Samsung Galaxy Edge Launch Imminent; OpenAI Image Generator Now Available to Everyone; Google Messages-Group Chat Upgrade; France Fines Apple For Excessive Rejection of Tracking!
Posted: April 1, 2025 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: AI, chatgpt, openai, Tech, technology Leave a commentThe Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge could be unveiled soon. Androidpolice.com reports that a European retailer, NieuweMobiel, claims the slim profile phone will launch in Europe on April 15th. We don’t know for sure when the phone will actually get into user’s hands. An earlier report from Korea said May. That could still hold…although both Samsung and Apple tend to open preorders on the day devices are shown, with availability coming around a week later. As Samsung is notoriously leaky, we expect the Galaxy S25 Edge to have 256Gigs as base memory, and come in Silver, Black, and Blue. Expected base price should be around $1294. The initial run is only about 40,000 units, so it will probably only be available initially in Korea, parts of Europe, and the US.
ChatGPT’s built-in image generation feature is now available to everyone. According to engadget.com, OpenAI made the feature available to free users over the weekend. What this means is you can generate images from within ChatGPT and without having to switch to OpenAI’s DALL-E generator. Prior to its rollout to the free tier, the tool was only available to Plus, Pro and Team subscribers. Do be aware that for the freebie users, you have a limit of three images a day. One of the tool’s most popular uses is the creation of Ghibli (Jib’ lee)-style images using real-life photos. These are in the style of a Japanese anime studio of the same name. Users simply have to upload the photo they want to use and then instruct ChatGPT in natural language to create a Ghibli-style version of it.
Google Messages is considering an update to group chats that could be a biggie. A major feature will be the ability to “join this group with this unique link or QR code.” So…they are taking a page out of Zoom’s book, it would seem. 9to5google.com notes that the group link and QR code automatically expires after a few days. Also, the USP can be reset at any time. That gives the ability to set a custom group icon, and makes it possible to delete sent messages ‘for everyone.’ No time frame on when or even if the features might drop.
From the ‘You’ve Got to Be Kidding Department,’ France has fined Apple 150 million Euros over ‘excessive’ pop-ups that let users reject tracking! Arstechnica.com reports that France’s Competition Authority says Apple’s requiring what amounts to double consent harms “smaller publishers in particular since, unlike the main vertically integrated platforms, they depend to a large extent on third-party data collection to finance their business.” The agency does note that Apple’s own data collection is obtained with a single pop-up. Ok, duly noted France…but what user in their right mind wants to be tracked…ever? Too bad about companies who rely on income from taking and selling my data. Get a better business model!
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 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: AI, Artificial Intelligence, chatgpt, openai, technology Leave a commentAfter 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.
ChatGPT No Longer Requires Account; Amazon-A Devices Event on February 26th; NBA Testing Smart Basketball; AT&T’s ‘Why Business is Calling’ Feature
Posted: February 6, 2025 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: AI, Artificial Intelligence, chatgpt, openai, technology Leave a commentChatGPT is now making search available without an account, in regions where ChatGPT is available. You won’t have to log in to use ChatGPT’s search engine. Just head over to the website and type in your query. OpenAI says that “The search model is a fine-tuned version of GPT-4o, post-trained using novel synthetic data generation techniques, including distilling outputs from OpenAI o1-preview. ChatGPT search leverages third-party search providers, as well as content provided directly by our partners, to provide the information users are looking for.” The real question is how may people will ditch Google search and start using ChatGPT. Don’t expect Google to take this lying down. The games continue!
Amazon is preparing to bow new hardware. A device event has been scheduled for February 26th in New York City at 10 AM Eastern. In an invite, the online giant didn’t really give any clues about what hardware might be featured. Engadget.com notes that there have been freshened Kindles lately. Perhaps Amazon is ready to unveil the next-gen Alexa and related devices. That would mean new Echo speakers and Echo Buds. Amazon also may reveal what they will be charging for a subscription to the ‘turbocharged’ version of Alexa at the event.
SportIQ, a startup out of Finland, has made a better basketball…a smart basketball! Thenextweb.com says the ball has a sensor in the valve that tracks a player’s shots. Data is first extracted on their form, position, angle, power, and technique. Next, the information is fed to a mobile app for AI analysis. Players then receive direct feedback and advice. The company estimates that regular users improve their shooting accuracy by 12%. This has piqued the interest of the NBA. They have selected SportIQ for Launchpad, the league’s tech incubator. If you are interested in a smart ball to improve your own shooting, they are about $106 on SportIQ’s website. You will need to specify an indoor or outdoor ball.
AT&T is rolling out a new feature for Android customers. Zdnet.com reports that it is called TruContact Branded Call Display. You do have to sign up for it with the carrier. It should help you ensure you don’t miss an important call…and helps you to avoid unwanted calls…what a concept! When an enrolled business places a call, they’ll select the reason. The callers have a range of reasons to pick from including “Customer Service,” “Refill Reminder,” “Appointment Reminder,” “Delivery,” “Patient Callback,” and “Upcoming Appointment.” When your phone rings, you’ll see the business name, number, possibly its logo, and the reason for the call. This sounds actually useful! For now, the feature is only available on Android.
I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.
Open AI Bows 03 Mini; Apple Reports Record Q1; Smart Glasses Help Macular Degeneration Patients; Tire Recycling Startup Gets $ From Costco Co-Founder
Posted: February 3, 2025 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: AI, Artificial Intelligence, llm, openai, technology Leave a commentAfter the big shake up in AI with the introduction of DeepSeek out of China, OpenAI has responded with the release of the o3-mini reasoning model. Arstechnica.com reports that the faster, more accurate STEM-focused model will be free to all users. OpenAI crows that o3-mini ‘advances the boundaries of what small models can achieve. The model has been optimized for STEM functions and shows “particular strength in science, math, and coding” despite lower operating costs and latency than its predecessor o1-mini, OpenAI says.OpenAI says testers reported a 39 percent reduction in “major errors” when using o3-mini, compared to o1-mini, and preferred the o3-mini responses 56 percent of the time. Subscribers to OpenAI’s Plus, Team, or Pro tiers will see o3-mini replace o1-mini in the model options starting today.
Apple continues to bring in big bags of cash. According to 9to5mac.com, the Cupertino giant released first quarter earnings (Apple’s quarters don’t follow the calendar’s quarters) with $124.30 billion in revenue. That compares with $119.58 billion for the same quarter a year ago, up 4%. As usual for the last many years, iPhone brought in the bulk of it with $69.14 billion. Services revenue…subscriptions and the like hauled in $26.34 billion. Wearables, Home, and Accessories amounted to $11.75 billion, while Macs generated $8.99 billion and iPads $8.08 billion.
Having had a couple of family members who had it, I can tell you that macular degeneration sucks. It hits millions of people worldwide, generally folks over 60. The drop outs and vision loss…a lot of it in straight ahead vision….really make things tough. Now, a firm called Soliddd Corp has shown some smart glasses that may be a big help. Bgr.com notes that injections can slow one type of macular degeneration, but there isn’t a cure. Soliddd’s smart glasses fill a gap, though. They use tiny cameras on each temple that capture images of the environment and send them to displays inside the lenses. The displays have 64 micro-lenses, each projecting a miniature image on the healthy peripheral part of the retina. They basically remove the blind spots the disease causes. The glasses were shown at CES, and are expected to be on the market by the end of the year. No pricing has been released as yet. Since they are glasses, and not a medication or an implant, no FDA approval is needed.
A recycling startup called Prism Worldwide which was started by Bob Abramwitz, who did bottled water for Costco, just scored $40 million from Costco’s co-founder Jim Sinegal. Geekwire.com reports that Prism uses patented tech that can turn the used tires into a polymer that can be used in a variety of applications. Right now, only a fraction of the over 300 million used tires in the US are recycled…mainly ground up and used in components of sports fields, asphalt, or back into new tires. They are also burned in power plants…but the dirty secret is that most end up on landfills. Prism’s recycled polymers are being used in rubber car mats, plastic tote containers, racks for shipping goods and other applications. They hope to expand to even more reuse for their polymers from the recycled tires.
I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.
Samsung Already Working on Answer to iPhone ‘Air;’ OpenAI Nearly Ready to Bow ChatGPT Search; Tesla-Big Issue with Self-Driving Computers; TikTok Begs Supreme Court for Lifeline
Posted: December 17, 2024 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: AI, Artificial Intelligence, chatgpt, openai, technology Leave a commentWe are really just still hearing word about the reported iPhone ‘Air,’ but now it turns out Samsung is hard at work on their own slim smartphone that may launch a few months after the rollout of the Galaxy S25 phones…which should hit the market late January or early February. Mashable.com reports that Korea’s ET News spotted the new model in a database. The iPhone is reportedly going to have a 6.5 inch or 6.6 inch display with a much thinner profile than present iPhones. Back in 2014, Samsung did make a much thinner phone called the Galaxy Alpha with a 4.7 inch display. At that time, it wasn’t a great seller. Don’t expect either Samsung or Apple to mess with their great-selling flagship phones for these slim models…they will be additions. Neither tech titan wants to harm their golden goose!
ChatGPT search has been open to paid subscribers since this Fall…now, OpenAI says it won’t be long before anyone can use it, with no Plus or Pro membership needed. According to engadget.com, you will still need to make an OpenAI account…hey, for a freebie service, did you think they wouldn’t want some of your info to re-sell? At any rate, once you’re logged in, and if your query calls for it, ChatGPT will automatically search the web for the latest information to answer your question. You can also force it to search the web, thanks to a handy new icon located right in the prompt bar. OpenAI has also added the option to make ChatGPT Search your browser’s default search engine.
This is not good…brand new Teslas are having self-driving computer failures. It’s happening to enough cars that it is apparently overwhelming their service. Electrek.co says that the problem seems to come from a low voltage battery short-circuiting the computer during a camera calibration process. Tesla is going to try to push out a temporary software fix, but ultimately may have to just replace the computers. Tesla hasn’t issued a service bulletin and has told service downplay the problem as they race to deliver enough cars at the end of the quarter to avoid their first down year in deliveries in 10 years.
The clock is ticking for TikTok to sell the app or face a US ban. Now, ByteDance has asked the US Supreme Court to consider blocking the sell-or-ban law passed earlier this year by January 6. This would give American app stores and internet hosting providers just a few weeks to prepare for January 19, the deadline when the U.S. could force them to block TikTok. Techcrunch.com reports that the TikTok CEO also met with president-elect Trump on Monday, asking for help. Trump told reporters he has a ‘warm spot in my heart for TikTok.’ That’s a 180 degree turn from when he was trying to ban it himself with an executive order when he was in office before.
I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.
Buy a Car from Amazon?; Instagram Bows ‘Trial Reels’; Samsung Galaxy S25-Qi2 Charging; OpenAI Launches Sora Video Generation Publicly
Posted: December 10, 2024 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: AI, Artificial Intelligence, chatgpt, openai, technology Leave a commentThere are everything stores and then there are everything stores. Costco has everything, including caskets. Now, Amazon is adding cars! Yep, you can add a car to your cart…specifically, a Hyundai. Wired.com reports that Amazon had announced that cars could be coming in 2024, and now you can buy one with a click. Amazon has announced that it will ‘roll out’…ok sorry about that…services with other dealerships and manufacturers in 2025. Right now, go to Amazon Autos, and search for the make and model you want, then you can find matching vehicles at nearby dealerships that have them. You can also get an estimate of your trade in value. Amazon says is is working with an ‘independent third party’ to determine trade values. At check out, you can pay in full (like many Hyundai buyers do that) or get help getting financing. Most paperwork can be e-signed on Amazon. After that, just schedule a pickup at the Hyundai dealer. Yeah, sorry…no next day delivery…or shipping at all!
Instagram has launched a new feature for video creators. Now, you can publish a ‘trial reel’ for non-followers to see, and test it out before revealing the video to followers. According to engadget.com, the feature is in direct response to feedback from creators who “feel nervous” about posting videos that may not perform well. Meta said the new feature is meant to make it easier for creators to experiment with different genres and “easily get a gut check on how your content might perform.” After 24 hours, creators can revisit the video and see how the metrics look before releasing it to followers or not.
It looks like Samsung will be adding Qi2 charging to the Galaxy S25 phones. 9to5google.com notes that the standard has been out for a couple years, but only one Android phone has gotten it so far, and that’s the little-known HMD Skyline. Meanwhile, Apple’s iPhones have the faster charging via their magnetic ring connection. There had been a rumor that Google’s Pixel 9 phones would get it, but nope. A reliable Samsung leaker says the Galaxy S25’s will have it though. We won’t have long to wait to see if that turns out to be true…they’re due out in January.
OpenAI has launched Sora video generation publicly. Arstechnica.com reports that Sora Turbo text-to-video generation is available to ChatGPT Plus and Pro subscribers via a dedicated website. The model can create videos of up to 20 seconds long with resolutions up to 1080 pixels from a text or image prompt. Right now, it is available in the US and much of the world, but not in Europe yet. OpenAI is limiting generation of videos of people for the time being to prevent deepfakes. The company notes that there are limitations as it is an early version. The model reportedly struggles with physics simulations and complex actions over extended durations.
I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.
OpenAI Offering GPT-4o Mini-Cheaper, Stripped Down Version; Meta Has Looked at Investing Billions in Eyewear Giant; Amazon Partners with Better Business Bureau Over Fake Review Brokers; Apple Says It Didn’t Use YouTube Subtitles for its AI
Posted: July 18, 2024 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: AI, Artificial Intelligence, chatgpt, openai, technology Leave a commentOpenAI has rolled out a stripped-down version of the ChatGPT-4o large language model. Dubbed GPT-4o Mini, it is claimed to have better accuracy than GPT-4 on tasks, and costs substantially less than GPT-3.5 Turbo. Zdnet.com reports that OpenAI is claiming that the new AI model is “the most cost-efficient small model in the market.” It is worth noting that there aren’t any parameters defining large or small models, so this may just be puffing. At any rate, GPT-4o Mini is priced at 15 cents per million input tokens and 60 cents per million output tokens…vastly more affordable than the previous models and 60% cheaper than GPT-3.5 Turbo. The model only offers text and image support right now, with audio and video expected to be added at a later date. Its training data is current through October 2023.
Meta has looked at investing billions in eyewear giant EssilorLuxottica. According to theverge.com, the blast of cash would be in furtherance of Meta’s partnership with the owner of Ray-Ban and numerous other eyewear brands. The Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses released last year now support multimodal AI to identify what wearers are seeing. They also sold more in a few months than the previous pair did in two years, according to EssilorLuxottica’s CEO.
Amazon is teaming up with the Better Business Bureau to fight fake review brokers…starting off with a lawsuit against a firm called ReviewServiceUSA.com. Geekwire.com says the suit claims that Review Services allegedly facilitates the selling of fake positive reviews for products on Amazon listings or Better Business Bureau profile pages. Amazon said it blocked more than 250 million suspected fake reviews in 2023.
We had reported yesterday that Apple was among some firms that used its OpenELM model to train AI on YouTube Subtitles. Now, 9to5mac.com reports that Apple says that’s not true. Cupertino claims that the subtitles were only used for research purposes, and that the YouTube subtitles were not used to power Apple Intelligence. Apple has said that Apple Intelligence models were trained “on licensed data, including data selected to enhance specific features, as well as publicly available data collected by our web-crawler.” Apple also stated that it has no plans to build new versions of the OpenELM model.
I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.
Google In Talks to Acquire Cloud Security Firm Wiz; AT&T Paid Hackers $370,000; OpenAI Whistleblowers-NDA Blocked Security Complaints; Meta Lifts Restrictions on Trump Facebook & Instagram Accounts
Posted: July 15, 2024 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: AI, Cloud, Google, openai, technology Leave a commentGoogle, through parent Alphabet, may be about to make its largest acquisition ever. According to techcrunch.com, Alphabet is quite a ways along into talks to acquire cloud security company Wiz for $23 billion. Wiz offers an all-in-one approach to cloud security, ingesting data from Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, and other cloud platforms, then scanning it all for security risk factors. Wiz was founded just 4 years ago by 4 former Microsoft employees. No comment on the possible acquisition by either Alphabet or Wiz at the moment.
It has been widely reported since Friday that a hacker stole call records for tens of millions of AT&T customers. Now, according to wired.com, the telco has paid the hackers some $370,000 to delete the data and provide video demonstrating proof of deletion. The hacker, who is part of the notorious ShinyHunters hacking group that has stolen data from a number of victims through unsecured Snowflake cloud storage accounts, tells WIRED that AT&T paid the ransom in May. He provided the address for the cryptocurrency wallet that sent the currency to him, as well as the address that received it. AT&T has not commented so far.
Whistleblowers at OpenAI have fired off a letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission, calling for the Commission to take ‘swift and aggressive steps’ to enforce the rules they say OpenAI has violated. Engadget.com says the employees allege that they were made to sign ‘illegally restrictive’ agreements preventing them from speaking out on the potential harms of the company’s technology. They claim the employee agreements “failed to exempt disclosures of securities violations to the SEC.” The SEC has apparently responded, but no details have been released yet.
Meta has taken restrictions off former President Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts. Engadget.com reports that the former president was banned for a time from Meta platforms after January 6, 2021 and the attack on the Capitol. That suspension was lifted in January 2023, but restrictions remained. Now, those final guardrails are gone, with Trump just subject to the same standard as every other user.
I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.
New Anthropic AI Claims to Best ChatGPT; Amazon Drops Plastic Air Pillows for Recycled Paper in Most Packaging; Apple Intelligence Plans for China Unclear; Cleaning Up Cow Burps to Help Slow Global Warming
Posted: June 20, 2024 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: AI, anthropic, Artificial Intelligence, chatgpt, openai Leave a commentOpenAI rival Anthropic has released its latest generative AI model named Claude 3.5 Sonnet. Anthropic claims that its model is better than OpenAI’s latest ChatGPT or the models of Google and Microsoft. Techcrunch.com reports that while this appears to be true, Claude 3.5 Sonnet just barely beats OpenAI’s GPT-4o on the benchmark test they ran. Anthropic claims their model better understands nuanced and complex instructions, in addition to concepts like humor. Like other AI, however, it is still notoriously unfunny. It really is a sizable jump from the previous Anthropic model, but techcrunch.com says not as big a leap as OpenAI made going from GPT-3 to GPT-4. Most observers think we will see some large improvements in generative AI yet this year…which will hopefully avoid issues like the fellow at a McDonald’s who ordered some nuggets and the chatbot put in over 200 orders of them! Thankfully, there was human intervention!
In a move that could have a substantial effect on better recycling, Amazon has announced that they have eliminated 95% of the inflated plastic pillows used to cushion all the goodies that are shipped to us. According to geekwire.com, Amazon claims this is “largest plastic packaging reduction effort in North America and will avoid nearly 15 billion plastic air pillows annually.” On a personal note, I’m delighted. It’s not only better to use recycled paper for the environment, but no more deflating those stupid plastic pillows to put them in the garbage. As a bonus, my cat loves the paper almost more than the boxes it comes in. It has been estimated by environmental nonprofit Oceana that Amazon produced 208 million pounds of plastic packaging in 2022…enough to circle the globe over 200 times!
It was a big reveal at WWDC as Apple finally previewed its AI called Apple Intelligence. One thing that is still up in the air though is how they will bring the feature to China. As we reported, Apple will use ChatGPT for their most intense AI queries…and ChatGPT is not approved by the government in China. Now, 9to5mac.com says Apple is talking with Baidu, Alibaba, and another AI group to fill the gap. Another question is how Apple will be able to operate its Private Cloud Compute in China. Samsung has reportedly worked with Baidu, but hasn’t been happy with their AI performance. The net is, Apple Intelligence may debut this fall in the US and elsewhere, but for now…it looks like China will have to wait.
As has been known for a while, livestock cause about 14.5% of greenhouse gasses…more than all the cars and trucks in the world combined. While it’s funny to say ‘cow burps,’ it remains a serious problem. Cattle provide us with both meat and milk…and that isn’t something most folks are willing to do without…to say nothing about the livelihood of farmers and stockmen who raise the beasts. Well arstechnica.com is reporting a way that could help reduce methane emissions from livestock by over 30%. It’s a synthetic feed additive that absorbs some of the hydrogen produced in the rumen of the livestock before methanogens can use it. It is already approved in the US and Canada. Other additives like red algae are also being looked at…that one can reduce emissions by up to 90%..BUT…it is toxic, and it’s not clear that alterations to get rid of the toxicity are safe in the long term. Still, the approved additive knocking down gasses by 30% is a really good start. It all makes me feel less guilty about grilling those steaks on the 4th of July!
I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.
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