Microsoft says it is “working on a resolution to address the issue” but that users who want to get Copilot back can reinstall the app from the Microsoft Store and re-pin it to the taskbar, the same process you use to install Copilot on PCs where it has been removed. 

More keeps slipping out about the upcoming slimmer iPhone model…dubbed the iPhone Air by most. Here’s an interesting item that engadget.com picked up from Mark Gurman. Apple apparently really wanted to dump the USB-C port and make the thin iPhone Apples first totally portless phone. Apparently, they ran into tough sledding with this when EU regulators protested. Apple hasn’t totally given up…they may try to roll out a portliness iPhone later on if the iPhone 17 Air is successful. The Air is reportedly 2 mm thinner than other iPhones. Mark Gurman says it should be priced at about $900…putting it between the entry level iPhone 17 and the pricier Pro models. 

There has been plenty written already…to say nothing of plenty of angst about AI duplicating voices. Now, gizmodo.com notes that Google’s new AI model can remove watermarks from images. The version is Gemini Flash 2.0. It is only in the experimental phase so far, but users have found it easily removes the watermarks from copyrighted images. There are already a number of other AI powered apps that can remove objects and fill gaps in images…even including Apple Intelligence with their ‘Clean Up’ feature. Companies have worked to keep from removing watermarks…nicknamed ‘nerfed,’ which is to say they have significant restrictions in place to avoid legal trouble. OpenAI’s Dall-E image model won’t generate images of copyrighted characters, for example…because a certain House of Mouse is very protective of its characters and they have a robust legal department. Google will no doubt try to rectify the issue before releasing Gemini Flash 2.0 generally, but the horse may be out of the barn on this…much like with voices. 

EV’s may be a big part of the wave of the future in vehicles, but they are for the most part pretty hefty. Now, a startup in Britain has come out of stealth, and introduced plans for two lightweight EV’s. The company is called Longbow, and it is founded by ex-Tesla, Lucid, and Polestar execs…so no strangers to getting an EV line off the ground. Thenextweb.com reports that the cars are being touted as ‘spiritual successors’ to the iconic Lotus and Jaguar E-Type. The first one out of the blocks is called the Speedster, a sports car that will weigh only 1984 lbs and do zero to 62 in 3.5 seconds! It will have a range of 275 miles and starts at $110,404. First customer deliveries are set for 2026. Longbow also plans a Roadster. That vehicle will run $84,425 and will weigh in at 2193 lbs and will do zero to 62 in 3.6 seconds. Note that the average EV today weighs in at some 4400 lbs, so these are just about half that! Longbow plans to use off the shelf parts, even down to the electric motor, so no exotic hand made parts that will cost a fortune to replace. It is good to recall that the original Tesla was a cool little roadster…and these days, almost no one is making anything like that. 

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

Irish Startup Unveils World’s First Silicon-Based Quantum Computer; Apple to Add Live Translation to AirPods; AI Search Engines-Alarming Rate of Wrong Answers; Bluesky Proposes Letting Users Allow AI Training or Not on Posts

Posted: March 17, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

We’ve had a couple of big quantum computing stories lately, including the one about Microsoft’s ground-breaking new quantum chip. Now, and Irish startup called Equal1 has showed off the world’s first quantum computer that runs on a hybrid quantum-classical silicon chip. Thenextweb.com reports that the chip is called the Bell-1, after quantum physicist John Stewart Bell. The computer weighs a hefty 441 pounds, but it does plug into a regular electrical outlet. It is designed to simply slot into high-performance data centers right beside standard servers! The machine marries classical transistors for normal computing tasks with quantum transistors for qubits…all on a single silicon-based chip. The computer is much smaller than most quantum computers, due in large part to its closed-cycle cryocooler that keeps the machine at -272 Celsius without massive external refrigeration. It only does 6 qubits…unlike Google’s Willow Chip that can do 105…but it is available to buy right now…on St. Patrick’s Day…no word on how much ‘green’ you will need to bring one home!

In yet another bid to get you to never take your AirPods out except to recharge, Apple is apparently going to add live translation to them in a software update later this year. According to engadget.com, a Bloomberg story says the feature would work similarly to the translation feature on Pixel Buds, but with the Apple translation, you wouldn’t have to ask Siri first as you do with Google Assistant. The AirPods will automatically detect something besides your native language and start converting it to the language you speak and understand. This would be the 2nd big feature drop since last year when Apple added Hearing Health features to AirPods Pro. It is still being rumored that they will add heart rate tracking too…which the Beats Powerbeats Pro 2 buds already have. 

A study by the Columbia Journalism Review’s Tow Center for Digital Journalism has found that AI search engines give incorrect answers a shocking 60% of the time! Arstechnica.com notes that ChatGPT Search incorrectly identified 67% of articles queried. Perplexity was much better giving wrong answers 37% of the time. Grok 3, Elon Musk’s generative AI was wrong an astonishing 94% of the time. The researchers fed direct excepts from actual news articles to the AI models for the test, and ran 1600 queries with 8 different generative search tools. 

An interesting idea dropped by Bluesky CEO Jay Graber at South by Southwest. Techcrunch.com reports that he mentioned that Bluesky is looking at letting users have the option of having their posts and data scraped for generative AI training and public archiving…or they can opt not to do so. This did get a bit of an uproar from users who think one of the best features of Bluesky is not sharing of info, but as Graber pointed out…everything on the website is public…just like a website is public.  Under the proposal, users of the Bluesky app, or other apps that use the underlying AT Protocol, could go into their settings and allow or disallow the usage of their Bluesky data across four categories: generative AI, protocol bridging (i.e., connecting different social ecosystems), bulk datasets, and web archiving (such as the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine).

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

Meta Platforms to Test ‘Community Notes’; Google Gemini Can Personalize Answers Based on Your Search History; Euro Sat Firms Compete to Replace Starlink in Ukraine; EPA Dumping Higher Fuel Economy Regs

Posted: March 13, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

Starting in just a few days, on March 18th, Meta platforms Facebook, Instagram, and Threads will begin testing Community Notes. According to engadget.com, notes won’t appear publicly on posts right away. The company wants to make sure the writing and rating system is working as intended before the notes start showing up for everyone. If this Community Notes bit sounds familiar, that’s because it is a pretty clear ripoff from X…which Meta even admits. They are saying it will bring extra context to posts that could use more explanation, clarity or perhaps a correction. In fact, Meta will initially base its ratings system on X’s open-source algorithm. “This will allow us to build on what X has created and improve it for our own platforms over time,” the company said in its announcement. Considering the way Community Notes has sometimes worked on X, I would expect extra chaos…as some contributors post bs alleged ‘clarifications’ that slant things towards their political views. Hey, they are free platforms…remember always that YOU are the product!

Google Gemini will now be able to personalize answers based on your search history. Of all the things Google has going that sets it apart from every other platform, your search history has to top the list. Now, theverge.com reports that ‘the Google’ will be using this muscle to give you highly personalized responses.If you activate the personalization, Gemini will automatically analyze your query to see if referring to your search history can ‘enhance’ its response. Gemini will also connect in the future to your YouTube and Google Photos, enabling it to really drill down to personalize responses. By the way, you can disconnect your search history from Gemini at any time, and Google is providing a ‘clear banner’ with a link to do so. 

Ukraine may not have to worry about on-again, off-again access to Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites for info they need in fighting off the Russians. European Union governments are in talks with 4 different satellite companies about providing service to Ukraine. Thenextweb.com says European leaders are increasingly concerned about relying on Starlink — fears stoked by a Reuters report that US officials had threatened to cut off the system in Ukraine if the country didn’t meet their demands on sharing its mineral wealth. It should be noted that Musk himself said this wasn’t the case. Nonetheless, the UK’s Inmarsat, Luxembourg’s SES, and Spain’s Hisdesat — told the Financial Times they were also discussing with governments and EU institutions about how to provide back-up connectivity to Ukraine. 

The Trump administration’s EPA is wasting no time in killing off the higher fuel economy requirements that were set to go into effect in 2026 through 2032. According to arstechnica.com, this takes the gas off the pressure on carmakers to sell more electric vehicles. The corporate average fuel economy target now drops from 54.5 mpg to 40.4 mpg. 

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

Microsoft & Amazon Quantum-Race to Protect Encryption; Russia ‘Grooms’ Public AI Models With Propaganda; Threads Tests ‘Interests’ in Profiles; Most AI Voice Cloning Tools-Little Protection Against Stealing Voices

Posted: March 10, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

Quantum computing is pretty exciting…it will allow humankind to do things never before possible, even with banks of supercomputers churning away for years. We just reported recently about Microsoft’s new Majorana 1 processor chip, and Amazon and Google have also made advancements. We may see quantum computing in daily use in years not decades, now. That’s all cool…what is scary is that a quantum computer can break encryption that would take years for a regular supercomputer in seconds. Geekwire.com reports that there is essentially a parallel race on the develop ways to implement newer, more powerful encryption created by quantum computing that can’t be easily broken, and get that encryption out to companies…and particularly financial institutions before quantum computing is out in the wild and available to bad guys. Let’s hope that the so-called ‘DOGE’ that Elon Musk is using to wholesale chop government agencies doesn’t hit the National Institute of Standards and their Post-Quantum Cryptography Project! It will take years to deploy quantum created encryption to businesses and the public.

There are real plusses on AI models that are open, but there is a dangerous down side to them, too. One is that the Russians are working overtime to feed disinformation and Russian-slanted propaganda to them. According to gizmodo.com, picking up on a NewsGuard report, a propaganda network called Pravda produced more than 3.6 million articles in 2024 alone, which it found are now incorporated into the 10 largest AI models, including ChatGPT, xAI’s Grok, and Microsoft Copilot. It should be noted that the ‘Pravda’ network is not connected with the infamous Russian newspaper that was one of the two main propaganda arms of the Soviet Communist Party. It certainly picks up where that paper can go to disseminate propaganda, though. NewsGuard discovered in their audit that chatbots operated by the 10 largest AI companies collectively repeated false Russian Disinformation narratives 33.55% of the time, gave a non-response 18.22% of the time, and a debunk 48.22% of the time. NewsGuard refers to this as ‘AI grooming.’ By spinning up websites under seemingly legitimate-looking websites, the models are ingesting and regurgitating information they do not understand is propaganda. Couple this with ‘hallucinations,’ from AI and you can see the wisdom of always double checking what an AI model produces for you. Hey, you have the time…the AI generates its product in seconds!

Threads is test-driving adding ‘interests’ to profiles, in order to connect users and drive more engagement. This is no-doubt in response to Bluesky’s having a ‘description’ right under a user profile that allows people to say a little about themselves, and give their interests as well as disinterests! TechCrunch.com says Threads hopes to pick up more disgruntled X users. Along with custom feeds, they also hope to slow the fast growth of Bluesky. The Bluesky system works…I have 2200 followers there just since the election, and only 334 on Threads! Some of this is due to a number of people not wanting to use a Meta platform, but I think a lot of it is that you can quickly vet a request on Bluesky, and accept if their interests are similar, or block them if…for example…they appear to be a troll, or they just have pics showing off their body and list an Only Fans account.

There are a number of tools or apps out in the wild that do an amazing job of cloning a voice with only a few seconds of sampling of the actual voice. For those of us in the business and for famous actors, this is a huge issue that was part of the big SAG-AFTRA strike last year. But more than that, it can also mean scams, fraud, and the like for just normal folks going about life. Zdnet.com reports that Consumer Reports checked out 6 of the most widely known platforms…Descript, ElevenLans, Lovo, PlayHT, Resemble AI, and Speechify. Their tests found that four of the six…namely ElevenLabs, Speechify, PlayHT, and Lovo…didn’t have the technical ability to prevent cloning someone’s voice without their knowledge, or to limit the AI cloning to only the user’s voice. The so-called protection consisted of checkboxes and a consent statement. One of them…Descript…had the user read and record the consent statement and used that audio to create the clone. For non-professionals, the most common scam is one you have no doubt heard of. It  involves cloning the voice of a family member and then using that recording to contact a loved one to request that money be sent to help them out of a dire situation. Because the victim thinks they are hearing the voice of a family member in distress, they are more likely to send whatever funds are necessary without questioning the situation. Again, if you get a call from a relative needing money right now, don’t bite. Use another means to try to contact like email, text, etc…and then you can utilize knowledge that only you or that family member would have to verify. 

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

Apple, Google, Meta-Share More Data With US Gov Than Ever; Major Brit Investigation into Online Child Protection; Google Gemini-Now Query Via Videos & Your Screen; Apple Intelligence Breakthroughs—Maybe 2027

Posted: March 3, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

We should all know by now that nearly everything concerning us that makes it online is shared. Now, thenextweb.com reports that Swiss software company Proton claims that Apple, Google, and Meta comply with between 80-90% of US government data requests. The trio has handed over info on 3.1 million accounts the last 10 years. Requests by government officials over that period for data on individuals has jumped by over 600%! Meta’s data sharing is up 675%, Apple’s 621%, and Google’s 530%. Data requests were up in Germany, France, and the UK, but were vastly higher in the US. Proton, the Swiss firm, markets themselves as a privacy-first alternative to others with their ProtonMail, ProtonVPN, and ProtonDrive. Proton itself saw data requests go up amazingly…they had 13 in 2017, and by 2024 got 6,378 requests! In their case though, Swiss privacy protections….like Swiss bank accounts…are kept pretty tight, so most of the requests were denied by Proton. 

The Information Commissioner’s Office in the United Kingdom has announced a ‘major investigation’ into the child protection measures of three popular apps: TikTok, Reddit, and Imgur. According to 9to5mac.com, the agency is looking at both age verification processes and at whether the apps break the law in the way they use the personal data of children. Last year, the ICO had required a number of other apps to improve protections for kids under 18. X just stopped serving ads to users under 18 and took away the ability for youngsters to opt in to geolocation sharing. Send, Dailymotion, and Viber made commitments to drop geolocation info and cut personally targeted ads. TikTok said in a statement that it operates under  “strict and comprehensive measures that protect the privacy and safety of teens”. Please try not to laugh. Reddit said to BBC via a spokesperson that 95% of its users are adults, but that they “have plans to roll out changes this year that address updates to UK regulations around age assurance”.

Google is adding a couple features to Gemini. Now you will be able to ask it questions using video and content on your screen in real time. Google showed off the features at Mobile World Congress 2025 in Barcelona. Techcrunch.com notes that Google had teased these features at Google I/O last year. They say the features will roll out to Gemini Advanced users on the Google One AI Premium plan on Android later this month. 

 Apple Intelligence had a major feature drop planned for early April that has now been delayed to May. On top of that, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman is now saying in his latest Power On newsletter that it looks like it will be 2 more years before Apple Intelligence gets to where ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and Microsoft Copilot are right now. Apple is being dinged for having lost the AI race. I think it is important to note how many times Apple has come from way behind and eaten the competition’s lunch. Remember the Microsoft Zune? How about the Blackberry? Apple made those eat their dust when they finally geared up. Also…having only messed with the likes of ChatGPT a little…it seems to take a lot of cleaning up after it to get something actually useable. There are still too many ‘hallucinations,’ in other words, it just makes crap up. I expect when Apple’s AI is really ready, it will be a whole lot more accurate. It had better be!

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

Apple to Invest $500 Billion in US Due to Tariffs; Microsoft Quietly Cancelling Data Center Leases; Grok 3 Briefly Censored Disparagement of Musk and Trump; Gmail to Drop SMS Codes for QR Codes

Posted: February 24, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , | Leave a comment

Apple has announced that it plans to invest over $500 billion in the US the next 4 years. Arstechnica.com reports that Apple claims this is the ‘largest ever’ spending commitment in the US, and that if supports a ‘wide range of initiatives,’ focused on artificial intelligence, chip manufacturing, advanced research and development, and worker training. About 20,000 jobs will be created over those four years…of which the vast majority will be focused on R&D, silicon engineering, software development, and AI and machine learning.” Most analysts see the initiative as a way for Apple to avoid the heavy tariffs the Trump administration is putting on China and other nations.

Something interesting is going on at Microsoft. According to gizmodo.com, on Friday, TD Cowen noticed that the partner to OpenAI seemed to be cancelling data center leases. Reportedly, Redmond felt it had an ‘oversupply problem.’ TD Cowen published its quick take on February 21 and said its research into Microsoft’s data center business had turned up something interesting. “Our channel checks indicate that [Microsoft] has 1) cancelled leases in the U.S. totalling ‘a couple of hundreds [megawatts]’ with at least two private data center operators, 2) has pulled back on the conversion of [statements of qualification] to leases, and 3) has re-allocated a considerable portion of its international spend to the U.S.” Microsoft is still promising to spend around $80 billion on US data centers as of this past January. 

Mr Totally Open With No Censorship Elon Musk apparently doesn’t mean it when it comes to himself…or Donald Trump. Techcrunch.com notes that Grok 3, the latest flagship large language model from xAI, when it was introduced in a live stream last Monday, was presented as a ‘maximally truth seeking AI’ by Musk. Well, maybe not so much. Grok 3 was briefly censoring unflattering facts about President Donald Trump — and Musk himself. Over the weekend, users on social media reported that, asked “Who is the biggest misinformation spreader?” with the “Think” setting enabled, Grok 3 noted in its “chain of thought” that it was explicitly instructed not to mention Donald Trump or Elon Musk. The chain of thought is the “reasoning” process the model uses to arrive at an answer to a question. By Sunday morning, the Grok 3 model was again allowing mentions of both Musk and Trump in the misinformation category. 

Google is planing to ditch SMS codes for two factor identification and start using QR Codes. Androidauthority.com reports that Google sees SMS codes as being Phishable, and at any rate, people might not always have access to the device where the codes are sent. In addition, they rely on the carrier’s security practices. No hard dates yet, but it will be simple enough to use…you will just scan the QR code with your camera app.

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

Microsoft’s Big Quantum Breakthrough; Google Pulls Gemini from Main iOS Search App; AI’s Fake Cases-Getting Lawyers Fired; Another New Chip Coming from Apple

Posted: February 20, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

In what may turn out to be a much bigger deal than any AI, Microsoft has announced a huge breakthrough in quantum 

computing. Microsoft says it has developed a new quantum processor based on a novel state of matter, giving it a clear path to achieve quantum computing’s long-term promise of solving some of the world’s most difficult problems. “We believe this breakthrough will allow us to create a truly meaningful quantum computer not in decades, as some have predicted, but in years,” wrote Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella in a LinkedIn post about the news. Redmond has been working on quantum computing for almost 20 years…in fact, that program is the longest-running R&D program in the company. Microsoft’s work produces much more accurate quantum computing than others. They have placed eight topological qubits on a chip dubbed Majorana 1, after the Italian physicist who proposed the particles back in 1937!

Google has pulled Gemini from its main search app on iOS. According to TechCrunch.com, the aim is to get users to download the standalone Gemini app instead, which would allow Google to more directly compete with other consumer-facing AI chatbots like ChatGPT, Claude, or Perplexity. However, the change could also risk reducing Gemini’s reach as Google’s app is already used by millions, and many are not motivated enough to download other new mobile applications. A lot of people aren’t excited about having to use the additional app, but one benefit is that you can have live conversations with the AI assistant via Gemini Live. 

Last year, there was a flap in legal circles as an attorney used AI to write a brief he submitted to the court, and the artificial intelligence came up with ‘artificial cases’ to support his position. The court and opposing counsel noticed the fake cases, and he was fined and dressed down. Arstechnica.com notes that now we have a situation with Morgan and Morgan, which bills itself as ‘America’s largest injury law firm.’ Morgan was involved in a suit against Walmart over a claimed defective hoverboard toy…which caused a house fire. The lead attorney from Morgan, Rudwin Ayala, submitted a filing, and Walmart’s attorneys couldn’t find any trace of eight cases cited in it…except on ChatGPT! The attorney was removed from the case, and Morgan ended up paying Walmart’s attorneys for wasted time chasing down the fake cases. Some attorneys have been fired over this sort of use of AI. I recently took a couple of continuing legal education courses, and they stressed quite strongly that you have to look up any cases AI presents in a legal filing you intend to use…and make damned sure they are actual cases, and not some imagined ones from ChatGPT, Claude, or other AI models!

Yesterday, along with the iPhone 16e, Apple bowed its new C1 modem chip…making the entry-level iPhone the first to run on Apple’s in-house designed modem. Now, 9to5 mac.com reports that analyst Ming-Chi Kuo is predicting another new Cupertino-designed chip, and he says it will be in all the new iPhone 17 models. Apparently, besides their C-1 modem, which is allowing Apple to ditch Qualcomm, Apple has been working on their own Wi-Fi chip to replace the Broadcom ones the present iPhones use. Even though all the new iPhones will have this new Apple Wi-Fi chip, only the so-called ‘slim’ iPhone 17 will use the C-1 modem that just debuted in the iPhone 16e. Analyst Kuo says the Apple Wi-Fi chip should ‘enhance connectivity across Apple devices.’ He didn’t clarify if that just meant from one Apple device to another, or also to your router and other devices. It looks like within a year or 2, Apple will be running iPhones on nearly entirely their own silicon…with the exception of memory chips. 

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

Newest Member-Apple Family Tomorrow; AI Can Replicate Itself-With Help; Phone By Google Call History Filters; Meta Announces 1st Generative AI Developers Conference 

Posted: February 18, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

Apple plans to introduce its ‘newest member of the family’ tomorrow. That’s the tease from CEO Tim Cook. Engadget.com reports that we don’t really know if this is just the rollout of the iPhone SE…which was delayed, or new AirTags, or possibly the rumored new home device. Whatever it is, we’ll have a recap about it all tomorrow right here. 

In an absolutely nerve-fraying study from China, they have been able to reach a so-called ‘red line’ with artificial intelligence. According to bgr.com, some Chinese scientists were able to get AI to replicate itself. The researchers ran 10 trials, at the end of which two AI models were able to create separate and functioning replicas in 50% and 90% of cases. Bear in mind that the researchers gave the AI what they call an ‘Agent scaffolding, comprising tools, system prompts, and a thinking model that enabled the LLM to interact with the operating system.’ Without all the assistance, they note that the AI models would not have been able to replicate. At least for now, you can’t just instruct AI to reproduce itself. An international statement about AI safety was signed by many countries last week…but the US, UK, and China refused to sign. 

Google has added some call history filters to the beta of Android. 9to5google.com notes that these should be pretty handy. You can now select from all, missed, contacts, non-spam, spam. What do you bet when it is fully released, most people will leave the filter in non-spam all the time! 

Meta has announced LlamaCon, its first generative AI dev conference. Techcrunch.com reports that the event is scheduled for April 29th. The LlamaCon moniker comes from Meta’s Llama family of generative AI models. Meta said that it plans to share “the latest on [its] open source AI developments to help developers […] build amazing apps and products.” Meta several years ago embraced an “open” approach to developing AI technologies in a bid to grow an ecosystem of apps and platforms. They were caught off guard when the Chinese released their open AI model that reportedly could outperform the next version of Llama…expected to be released soon. Meta is budgeting up to $80 billion on projects revolving around AI this year. 

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

Google Announces Date for I/O; iPhone Owners Back to Replacing Phones Faster; Thomson Reuters Wins 1st Major US AI Copyright Case; Anthropic CEO Warns of Race To Understand AI

Posted: February 12, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

The next Google I/O will be coming up on May 20th and 21st at Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View. 9to5google.com reports that the keynote will be as usual by CEO Sundar Pichai, and it starts at 10 am Pacific time. The event will be streamed both days. We should see a lot of information and no shortage of hype about Gemini and other AI, in addition to new details about Android 16. In the announcement, Google highlights ‘Android, AI, Web, Cloud, and more.’ Online registration starts today…and it’s free. 

In a report at least I didn’t see coming…after years of holding on to iPhones longer, Apple users have swung back to upgrading more often. According to Consumer Intelligence Research Partners, more iPhone users retired their phones in a shorter period of time than had been the trend before. In December 2024 compared to 2023, 36% of buyers had owned their prior iPhones for 2 years or less…that’s up 31%. Fewer users kept their phones for 3 years or longer. CIRP didn’t research the ‘why,’ but it could be due to the hype around AI, or perhaps due to more aggressive carrier pricing. It will be interesting to see if this is really a trend back to more frequently trading up, or just a one-time bump.

Media and tech giant Thomson Reuters has won the first major AI copyright case in the US. Wired.com says the suit was against legal AI startup Ross Intelligence. Thomson Reuters claimed the AI firm reproduced materials from its legal research firm WestLaw. Today, a judge ruled in Thomson Reuters’ favor, finding that the company’s copyright was indeed infringed by Ross Intelligence’s actions. Legal publication houses are very aggressive about protecting their intellectual property, but this is a first as we move to more and more AI. The judge found in favor of Thomson Reuters on the issue of fair use. The fair use doctrine is a key component of how AI companies are seeking to defend themselves against claims that they used copyrighted materials illegally. The idea underpinning fair use is that sometimes it’s legally permissible to use copyrighted works without permission—for example, to create parody works, or in noncommercial research or news production. The court found that Ross failed the 4 pronged test for fair use…the reason behind the work, the nature of the work (whether it’s poetry, nonfiction, private letters, et cetera), the amount of copyrighted work used, and how the use impacts the market value of the original. 

Anthropic’s CEO has warned of the ‘race’ to understand AI as it becomes more powerful. Techcrunch.com reports that Dario Amodei…who has been a neuroscientist…is concerned that our understanding might not keep up with our ability to build things. He said he wasn’t just harping about safety issues, but emphasizing that failing to keep up with understanding what we are building with AI might cause us to lose great opportunities. Anthropic makes the Claude AI product…which some people prefer over OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google Gemini.

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

Altman-OpenAI Not for Sale To Musk or Others; Apple & Google Take Down Malicious Mobile Apps; Meta Supposedly Used 82TB in Stolen Books for AI Training; Ukraine Makes Non-GPS Drones to Evade Russian Jamming

Posted: February 11, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

After Elon Musk and some partners made an unsolicited bid to buy OpenAI yesterday for some $97.4 billion, OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman flatly and publicly rejected the offer. Arstechnica.com reports that the offer was backed by Musk’s company xAI, with several investor buddies of Musk involved…almost all of whom have money in Tesla or SpaceX. Musk has had a grudge against Altman since 2015, when both partnered with others to start OpenAI as a non-profit. Musk cut ties with the company in 2018….then saw OpenAI’s value soar in 2022 and 2023. His attempt to buy OpenAI is a pretty good indicator that even Elon knows his own AI…called Grok…sucks compared to ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Anthropic’s Claude, and even Apple’s AI.

Apple and Google have removed up to 20 apps from their app stores after security researchers found that the apps were carrying data-stealing software for nearly a year. According to techcrunch.com, the researchers at Kaspersky said the malware, called SparkCat, had been active since March 2024. Originally, they found the malware in a food delivery app used in UAE and Indonesia, but then spotted it in 19 other unrelated apps. Apparently the apps were cumulatively downloaded some 242,000 times just on Google’s Play Store. Apparently, the malware scanned image galleries for keywords to grab phrases for crypto wallets. Using the recovery phrases, they could gain control over a victim’s wallet and steal the money. 

ChatGPT and also Gemini from Google have been hit with copyright suits from content owners that didn’t approve of…or get paid for…the training of the large language models on their material. Now, Meta has joined the party, Bgr.com says a class action has hit Meta over its alleged downloading of 82 TB of pirated books from illegal sources to train its AI. Meta had previously admitted that it torrented tens of millions of pirated books. Some documents from the lawsuits have surfaced on X…including comments from Meta employees involved in the process who mused on the type of illegal data collection that Meta was doing. Like OpenAI and Google, Meta can probably remove the copyrighted material at this point now that the large language models are pretty well trained. It remains to be seen if and how much copyright owners will be compensated. 

Ukraine has had an advanced tech industry for years. Now, a company there has come up with drones that don’t rely on GPS for navigation. Thenextweb.com reports that Sine.Engineering has designed the drones to evade Russia’s electronic warfare, which has made a hash of GPS signals. The new drones are basically based on time-of-flight methods…something that way predates GPS. The drone systems measure the time it takes a signal to get from a transmitter to a target. The calculations are done in a communication module that is smaller than a playing card. The Drone shares signals with a ground stations and two beacons. It can run on multiple bandwidths, too. As with a lot of Ukraine’s weapons systems, they have figured out how to build the drones relatively cheaply too. 

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

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →