Experience tech

 All We Know About Apple AI: From Code-Writing to Pizza Makeovers Apple may not be as vocal as some tech giants about their AI endeavours, but there's a quiet hum of innovation behind the scenes. Here's a breakdown of the current whispers surrounding Apple's AI world: 1. MGIE: The AI Image Artist: Forget Photoshop filters. MGIE, Apple's open-source AI model, takes text instructions and transforms images accordingly. Want a healthier-looking pizza in your vacation pic? MGIE can handle it. It showcases Apple's exploration of generative AI, where machines create based on human input. While not yet in your iPhone, it hints at future possibilities. 2. Apple GPT: The (Rumored) Language Maestro: Whispers abound about Apple's own GPT-like language model, dubbed "Apple GPT". This AI assistant could revolutionize Siri, making it understand and respond to natural language more effectively. Imagine Siri auto-completing your code or curating a playlist based on you...

 What you need to know about the app and shutdown Omegle, the video and text chat site that paired strangers together to talk, ultimately shut down as part of a legal mediation with a female user who sued the company, claiming its defective and negligent design enabled her to be sexually abused through the site. Omegle’s chatting service was shut down Wednesday, just a week after it settled a court case with a plaintiff identified as A.M. Her lawsuit, filed in 2021, alleged that she met a man in his thirties on Omegle who forced her to take naked photos and videos over a three-year period. She was just 11 when it began in 2014. “The permanent shutdown of Omegle was a term negotiated between Omegle and our client in exchange for Omegle getting to avoid the impending jury trial verdict,” Carrie Goldberg, an attorney who represented A.M., tells WIRED. Attorneys for Omegle did not respond to a request for comment on the settlement. Emails to Omegle were not returned. Omegle, founded in...

Selena Email Account Hacked A 21-year-old New Jersey woman has been charged with hacking into the email accounts of pop star and actress Selena Gomez, stealing her personal photos, and then leaked them to the Internet. Susan Atrach of Ridgefield Park was charged Thursday with 11 felony counts—five counts of identity theft, five counts of accessing and using computer data to commit fraud or illegally obtain money, property or data, and one count of accessing computer data without permission. According to the prosecutors,

Facing ire over reports that it is protecting far-right activists and under-age accounts,  Facebook  on Wednesday said it takes the mistakes incredibly seriously and is working on to prevent these issues from happening again. Channel 4 Dispatches - a documentary series that sent an undercover reporter to work as a content moderator in a Dublin-based Facebook contractor, showed that moderators at Facebook are preventing Pages from far-right activists from being deleted even after they violate the rules.

Getty image Facebook is continuing to devote more resources to the development of AI-focused chips, bringing aboard a senior director of engineering from Google who worked on chips for Google’s products to lead its efforts,  Bloomberg  reports. We’ve reached out to Google and Facebook for confirmation. Shahriar Rabii spent nearly seven years at Google before joining Facebook this month as its VP and Head of Silicon according to his  LinkedIn profile . Facebook’s work on AI-focused custom silicon has been the topic of rumors and reports over the past several months. It’s undoubtedly a bold direction for the company, though it’s unclear how interested Facebook is in creating custom silicon for consumer devices or if they’re more focused on building for their server business as they also look to accelerate their own research efforts. Rabii’s work at Google seemed to encompass a good deal of work on chips for consumer devices, specifically work on the Pixel...

Cab aggregator Uber on Saturday proposed measures to address concerns expressed by the West Bengal government over its fare policy, including "self-regulation" of dynamic pricing to minimise impact on riders. The West Bengal Transport Department, based on complaints from users on exorbitant fares during peak hours, had reportedly sent a 30-point questionnaire to Uber and another ride hailing firm Ola, seeking response on the surge pricing mechanism. In a statement, the US-based Uber said, "We have submitted our response to the West Bengal Transport Department and enumerated the measures that we have decided to initiate to address the concerns of the government, and by extension, our riders." "During periods when there is a high imbalance in the availability of Ubers vis-a-vis the number of people requesting a ride, we propose to self-regulate the dynamic pricing multiplier between 1.9x to 2.9x to minimise impact on riders," Regional GM (India &...

A Google executive has admitted the search giant lost out on buying GitHub. Speaking at a Fortune Magazine event yesterday, Diane Greene Google’s head of cloud made an interesting admission. “I wouldn’t have minded buying them, but it’s OK,” said Greene,  Bloomberg reports . Previous  rumors suggest  Google was also trying to acquire GitHub, alongside Microsoft’s bids. GitHub founder Chris Wanstrath reportedly chose Microsoft because of his relationship with CEO Satya Nadella. GitHub is a large code repository that has become very popular with developers and companies to host projects, documentation, and code. Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google, and many other big tech companies use GitHub. There are 85 million repositories hosted on GitHub, and 28 million developers contribute to them. Google earlier this month to comment on whether it will still continue to use GitHub, but a company spokesperson said at the time “We do not comment on ongoing acquisi...

WhatsApp, which is testing its payments services in India, today said it is updating its terms of service and privacy policy to "reflect the addition of payment interoperability features" ahead of the full-fledged launch of the service. Almost one million people are "testing" WhatsApp's payments service in India, which is the largest base for the Facebook-owned company that has over 1.5 billion users globally. WhatsApp has over 200 million users in India. "We'll be updating our WhatsApp payments Terms of Service and Privacy Policy to provide simpler language on how the payments feature operates. It also reflects the addition of payment interoperability features we've added since the beta started," a WhatsApp spokesperson told . The spokesperson added that the company has worked closely with National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), bank partners, and the Indian government on these details of how its service works. WhatsApp had receiv...

  Google-owned YouTube has announced several new updates to the platform including the new "Premieres" feature that would allow creators to debut pre-recorded videos as a live moment. Premieres are starting to roll out to creators today and will be available broadly soon, Neal Mohan, YouTube's Chief Product Officer, said in a blog post on Thursday. "When creators choose to release a Premiere, we'll automatically create a public landing page to build anticipation and hype up new content," Mohan added. When all fans show up to watch the premiere, YouTube will enable them to chat with each other and with the creator in real time via live chat. "It's as if a creator's entire community is in one theatre together watching their latest upload," Mohan said. "Premieres" would roll out over the next two weeks, reaching select YouTubers who were beta test partners first, The Verge reported . YouTube also announced a new ...

Facebook announced an expansion of several initiatives Thursday to combat the spread of misinformation on the social network used by more than 2 billion people. In a  company blog , Facebook acknowledged that fake news reports and doctored content have increasingly become image-based in some countries, making it harder for readers to discern whether a photo or video related to a news event is authentic. The company said it has expanded its fact-checking of traditional links posted on Facebook to photos and videos. Partnering with third-party experts trained in visual verification, the company will also flag images that have been posted on Facebook in a misleading context, such as, for example, a photo of a previous natural disaster or shooting that is displayed as a present-day event. Facebook will also use machine-learning tools to identify duplicates of debunked stories that continue to pop up on the network. The company said that more than a billion pictures, li...

HIGHLIGHTS Twitter has acquired Smyte It will help the microblogging site limit hate speech and fake news Smyte has immediately shut down its business and API Twitter has announced that it has acquired Smyte, a San Francisco, California-based technology company that offers tools to restrict online spam, abuse, and fraud. The latest acquisition is aimed to help the micro-blogging site uplift its user experience, which it has long been under pressure for. As a result of the new move, Smyte is shutting down its business, though its technology and team will be integrated within Twitter. It could eventually contribute to put a hold on hate speech and limit the circulation of fake news that both are amongst the key challenges for the company that is widely known for giving tweets as a source of public conversation. Launched in 2014 by former Google and Instagram engineers, Smyte has served various large and small clients wi...

Update: We launched IGTV at an event in San Francisco featuring many of the Instagram creators who’ll make IGTV great. Check out the  video of the event  to learn what IGTV is, how it works and see it come to life.  Word of appreciation from Instagram; "Today, we have two big announcements to share. First, Instagram is now a global community of one billion! Since our launch in 2010, we’ve watched with amazement as the community has flourished and grown. This is a major accomplishment — so from all of us at Instagram, thank you!" Second, we’re announcing our most exciting feature to date: IGTV, a new app for watching long-form, vertical video from your favorite Instagram creators, like LaurDIY posting her newest project or King Bach sharing his latest comedy skit. While there’s a stand-alone IGTV app, you’ll also be able to watch from within the Instagram app so the entire community of one billion can use it from the very start. IGTV is ...