Author: Robin Edgar

Organisational Structures | Technology and Science | Military, IT and Lifestyle consultancy | Social, Broadcast & Cross Media | Flying aircraft

Microsoft’s next-gen Bing uses a ‘much more powerful’ language model – Prometheus – than ChatGPT, previews started

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Microsoft’s oft-forgotten search engine is about to get a new lease on life. As expected, the tech giant announced on Tuesday that it is partnering with OpenAI to enhance Bing with the company’s AI technology. However, Microsoft also had a surprise up its sleeve: the next release of Bing will feature a new next-generation large Read more about Microsoft’s next-gen Bing uses a ‘much more powerful’ language model – Prometheus – than ChatGPT, previews started[…]

Microsoft will wipe free Teams business users’ data if they don’t upgrade to a paid tier

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Now that Microsoft has launched its Teams Premium service, it’s shaking up the free offering for work — and not everyone will be happy. The company is retiring the existing Teams Free version for small business in favor of the similarly-titled Teams (free) on April 12th, and legacy data won’t carry over. Your office will Read more about Microsoft will wipe free Teams business users’ data if they don’t upgrade to a paid tier[…]

Microsoft Edge puts an AI ‘copilot’, Prometheus, in your browser

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Microsoft’s use of AI on the web will extend beyond smarter Bing searches. The company is updating its Edge browser with an “AI-powered copilot” that assists with everyday tasks. Integration with the new Bing can help you get the key takeaways from a document, compare content and even draft posts (such as on LinkedIn) with Read more about Microsoft Edge puts an AI ‘copilot’, Prometheus, in your browser[…]

Outlook, Teams, Calendar down for >5 hours

Posted on by Robin Edgar

[…] According to outage tracker DownDetector, reports began coming in of users facing a 500 error and being unable to send, receive or search email through Outlook.com from about 4am UTC, peaking at 8 and 9am as Europeans reached their desks. Microsoft confirmed the outage on its service health website, saying: “We’re applying targeted mitigations Read more about Outlook, Teams, Calendar down for >5 hours[…]

GitHub CEO: EU AI Act shouldn’t apply to open source devs

Posted on by Robin Edgar

The EU’s upcoming artificial intelligence legislation will define how the world regulates AI, warned GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke, who thinks open source developers should be exempted from the AI Act. Speaking at the Open Source Policy Summit in Brussels (at 04:05:00), the day before FOSDEM in the Belgian city, Dohmke noted that open source powers Read more about GitHub CEO: EU AI Act shouldn’t apply to open source devs[…]

Google unleashes fightback to ChatGPT: Bard

Posted on by Robin Edgar

[…] “Two years ago we unveiled next-generation language and conversation capabilities powered by our Language Model for Dialogue Applications (or LaMDA for short),” CEO Sundar Pichai said in a blog post. “We’ve been working on an experimental conversational AI service, powered by LaMDA, that we’re calling Bard.” Pichai said Bard processes information from the internet Read more about Google unleashes fightback to ChatGPT: Bard[…]

China’s Baidu reveals its own bilingual generative AI chat / imagebot with 85 billion more parameters than ChatGPT (which has 175b)

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Chinese web giant Baidu, which has “AI” in its name and has made AI the focus of its hyperscale cloud, has revealed it will launch a generative AI chatbot later this year. Chinese media reported the launch and Baidu confirmed it to The Register. “The company plans to complete internal testing in March before making Read more about China’s Baidu reveals its own bilingual generative AI chat / imagebot with 85 billion more parameters than ChatGPT (which has 175b)[…]

Amazing “Jailbreak” Bypasses ChatGPT’s Ethics Safeguards

Posted on by Robin Edgar

OpenAI has been scrambling to enact new rules that prevent its wildly popular ChatGPT from generating text from being generally horrible — like by promoting things that are unethical, illegal, or just plain controversial. Back in the day, you could ask the red-hot AI system to whip up instructions on everything from shoplifting to committing Read more about Amazing “Jailbreak” Bypasses ChatGPT’s Ethics Safeguards[…]

Researchers can now pull hydrogen directly from seawater, no filtering required

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Researchers at the University of Adelaide announced this week that they made clean hydrogen fuel from seawater without pre-treatment. Demand for hydrogen fuel, a clean energy source that only produces water when burned, is expected to increase in the coming years as the world (hopefully) continues to pivot away from fossil fuels. The findings could Read more about Researchers can now pull hydrogen directly from seawater, no filtering required[…]

Air pollution causes chess players to make more mistakes, study finds

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Chess experts make more mistakes when air pollution is high, a study has found. Experts used computer models to analyse the quality of games played and found that with a modest increase in fine particulate matter, the probability that chess players would make an error increased by 2.1 percentage points, and the magnitude of those Read more about Air pollution causes chess players to make more mistakes, study finds[…]

Prilex POS malware can block contactless payments, force PIN use

Posted on by Robin Edgar

[…] Kaspersky discovered two new Prilex variants in early 2022 and found a third in November that can target NFC-enabled credit cards and block contactless transactions, forcing payers over to the less-secure PIN machines. “The goal here is to force the victim to use their physical card by inserting it into the PIN pad reader, Read more about Prilex POS malware can block contactless payments, force PIN use[…]

Microsoft won’t access private data in Office version scan installed as OS update they say

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Microsoft wants everyone to know that it isn’t looking to invade their privacy while looking through their Windows PCs to find out-of-date versions of Office software. In its KB5021751 update last month, Microsoft included a plan to scan Windows systems to smoke out those Office versions that are no longer supported or nearing the end Read more about Microsoft won’t access private data in Office version scan installed as OS update they say[…]

European Police Arrest 42 After Cracking another Covert comms App: Exclu

Posted on by Robin Edgar

European police arrested 42 suspects and seized guns, drugs and millions in cash, after cracking another encrypted online messaging service used by criminals, Dutch law enforcement said Friday. Police launched raids on 79 premises in Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands following an investigation that started back in September 2020 and led to the shutting down Read more about European Police Arrest 42 After Cracking another Covert comms App: Exclu[…]

Stable Diffusion ‘Memorizes’ Some Images, Sparking Privacy Concerns, can be made to throw out training images

Posted on by Robin Edgar

On Monday, a group of AI researchers from Google, DeepMind, UC Berkeley, Princeton, and ETH Zurich released a paper outlining an adversarial attack that can extract a small percentage of training images from latent diffusion AI image synthesis models like Stable Diffusion. It challenges views that image synthesis models do not memorize their training data Read more about Stable Diffusion ‘Memorizes’ Some Images, Sparking Privacy Concerns, can be made to throw out training images[…]

Financial Times Sets Up Mastodon Server, Realizes Laws Exist (Which It Was Already Subject To), Pulls Down Mastodon Server

Posted on by Robin Edgar

With the rapid pickup of Mastodon and other ActivityPub-powered federated social media, there has been some movement among those in the media to make better use of the platform themselves. For example, most recently, the German news giant Heise announced it was setting up its own Mastodon server, where it will serve up its own Read more about Financial Times Sets Up Mastodon Server, Realizes Laws Exist (Which It Was Already Subject To), Pulls Down Mastodon Server[…]

Claims Datadog asked developer to kill open source data tool, which he did. And now he’s ressurected it.

Posted on by Robin Edgar

After a delay of over a year, an open source code contribution to enable the export of data from Datadog’s Application Performance Monitoring (APM) platform finally got merged on Tuesday into a collection of OpenTelemetry components. The reason for the delay, according to John Dorman, the software developer who wrote the Datadog APM Receiver code, Read more about Claims Datadog asked developer to kill open source data tool, which he did. And now he’s ressurected it.[…]

Luddites have a sad that Netflix Made an Anime Do boring background art Using AI Due to a ‘Labor Shortage’

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Netflix created an anime that uses AI-generated artwork to paint its backgrounds—and people on social media are pissed. In a tweet, Netflix Japan claimed that the project, a short called he Dog & The Boy uses AI generated art in response to labor shortages in the anime industry. “As an experimental effort to help the anime industry, which Read more about Luddites have a sad that Netflix Made an Anime Do boring background art Using AI Due to a ‘Labor Shortage’[…]

The bubbling universe: A previously unknown phase transition in the early universe resolves Hubble (constant) tension

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Think of bringing a pot of water to the boil: As the temperature reaches the boiling point, bubbles form in the water, burst and evaporate as the water boils. This continues until there is no more water changing phase from liquid to steam. This is roughly the idea of what happened in the very early Read more about The bubbling universe: A previously unknown phase transition in the early universe resolves Hubble (constant) tension[…]

FTC Fines GoodRx $1.5M for Sending Medication Data to Facebook, Google, others

Posted on by Robin Edgar

The Federal Trade Commission took historic action against the medication discount service GoodRx Wednesday, issuing a $1.5 million fine against the company for sharing data about users’ prescriptions with Facebook, Google, and others. It’s a move that could usher in a new era of health privacy in the United States. “Digital health companies and mobile Read more about FTC Fines GoodRx $1.5M for Sending Medication Data to Facebook, Google, others[…]

AMD, NVidia are ‘undershipping’ chips to keep CPU, GPU prices elevated

Posted on by Robin Edgar

[…] AMD’s client PC sales also dropped dramatically—a whopping 51 percent year-over-year—but the company managed to eke out a small profit despite the sky falling. So why aren’t CPU and GPU prices falling too? In a call with investors Tuesday night, CEO Lisa Su confirmed that AMD has been “undershipping” chips for a while now Read more about AMD, NVidia are ‘undershipping’ chips to keep CPU, GPU prices elevated[…]

A Drug Company Made $114 Billion Gaming America’s Patent System by adding tiny bits to the original patent

Posted on by Robin Edgar

The New York Times looks at the AbbVie’s anti-inflammatory drug Humira and their “savvy but legal exploitation of the U.S. patent system.” Though AbbVie’s patent was supposed to expire in 2016, since then it’s maintained a monopoly that generated $114 billion in revenue by using “a formidable wall of intellectual property protection and suing would-be Read more about A Drug Company Made $114 Billion Gaming America’s Patent System by adding tiny bits to the original patent[…]

Beijing grants XPeng X2 ‘flying car’ a flight permit

Posted on by Robin Edgar

HT Aero, a subsidiary of Chinese automaker XPeng, says the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) has granted it a flight permit for its two-seater electric “flying car,” the XPeng X2. The aircraft is the first manned electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) vehicle to obtain the permit and HT Aero’s fifth-generation eVTOL. Calling the Read more about Beijing grants XPeng X2 ‘flying car’ a flight permit[…]

Space Sail Experiment Pushes Satellite to Deorbit and burn up, cleans space junk

Posted on by Robin Edgar

[…] The Drag Augmentation Deorbiting System (ADEO) braking sail was developed by High Performance Space Structure Systems as a way to deorbit satellites at the end of their mission. In a space-based test in December 2022 called “Show Me Your Wings,” ADEO was deployed from an ION Satellite Carrier built by private space company D-Orbit. Read more about Space Sail Experiment Pushes Satellite to Deorbit and burn up, cleans space junk[…]

ChatGPT: Study shows AI can produce academic papers good enough for journals – just as some ban it

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Some of the world’s biggest academic journal publishers have banned or curbed their authors from using the advanced chatbot, ChatGPT. Because the bot uses information from the internet to produce highly readable answers to questions, the publishers are worried that inaccurate or plagiarized work could enter the pages of academic literature. Several researchers have already Read more about ChatGPT: Study shows AI can produce academic papers good enough for journals – just as some ban it[…]

MusicLM generates music from text descriptions – pretty awesome

Posted on by Robin Edgar

We introduce MusicLM, a model generating high-fidelity music from text descriptions such as “a calming violin melody backed by a distorted guitar riff”. MusicLM casts the process of conditional music generation as a hierarchical sequence-to-sequence modeling task, and it generates music at 24 kHz that remains consistent over several minutes. Our experiments show that MusicLM Read more about MusicLM generates music from text descriptions – pretty awesome[…]