The makers of ChatGPT, OpenAI, have announced their latest artificial intelligence engine, which is for creating videos from text prompts.

OpenAI already has Dall-E for generating static images, and now it has moved into videos to help complete its suite of AI tools for all creative purposes.

Sora AI is not yet readily available to use by the public. Still, it has been made available to a select few whose job it is to test the security and stability of AI products, also known as ‘red teamers,’ in February 2024.

But it is already causing a lot of talk on social media, with Sam Altman, the founder of OpenAI, demonstrating Sora’s abilities by replying to people’s prompt requests with the final product, generated by the video generator.

The early signs are that it is equally as impressive as ChatGPT and Dall-E, and it undoubtedly represents a new era of text to prompt filmmaking.

What is Sora AI?

Just as we’ve become so used to generative AI models for text and still images, such as ChatGPT, Dall-E and Google Gemini, Sora AI does the same but for videos.

The AI works in the same way as other generative AI models. It constantly learns from what it sees and consumes, and is trained to provide the most accurate and detailed response to whatever prompt it is responding to.

Sora AI is no different. If you give it a text prompt, for example, “blue boat sailing on the ocean with the sun beaming down”, you will get back a video of just that. You can be as specific or as vague as you like, but the more detail you give the AI model, the better your results will be.

Sam Altman’s Sora AI demonstrations on X in February will give you the best idea of how it works and just how accurate it is with enough detail in the text prompts.

For example, the video below is the result of the prompt, ‘A instructional cooking session for homemade gnocchi hosted by a grandmother social media influencer set in a rustic Tuscan country kitchen with cinematic lighting.’

https://t.co/rmk9zI0oqO pic.twitter.com/WanFKOzdIw

— Sam Altman (@sama) February 15, 2024

How does Sora AI work?

The technology behind Sora AI is the same as the one that lets you search for things on the internet. The more examples the AI sees, the better it will be able to spit the same thing in other images. Eventually, once an AI has seen enough of one thing, it will be able to generate its own version when prompted.

That is, of course, a very simplified way of explaining how generative AI works, but OpenAI has previously provided a more detailed explanation of how its AI model works. Sora AI is trained on publically available and licensed data to know what videos look like at a realistic level. It’s trained to know what it’s looking at and then uses that information to learn how to generate its own versions.

If you ask Sora AI to produce a video of a dog, it will generate results based on all the videos of dogs it has previously seen. It uses visual patches and building blocks to help understand what elements of the video should go where frame by frame. The more it sees and learns, the better and more accurate it becomes.

Sora’s technology is built on a diffusion model, where the AI begins with a messy response before working to improve its output through a series of feedback loops. It also uses transformer technology to use a number of data analysis methods to process vast levels of data, before learning to understand what important parts of the video to keep in, and the least important details to leave out.

What can Sora AI do?

To date, Sora AI is able to produce HD videos of up to a minute in length from text prompts. It is capable of generating ‘real world’, cartoon and CGI-style videos, but currently cannot include audio.

Sora AI can also generate videos from still images, fill in missing frames in existing videos and also stitch multiple videos together. It also has the capability of producing endless loops.

There also examples of it producing simulations of video games, such as Minecraft.

There are reportedly plans to add audio and editing tools to Sora AI, with the latter giving creators the ability to manually fix errors in the AI’s videos. Presumably, the AI will then learn from the manual fixes being made, but that is just a presumption and nothing more at this stage.

There are, however, some limitations, which can be expected. OpenAI has acknowledged these limitations, including people disappearing or transforming into other objects, as well as people moving in ways that just aren’t possible in the real world. OpenAI has confirmed they are already working on fixing these issues.

Once those issues are ironed out and Sora AI grows in sophistication and accuracy, it’s not entirely out of the question that we will be able to use it to create full-blown imaginary worlds, movies and even explore real places in the world without ever needing to visit them physically.

How can you access Sora AI?

Sora AI is not yet available to the public without an invite. Individual creators and testers are being asked to use the AI model and test it so OpenAI can act on feedback to ensure it’s ready for public release.

There is also the very important aspect of security and ethics. Generative AI models have been exploited by criminals and pranksters in the past – such as the sexually explicit deepfakes of Taylor Swift  – so OpenAI is putting a lot of effort into ensuring Sora AI can only be used for good and creative purposes.

That means you will not be able to use Sora AI to generate videos that show extreme violence, sexual content, hateful imagery or celebrity likeness. OpenAI will also include metadata in Sora AI to indicate its videos were generated by AI.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, OpenAI’s Chief Technology Officer, Mira Murati, suggested Sora AI will follow the same prompt policies as Dall-E, which means it will refuse to create videos of public figures.

It’s not yet known when exactly Sora AI will be made available to the public, but Murati did hint that it could be nearer the end of 2024. Meanwhile, there are some assumptions that when it does, it will be available as a web app and will eventually include additional features akin to ChatGPT, such as custom bots.

Featured Image: OpenAI // Sora AI

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We may still be getting used to the Samsung Galaxy S24 line after it was released in January this year, but we’re already looking ahead to the hugely anticipated Samsung Galaxy S25 range.

The Galaxy S24, Galaxy S24 Plus and Galaxy S24 Ultra have so far exceeded Samsung’s expectations, with reports last month confirming record sales in the US and around 10 million units sold worldwide within a month of launch. Such early success has seen the tech giant revise sales targets.

That’s despite reports earlier this year that rival Apple had reclaimed top spot over Samsung in European smartphone sales.

As a result, the Samsung Galaxy S25 series will have a lot to live up to when it finally comes around. It’s still early days, so there isn’t a lot of information about what we can expect, but there have been some very early rumors circulating that will no doubt begin to shape fans’ expectations.

When will the Samsung Galaxy S25 arrive?

The Samsung Galaxy S25 series will likely launch in early 2025, which follows the trend of recent Galaxy S generations.

Samsung prefers early-year releases, so we might expect to see something at an event in January 2025, with the official release potentially arriving in February 2025.

What are Samsung Galaxy S25 specs?

While it’s still too early for definite spec announcements, some rumors are pointing to some significant improvements in the Samsung Galaxy S25 series.

Ranging from a better camera to improved AI to a next-generation chip, there’s a lot to potentially be excited about.

Better Camera

The past three Galaxy S generations have seen a consistent combination of 50MP main, 12MP ultrawide and 10MP telephoto camera setups, but tipster Revgnus has claimed via their X account that the S25 will scrap the Samsung IsoCell G3 sensor for something created by Sony.

Leaker @Tech_Reve has gone one further by claiming the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra will have a new 50MP ultra-wide camera, an upgraded main snapper and a variable zoom telephoto lens, allowing for the ability to optically zoom to various distances.

Samsung Galaxy Camera Roadmap

S24U:
– Folded telephoto upgraded to 50MP with 0.7um.

S25U:
– Wide-angle lens upgraded.
– Folded telephoto lens upgraded with variable capabilities.
– Ultra-wide-angle upgraded to 50MP.

S26U:
– Wide-angle upgraded to 200MP with 0.7um and… pic.twitter.com/7FKi6HxMMw

— Revegnus (@Tech_Reve) December 17, 2023

Meanwhile, @BennettBuhner has claimed on X that the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra could have a new 200MP main camera with a bigger 1-inch sensor.

Both, though, have reiterated that these leaks are very early and must not be taken as fact just yet.

Snapdragon 8 Gen 4

The S24 series boasts the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, which hits 3.3GHz and makes for impressive processing power for a mobile phone chip. Rumors, though, suggest the Galaxy S25 might see the inclusion of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4, which is believed to be able to hit 4GHz.

The one thing that has fuelled this particular rumor is Qualcomm teasing at Snapdragon Summit 2023 that pretty big changes to the next chipset are on the horizon.

That said, similar to the Galaxy S24 series, it’s being reported that we should not expect the Galaxy S25 to have the same chipset worldwide. UK and European users may instead get the Exynos 2500, which is yet to be released.

South Korean site Ajunews claims Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 is expected to power many of the top Android phones in 2025, so that will likely include the S25. It is claimed Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 may support LPDDR6 (Low-Power Double Data Rate 6) RAM.

There is also speculation from Revgnnus that Samsung’s next-gen chipset will be built on a 3nm process, as opposed to the 4nm process the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 is built on. This may lead to a more battery-efficient handset for those running off Exynos.

Improved AI

As a result of improved RAM, on-device AI tasks will naturally get a welcome improvement. Smartphones running LPDDR6 RAM may be able to handle more AI duties without the need for the cloud or an internet connection. This could be a bit of a game-changer as smartphone companies seek to implement artificial intelligence to future handsets.

Currently, AI features on the Samsung Galaxy S24 require the internet to work and they can be quite slow. Additionally, the need to send data to the cloud adds concerns surrounding privacy.

Ajunews has said that there is no guarantee LPDDR6 RAM will be included in Galaxy S25 but, if it is, it will arguably make it the leading handset on the market for AI skills.

Bigger Battery

@BennettBuhner has also claimed on X the Samsung Galaxy S25 series could have bigger batteries than previous generations but did not expand on what that might look like.

If the handsets do include LPDDR6 RAM, it’s a safe bet that Samsung will need to include bigger batteries to handle the additional processing power. Nothing is confirmed just yet, though.

How will the Samsung Galaxy S25 look?

The Samsung Galaxy S24 looks very much like previous generations, but there are some rumors, fuelled that Samsung is planning substantial design changes to the Samsung Galaxy S25 series.

What that looks like is still under wraps, but we are beginning to hear some rumors that might eventually give us an idea of what to expect this time next year.

Larger Screen

@BennetBuhner claims that the Galaxy S25 Ultra could boast a slightly larger screen that’s closer to 6.9 inches, which is only marginally larger than the Galaxy S24 Ultra’s 6.8-inch screen.

Galaxy S25 series – Big, bigger, biggest!

Galaxy S25 series is to all get larger displays, with the base variant getting ~6.36" display and the Ultra variant is to get an ~6.9" display!

Bigger displays are the (short-term) future!

*Provided image does not accurately represent… pic.twitter.com/jQ1Ms1G1LU

— BenIt Bruhner Pro (@BennettBuhner) March 17, 2024

How much will the Samsung Galaxy S25 cost?

Samsung has a history of pricing its smartphones very similarly and while there is hope the Galaxy S25 series will be no different, some of the potential new specs and features may force the tech giant into going for a higher price point.

The Galaxy S24 currently retails at £799, while the S23 was priced at £849 at launch and the S22 hit the shelves at £769. However, if the S25 comes equipped with Snapdragon 8 Gen 4, which is expected to cost more, Samsung may opt to pass those additional costs on to their customers.

What that looks like remains to be seen, while you will expect to be paying more for the Plus and Ultra models, which are currently going for £999 and £1,249 respectively in the S24 series.

Featured Image: Photo by Anh Nhat on Unsplash

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OpenAI’s revolutionary artificial intelligence chatbot, ChatGPT, has opened a whole market of similar generative AI models.

It has also led to some of the biggest tech companies in the world joining the party, including Google’s Gemini. However, one in particular is becoming the most competitive of them all, and that’s Claude 3.

Its creators, Google-backed Anthropic, recently launched Claude 3, a trio of language models catering to different user needs and preferences.

It’s similar to market leader ChatGPT, which offers GPT-3.5 as a free-to-access product, whereas GPT-4 requires a monthly subscription and for access to more features and a more sophisticated language model. We’re also expecting GPT-5 to launch soon.

The Claude 3 family is the same. Three language models, all with varying levels of detail and sophistication. One is free, the other two require a subscription.

What is Claude 3 and what can it do?

The generative AI Claude family includes three models – Haiku, Sonnet and Opus. According to Anthropic, the state-of-the-art models offer ‘increasingly powerful performance, allowing users to select the optimal balance of intelligence, speed and cost for their specific application.’

Today we're releasing Claude 3 Haiku, the fastest and most affordable model in its intelligence class.

Haiku is now available in the API and on https://t.co/uLbS2JNczH for Claude Pro subscribers. pic.twitter.com/uy25DFujdI

— Anthropic (@AnthropicAI) March 13, 2024

Opus is the most intelligent model and ‘outperforms’ its peers on most of the common evaluation benchmarks for AI systems. Anthropic’s website claims it has undergraduate-level expert knowledge and graduate-level expert reasoning, as well as being capable of performing basic mathematics. The AI company claims it ‘exhibits near-human levels of comprehension and fluency on complex tasks, leading the frontier of general intelligence.’

All models in the Claude family, though, display impressive abilities in analysis, forecasting, content creation, code generation and communicating in a variety of languages, including Spanish, Japanese and French.

Haiku is the fastest and most cost-effective model on the current market for its intelligence category, according to Anthropic. It is capable of reading and making sense of data and graph-dense research papers in under three seconds.

Meanwhile, Sonnet is ideal for tasks that require instant responses, such as knowledge retrieval or sales automation.

Anthropic says the Claude 3 family is capable of powering live customer chats, auto-completion and data extraction tasks, and can do all of the above in real-time. Meanwhile, all Claude 3 models are sophisticated enough to process a wide range of visual formats, including photos, graphs and diagrams.

How good is Claude 3?

Claude 3 uses a large set of complex, factual questions that are aimed at targeting known weaknesses in current models. The responses are categorized into correct answers, incorrect answers and admissions of uncertainty, where the model isn’t sure of the answer.

In Claude 3, Anthropic have been able to heavily improve the accuracy of their models compared to previous versions. It claims to have made a two-fold improvement in accuracy on challenging open-ended questions and reduced incorrect answers compared to Claude 2.1.

In a table on Anthropic’s website, each of the Claude 3 family is compared to GPT-4 AND GPT-3.5, and the results show far greater accuracy where Claude 3 is concerned.

Haiku, the least intelligent and costly member of the family, shows significantly higher accuracy levels over GPT-3.5, including in undergraduate-level knowledge, grade school math, coding, reasoning over text, knowledge Q&A and mixed evaluations.

The most intelligent and expensive of the trio, Opus, shows the same higher levels of accuracy over GPT-4, which is OpenAI’s equivalent. In fact, Opus is so accurate and sophisticated that it realized that it was being tested earlier this year, which was revealed by Anthropic prompt engineer, Alex Albert, on X.

How much does Claude 3 cost?

Claude on its own is free to use with usage limitations, while there’s a $20 monthly subscription for Claude Pro.

The Claude 3 API has three pricing levels that meet the levels of the three members of its family.

Haiku,  described as ‘Light & Fast’ by Anthropic, is priced at an Input of $0.25 per million tokens and an output of $1.25 per million tokens.

The ‘Hard-wording’ Sonnet comes in at $3 per million tokens for input and $15 per million tokens for output.

Finally, the ‘Powerful’ Opus is priced at $15 per million tokens for input and $75 per million tokens for output.

Is Claude 3 better than ChatGPT?

Anthropic make a range of claims that its Claude 3 family is far better than OpenAI’s GPT offering, and the accuracy results suggest they have a solid case.

Tech.co recently did a detailed test between the two to determine which one comes up trumps, asking them 13 different questions designed to test reasoning, natural language processing, ethics, creativity, brainstorming and spreadsheet formulas.
The results were quite clear-cut. The analysts said Claude 3 produced better responses in seven of the tests, while ChatGPT won three. There were four ties, where the responses were pretty much the same.

Claude 3 provided better, more detailed, and better sophistication in its responses to ethical reasoning, creating product descriptions,  some of its brainstorming, summarizing text, analyzing text, providing factual information and writing poems.

ChatGPT came out on top in creating spreadsheet formulas, composing an email and creative writing. It was deemed a tie in some of the brainstorming ideas questions, understanding natural language, personal advice and riddles and reasoning.

Given the level of accuracy, it’s easy to see why many would prefer Claude 3 over ChatGPT, but it all depends on what one’s needs are. For simple or basic prompts, it’s likely you won’t see a great deal of difference in responses between the two.

However, Claude 3 appears to be far more capable of accurately handling more complex and detailed tasks that would be more fitting in commercial or educational settings.

Featured Image: Anthropic

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The generative AI chatbot market is rapidly growing and while OpenAI’s ChatGPT might remain the most mainstream, there are many others on the market competing to be the very best for the general public, creatives businesses and anyone else looking to see how artificial intelligence can improve their day-to-day lives.

But which one is the best? ChatGPT may have been the first to go mainstream, but is it the market leader? Which companies have entered the generative AI chatbot space with a product worthy of taking on OpenAI’s offering?

Arguably the most popular on the market, other than ChatGPT, are Microsoft’s CoPilot, Claude by Anthropic and Gemini, which is owned by Google.

Here we look at all four of these popular generative AI chatbots and consider which one is the best for certain uses.

Key features of ChatGPT

At this point who hasn’t heard of ChatGPT? It was the first AI to go completely mainstream and show just how powerful AI can be to the wider public. It made such a splash, it reached one million active users within weeks of launching and now has over 180 million users worldwide and counting.

It’s creator, OpenAI, has worked tirelessly to keep it at the forefront of the market by launching new and improved features, including a Pro Version (GPT-4), web browsing capabilities and image generation, powered by Dall-E. There’s even the option to create your custom-made GPT-powered bot on any subject you want.

The free version, GPT-3.5, is only trained on human-created data up to January 2022, so it’s restrictive if you’re looking to use it for more up-to-date purposes involving real-time information. However, the Pro version, GPT-4, is available for $20 a month and is trained with data up to April 2023. Although that’s still relatively time-restrictive, it does also have access to the internet.

Is ChatGPT good?

Yes, at most taks, although it has had its controversies due to inaccuracies and misinformation, such as lawyers using it for case research and the chatbot fabricating historic cases. However, it remains a good first port of call for anyone just looking for an easy-to-use AI chatbot. It should be noted GPT-4 is significantly more effective than GPT-3.5, but the former is only available to paying users.

Key features of Microsoft CoPilot

CoPilot is Microsoft’s own generative AI chatbot, originating initially as a chat option on their search engine, Bing. It is now a stand-alone AI chatbot and is naturally built into all of Microsoft’s productivity and business tools, such as Windows and Microsoft 365.

Interestingly, Microsoft is a key investor in OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which was used to launch Bing Chat. GPT-4 continues to power CoPilot today and, like ChatGPT, also uses Dall-E to generate images.

That might sound like it’s no different to ChatGPT but Microsoft’s key USP with CoPilot is that it is ingested into all of the Microsoft tools and products billions of people use around the world every single day.

It behaves as an assistant to those who rely on the likes of Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Word and other 365 platforms to perform day-to-day tasks.

Is Microsfot CoPilot good?

The clue is in the name, but CoPilot is good for people who need help when using Microsoft’s extensive suite of tools, products, and software. It essentially behaves as an assistant, or co-pilot, inside these products.

From spreadsheets, text documents to computer code, CoPilot can help create it all with natural language prompts. Coders on the Microsoft-owned Github find it to be a very popular AI chatbot to use.

Key features of Google Gemini

Formerly called Bard, Gemini is owned by Google is another generative AI chatbot that is improving rapidly over time to rival GPT-4.

One major plus to Gemini is that it has no limit to the number of responses it can give you, unlike GPT-4 and CoPilot, which both have limits in this area.

That means you can essentially have long discussions with Google Gemini to find the information you require. On top of that, and rather unsurprisingly, Gemini bakes in a lot of the elements we’re all so used to from Google’s search engine. For example, if you ask it to help you plan a trip to a specific country, it will likely provide you with a map of that destination, using Google Maps, and may even dip into Google images to give you some kind of visual representation of the information it’s giving you.

Users can also add extensions, akin to Chrome extensions, for use in tools such as YouTube, Maps and Workspace.

Is Google Gemini good?

If you’re a big fan of Google products and apps, Gemini is likely the generative AI chatbot for you, but it’s also perfect if you’re looking for speedy interactions and unlimited prompts.

That’s because, while it isn’t faster than GPT-4, it has generally been found to be faster than CoPilot and GPT-3.5. But it’s not flawless and was recently caught up in controversy over the accuracy of its image generator amid claims it was ‘woke’.

Key features of Claude

The creators of Claude, Anthropic, is an AI company started by former OpenAI employees.

It’s something of an all-rounder, being a multi-modal chatbot with text, voice and document capabilities.

But the main praise it has had since its launch in early 2023 is the fluency of the conversations it can hold, its ability to understand the nuances in the ways humans communicate and its ability to refuse to generate harmful or unethical content, instead often suggesting alternative ways to accomplish what users are asking of it without breaking its own guidelines.

Claude recently launched Claude 3, which is a family of AI chatbots (Opus, Sonnet and Haiku) that offer varying levels of sophistication depending on what users require, and Anthropic claim its most powerful AI in the family, Opus, is almost 87% trained to undergraduate levels of knowledge and accuracy and 95% common knowledge and accuracy.

Is Claude good?

Claude’s extensive and powerful capabilities, such as being able to rapidly read, analyze and summarize uploaded files, make it a very useful generative AI chatbot for professionals.

It is also trained on real-time data, which undoubtedly speaks to Anthropic’s impressive claims of accuracy and levels of knowledge.

On Claude’s website, Anthropic claims it is a ‘next-generation AI assistant built for work and trained to be safe, accurate and secure.”

Featured Image: Ideogram

The post What is the best generative AI chatbot? ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini and Claude compared appeared first on ReadWrite.

Besides all the benefits artificial intelligence offers the world – assisting with complicated tasks, streamlining work processes and helping with creative jobs – it also creates issues when people submit poorly written content using AI, and that’s where AI content detectors come in.

AI detectors aim to help the public differentiate between content created by humans and a computer.

As AI tools continue to get more advanced and more sophisticated, AI detectors need to do the same by ensuring they can accurately spot AI-generated content.

What is an AI content detector?

An AI content detector analyzes content to identify patterns in text, images or videos to decipher whether it is human or from generative AI. 

In the case of text, AI content detectors predominantly look for the repetition of certain words and phrases, a lack of depth, minimal creativity and inaccurate information.

For images and videos, they scan objects within the content to help determine their original source.

Similar to AI tools themselves, AI detectors are built on very powerful technological platforms and are designed to be just as sophisticated as the tools they’re analyzing.

The 5 best AI content detectors

There are loads of AI detectors on the market but not all are built the same and, more importantly, none are completely 100% accurate.

Furthermore, they all come with different perks, functionalities, pros, cons and price points. Some AI detectors are built for specific uses, others claim to do it all. But what are the best ones on the market right now?

We’ve listed our favorite five below…

Undetectable.ai

While some AI detectors seek to deliver an AI vs Human result when analyzing content, Undetectable.ai seeks to dig deeper into the details of the text it’s given and looks at syntax, style and structure.

It’s very easy to use. Simply paste the text you want the tool to analyze and click ‘Check for AI.’ It will then work its magic from there. It recognizes text from ChatGPT-3, GPT-4, Claude and Gemini, as well as other mainstream AI generators.

Undetectable.ai is careful not to guarantee any level of accuracy but it does claim to be the most advanced and accurate AI detection tool on the market, although third-party tests estimate around 85-95% detection rates. Moreover, it claims to be ideal for writers, bloggers and content creators.

How much does Undetectable.ai cost?

Undetectable.ai offers a freemium version that is limited to small-scale exploration. Personal plans with more flexible access to key features start at $5-a-month for 10,000 words, but with that you have to pay a year upfront.

For a monthly subscription, pricing starts at $14.99-a-month for 15,000 words.

Winston AI

Winston AI is aimed at businesses that want help detecting AI-generated content in marketing, advertising and other corporate information.

The cloud-based tool uses machine learning to help detect AI-generated content.

It is a user-friendly tool that comes with a range of key features, including file upload capabilities, OCR technology, printable PDF reports, plagiarism checks, project and document management and team management.

Users simply either paste their text or upload their file into Winston AI and the tool will then analyze the text before delivering a report to indicate whether it is AI-generated or created by a human. A neat feature is Winston color codes the full submitted text in the results into green, yellow and red depending how likely it is the content is AI-generated. Text highlighted in red means the application thinks there is a high chance it is AI-generated.

Winston AI claims to be up to 99.6% accurate, which is mightily impressive and precise. However, some third-party tests rate it closer to 85%.

How much does Winston AI cost?

Winston AI offers a variety of pricing plans that suit the needs of most users. They offer a free plan that comes with the most basic of features and an allowance of only 2,000 words, while the annual plan costs $12-per-month for 80,000 words. Monthly, you can expect to part ways with $18 for 200,000 words.

There is also an Elite plan for $49-a-month, which comes with 500,000 words of scanning allowance.

Copyleaks

Copyleaks is more sophisticated than other text-based AI detectors because it understands 30 different languages, so it’s the perfect tool for businesses with international interests. It also has the ability to analyze source code, which opens itself up to be incredibly useful for software developers.

The tool offers sentence-level analysis, which means the results you get from it will give you very precise details on which parts of your text were created by a human and which parts are AI-generated. On Copyleaks’ website, it claims users have “full transparency around the presence of AI-generated content even if the text has been interspersed with human-written content.”

Copyleaks claims to have 99.1% accuracy, but the very slight downside to using the tool is that it can be quite laggy. It does, though, detect the most popular AI models on the market, including ChatGPT and Gemini.

How much does Copyleaks cost?

Copyleaks doesn’t offer a free plan and its pricing tiers are based on credits, where 1 credit is worth 250 words. You can test it for free, though.

The cheapest monthly plan available is $10.99 for just 100 credits, but that only gets you access to Copyleaks’ AI Content Director but not their ‘award-winning’ plagiarism detector. To get access to the two, it’s $16.99 for 100 credits. Monthly plans max out at 10,000 credits, but the price skyrockets to over $900.

The cheapest annual plan for both the AI and plagiarism detectors is $13.99-a-month for 1,200 credits. For 120,000 credits, an annual plan costs just over $750-a-month.

ZeroGPT

If you’re looking for a very simple and easy-to-use AI detector, ZeroGPT offers just that. It supports various languages and has a very simple user interface that’s easy to follow and use.

Simply paste your text into ZeroGPT and it will analyze it for AI-generated content before giving you a percentage breakdown of how much of the text is written by a human and how much is AI or GPT generated.

It will highlight the areas of the text it believes are AI-generated in yellow, making it very easy for users to scan the text quickly.

ZeroGPT has API integration, which means the AI detector can be plugged into other apps or programs to detect AI-generated content in real-time, and also allows users to upload files, such as PDFs, to scan.

How much does ZeroGPT cost?

It’s free up to 15,000 characters per AI detection. If you need more than that, ZeroGPT’s Pro plan costs $7.99-a-month for 100,000 characters per AI detection and their Max plan gives you the same characters but more for the AI summarizer, AI paraphraser and AI grammar & spell check, which costs $18.99-a-month.

Crossplag

Crossplag was originally a popular plagiarism detection tool, and it still is, but it has also recently added its own AI content detector, which uses machine learning to identify whether text is AI-generated or written by a human.

Using patterns learned from human-written text, the tool is capable of recognizing when text deviates away from these patterns and will display a percentage of the chance of the text being AI-generated.

It is a remarkably quick and easy tool to use and is trained with over 1.5B parameters to give it the best possible chance of maximum accuracy.

How much does Crossplag cost?

Crossplag is free to use up to 10 credits, which is the equivalent to 1,000 words.. Beyond that, there is a Pay as you Go plan, which is 50 credits for €9.95, or there’s the ‘Bundle’ which is 1,000 credits for €149.95.

Anything beyond that and you need to contact Crossplag directly.

Featured Image: Generated by Ideogram

The post 5 best AI content detectors appeared first on ReadWrite.

Considering Apple has a reputation for releasing product updates every couple of years, it is somewhat surprising that we’re yet to be treated to the second generation of the hugely popular Apple AirPods Max.

The AirPods Max represented Apple’s first foray into the over-ear headphones market when they launched in 2020, having already taken the wireless earbud market by storm with the AirPods and AirPods Pro.

A sublime blend of reliable battery life, comfort, cinematic spatial audio, incredible sound quality and beautiful design made the Airpods Max the most popular headphones on the market. Even at the high-end price of £549.

However, in what is a little out of character for Apple, fans are still patiently waiting for the second generation Apple Airpods Max. Current rumors, though, suggest the wait may be over pretty soon.

When will Apple AirPods Max 2 arrive?

There are no concrete dates for when Apple fans can get their hands on the AirPods Max 2, but a few rumors are circulating that we might be able to expect a new Max edition in the latter stages of 2024.

That is according to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who claimed earlier this year that a new edition of the AirPods Max is likely to launch alongside a newer, more affordable version of earbuds, which he believes is due later in 2024.

(4/5)
The next-generation AirPods will likely begin mass shipments in 2H24 or 1H25, including more affordable AirPods (with Apple targeting a price of $99) and new AirPods Max, which will be assembled by Luxshare ICT and Hon Teng.

— 郭明錤 (Ming-Chi Kuo) (@mingchikuo) January 12, 2023

Apple has a history of making us wait for AirPods Max releases, though. Before officially launching in December, it was expected they would debut a couple of months earlier alongside the launch of the iPhone 12. That didn’t happen due to “complications” and fans were made to wait a couple more months.

But a three-year wait for a fresh upgrade is unusual, which is fuelling rumors of an imminent announcement at some stage in 2024.

How will the Apple AirPods Max 2 look?

Whatever upgrades are in line for the Airpods Max 2, you can bet the overall design, look and feel will be sleek, comfortable and eye-catching. That’s what we’ve come to expect from Apple ever since the launch of the iMac G3 in 1998.

As we’re still relatively in the dark about the next edition of the Max, we’re having to rely on insider speculation to get a picture of what we might expect when they do eventually arrive.

Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman has fueled many of the rumors in this area with several comments in an October 2023 newsletter, in which he also echoes the views of Kuo regarding a potential release date. He mostly hints at new colors and the introduction of USB-C charging.

The color range

Firstly, there’s the color range. The Airpods Max is available in Silver, Blue, Space Grey, Pink and Green. Gurman believes an “AirPods Max refresh with new colors” is on the horizon. That has fuelled rumors that the tech giant are considering introducing Yellow, Orange and Purple to the range, while it’s also being whispered that a Product (Red) edition. Some believe the new colors may be in sync with those of the upcoming iPhone 16, which is also expected to debut later this year.

USB charging

Elsewhere, the rumored introduction of USB-C charging is arguably the least surprising rumor of all. Apple announced the USB-C connections on the new iPhone 15 and charging cases for the Airpods Pro 2 in December 2023, so it’s a reasonable assumption to make that it will be present in all Apple products in the future.

Touch controls

Meanwhile, there is talk that Apple is making changes to the Max’s control mechanism, moving closer towards touch controls instead of continuing with the existing Digital Crown. This may come as music to the ears (pun intended) to current Max owners who find themselves knocking the Digital Crown when adjusting them.

The carry case

And finally, on to the carry case. While the AirPods Max’s design wowed fans, their protective case has come under some criticism. Particularly for not being very protective. Thankfully, a patent uncovered in the summer of 2022, appears to suggest Apple is working on a more substantial and durable case that utilizes a magnetic clasp.

This points towards an actual case, as opposed to what can only be described as a wrap-around cover we have today.

What are the Apple Airpods Max 2 specs?

The first edition AirPods Max arrived packed with top-of-the-range specifications and features, including active noise-cancellation (ANC), adaptive EQ, spatial audio with dynamic head-tracking and two H1 Apple chips.

That’s quite a lot to live up to and improve on in a second edition, but rumors point towards Apple working on making several significant improvements.

Firstly, there are improvements to ANC, with a recent AirPods Max patent referring to “audio howl” detection, with Apple looking to improve on ways to better mitigate unwanted feedback that is typically created by ANC microphones.

Elsewhere, there are whispers that Apple might be working on a way to deliver wireless lossless audio via better-than-Bluetooth audio transmission technology. If true and, of course, if it’s included in the Max, this will likely revolutionize the quality of portable wireless audio.

There is currently no noise surrounding what chip the Airpods Max 2 will use, but we can make a reasonable assumption that the H2 chip might be introduced to replace the H1 chips in the first edition Max. The H2 chip is already incorporated in the Airpods Pro 2. That said, there a no guarantees.

Other rumored features include the new “Find My” feature, which will allow owners to locate their headphones via the use of their iPhone, and a likely IPX rating, which means the Airpods Max 2 will be more suited to wetter conditions, such as rain, splashes and even sweat, for those that use their cans in the gym.

How much will Apple AirPods Max 2 cost?

Eyebrows were raised when the first-generation Airpods Max launched with a hefty £549 price tag, but it still didn’t stop people rushing to buy them. They sold out almost instantly, with the waiting list peaking at around 14 weeks.

There is nothing on the rumor mill to suggest Apple will launch the second-generation Max at a lower price point, so we should still expect to pay a top-of-the-range fee for what is going to be a top-of-the-range product.

Some fans have expressed wishes for a cheaper model to be released alongside the new Max to give fans the option depending on their budget, which Apple has previous with when it comes to their iPhone, Macbook, iPad and Apple Watch ranges.

However, that’s just people expressing their wishes as opposed to a credible rumor at this stage.

Featured Image: Photo by Super Snapper on Unsplash.

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Luxury airline Beond has announced it will offer Apple Vision Pro headsets to select passengers on flights to the Maldives by mid-2024.

Passengers will be able to take advantage of “unrivaled onboard content, coupled with immersive experiences showcasing the best of the Maldives,” according to a press release.

The airline plans to provide its customers with a unique level of in-flight experience and entertainment, including showcasing “stunning resort destinations and activities in the Maldives,” as well as its existing library of games and movies.

Beond’s Chairman and CEO, Tero Taskila, said: “The Apple Vision Pro will transform the inflight entertainment experience, and we will be first to offer it to select passengers.

“We are working now with partners in the Maldives to prepare truly amazing footage. The inflight experience will build anticipation for passengers before they arrive in the Maldives.

“Offering the Apple Vision Pro is another step in our vision of delivering a premium travel experience to our customers, from the start to finish of their journey.

“We’re proud to be the first airline to deploy the technology.”

Beond launched commercial passenger services in 2023, debuting routes from Munich, Zurich, and Riyadh to Male, Maldives. It has announced plans to offer flights from Milan, Dubai, and Bangkok to the Maldives by the middle of 2024.

What is Apple Vision Pro?

Apple’s Vision Pro hit stores in the US in early February, with the tech California-based tech giant claiming the headset “seamlessly blends digital content with the physical world and unlocks powerful spatial experiences.”

It is the company’s first entry into the VR space. At the same time, the headset can also act as an add-on to a user’s everyday experience using other Apple products, as it syncs with the likes of the iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Macbook to create an all-around interactive Apple experience.

However, it doesn’t come cheap. Only currently available in the US, the Vision Pro is available to purchase for $3,499, with prescription lenses costing an additional $149 and reading lenses going for $99.

Featured Image: Apple

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The CEO of fintech giant Klarna has warned that the power of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is “happening right now” as he confirms the company’s AI-powered chatbot is already handling the work of 700 human employees, reports tech.eu.

Klarna announced a partnership with OpenAI, the creators of ChatGPT, last year and has now confirmed their chatbot has handled 2.3 million customer service chats in 35 different languages in its first four weeks of operation. This is the equivalent of 700 full-time customer service operators.

The success of the AI-powered chatbot has led to a Klarna spokesperson confirming plans to reduce the number of customer service agents it currently outsources to 2,300 from around 3,000.

In a press release, Klarna claims the bot has a customer satisfaction rating that is on par with its human equivalent. It also has higher accuracy than humans, with a 25% decrease in repeat inquiries. The time in which support tickets are resolved has also been cut from 11 minutes to less than two.

Posting on X, CEO and founder Sebastian Siemiatkowski, said: “As more companies adopt these technologies, we believe society needs to consider the impact.

“While it may be a positive impact for society as a whole, we need to consider the implications for the individuals affected.

“We decided to share these statistics to raise awareness and encourage a proactive approach to the topic of AI.

“For decision-makers worldwide to recognize this is not just ‘in the future,’ this is happening right now.”

Klarna believes its AI-powered chatbot will help drive $40 million in profit improvements in 2024 alone.

Are humans at risk of being replaced by AI?

Fears of AI eventually being able to replace humans in the workplace are already becoming a reality, it seems.

Earlier this year, an analysis by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) found that 60% of jobs in advanced economies may be impacted by AI, with roughly half of those jobs at risk of succumbing to the technology’s advanced power. The other half likely benefit from AI in the workplace.

The report stresses the need for countries to act quickly to implement specific policies surrounding the use of AI in specific markets. It also urges stronger economies to embrace and prioritize AI innovation while developing regulatory frameworks, which will help “cultivate a safe and responsible AI environment, helping to maintain public trust.”

But as Klarna provides a rather compelling use case for other companies to consider following suit and replacing at least part of their workforce with AI, there is an argument that it might be too late.

Featured Image: Klarna

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Record sales in the US have led to Samsung revising sales targets for the Galaxy S24, as reported by Android Headlines.

Korean media reports that the tech giant had set itself an ambitious target of selling 12 million units in the first three months of its January 2024 launch. However, that figure has since been revised to 13 million thanks to huge demand worldwide, not least in the US. It aims to sell 35 million units this year.

The initial success of the S24 series is down to pre-order records being broken in several markets, including India, South Korea and Europe — while sales in the US are at a record high in eight years.

The S24 series’ early success also runs sales records of previous launches, falling just short of the record set by the Galaxy Note 10 by only three days.

In South Korea, over one million units were sold in just 28 days, beating the previous quickest time to reach that figure by the Galaxy S7 in 2017, which was 37 days. In comparison, the Galaxy S23 took approximately seven weeks to reach one million sales.

Meanwhile, Ice Universe has claimed the S24 series is expected to “sell more than 10 million units within one month of launch,” with sales of more than 3.2 million units in North America.

Samsung Galaxy S24 series is expected to sell more than 10 million units within one month of launch.
Especially in Apple’s home market of North America, sales exceeded 3.2 million units, setting a new record eight years after the Galaxy S7 series.

— ICE UNIVERSE (@UniverseIce) February 28, 2024

Samsung is fighting back after Apple takes the top spot

With the Galaxy S24 series taking the smartphone market by storm at rapid speed, this is fantastic news for Samsung.

Rival Apple toppled Samsung as the world’s leading smartphone provider in 2023 after over a decade of playing second fiddle to the Korean tech giants.

In Q4 of 2023, the iPhone enjoyed a 1% year-on-year increase in sales, while Samsung’s unit sales dipped by 12%, representing a significant decline in growth, particularly in European markets.

But early sales figures of Samsung’s latest release will likely give the company a welcome boost ahead of a year in which Apple is expected to launch the iPhone 16.

Featured Image: Samsung

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Apple has confirmed its plans to launch its newest iMessage security protocol, named PQ3, in response to what it claims is a future threat from quantum computers, according to a recent PCMag report.

iMessage currently uses end-to-end encryption, ensuring that messages between the sender and receiver are secure and inaccessible to anyone else, including Apple. However, Apple is concerned that the advancement of quantum computers may soon reach a level where they could decrypt iMessage content. Such powerful quantum computers would presumably also be capable of decrypting messages sent through other apps, such as WhatsApp.

Last year, the Technical University of Denmark stated that although quantum computers are already operational, they lack the power to break end-to-end encryption at present, indicating it may take years to achieve this capability due to their current size limitations.

On Wednesday, Apple’s Security Engineering and Architecture (SEAR) team wrote about the evolution of encryption on messaging platforms. They explained that traditionally, platforms have relied on classical public key cryptography methods like RSA, Elliptic Curve signatures, and Diffie-Hellman key exchange to secure end-to-end encrypted connections. These methods are grounded in complex mathematical problems that were once deemed too challenging for computers to solve, even with advancements predicted by Moore’s law.

The SEAR team highlighted, however, that the advent of quantum computing could shift this balance. They noted that “a sufficiently powerful quantum computer could solve these classical mathematical problems in fundamentally different ways,” potentially fast enough to compromise the security of encrypted communications.

The team also raised concerns about future threats, stating that while current quantum computers can’t decrypt data protected by these methods, adversaries might store encrypted data now with the intention of decrypting it later using more advanced quantum technology. This strategy, known as “Harvest Now, Decrypt Later,” underscores the potential long-term vulnerabilities in current encryption techniques against the backdrop of quantum computing’s rapid development.

As a result, the tech giant has created PQ3, which it says has been built “from the ground up” to redesign iMessage from a security standpoint, adding a third level of protection to its end users.

When will Apple roll out PQ3 for iMessage?

PQ3 is expected to launch in March with iOS 17.4, as well as iPadOS 17.4, macOS 14.4 and watchOS 10.4.

The simultaneous rollout across multiple Apple operating systems underscores the company’s commitment to addressing the future threat quantum computers pose to end-to-end encryption. Apple is taking proactive steps to ensure that iMessage users on iPhones, tablets, computers, and wearables receive protection as swiftly as possible.

Featured Image: Photo by Mariia Shalabaieva on Unsplash

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Match Group and OpenAI have signed a deal that will see the dating app giant receive over 1,000 ChatGPT enterprise licenses for its employees, as reported by TechCrunch.

The company behind apps such as Tinder, Match, OKCupid, Hinge, and PlentyOfFish explained its plans to leverage AI across a variety of its apps in its Q4 earnings report, to “enable our business to evolve their existing products and build disruptive new products and user experiences that meet the changing needs and expectations of their target audiences and drive user growth.”

This agreement appears to be the first step towards implementing those plans as the company moves to get its workforce to use and interact with the technology it hopes will improve user experience in 2024.

To celebrate the agreement and to stay on brand, the press release announcing the deal was written with the help of ChatGPT, and it even includes a quote from ChatGPT itself, which says: “I’m thrilled Match Group matched with me.

“Together, we’re not just breaking the ice; we’re melting it and reshaping the way work gets done.”

The release also claims ChatGPT promises to “be the wingman employees didn’t know they needed.”

How will Match Group’s workforce use ChatGPT?

The dating app giant says it will use ChatGPT-4 to aid with coding, design, analysis, building templates, and other daily tasks, including communications, hence the rather tongue-in-cheek press release.

However, the company has stressed that only trained and licensed employees will have access to OpenAI‘s technology to protect corporate data.

To be given access to these tools, employees will have to undergo training that focuses on the technology’s capabilities, limitations, and responsible use.

While there has been no confirmation of the cost of this agreement to Match Group, the company says it believes the use of OpenAI’s tools will make teams more productive.

Featured Image: Photo by Good Faces Agency on Unsplash

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The official Borderlands movie trailer has been released, and it promises to include much of the explosive chaos that made the video game franchise by Gearbox Software so popular, reports ScreenRant.

Directed by Eli Roth and co-written by Joe Crombie, the movie boasts several big-name Hollywood stars, including Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jamie Lee Curtis, Florian Munteanu, Ariana Greenblatt, and Jack Black, who is the voice of a talkative Claptrap.

However, despite the star-studded cast, there were mixed reviews among fans, with some saying film studio Lionsgate UK “missed the mark” with the casting.

The movie includes several characters from the video game series, such as Lilith, Roland, Tiny Tina, Krieg, Tannis, and Claptrap, which indicates its loyal adaptation for the big screen. It perfectly captures the game’s chaotic tone and includes an element of comedy. Meanwhile, weapons, vehicles, and creatures from the games have been accurately recreated.

The movie began production in 2015 but faced several interruptions and reshoots, with the final shoot beginning in April 2021. All work seems to be moving along well with the help of Deadpool, director Tim Miller, who was drafted to help with filming.

You can watch the trailer below:

Despite the movie doing its best to stay loyal to the nature of the video game series, it follows a storyline not seen in the games, although it does continue to involve the concept of outlaws uniting to seek treasure on Pandora, which is described in the trailer as “the weirdest, most dangerous, dumpster fire planet in the universe.”

What is the Borderlands movie synopsis, and when will it be released??

The Borderlands trailer hints that the movie will follow a mission to find Atlas’ missing daughter.

The official synopsis reads: “After returning to her home planet Pandora, infamous outlaw Lilith, is given a dangerous mission and forms an alliance (and potential friendship) with other criminals, including former mercenary Roland, demolitionist Tiny Tina, and her protector Krieg, insane scientist Tannis, and the wisecracking robot Claptrap.

“The mission: find and protect the missing (and important) daughter of a very powerful man named Atlas. Although things may not be as they seem, the girl holds the key to great power, one that can change the fate of the entire universe.”

Borderlands is expected to be released in theatres on August 9, 2024.

Featured image: Borderlands / Lionsgate

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ChatGPT appeared to go rogue on Tuesday evening as users reported the AI chatbot responding with incorrect answers and talking gibberish, as reported by 404Media.

Members of a ChatGPT subreddit shared their experiences with screenshots of extraordinary exchanges with the technology, responses either making no sense or answers to questions being way off the mark.

One screenshot showed this response to a question: “This is the work of service and any medical today to the data field.” It continued: “The 12th to the degree and the pool to the land to the top of the seam, with trade and feature, can spend the large and the all before it’s under the care.”

Meanwhile, another user explained that they asked ChatGPT for “a synonym for overgrown” and got the response: “A synonym for “overgrown” is “overgrown” is “overgrown” is “overgrown”…”

Other users claimed it gave totally incorrect answers to the basic questions, such as responding with “Tokyo, Japan” when asked to name the biggest city on earth that begins with an ‘A.’

OpenAI, the creators of ChatGPT, has confirmed it has fixed the issue in a message on its status page. Still, it’s another reminder that while we’re in the middle of an AI boom, the technology is not yet immune to going rogue or, quite simply, going wrong.

AI models like ChatGPT have a long way to go

This is just another example of AI technology proving it’s not yet capable of earning complete trust from its users, despite fears that Artificial Intelligence has the potential to replace humans in a variety of day-t0-day tasks, both at home and in the workplace.

There have already been several instances where lawyers have gotten in trouble for citing fictitious cases generated by AI. Just last month, Reuters reported that a New York lawyer was facing disciplinary action after they used ChatGPT for research in a medicinal malpractice lawsuit and failed to confirm that the case cited was valid.

Featured Image: Photo by Jonathan Kemper on Unsplash

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More than 40 artificial intelligence (AI) models have been approved for public use by China in the last six months, reports Reuters.

Chinese media claims regulators in the country gave the green light to 14 large language models (LLM) last week, which is the fourth batch of approvals Beijing has granted since August last year as it attempts to play catch up with the US in the AI sector. The decision to keep AI technology under control by regulators emphasizes China’s approach toward developing the sector within the country.

Baidu, Alibaba and ByteDance, which owns social media giant TikTok, were among the first companies in China to receive approvals last year. Among the latest batch of approvals are Xiaomi Corp, 4Pradigm and 01.AI. There were also approvals in November and December last year.

While a complete list of approved companies hasn’t been disclosed by the Chinese government, Securities Times has said more than 40 AI models have now been approved for public use.

China is attempting to keep up with the US as AI technology continues to evolve globally, with Chinese companies rushing to develop AI products since OpenAI‘s ChatGPT rose to prominence in 2022.

Back then, China had an estimated 130 LLMs, which accounted for 40% of the global total, while the US’ market share was 50%.

How much is the LLM market worth globally?

As companies around the world rush to grab a share of the generative AI marker by producing their own LLM tools, Bloomberg reported in June 2023 that it estimates the market could be worth $1.3 trillion within the next 10 years. In 2022, it estimated the market to be worth just $40 billion.

The report continued to project that “generative AI is poised to expand its impact from less than 1% of total IT hardware, software services, ad spending and gaming market spending to 10% by 2032.”

It goes on to name generative AI infrastructure as a service used for training LLMs as potentially the largest driver of this growth, accounting for $247 billion of global revenues by 2032.

Featured Image: Dall-E

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Amazon‘s $1.4 billion acquisition of iRobot has been canceled, the two companies announced today.

The deal would have allowed the e-commerce giant to “invest in continued innovation by iRobot and support iRobot in lowering prices on products customers already love” said a statement released by both companies.

The collapsed acquisition, which was originally signed in August 2022,  is blamed on there being “no path to regulatory approval in the European Union.” Alongside the announcement, the maker of the Roomba confirmed it was laying off around 350 employees as a result, which is roughly 31% of its entire workforce. One of the first casualties is believed to be CEO and co-founder, Colin Angle, who is stepping down.

David Zapolsky, Amazon SVP and General Counsel said: “We’re disappointed that Amazon’s acquisition of iRobot could not proceed.

“We’re believers in the future of consumer robots in the home and have always been fans of iRobot’s products, which delight consumers and solve problems in ways that improve their lives. This outcome will deny consumers faster innovation and more competitive prices, which we’re confident would have made their lives easier and more enjoyable.

“Mergers and acquisitions like this help companies like iRobot better compete in the global marketplace, particularly against companies, and from other countries, that aren’t subject to the same regulatory requirements in fast-moving technology segments like robotics. Undue and disproportionate regulatory hurdles discourage entrepreneurs, who should be able to see acquisition as one path to success, and that hurts both consumers and competition – the very things that regulators say they’re trying to protect.”

Colin Angle said: “The termination of the agreement with Amazon is disappointing, but iRobot now turns toward the future with a focus and commitment to continue building thoughtful robots and intelligent home innovations that make life better, and that our customers around the world love.”

Amazon will pay a $94 million termination fee to iRobot, which will be used to help pay off a $200 million loan it took out last year.

What EU regulations led to the deal collapsing?

Last November, the European Commission said it believed the deal could potentially restrict competition in the robot vacuum cleaner market. Several of iRobot’s competitors sell their products on Amazon, which led to regulators’ concerns that Amazon could delist or reduce the visibility of rival products, subsequently restricting competition and leading to higher prices, lower quality and less innovation for consumers.

Regulators gave Amazon until January 10th to convince them to let the deal be signed off, but the deadline passed without them offering any concessions. The deal had already received the green light from the UK’s competition regulator in June 2023 but was ultimately unable to get the European Commission to follow suit.

Featured Image: Photos by Onur Binay and Christian Wiediger on Unsplash

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Tools from AI startup, ElevenLabs, are being blamed for deepfake Joe Biden robocalls to New Hampshire voters last week.

Some voters in the state claimed to have received calls from the US President telling them not to vote in the primary election. But while it is not clear who was directly responsible for the calls, two teams of audio experts have told WIRED that it was likely created using technology originating from voice-closing startup Eleven Labs.

Security company Pindrop, which specializes in tools that identify synthetic audio, said in a blog post last week that after analyzing the calls, evidence pointed towards ElevenLabs’ technology or a “system using similar components.

ElevenLabs’ AI tools are marketed for the likes of Audiobooks and video games but the public can sign up for the company’s paid service and use an audio sample to anyone’s voice. Its safety policy urges users to obtain someone’s permission before cloning their voice, but does state permissionless cloning is ok for non-commercial purposes, including “political speech contributing to public debates.”

The company’s CEO, Mati Staniszewski, said in a statement on Friday that ElevenLabs is “dedicated to preventing the misuse of audio AI tools.” The statement also said the company would assist authorities to help take action in cases of misuse.

However, this isn’t the first time ElevenLabs’ tools have been accused of being at the center of deepfake political propaganda. In September last year, it was claimed that TikTok accounts sharing conspiracy theories using AI-generated voices, including that of Barack Obama, were using ElevenLabs’ tools.

ElevenLabs recently raised $80 million at a $1.1 billion valuation in a new funding round, achieving “unicorn” status.

The dark side of deepfake content

This is the latest incident of AI-generated deepfake content being created that shows the dark side of what this kind of technology can do, amid further calls to regulate the industry.

Last week, sexually explicit deepfake images of Taylor Swift went viral on X before the platform moved to block searches for the popstar in an attempt to thwart the images circulating further.

With audio, video and now audio having the potential to be misused in such damaging ways using AI technology, Congressman Tom Kean’s recent calls for Congress to take and pass two bills he has introduced to help regulate AI is becoming more pertinent.

Featured Image: Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

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Flutter Entertainment, which owns FanDuel, is set to list on the New York Stock Exchange on Monday, as reported by The Guardian.

The ongoing sports betting boom in the US has led to many bookmakers battling to dominate the country, with the likes of DraftKings and BetMGM also becoming key players in the space.

Flutter hailed its listing in New York as a “pivotal moment” as it continues to grow its operations in the US. The Dublin-based company generated sales of $4.59 billion in the US last year when the Supreme Court removed a long-standing law that prohibited sports betting across much of the country. Their US revenues in 2018 were just $243 million, which was about 10% of their global revenue. Now the US market makes up around 40% of Flutter’s sales.

In its regulatory filing, Flutter described its future growth plans as “a long runway” but also acknowledged future regulation in the industry could be significantly influenced by concerns around problem gambling.

The Supreme Court’s 2018 ruling to strike down anti-sports betting laws has led to Flutter’s chief executive, Peter Jackson, floating the idea of making May 18 – the day of the ruling – a company holiday, such is the significant impact it has had on the business ever since.

The company, which was formally known as Paddy Power Betfair, is also listed in the London Stock Exchange. Its second listing in New York is designed to boost its profile and open up access to greater investment opportunities in the US.

How big is the sports betting market in the US?

Since the market opened up in 2018, online sports betting in the US has been on an upward curve that doesn’t appear to be stopping anytime soon.

According to Statista, the sector is anticipated to achieve revenues of $9.65 billion in 2024. Based on an expected annual market growth of 13.03%, market volume will reach $15.75 billion by 2028.

In terms of users, 52 million online sports punters are expected to be active by 2028, with average revenue per user expected to reach $256.60.

Featured Image: Photo by Lucas Andrade on Unsplash

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Apple‘s iOS 18 is widely expected to be the biggest software update in iPhone history, as reported by Mac Rumours.

The tech giant is expected to unveil the next big OS update to its iPhone range at its Worldwide Developers Conference (WDCC) in June and while it is yet to reveal any information regarding what it will involve, the rumor mill has already gone into overdrive.

Bloomberg’s Chief Correspondent, Mark Gurman, said in the Q&A section of his subscriber-only Power On newsletter over the weekend: “I’m told that the new operating system is seen within the company as one of the biggest iOS updates – if not the biggest – in the company’s history.” Gurman said he plans to provide updates on the changes in iOS 18 in the future.

Rumors, though, are already weighted towards developments in generative artificial intelligence (AI), as well as significant updates to iPhone’s Messages app.

What can we expect to see in iOS 18?

RCS Support for iPhones

Firstly, Rich Communications Services (RCS) support is expected to be implemented in iOS 18, following Apple’s promise in November last year that they would adopt RCS for iOS. While RCS is a messaging standard, it’s believed it will come with several fresh features, including typing indicators, read recipes, audio messages and higher-resolution images and videos.

iPhones don’t currently support RCS universally, only within its iMessage service for iPhone-to-iPhone messaging. But this update could bring all of those features to the entire Messages app, which will mean conversations between iPhone and Android users will now benefit from RCS as standard.

Siri with generative AI

Siri is also expected to receive an important update as Apple attempts to inject generative AI technology into its digital assistant. In his Q&A, Gurman said that it “should improve how both Siri and the Messages app can field questions and auto-complete sentences” while he also hinted that Apple is exploring similar generative AI features for other apps across its platforms, including Pages, Keynote, Apple Music and Xcode.

It was reported last year that Apple intends to incorporate large language models into Siri, which would allow users to automate complete tasks.

Featured Image: Photo by Omid Armin on Unsplash

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Social media platform X has moved to block searches of Taylor Swift after explicit AI-generated deepfake images of the pop star went viral last week.

Deepfake images of the singer in sexually explicit scenarios alongside fans of NFL team the Kansas City Chiefs were circulated on various social media platforms, leading to Swift considering legal action. X initially battled to remove the images from the platform but struggled due to new accounts regularly reposting them.

But today (Jan 29), when searching for Swift on X, a message appears that says: “Something went wrong. Try reloading.”

In a statement issued to the BBC, X’s head of business operations, Joe Benarroch, said it was a “temporary action” to prioritize safety.

On Friday, X issued a separate statement, per the BBC, in response to the photos to remind its users that posting non-consensual nudity on the platform is “strictly prohibited.”

The statement said: “We have a zero-tolerance policy towards such content.

“Our teams are actively removing all identified images and taking appropriate actions against the accounts responsible for posting them.”

Furthermore, the images of Taylor Swift have caught the attention of the White House, who last week called the spread of AI-generated deepfake photos “alarming,” as reported by The Verge. The White House’s press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre called for legislation to tackle the misuse of AI technology on social media and also told platforms in this space that they have a responsibility to put processes in place to ban such content.

What is AI deepfake content?

The word ‘deepfake’ originated by combining the terms ‘deep learning’ and ‘fake.’ A deepfake piece of content is a video or image that uses AI technology to substitute the likeness of one person with another.

This kind of technology isn’t exactly new, with Hollywood often using deepfake methods to superimpose actors’ features into films. However, now that the technology has become more widely available to the public, and as AI technology continues to become more advanced, there are increasing concerns about the ethics behind this type of content creation. This is never more evident than right now, as Taylor Swift has found it in the most intrusive of ways.

As the technology evolves it is becoming more and more difficult to spot deepfakes, whereas in the early stages, it was relatively easy to differentiate between AI-generated content and genuine images or videos.

Featured Image: Jana Zills, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

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The first weeks of 2024 have seen a large number of layoffs throughout the gaming industry, which has led to social media users sharing comments previously made by the late Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata, as reported by NME.

Iwata oversaw the launch of the Nintendo DS and Wii, both great successes for the Japanese company, during his time as Nintendo president, taking office in 2002 before he died in 2015. But as CEO, he experienced Nintendo’s turbulent launch of Wii U, which is widely considered to be a flop.

It was the failure of Wii U that led to Iwata going to the lengths that not many CEOs of large tech companies have done, which is to take a 50% pay cut to avoid mass company layoffs. At the same time, other top executives reduced their salaries by 20%.

And it’s a decision that people are being reminded of now as the tech sector continues to suffer widespread layoffs in the first month of 2024. Speaking in 2013, Iwata said: “If we reduce the number of employees for better short-term financial results, employee morale will decrease. I sincerely doubt employees who fear that they may be laid off will be able to develop software titles that could impress people around the world.

“At Nintendo, employees make valuable contributions in their respective fields, so I believe that laying off a group of employees will not help to strengthen Nintendo’s business in the long run.”

They’re words that Nintendo fans on social media have been praising once again, with many calling for top tech chiefs to follow Iwata’s lead by cutting their salaries before deciding to axe thousands of employees.

Iwata’s comments resurfaced following Microsoft’s decision to lay off 1,900 employees from Activision Blizzard, Xbox and ZeniMax earlier this week, months after its $69 billion acquisition was approved by regulators. Also this week, Riot Games announced 500 layoffs.

Activision CEO Bobby Kotick earned an average $77,306 per hour in 2022, according to NME, while Xbox boss Phil Spencer reportedly has an annual salary of $10 million a year. Since the acquisition, Kotick has stepped down and left the business but Spencer has remained in his position.

So it’s no wonder fans have been calling for those on larger salaries to start taking the hit instead of effectively punishing employees on smaller salaries when cost-cutting measures are needed or structural changes are made.

Satoru Iwata (god bless him) took a 50% pay cut after WiiU's poor sales TO NOT LAY OFF WORKERS and you can't tell me that the higher ups of Riot couldn't do the same and still earn a good salary? pic.twitter.com/xWBl52IkzN

— PunyPenguin // The Blood Moon shines upon Zyra (@PunyPunyPenguin) January 23, 2024

Brutal start to 2024 for the tech industry

The aforementioned layoffs by Microsoft and Riot Games take the total number of tech industry layoffs since the turn of the year to almost 24,000 from 85 different companies in the sector.

Earlier this week, both TikTok and eBay announced layoffs of 60 and 1,000 respectively, while Google has also announced hundreds of job losses earlier in January.

According to layoffs.fyi, over 260,000 tech jobs were axed in 2023, which was the worst year for the industry since the global pandemic disrupted global economies in 2020.

Featured Image: Official GDC, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

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