After Will Smith uploaded a video of an adoring crowd, blogger Andy Baio “conducted a detailed analysis that suggests Will Smith’s team might have used AI to turn photos from his recent concerts into videos,” writes BGR. But there’s more to the story:
Google recently ran an experiment for YouTube Shorts in which it used AI (machine learning) to improve the quality of Shorts without asking the creator for permission. People complained the videos looked like they were AI generated. It seems that Will Smith’s YouTube Shorts clip that attracted criticism from fans this week might have been a victim of this experiment… The signs are real. The man who claimed Will Smith’s song helped him cure cancer was there. The woman in front of him was holding the sign with him. The “Lov U” sign appeared in photos the singer posted on his social media channels before the clip was shared.

“Will Smith has not denied the use of AI in these promotional clips,” the article adds.

But the Hollywood Reporter also calls it “just the beginning of AI chaos,” noting that “influencers and spinmeisters have been using AI upscaling for years, if quietly, the way you might round up your current salary in a job interview.”

It’s only going to grow more popular as the tools get better. (And they will — you just need some tweaks to the model and increases in compute to erase these hallucinations.) In fact, when the chapter on the early AI Age is written, the line about this moment is less likely to be, “Remember when Will Smith did something cringily AI?” and more, “Remember when AI was still seen as so cringe that we made fun of Will Smith for it?” Experts differ on the timeline, but everyone agrees it’s just years if not months before we’ll stop being able to spot an AI video. [Will Smith’s video] had the particular misfortune of coming out at this interregnum moment: good enough for someone to use but not so good we can’t spot it.

That moment will be over soon enough, and, I suspect, so will our pearl-clutching. The main effect of this new age of the synthetic is that video will stop being a meaningful measure of truth. We have long stopped believing everything we read, and AI image-generators have killed what photoshop wounded. But video until now has been the last bastion of objectivity — incontrovertible evidence that an event took place the way it seemed to….
But there is an upside. (Really.) Without a format that can telegraph objectivity, we’ll need to (if we care to) turn to other ways to assure ourselves of the facts: the source of the video. That could mean the human-led content creator will matter more. After years of seeing news brands take a beating in the trust department, they’ll soon become the only hope we have of knowing whether something happened. We no longer will be able to trust the medium. But we may newly believe the media.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

These are some recently released titles we think are worth adding to your reading list. This week, we picked up the Saga Doubles release of Stephen Graham Jones’ Killer on the Road and The Babysitter Lives, and the new Image Comics miniseries, The Voice Said Kill.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/what-to-read-this-weekend-two-thrilling-horror-novels-in-one-201544768.html?src=rss

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication.

Labor Day sales are rolling in, and Lifehacker is sharing the best sales based on product reviews, comparisons, and price-tracking tools before they’re over. You can also subscribe to our shopping newsletter, Add to Cart, for the best sales sent to your inbox.

It’s Labor Day weekend, and tech sales are going strong, with deals on TVs, iPads, tablets, and some of headphones. If you’re looking to upgrade your movie nights, the Nebula Capsule Air Projector is now 35% off on Amazon. Perfect for an outdoor cinema moment in your backyard or on a camping trip, this soda can-sized mini projector from Anker is a space-saving alternative to a TV.

Nebula Capsule Air Google TV Projector

$259.99
at Amazon

$399.99
Save $140.00

$259.99
at Amazon

$399.99
Save $140.00

Weighing in at 1.43 pounds, portability is a great perk for this battery-powered portable smart projector. The included base attachment allows the projector to “lean back” so you can project directly on the ceiling if you prefer.

The Capsule Air offers up to 2 hours of playtime off its 34Wh battery, so while it can handle a single movie or a few episodes, it’s not quite enough for a Netflix binge.  With built-in Google TV, it supports more than 30,000 apps on Google Play, eliminating the need for an external streaming device. While the image quality isn’t full HD, it’s fairly vibrant at 720p, with decent color accuracy (you can play content up to 1080p, which will be automatically down-converted, according to this “excellent” PCMag review.) It has 150 ANSI Lumens of brightness,which means you’ll get the best viewing experience in a darker setting, and it may not work well in brighter rooms. 

Users report that the built-in speaker isn’t very loud, so you may need to pair it with an additional Bluetooth speaker. But if you don’t need ultra-sharp HD visuals and can live with the shorter battery life, the Nebula Capsule Air Projector is a compact choice for on-the-go entertainment.

They offer “a self-sustaining power solution for marine regions,” according to a newly published 41-page review after “pioneering use in wave energy harvesting in 2014”. Ten years later, researchers have developed several structures for these “triboelectric nanogenerators” (TENGs) to “facilitate their commercial deployment.” But there’s a lack of “comprehensive summaries and performance evaluations”.

So the review “distills a decade of blue-energy research into six design pillars” for next-generation technology, writes EurekaAlert, which points the way “to self-powered ocean grids, distributed marine IoT, and even hydrogen harvested from the sea itself…” By “translating chaotic ocean motion into deterministic electron flow,” the team “turns every swell, gust and glint of sunlight into dispatchable power — ushering in an era where the sea itself becomes a silent, self-replenishing power plant.”

Some insights:

– Multilayer stacks, origami folds and magnetic-levitation frames push volumetric power density…three orders of magnitude above first-generation prototypes.
– Frequency-complementary couplings of TENG, EMG and PENG create full-spectrum harvesters that deliver 117 % power-conversion efficiency in real waves.
– Pendulum, gear and magnetic-multiplier mechanisms translate chaotic 0.1-2 Hz swells into stable high-frequency oscillations, multiplying average power 14-fold.
– Resonance-tuned structures now span 0.01-5 Hz, locking onto shifting wave spectra across seasons and sea states.
– Spherical, dodecahedral and tensegrity architectures harvest six-degree-of-freedom motion, eliminating orientational blind spots.
– Single devices co-harvest wave, wind and solar inputs, powering self-charging buoys that cut battery replacement to zero…

Another new wave energy project is moving forward, according to the blog Renewable Energy World:

Eco Wave Power, an onshore wave energy technology company, announced that its U.S. pilot project at the Port of Los Angeles has successfully completed operational testing and achieved a new milestone: the lowering of its floaters into the water for the first time. The moment, broadcast live by Good Morning America, follows the finalization of all installation works at the project site, including full installation of all wave energy floaters; connection of hydraulic pipes and supporting infrastructure; and placement of the onshore energy conversion unit.

With installation completed, Eco Wave Power has now officially entered the operational phase of its U.S. excursion… [Inna Braverman, founder and CEO of Eco Wave Power] said “This pilot station is a vital step in demonstrating how wave energy can be harnessed using existing marine infrastructure, while laying the groundwork for full-scale commercialization in the United States….” Eco Wave Power’s patented onshore wave energy system attaches floaters to existing marine structures. The up-and-down motion of the waves drives hydraulic cylinders, which send pressurized fluid to a land-based energy conversion unit that generates electricity… The U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory estimates that wave energy has the potential to generate over 1,400 terawatt-hours per year — enough to power approximately 130 million homes.

Eco Wave Power’s 404.7 MW global project pipeline also includes upcoming operational sites in Taiwan, India, and Portugal, alongside its grid-connected station in Israel.

Long-time Slashdot reader PongoX11 also brings word of a company building a “simple” floating rig to turn wave motion into electricity, calling it “a steel can that moves water around” and wondering if “This one might work!”
The news site TechEBlog points out that “Unlike old-school wave energy systems with clunky mechanical parts, Ocean-2 rocks a modular, flexible setup that rolls with the ocean’s flow.”

At about 10 meters wide [30 feet wide. and 260 feet long!], it is made from materials designed to (hopefully) withstand the ocean’s abuse, over some maintenance cycle. It’s designed for deep ocean, so solving this technically is the first big challenge. Figuring out how to use/monetize all that cheap energy out in the middle of nowhere will be the next.

“Ocean-2 works with the ocean, not against it, so we can generate power without messing up marine life,” said Panthalassa’s CEO, Dr. Elena Martinez, according to TechEBlog:

Tests in Puget Sound, done with Everett Ship Repair, showed it pumping out up to 50 kilowatts in decent conditions — enough juice for a small coastal town. “We’re thinking big,” Martinez said in a press release. “Ocean-2 is just the start, but we’re already planning bigger arrays that could crank out gigawatts…” Looking forward, Panthalassa sees Ocean-2 as part of a massive wave energy network. By 2030, they’re aiming to roll out arrays that could power whole coastal cities, cutting down on fossil fuel use.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

TikTok is taking another step towards becoming more than just a platform for infinitely scrolling through short videos. The social media app told TechCrunch that its users will soon be able to send voice notes, images and videos in direct messages or group chats. According to a TikTok spokesperson, these features will roll out in the next few weeks.

As voice messaging has risen in popularity, TikTok will embrace the trend but is capping the length of its voice notes to one minute. For images and videos, users will be able to send up to nine images or videos, taken from their phone’s camera app or library, in a DM or group chat, according to TechCrunch. The report added that there will still be guardrails with this new chat feature, including not being able to send an image or video as the first message to another user. This new restriction adds to TikTok’s current rules that only allow registered users who are at least 16 years old to use its messaging feature. TikTok is also giving users who are older than 18 the ability to toggle on or off an existing feature that automatically detects and blocks images that have nudity in chats for users between 16 and 18 years old.

Other messaging apps like Messenger and Snapchat already allow their users to send voice notes or media, but TikTok is slowly catching up with the competition. Last year, TikTok added group chats that allow up to 32 people. More recently, TikTok took a page out of X and Meta’s book by adding the Footnotes feature in April, which works similarly to Community Notes.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/tiktok-users-will-soon-be-able-to-send-voice-notes-images-and-videos-in-chats-194413622.html?src=rss

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication.

Labor Day sales are rolling in, and Lifehacker is sharing the best sales based on product reviews, comparisons, and price-tracking tools before they’re over. You can also subscribe to our shopping newsletter, Add to Cart, for the best sales sent to your inbox.

Labor Day sales often bring the kind of discounts that make you wonder if it’s worth upgrading your tech, and the current deal on the Sonos’ Roam 2 fits the bill there. The waterproof portable speaker is marked down to $139, only a few dollars more than its all-time low, according to price trackers.

Sonos Roam 2

$139.00
at Amazon

$179.00
Save $40.00

$139.00
at Amazon

$179.00
Save $40.00

For a Sonos device, that’s a tempting price cut, especially if you’ve already got other devices from the brand. The Roam 2 is small, and shaped like a rounded triangular bar with rubber feet, so it doesn’t wander across the counter when the bass kicks in. It plays mono sound through a racetrack midrange driver and a tweeter, delivering a fuller punch than its size suggests. Placement matters, however: Set it upright and you’ll notice detail takes a hit, since the tweeter fires from the bottom. When laid flat, clarity improves.

The real issue for most people will be connectivity, which is a bit of a mixed bag. You get Bluetooth 5.0, which already feels dated compared to speakers pushing newer standards, and support is limited to AAC and SBC codecs, so don’t expect the highest quality streams. Multipoint pairing and Google Fast Pair aren’t part of the package either, which means switching between phone and laptop isn’t as seamless as it could be. On the upside, it does have dual-band wifi and AirPlay 2, which makes it work nicely in a home setup, especially if you’re already running other Sonos speakers. 

Alexa is available for hands-free commands, but oddly, it doesn’t let you control music playback. Sonos Voice Control can handle that, but the limitation is noticeable if you’re used to smarter assistants, as noted in this PCMag review. Battery life hovers around 10 hours, which is fine for day trips but not spectacular for the price bracket. The inclusion of wireless charging sets it apart though—you can just drop it on a Qi charger instead of fiddling with cables. Durability shouldn’t be a concern, either: With its IP67 rating, the Roam 2 can shrug off sand, dust, and even a 30-minute dip in the pool, making it a good pick as an outdoor sound system for Labor Day gatherings near water.

When it comes to nuclear fusion energy, “How do we advance fusion as fast as possible?” asks the CEO of Commonwealth Fusion Systems. They’ve just raised $863 million from Nvidia, Google, the BIll Gates-founded Breakthrough Energy Ventures and nearly two dozen more investors, which “may prove helpful as the company develops its supply chain and searches for partners to build its power plants and buy electricity,” reports TechCrunch.

Commonwealth’s CEO/co-founder Bob Mumgaard says “This round of capital isn’t just about fusion just generally as a concept… It’s about how do we go to make fusion into a commercial industrial endeavor.”

The Massachusetts-based company has raised nearly $3 billion to date, the most of any fusion startup. Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) previously raised a $1.8 billion round in 2021…

CFS is currently building a prototype reactor called Sparc in a Boston suburb. The company expects to turn that device on later next year and achieve scientific breakeven in 2027, a milestone in which the fusion reaction produces more energy than was required to ignite it. Though Sparc isn’t designed to sell power to the grid, it’s still vital to CFS’s success. “There are parts of the modeling and the physics that we don’t yet understand,” Saskia Mordijck, an associate professor of physics at the College of William and Mary, told TechCrunch. “It’s always an open question when you turn on a completely new device that it might go into plasma regimes we’ve never been into, that maybe we uncover things that we just did not expect.” Assuming Sparc doesn’t reveal any major problems, CFS expects to begin construction on Arc, its commercial-scale power plant, in Virginia starting in 2027 or 2028…

“We know that this kind of idea should work,” Mordijck said. “The question is naturally, how will it perform?” Investors appear to like what they’ve seen so far. The list of participants in the Series B2 round is lengthy. No single investor led the round, and a number of existing investors increased their stakes, said Ally Yost, CFS’s senior vice president of corporate development… The new round will help CFS make progress on Sparc, but it will not be enough to build Arc, which will likely cost several billion dollars, Mumgaard said.

“As advances in computing and AI have quickened the pace of research and development, the sector has become a hotbed of startup and investor activity,” the article points out.
And CEO Mumgaard told TechCrunch that their Sparc prototype will prove the soundness of the science — but it’s also important to learn “the capabilities that you need to be able to deliver it. It’s also to have the receipts, know what these things cost!”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Meta may be interested in more than Google and OpenAI’s employees when it comes to artificial intelligence. According to The Information, Meta is considering using its competitors’ models to improve its own apps’ AI features. The report said that leaders at the Meta Superintelligence Lab have looked at integrating Google Gemini into its Meta AI chatbot to help it provide a conversational, text-based solution to its users’ search questions.

Not only with Google Gemini, Meta has also had discussions about using OpenAI’s models to power Meta AI and the AI features found in its apps, according to the report. A Meta spokesperson said in a statement that the company is taking an “all-of-the-above approach to building the best AI products,” which includes partnering with companies, along with building its own AI models. According to the report, using external AI models will be a temporary measure to help Meta improve its own Llama AI models so that it can remain competitive in the market. 

Meta employees already have access to Anthropic’s AI models that help power the company’s internal coding assistant, according to The Information. Meanwhile, Meta has been offering lucrative compensation packages as part of its attempts to recruit AI researchers from Google and OpenAI to form its Superintelligence Lab.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/meta-is-reportedly-looking-at-using-competing-ai-models-to-improve-its-apps-182209841.html?src=rss

Labor Day sales are in full force, and Lifehacker is sharing the best sales based on product reviews, comparisons, and price-tracking tools before they’re over. You can also subscribe to our shopping newsletter, Add to Cart, for the best sales sent to your inbox.

If you need a basic tool set for home maintenance or want to expand your DIY skillset, a set of cordless tools is a necessity. Shopping Labor Day sales is one of the best ways to save money on tools. I’m a fan of Ryobi’s cordless offerings, and Home Depot has some great starter sets on sale for Labor Day.

Ryobi ONE+ 18V Cordless 3/8 in. Drill/Driver Kit

$39.97
at Home Depot

$113.00
Save $73.03

$39.97
at Home Depot

$113.00
Save $73.03

Ryobi ONE+ HP 18V Brushless Cordless 1/4 in. Impact Driver

$109.00
at Home Depot

$178.97
Save $69.97

$109.00
at Home Depot

$178.97
Save $69.97

Ryobi ONE+ 18V Lithium-Ion Starter Kit

$79.00
at Home Depot

$203.94
Save $124.94

$79.00
at Home Depot

$203.94
Save $124.94

The best Labor Day deals on cordless drills and drivers

A drill is the foundation of any tool set. If you’re building a home maintenance tool kit, a Ryobi drill for $39 is a standout deal. The 18-volt, ⅜-in chuck Ryobi drill is 65% off and it comes with a set of driver bits, a 1.5-amp-hour battery, and a charger. This kit is ready to use out of the box, and it comes with a battery set that is compatible with any 18-volt Ryobi tool, allowing you to try out new tools as you build your set.

The Ryobi 18-volt, ¼-inch chuck impact driver is also on sale for Labor Day for $109.97, 39% off its regular price. The driver comes with a 2-amp-hour battery and a charger. An impact driver can make driving fasteners easier by adding some mechanical momentum as you drive your fastener for a powered assist when your driving screws and bolts.

The best Labor Day deals on batteries and bonus tools

A set of spare batteries for your Ryobi tools can come in handy when you’re using more than one tool at a time, and having a spare battery while you’re working so you can always have one on the charger will allow you to keep going without having to wait for it to charge.

The Ryobi 18-volt battery starter set is on sale for $79, 61% off its regular price. It comes with a 2-amp-hour battery, a 4-amp-hour battery, and a charger. This is a good set as an add-on for a tool that doesn’t come with batteries, or to expand your cordless tool set.

There are two other notable deals on Ryobi batteries that come with bonus tools. You can get the Ryobi 18-volt battery starter set with a reciprocating saw for $158, 41% off its regular price, or a starter set with a portable fan for $108.97, 51% off its usual price. A reciprocating saw can be used for trimming hedges as well as for cutting lumber. A fan is a good way to add ventilation if you’re working on something that produces dust or paint fumes.

Why I like Ryobi tools

For DIY and home maintenance, a set of tools that is reliable and versatile is key. Ryobi  batteries are cross-compatible with over 300 tools, including drills, drivers, saws, landscaping equipment, and finishing tools. Building your home tool set on a battery type that allows you to add tools without needing a whole new set of batteries will make building your kit more affordable.

Also, because the tools are backwards compatible with Ryobi 18-volt tools released over the last decade, your batteries and chargers will likely be compatible with future Ryobi tools as well. This means you won’t need to update your battery system as new tools come out.

By exploiting two-color beams, researchers “can generate ordered chains and lattices,” reports ScienceDaily, “with tunable topology — potentially revolutionizing data storage, communications, and photonic processing.”

An internationally joint research group between Singapore and Japan has unveiled a blueprint for arranging exotic, knot-like patterns of light into repeatable crystals that extend across both space and time. The work lays out how to build and control “hopfion” lattices using structured beams.. three-dimensional topological textures whose internal “spin” patterns weave into closed, interlinked loops.

They have been observed or theorized in magnets and light fields, but previously they were mainly produced as isolated objects. The authors show how to assemble them into ordered arrays that repeat periodically, much like atoms in a crystal, only here the pattern repeats in time as well as in space. The key is a two-color, or bichromatic, light field whose electric vector traces a changing polarization state over time. By carefully superimposing beams with different spatial modes and opposite circular polarizations, the team defines a “pseudospin” that evolves in a controlled rhythm. When the two colors are set to a simple ratio, the field beats with a fixed period, creating a chain of hopfions that recur every cycle. Starting from this one-dimensional chain, the researchers then describe how to sculpt higher-order versions whose topological strength can be dialed up or down…

Topological textures like skyrmions have already reshaped ideas for dense, low-error data storage and signal routing. Extending that toolkit to hopfion crystals in light could unlock high-dimensional encoding schemes, resilient communications, atom trapping strategies, and new light-matter interactions. “The birth of space-time hopfion crystals,” the authors write, opens a path to condensed, robust topological information processing across optical, terahertz, and microwave domains.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

xAI doesn’t want its secret recipe for Grok to get out, and it’s filing a lawsuit to make sure of that. In a lawsuit filed earlier this week, xAI claimed that former employee Xuechen Li stole the company’s confidential info and trade secrets before joining the team at OpenAI.

Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company also alleged that Li copied documents from an xAI company laptop to at least one of his personal devices. According to the suit, Li stole “cutting-edge AI technologies with features superior to those offered by ChatGPT and other competing products. This confidential info could result in a potential edge for rival companies in the AI market and “could save OpenAI and other competitors billions in R&D dollars and years of engineering effort,” xAI said in the lawsuit. The company behind Grok accused Li of taking “extensive measures to conceal his misconduct,” including renaming files, compressing files before uploading them to his personal devices and deleting browser history.

The lawsuit added that Li asked xAI to buy back company shares that were given as part of his compensation package, totaling approximately $7 million, before leaving the company to join OpenAI. xAI is asking the courts to file a temporary restraining order that forces its former employee to give up access to any personal devices or online storage services and return any confidential material to the company. On top of that, xAI wants to temporarily block Li from working at OpenAI or any other competitor until the company has recovered all of its trade secrets.

xAI’s lawsuit comes amidst a major talent war between leading AI companies looking for top researchers. These AI researchers are highly sought after, with competitors offering up to $250 million pay packages in attempts to poach them from their current companies. Beyond the AI talent war, Musk and xAI recently sued OpenAI and Apple, claiming the two companies are working together to maintain a monopoly on the AI market.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/xai-sues-an-ex-employee-for-allegedly-stealing-trade-secrets-about-grok-170029847.html?src=rss

They were extinct in the Netherlands in the early 19th century. But in 1988 beavers were reintroduced to the region, and now there’s over 7,000, reports the Guardian.

But unfortunately…

Beavers are increasingly digging burrows and tunnels under roads, railways and — even more worryingly — in dikes. For a country where a quarter of the land sits below sea level, this is not a minor problem — especially as beavers are not exactly holding back when digging. “We’ve found tunnels stretching up to 17 metres [equivalent to 60 feet] into a dike… That’s alarming,” says Jelmer Krom of the Rivierenland water board… If a major dike gives way, it would cause a serious flood affecting thousands of people…

[T]heir entrances are under water, and as yet there are no effective techniques for mapping them. During high water, special patrols go out at night with thermal-imaging cameras to spot where beavers are active, but this method doesn’t always yield the desired results. Also, when a beaver that’s causing problems is found, it can only be killed in exceptional circumstances, because beavers are a protected species in the Netherlands. Moving it doesn’t do much good either, as the beaver tends simply to return.
Current mitigation efforts include mesh reinforcements (as well as sealing burrows) — and also removing the thickets of willows on the riverbanks to make them a less appealing habitat.

Thanks to Slashdot reader Bruce66423 for sharing the news.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.