Meta, YouTube and other sites collected more data than most users realized, a new report by the Federal Trade Commission finds.

The Israeli government did not tamper with the Hezbollah devices that exploded, defense and intelligence officials say. It manufactured them as part of an elaborate ruse.

Elon Musk’s social network used a technical maneuver to restore service for many Brazilians after a court blocked it. Regulators expected to restore the block soon.

After a delay of several months, General Motors said owners of its battery-powered models would now be able to use Tesla charging stations with adapters.

New devices from Motorola and Google prove that phones with bendable screens keep getting better — and some are even becoming cheaper.

Is your latest song on repeat really sung by Blackpink or Justin Bieber? There’s a shockingly high chance that it’s a deepfake voice clone created to trick you, according to a new study from musicMagpie aptly titled Bop or Bot? The study found an astonishing 1.63 million AI covers just on YouTube. Listeners may not always be able to tell the difference, and it could actually have a financial impact on the artists whose voices are being used for the songs. 

The biggest victims of these deepfake tracks are K-pop groups, accounting for 35% of the top twenty most-streamed AI-generated artists. Blackpink is at the top of the list, with more than 17.3 million views of AI-generated content mimicking the group, with an AI cover of ‘Batter Up’ by BabyMonster nabbing 2.5 million views alone. Justin Bieber ranks second on the list at over 13 million views, including his biggest fake hit at 10.1 million views, ‘Nothing’s Gonna Change My Love For You’ by George Benson. Rounding out the top three stolen voices is Kanye West at 3.4 million views for AI-generated tracks, including a cover of ‘Somebody That I Used to Know’ with 2.6 million streams.

There’s’ a more literal theft involved, too. The financial implications of AI-generated music are substantial, according to musicMagpie. The company estimated that the surge in AI-generated content could translate to more than $13.5 million in lost revenue for original creators. That’s about $500,000 lost for Blackpink, while Bieber and West lost out on $202,964 and $130,000, respectively.

Voice Tricks

Even being deceased can’t save artists from AI theft, as the AI ghost of Frank Sinatra’s 8.9 million views and Freddie Mercury’s 3.55 million views can attest. As for fictional unlicensed voices, there’s an unexpected appeal to SpongeBob SquarePants performing songs and collecting 10.2 million views of the yellow cartoon character. His biggest hit? Don Maclean’s ‘American Pie.’

Part of the issue is that people aren’t good at telling AI-generated music from music made by humans. In a further study, musicMagpie found that 72% of participants were sure they could tell an AI-produced song from one made by humans, but 49% couldn’t do so. And it’s not an age thing; Gen Z participants were actually the most easily fooled. All of this is fodder for ongoing legal battles facing AI music startups like Suno and Udio overusing unlicensed material to train their AI models. If the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and music labels can successfully argue that there’s a real monetary loss involved, they’ll likely have a stronger case against the AI model developers. 

“These findings highlight a growing challenge in the music industry: as AI technology becomes more sophisticated, music lovers across multiple generations are struggling to discern between what is real and what is artificially created,” the study’s authors point out. “If nearly half of listeners can’t tell the difference between a human artist and an AI, what does this mean for the value of human creativity? How will this affect the way we create, perceive, and appreciate music in the years to come? These are questions that the industry must grapple with as AI continues to evolve.”

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Snapchat is taking its Spectacles game to the next level with a complete reimagining that enables augmented reality, gesture control, experience sharing, gaming, and more.

On Tuesday, September 17, 2024, the social media company unveiled its beefy new 226-gram smartglasses, which look almost nothing like any Snapchat Spectacles that have come before. 

Unlike previous Spectacles that allowed you to capture and quickly share your world with Snapchat friends, Snapchat Spectacles 5th generation alters your world with augmented reality (AR). It does it with a blend of, at least to Snap, all new technologies.

First, there's the display system, which we've seen previously on Lumus Z-Lens glasses. It's based on waveguides, which is the practice of taking projected images and guiding them to the glass lenses in front of your face. 

Like those glasses, which we saw at CES 2023, Spectacles 5th Gen with AR uses Liquid Crystal on Silicon (LCoS) micro-projectors and something like mirrors to stretch the projected images and guide them across your field of view. Snap claims that the visual will look like a 100-ft screen as seen from a distance of 10 ft away.

(Image credit: Snap)

There are four cameras used to capture spatial information and let you control the Snapchat Spectacles via gestures. Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel wore the new glasses on stage during the unveiling event and demonstrated the controls, which virtually sit in the palm of your hand. You'll control the Spectacles via pinch and pull gestures with one or both hands. A large screen behind him showed the Spectacles feed, which included menus and other interface graphics. It looks as if the AR imagery did not fill the entire viewport.

Powering the new Spectacles is the new Snap OS and a pair of Qualcomm Snapdragon processors, which Snap says will split the processing tasks. During the demo, Spiegel also used the glasses to take a video of the crowd, so it appears that these spectacles will maintain some of their original utility.

Snap is already lining up developer partners and is promising experiences from ILM for the Star Wars Galaxy, Niantec, and LEGO.

(Image credit: Snap)

Snap says the lenses are built to share your AR experiences with friends who can watch on their smartphones. The lenses even have auto-dimming to adjust in sunlight. In other words, they're AR spectacles and sunglasses.

As for pricing and availability, well, none of that is set. Snap is only opening up its developer program, Lens Studio,  which will allow developers to test, play with, and develop for the new augmented reality platform.

The AR glasses look big (as many that use similar technology do), and there's no word on battery life. However, this form of AR display technology is reportedly brighter and larger while still using less power.

Snap's sudden entry into the AR Smart Glasses space comes as Meta is gearing up for Meta Connect where we expect to get at least a sneak peek at the company's eagerly-anticipated AR glasses project. Will we get as much as Snap just delivered? Time will tell.

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The state joins dozens of others in regulating the A.I. fakery in ways that could impact this year’s presidential race.

Ms. Ellison, Sam Bankman-Fried’s former girlfriend and a top executive in his empire, is set to be sentenced on Sept. 24 for her role in the collapse of the crypto exchange.

In a livestream, Donald Trump formally introduced World Liberty Financial, a crypto venture led by two digital currency entrepreneurs with little experience running high-profile businesses.

The app, which is popular with teenagers, introduced new settings and features aimed at addressing inappropriate online contact and content, and improving sleep for users under 18.

Three experts on social media and disinformation share their predictions for this year’s chaotic election.

Microsoft’s latest update for Windows 11 arrived last week, and the patch for September 2024 delivers some nice boosts for PC gaming on some machines with AMD Ryzen processors - but it has emerged there are some catches reportedly present in the form of bugs.

The September patch (KB5043076) comes packing the full release of the branch prediction code improvements that benefit Ryzen 7000 or newer CPUs that we saw in last month’s optional update. We’re talking about frame rate boosts to the tune of 10% or more in some cases, which will doubtless delight gamers. (These improvements were actually witnessed in Windows 11 24H2 first, but were backported to the current 23H2 version).

Because of this major stride for gaming on modern Ryzen processors, more folks have rushed to download the latest cumulative update for Windows 11 - and they’ve encountered some nasty problems.

(Image credit: aslysun / Shutterstock) If you install update KB5043076 and face issues, you're not alone

Unfortunately, Windows Latest reports that some users have found update KB5043076 fails to install, or they’ve hit other problems like File Explorer crashing when trying to open it from the taskbar. 

A similar problem with File Explorer was observed in August’s optional update, so it seems that this bug has carried over into the September update. 

Another problem you might bump into after installing this update is that your device’s Phishing Protection in Windows Security (which is important for keeping you safe from online scams) might be switched off after restarting or shutting down your PC.

Furthermore, one user has taken to Microsoft’s Feedback Hub to report issues with specific Windows system files that affect certain key features like User Account Control. 

Other issues that have been observed are Windows 11’s search feature taking longer than usual to load, certain apps failing to run, issues with internet connectivity, and the PC’s restart and shutdown functions not working.

(Image credit: Shutterstock/Zamrznuti tonovi) How you can deal with these problems (for now)

KB5043076, the update for September 2024, is a mandatory patch, meaning it will automatically be delivered to your Windows 23H2 (or 22H2) PC. If these reported problems make you nervous, you could pause your updates - although only for up to a month on Windows 11 Home installations. Remember, though, that without the September update, you will be lacking some vital security fixes that are inevitably part of these patches.

Those experiencing problems already having installed the September patch could remove it. To do so, simply go to Windows Update (in Settings) and then Update History, where you’ll find the option to Uninstall Updates - here, you can find the patch which is KB5043076 as we’ve mentioned, and elect to uninstall it. After that, you can pause updates (for a month, as noted).

Microsoft has yet to comment on these reported issues with the September 2024 update, but we’ll let you know if we hear from the company, or anything about fixes being implemented.

We are waiting for the full rollout of Windows 11 version 24H2, which should be coming pretty soon, and patches like this one don’t give me the greatest confidence in Microsoft, it has to be said.

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Microsoft is promising some major performance improvements when it comes to Windows 11 apps, specifically those that are based on Windows App SDK technology, such as Photos for example.

This comes courtesy of a change that Windows Latest spotted in the support document for the latest Windows App SDK preview release, which mentions a new improvement in ‘native AOT (Ahead-Of-Time) compilation’ support.

Testing indicates that this feature could make apps load 50% faster and also use less memory, saving your precious system resources. It should mean that apps based on Windows App SDK, like Photos and Phone Link in Windows 11, will run better in general as well as loading more swiftly. It’ll also have benefits in terms of app packages apparently being eight times smaller.

If you’re wondering exactly what Windows App SDK is, it’s a collection of tools (SDK stands for Software Development Kit) that helps developers make Windows apps with the newest features while working with older Windows software frameworks (like Win32). 

(Image credit: Shutterstock/Gorodenkoff) Better performance for a bunch of apps before too long

These improvements may take some time to be realized, though, as we’ll have to wait for Microsoft to adopt WinAppSDK 1.6 with native AOT, and for third-party developers to update their software (which I hope they do pretty soon).

When that happens, the results should be pretty eye-opening, at least going by Microsoft’s early testing. As Windows Latest observes, almost all apps built with Windows App SDK are hit by sluggish launch times, and they can also be unresponsive in terms of slowdowns when loading animations, or even when just interacting with the interface.

Overall, these improvements in the pipeline are great news for Windows 11 users, as they promise apps that perform more smoothly all around, as well as loading more quickly. Although it may take some time for these updates to roll out, as noted, the benefits of native AOT support will eventually translate into a noticeable improvement in the day-to-day performance of essential Windows 11 apps like Photos and Phone Link.

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The social media app says new privacy settings and features will create more age-appropriate experiences for youth under 18.

ChatGPT’s latest model o1 – or Strawberry as it was codenamed – has begun rolling out and it promises to make the chatbot AI more human-like than ever. That includes the ability to better understand natural language, but few people expected ChatGPT to be able to message you first. For a brief time it seemingly could, though that was apparently a bug rather than a hint at a new upgrade.

Several users reported on social media that ChatGPT had started a conversation with them; in one such example from Reddit ChatGPT asked the user how their first week at high school went; when it was asked if it messaged first, the Open AI bot proudly responded “yes”, later expanding that it can now initiate a conversation to follow up on things it has previously discussed. Another user claimed in the comments that the AI asked them about health symptoms they had previously discussed with it.

As proof of the new feature the user also shared a link to their conversation, to show that ChatGPT did indeed initiate the conversation unprompted. Though some were skeptical, with one Twitter user showing how the chat could have been faked.

Regardless, people were excited for this kind of feature, real or not. Checking in after your first day of high school or on your health demonstrates a (somewhat creepy) sense of human-like compassion, but we’re thinking of the more mundane reminders.

How often have you researched something like plans for an upcoming trip then forgotten about everything you looked up – ChatGPT could now remind you to book a table at that restaurant it recommended or plan your visit to that famous landmark you must see so your planning efforts don’t go to waste.

However, it appears that this was a bug, not an intended addition to ChatGPT that’s being A/B tested.

Gone but not forgotten

(Image credit: Future)

OpenAI has now responded, telling Futurism in a statement that it had “addressed an issue where it appeared as though ChatGPT was starting new conversations,” adding that “this issue occurred when the model was trying to respond to a message that didn't send properly and appeared blank. As a result, it either gave a generic response or drew on ChatGPT's memory."

That means, at least for now, ChatGPT won’t be able to initiate a conversation. Though given the level of buzz this situation has created we wouldn’t be shocked to see OpenAI start to work on something similar.

If the bot already has the ability to recall events from previous conversations there’s no reason why some extra logic programming couldn’t get it to start chats based on what it knows – provided you give it permission to. For now, we’ll have to wait and see where OpenAI takes ChatGPT next.

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AI chatbots may struggle with hallucinating made-up information, but new research has shown they might be useful for pushing back against unfounded and hallucinatory ideas in human minds. MIT Sloan and Cornell University scientists have published a paper in Science claiming that conversing with a chatbot powered by a large language model (LLM) reduces belief in conspiracies by about 20%. 

To see how an AI chatbot might affect conspiratorial thinking, the scientist arranged for 2,190 participants to discuss conspiracy theories with a chatbot running OpenAI's GPT-4 Turbo model. Participants were asked to describe a conspiracy theory they found credible, including the reasons and evidence they believed supported it. The chatbot, prompted to be persuasive, provided responses tailored to these details. As they talked to the chatbot, it provided tailored counterarguments based on the participants' input. The study fielded the perennial AI hallucination issue with a professional fact-checker evaluating 128 claims made by the chatbot during the study. The claims were 99.2% accurate, which the researchers said was thanks to extensive online documentation of conspiracy theories represented in the model's training data.

The idea of turning to AI for debunking conspiracy theories was that their deep information reservoirs and adaptable conversational approaches could reach people by personalizing the approach. Based on follow-up assessments ten days and two months after the first conversation, it worked. Most participants had a reduced belief in the conspiracy theories they had espoused " from classic conspiracies involving the assassination of John F. Kennedy, aliens, and the Illuminati, to those pertaining to topical events such as COVID-19 and the 2020 US presidential election," the researchers found.

Factbot Fun

The results were a real surprise to the researchers, who had hypothesized that people are largely unreceptive to evidence-based arguments debunking conspiracy theories. Instead, it shows that a well-designed AI chatbot can present counterarguments effectively, leading to a measurable change in belief. They concluded that AI tools could be a boon in combatting misinformation, albeit one that requires caution due to how it could also further mislead people with misinformation.

The study supports the value of projects with similar goals. For instance, fact-checking site Snopes recently released an AI tool called FactBot to help people figure out whether something they've heard is real or not. FactBot uses Snopes' archive and generative AI to answer questions without having to comb through articles using more traditional search methods. Meanwhile, The Washington Post created Climate Answers to clear up confusion on climate change issues, relying on its climate journalism to answer questions directly on the topic.  

"Many people who strongly believe in seemingly fact-resistant conspiratorial beliefs can change their minds when presented with compelling evidence. From a theoretical perspective, this paints a surprisingly optimistic picture of human reasoning: Conspiratorial rabbit holes may indeed have an exit," the researchers wrote. "Practically, by demonstrating the persuasive power of LLMs, our findings emphasize both the potential positive impacts of generative AI when deployed responsibly and the pressing importance of minimizing opportunities for this technology to be used irresponsibly."

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The chipmaker, which has been struggling, said on Monday that it obtained a new government grant, signed a contract with Amazon and would pause some initiatives.

TikTok on Monday pushed back against a law that would force the popular video app to sell to a non-Chinese owner or be banned, in what is shaping up to be a landmark case.