Biden administration officials are divided over how aggressively new artificial intelligence tools should be regulated — and their differences are playing out this week in Sweden. From a report: Some White House and Commerce Department officials support the strong measures proposed by the European Union for AI products such as ChatGPT and Dall-E, people involved in the discussions said. Meanwhile, US national security officials and some in the State Department say aggressively regulating this nascent technology will put the nation at a competitive disadvantage, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the information isn’t public. This dissonance has left the US without a coherent response during this week’s US-EU Trade and Technology Council gathering in Sweden to the EU’s plan to subject generative AI to additional rules. The proposal would force developers of artificial intelligence tools to comply with a host of strong regulations, such as requiring them to document any copyrighted material used to train their products and more closely track how that information is used. National Security Council spokesman Adam Hodge said the Biden administration is working across the government to “advance a cohesive and comprehensive approach to AI-related risks and opportunities.”
Although most people’s thoughts turn towards getting outside and soaking up the sun when June arrives, for Lego fans, it’s just another month to hunker down with a thick instruction book and thousands of plastic bricks. Although June arrives with dozens of new Lego sets in tow, we’ve sifted through the impending…
Now that it’s unofficially summer, you’re probably wondering which cute, sassy wine drink will finally topple frosé from its throne. Although this frosty beverage requires a little more of a trust-fall, it delivers on all of the summer drink prerequisites– it’s pretty, it’s cold, and it tastes great. Get your…
At the beginning of every course, you are handed a syllabus. The best of them are short. The worst ones are way too long. They can include all kinds of information, from a list of materials to a long essay about your professor’s teaching philosophy. A friend of mine once got a 20-page syllabus that included poems…
The big day is almost here—Diablo IV, one of the most anticipated games of the year, is opening up early access tomorrow, June 1, followed by a widespread release next Tuesday, June 6. To get your PC ready, NVIDIA is pushing out its newest ‘Game Ready’ GPU driver, version 535.98 WHQL, and with it comes key optimizations for Diablo IV, including
Blue Bird, the more than 90-year-old manufacturer of the iconic American yellow school bus, is ramping up its production of electric buses. Last week, the company announced the opening of its new Electric Vehicle (EV) Build-up Center in the company’s main U.S. manufacturing plant in Fort Valley, Georgia. Blue Bird…
If you’re in the market for a fast NVMe SSD for your PC or console, Amazon has some great options in its latest sale. The WD_Black SN850 and P40 models are on sale with steep discounts as high as 56 percent, with sizes ranging from 1TB to 4TB. The best deal is on the latest WD_Black 1TB SN850X NVMe with a heat sink that offers speeds up to 7300/6300 MB/s (read/write) and PS5 compatibility. It’s priced at just $80, a savings of 56 percent ($100) over the regular price.
The latest SN850X is available in sizes up to 2TB, with read speeds a bit faster (6,600 MB/s) on the 2TB model. Both come with a heatsink and support Game Mode 2.0, and are compatible with PlayStation 5 consoles. They also make great storage and media drives on PCs, thanks to high speeds that allow quick program loading and the ability to play back 8K video.
If you don’t need PS5 compatibility or a heat sink, Amazon has the regular SN850X on sale as well in four sizes, at $80, $175 and $350 for the 1TB, 2TB and 4TB models, respectively. The best deal is on the 4TB unit, priced at just $350 for a savings of 50 percent off the regular price — a nice deal if you need a very fast SSD with high capacity.
Finally, if it’s USB-C storage you’re looking for, the WD_Black 1TB and 2TB P4 Game Drive SSDs carry significant discounts as well. The 1TB model is available for $100, or 44 percent off the regular price, while the 2TB version is on sale for $160, saving you a full 52 percent. These models are compatible with both PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S consoles, giving you a speedy archiving option (up to 2,000 MB/s) that lets you save space on your main drive and quickly restore games.
Enlarge (credit: FT montage/Shutterstock/Dreamstime)
In the summer of 2019, as Paragon Solutions was building one of the world’s most potent cyberweapons, the company made a prescient decision: before courting a single customer, best get the Americans on side.
The Israeli start-up had watched local rival NSO Group, makers of the controversial Pegasus spyware, fall foul of the Biden administration and be blacklisted in the US. So Paragon sought guidance from top American advisers, secured funding from US venture capital groups, and eventually scored a marquee client that eludes its competition: the US government.
Interviews with half a dozen industry figures about the divergent paths of the two companies underline how the shadowy spyware industry is being reshaped around those friendly to American interests.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to hear a bid by child pornography victims to overcome a legal shield for internet companies in a case involving a lawsuit accusing Reddit Inc of violating federal law by failing to rid the discussion website of this illegal content. The justices turned away the appeal of a lower court’s decision to dismiss the proposed class action lawsuit on the grounds that Reddit was shielded by a U.S. statute called Section 230, which safeguards internet companies from lawsuits for content posted by users but has an exception for claims involving child sex trafficking. The Supreme Court on May 19 sidestepped an opportunity to narrow the scope of Section 230 immunity in a separate case.
Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 protects “interactive computer services” by ensuring they cannot be treated as the “publisher or speaker” of information provided by users. The Reddit case explored the scope of a 2018 amendment to Section 230 called the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA), which allows lawsuits against internet companies if the underlying claim involves child sex trafficking. Reddit allows users to post content that is moderated by other users in forums called subreddits. The case centers on sexually explicit images and videos of children posted to such forums by users. The plaintiffs — the parents of minors and a former minor who were the subjects of the images — sued Reddit in 2021 in federal court in California, seeking monetary damages. The plaintiffs accused Reddit of doing too little to remove or prevent child pornography and of financially benefiting from the illegal posts through advertising in violation of a federal child sex trafficking law.
The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2022 concluded that in order for the exception under FOSTA to apply, plaintiffs must show that an internet company “knowingly benefited” from the sex trafficking through its own conduct. Instead, the 9th Circuit concluded, the allegations “suggest only that Reddit ‘turned a blind eye’ to the unlawful content posted on its platform, not that it actively participated in sex trafficking.” Reddit said in court papers that it works hard to find and prevent the sharing of child sexual exploitation materials on its platform, giving all users the ability to flag posts and using dedicated teams to remove illegal content.
ChatGPT is improving again—or at least it is if you’re paying $20 a month to access the Plus version of the AI chatbot. While free users can’t access them for now, two major new features promise to make a huge difference to the capabilities of ChatGPT. Here’s how to use web access and plugins with ChatGPT Plus.
Our first look at TMNT: Mutant Mayhem introduced us to a vivid, animated world of some truly teenaged mutant heroes—it’s the first time Leo, Raph, Mikey, and Donnie have actually been voiced by teens. But what’s bringing these kids to the surface world of NYC? A major new threat that no version of the TMNT have ever…
We all know that feeling: You found a company or an opportunity you were really excited about, spent lots of time preparing, maybe even met the team, only to receive that “we regret to inform you” email breaking the news that you won’t be moving forward. It always stings, but it can sting even more when it was a…
With yesterday’s NVIDIA R535 Linux driver beta one of the unlisted changes with this driver update is revising the driver license around the firmware handling to make it more explicit around permitting the GPU System Processor (GSP) firmware binaries to make it easier for redistribution and use by the Nouveau open-source kernel driver…
With the rise of AI language models and tools like ChatGPT and Bard, we’ve heard warnings from people involved, like Elon Musk, about the risks posed by AI. Now, a group of high-profile industry leaders has issued a one-sentence statement: “Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.”
That’s… heavy. It was posted to the Center for AI Safety, an organization with the mission “to reduce societal-scale risks from artificial intelligence,” according to its website. Signatories include OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman and Google DeepMind head Demis Hassabis. Turing Award-winning researchers Geoffrey Hinton and Yoshua Bengio, the godfathers of modern AI, also put their names to it. Hinton recently left Google over ethical concerns.
It’s not the first statement like this. In March, Elon Musk, Steve Wozniak and more than 1,000 others called for a six-month pause on AI to allow industry and the public to effectively catch up to the technology. “Recent months have seen AI labs locked in an out-of-control race to develop and deploy ever more powerful digital minds that no one – not even their creators – can understand, predict or reliably control,” the letter stated. No specific scenarios elaborate on how AI could threaten humanity, but there’s been more than enough science fiction to make me think of worst cases. Thanks, The Matrix.
– Mat Smith
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A mechanically perfect romp through a shallow world.
Blizzard
The story of Diablo IV opens decades after the end of Diablo III, with the world still reeling from the events of that game. Your character is in pursuit of Lilith, the daughter of Mephisto, one of the Prime Evils you defeated in Diablo II. Sometimes, you’ll discover some interesting lore or a named enemy that will drop an item with unique flavor text. Still, those moments are few and far between, according to Engadget’s Igor Bonifacic. Diablo IV will be available on PC, PlayStation and Xbox on June 6th.
You can no longer set an alarm or order Tide Pods with Melissa McCarthy.
Amazon is ditching all of its Alexa-enabled celebrity voices, including Shaquille O’Neal, Melissa McCarthy and Samuel L. Jackson. The celebrity voice assistant features were fairly limited when compared to Alexa’s full feature set as the celebs won’t do reminders and don’t integrate with many skills. They do, however, tell jokes, answer questions and complete simple voice-assisted tasks. Why get rid of the voices now? Reports suggest Amazon is building its own large language model (LLM), like ChatGPT, to transform Alexa radically, and celebrity voices may no longer fit that setup.
The Hammerhead Pro HyperSpeed lets you skip Bluetooth.
Razer has introduced Hammerhead Pro HyperSpeed buds that include a 2.4GHz RF adapter to plug into the USB-C port (there’s an included USB-A adapter) on your computer or console. This expands support to more devices, of course, but it also drops latency to 40ms versus 60ms for the Bluetooth-based Gaming Mode. The Hammerhead Pro Hyperspeed earbuds are available now for $200.
A switch to a Snapdragon chip could solve complaints about longevity.
engadget
A report from 9to5Google claims the Pixel Watch 2 will switch from Samsung’s 2018-era Exynos 9110 to one of Qualcomm’s much newer Snapdragon W5 models. Although the battery in the new smartwatch isn’t significantly bigger, the longevity is supposed to be much improved. Reportedly, it can last over a day with the always-on display enabled. The Pixel Watch 2 could also house the same health sensors as the Fitbit Sense 2 – Google owns Fitbit now, remember? That could introduce ways to measure stress, skin temperature and other metrics. When might we see it? Well, a previous rumor hinted the Pixel Watch 2 will debut alongside the Pixel 8 this fall.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-morning-after-industry-leaders-say-ai-presents-risk-of-extinction-on-par-with-nuclear-war-111545269.html?src=rss
Garmin has just announced a pair of new smartwatches intended for explorers and extreme fitness enthusiasts. However, these are high-end gadgets with high-end specs and, accordingly, high-end price tags.
First up, the Epix Pro series. The main draw of these watches is that they ship with a bright and crisp AMOLED display, a design choice Garmin has begun to fully embrace, providing a vivid picture without drawing too much battery life. There’s also a built-in flashlight with multiple intensities and a strobe mode, a red-only visual display option for darker conditions and plenty of advanced fitness features.
To that end, the Epix Pro series includes “dozens” of new, preloaded activities like soccer, basketball, horseback riding, racquet sports and plenty more. The fitness trackers now offer endurance scores and hill scores for advanced metrics. Runners and walkers will also receive notifications regarding points of interest along the route. There are new weather map overlays to view local environmental conditions and upgraded shading for making it easier to understand elevations within topographic maps. The Epix Pro line is available now and launches in three sizes (42mm, 47mm and 51mm.) Prices start at $900.
The Fenix 7 Pro series is for serious explorers, with solar charging, a powerful LED flashlight, mapping upgrades and a red safety light, all of which are intended to provide greater awareness when training in the dark, like a ninja. The heart rate sensor also got a significant boost, with new optical sensors and sport-specific algorithms that track your pulse rate across a diverse array of activities. There’s no ECG app, however, so you’ll have to look elsewhere if that’s a primary concern.
The new endurance score feature measures how easy it is to engage in prolonged physical activities, combining V02 sensors, hill scores and previous training data. Just like the Epix Pro, the Fenix 7 boasts an updated mapping system with weather overlays, points of interest and improvements to topographic maps. There’s also new preloaded activities like whitewater rafting and motocross. The Fenix 7 Pro is available in multiple sizes and designs, starting at $800.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/garmin-reveals-high-end-smartwatches-for-explorers-with-deep-pockets-110022376.html?src=rss
For Computex 2023, MSI is introducing an interesting USB4 PCIe expansion card. The card not only offers two full-bandwidth USB4 40Gbps Type-C ports, but the card can also deliver up to 100W of power to a device connected to it, allowing it to be used to power high-drain devices like laptops.
The MSI USB4 PD100W Expansion Card (MS-4489) has two DisplayPort inputs as well as two USB Type-C connectors. The Type-C ports support USB data rates up to40 Gbps, but also supports DP alt mode and USB power delivery.
What really makes this card notable are those power delivery capabilities; most USB4/Thunderbolt 4 expansion cards are PCIe bus-powered, and can only deliver up to 15 Watts or so. MSI’s card, on the other hand, can deliver up to 100 Watts of power on its best Type-C port, which is enough power for charging a high-performance notebook or powering something demanding (e.g., a display). Meanwhile the card’s second Type-C port can deliver up to 27 Watts, which is enough for smartphones and other mid-power periphreals.
The card uses a physical PCIe x8 form factor, with what looks to be an electrical x4 interface. For now MSI does not disclose which version of the PCIe protocol it supports – or for that matter whose USB4 controller they’re using. PCIe 3.0 x4 is sufficient to fully drive a 40Gbps port; but it’s rare for any external USB controller to be able to drive two 40Gbps ports at full bandwidth at once.
Menawhile, as this USB4 host card goes above and beyond the amount of power a PCIe slot can provide, the card also has a six-pin auxiliary PCIe connector to supply the remaining power. Per the PCIe specificaiton, a x4 card can draw up to 25W from the slot, so the 75W auxillery connector brings the card to its 100W limit. Though this also means that if MSI is sticking to the PCIe spec, then they can’t deliver a full 100W + 27W at the same time.
MSI’s USB4 PD100W Expansion Card is mainly aimed at users who need to attach bandwidth demanding peripherals (such as direct attached storage or some professional equipment) and USB-C displays to their desktop PCs. The board will serve equally well both the latest PCs that do not support USB4 connectors (or need extra Type-C ports) and machines that are already is use and need to gain advanced connectivity.
MSI does not disclose pricing of its USB4 expansion card or when it is set to be available, though we would expect it to be priced competitively against similar Thunderbolt 3/4 expansion cards that have been available for some time.
