Aug 25, 2024

ElevenLabs New AI Reader App Just Expanded to 32 More Languages

AI-powered text-to-speech expands globally: ElevenLabs, an AI audio startup, has released its Reader app worldwide, significantly expanding its language support and accessibility. The Reader app, initially launched in June for the US, UK, and Canada, is now available globally on both iOS and Android platforms. The app's language capabilities have been expanded to include 32 different languages, such as Spanish, Portuguese, French, Arabic, Mandarin, and Hindi. Users can utilize the app to listen to various text formats, including PDFs, articles, newsletters, and ePub files, though support for Kindle and Apple Books files is not currently available. Diverse voice options and...

read Aug 25, 2024

AI Revives Faded Masterpieces Through Color Reconstruction

AI-driven art preservation breakthrough: A groundbreaking project called PERCEIVE aims to revolutionize art conservation by using artificial intelligence to reconstruct original colors in aging artworks. The European Union-backed initiative involves 12 major institutions, including museums and technology companies, collaborating over a three-year period. PERCEIVE's goal is to create an AI-powered toolkit that can be used by both experts and laypeople to study and digitally reconstruct the original colors of various art forms. The project focuses on five key groups of art: statues, paintings and works on paper, textiles, photographs, and augmented reality artworks. High-profile case study: The Scream: Edvard Munch's...

read Aug 25, 2024

Intel Core Ultra AI-Powered Laptops Are Purpose-Built for Creators

AI-powered laptops revolutionize content creation: The Intel Core Ultra series processors, featured in the HP Spectre x360, introduce a new era of AI-enhanced computing capabilities for creators. The Intel Core Ultra processors incorporate a Neural Processing Unit (NPU) alongside the traditional CPU and GPU, creating a powerful trifecta for AI-driven tasks. This combination, known as AI Boost, allows for more efficient handling of AI and machine learning workloads, freeing up system resources and improving overall responsiveness. Advanced architecture enhances performance: Intel's updated 3D Performance Hybrid Architecture in the Core Ultra processors offers a sophisticated approach to task management and power...

read Aug 25, 2024

AI Decodes 3,000-Year-Old Scrolls, Unveiling Ancient Wisdom

Ancient texts brought to life: Advanced AI technology is enabling researchers to decipher previously unreadable 3,000-year-old papyrus scrolls from Herculaneum, a Roman town destroyed by Mount Vesuvius. Historical context and archaeological significance: The Villa of the Papyri in Herculaneum has yielded a treasure trove of ancient knowledge, preserved in an unexpected form. In 1752, archaeologists discovered 1,785 papyrus scrolls in a residential complex near Pompeii, now known as the Villa of the Papyri. Herculaneum, a coastal retreat for elite Romans, was better preserved than Pompeii due to its location and the nature of the volcanic eruption. The scrolls represent the...

read Aug 25, 2024

Why ‘GPU Utilization’ May Be a Misleading Performance Metric

The big picture: GPU Utilization, a commonly used metric for assessing GPU performance in machine learning tasks, has been found to be potentially misleading, as it doesn't accurately reflect the computational efficiency of GPU usage. Understanding GPU Utilization: GPU Utilization, as defined by Nvidia, measures the percentage of time during which one or more kernels are executing on the GPU, but fails to account for the efficiency of core usage or workload parallelization. This metric can reach 100% even when the GPU is only performing memory read/write operations without any actual computations. The discrepancy between GPU Utilization and actual computational...

read Aug 25, 2024

Google Invests $117.5M in California’s Effort to Support Journalism

California's innovative approach to journalism funding: Google and the state of California have struck a groundbreaking deal to support local journalism and advance AI innovation, sidestepping a proposed "link tax" bill. The agreement involves Google contributing $55 million over five years to a "News Transformation Fund," while California will add $70 million during the same period. Google has also committed $62.5 million to establish a "National AI Innovation Accelerator," highlighting the growing intersection of technology and journalism. This deal requires legislative approval as part of California's budget process and has received support from Governor Gavin Newsom. Financial implications and industry...

read Aug 25, 2024

What’s Comes Next for the Artists Suing Midjourney and Stability AI

Legal milestone in AI copyright battle: A class action lawsuit filed by visual artists against AI image generation platforms Stability AI, Midjourney, Runway, and DeviantArt has progressed to the discovery stage, marking a significant development in the ongoing debate over AI and copyright infringement. The lawsuit, brought by ten prominent artists including Sarah Andersen, Kelly McKernan, and Karla Ortiz, alleges that these AI platforms engaged in copyright infringement during the training of their AI models. This case is one of the first legal challenges to AI platforms to reach the discovery stage, potentially setting a precedent for future litigation against...

read Aug 25, 2024

How ‘Intelligent Document Processing’ Boosts Efficiency for Enterprises

Intelligent document processing (IDP) is revolutionizing how businesses handle unstructured content, using artificial intelligence to automate traditionally manual and time-consuming tasks. The big picture: IDP technology leverages AI and machine learning to process unstructured data, which constitutes 80-90% of new enterprise information, enabling organizations to streamline operations and improve efficiency. IDP systems employ advanced technologies like large language models and natural language processing to interpret various document types, including paper documents, emails, PDFs, forms, and images. By extracting relevant data and inputting it into other systems, IDP significantly reduces the need for manual data entry, leading to faster and more...

read Aug 25, 2024

Google DeepMind Staff Protest AI’s Military Use in Open Letter

Google DeepMind employees protest military contracts: Nearly 200 staff members at Google DeepMind have signed an open letter calling for the company to end its contracts with military organizations, citing ethical concerns about the use of AI technology in warfare. The letter, representing about 5% of the Google DeepMind division, expresses concerns about the company's AI being used for military purposes, particularly referencing Project Nimbus, a defense contract with the Israeli military. Employees highlight reports of the Israeli military using AI for mass surveillance and target selection in Gaza, with Israeli weapon firms required to purchase cloud services from Google...

read Aug 25, 2024

How Google’s 3 New AI Models Stack Up Against Each Other

Google's Gemini AI: A new frontier in language models: Google's latest large language model, Gemini, comes in three distinct versions - Ultra, Pro, and Nano - each tailored for different use cases and computational environments. Gemini Nano: AI in your pocket: This lightweight version is designed to run directly on mobile devices, offering on-device AI capabilities without compromising user privacy or requiring constant internet connectivity. Gemini Nano comes in two variants: Nano-1 with 1.8 billion parameters and Nano-2 with 3.25 billion parameters. It powers on-device AI features such as call notes on Pixel phones, showcasing its ability to perform complex...

read Aug 25, 2024

Coppola’s ‘Megalopolis’ Faces Controversy Over Fake AI-Generated Reviews

AI-generated fake reviews spark controversy: The release of a trailer for Francis Ford Coppola's upcoming film "Megalopolis" has ignited a controversy due to the inclusion of fabricated critic quotes generated by artificial intelligence. Marketing mishap unveiled: Lionsgate, the film's distributor, was forced to pull the trailer after it was discovered that the supposedly negative quotes about Coppola's past films, attributed to renowned critics, were entirely AI-generated and not authentic. The trailer featured fake negative reviews purportedly from famous critics, including Pauline Kael, which were later revealed to be AI-generated content. It is suspected that ChatGPT or a similar AI language...

read Aug 25, 2024

Abacus.AI Releases Open-Source AI Model ‘Dracarys’ for Coding

Generative AI for coding gets a boost: Abacus.ai has released Dracarys, a new family of open-source large language models (LLMs) specifically optimized for coding tasks. Dracarys applies a fine-tuning "recipe" to existing LLMs, significantly improving their coding abilities. The initial release focuses on the 70B parameter class of models, including Meta's Llama 3.1 and Qwen-2 72B. Abacus.ai has previously released Smaug-72B, a general-purpose LLM, showcasing their penchant for using dragon-inspired names from popular fiction. Performance improvements: Benchmarks indicate substantial enhancements in coding capabilities for models treated with the Dracarys recipe. LiveBench coding scores show an increase from 32.67 to 35.23...

read Aug 25, 2024

How This Top Creator Platform Uses AI To Hire Brand Influencers

The rise of AI-powered influencer marketing: LTK, a leading content creator platform, has introduced an innovative AI tool called LTK Match to revolutionize how brands connect with influencers for marketing campaigns. LTK is a three-sided business ecosystem that connects shoppers, brands, and influencers, boasting 40 million shoppers, 150,000+ content creators, and around 8,000 brands on its platform. The company facilitates approximately 44,000 brand campaigns annually, ranging from driving sales and website clicks to increasing brand awareness and repositioning products. AI-driven influencer selection: LTK Match, a machine learning AI tool, streamlines the process of finding the right influencers for brand campaigns,...

read Aug 25, 2024

AI-Generated Child Porn Arrest Exposes Dark Side of Tech

AI-generated child pornography leads to arrest: A Florida man faces 20 counts of obscenity for allegedly creating and distributing AI-generated child pornography, highlighting the growing misuse of generative AI technology. Phillip Michael McCorkle was arrested at his workplace, a movie theater in Vero Beach, Florida, following an investigation by the Indian River County Sheriff's Office. The investigation was prompted by tips that McCorkle was using an AI image generator to create child sexual imagery and distributing it through the social media app Kik. McCorkle's arrest was part of a larger county operation targeting individuals possessing child pornography. Broader implications of...

read Aug 25, 2024

iOS 18.1’s AI-Powered Notifications Could Apple Intelligence’s Killer App

Apple's AI-powered notification summaries: A game-changer for iOS users: Apple's upcoming iOS 18.1 update introduces a practical yet powerful AI feature that promises to change how users interact with their notifications. The core of Apple Intelligence: Apple's new AI initiative, dubbed "AI for the rest of us," focuses on implementing practical improvements to everyday tasks, with notification management being a prime example. The feature, set to launch in late October, will provide AI-generated summaries of notifications from key communication apps. Initial support includes Apple's Messages and Mail apps, with third-party app integration planned for the future. Notification summaries are designed...

read Aug 25, 2024

‘Google Keep’ Adds AI-Powered List Creation for Android Users

AI-powered list creation comes to Google Keep: Google Keep, the popular note-taking app, is introducing a new AI-driven feature called "Help me create a list" for Android users, leveraging the power of Gemini to enhance productivity and organization. Feature functionality and accessibility: The new AI-powered list creation tool in Google Keep transforms simple prompts into comprehensive, categorized lists, streamlining the process of task and item organization for users. Users can input prompts like "write a grocery list of ingredients for healthy dinners," and the AI will generate a detailed list with categories such as lean protein, vegetables, and whole grains....

read Aug 25, 2024

Microsoft’s Small Phi-3.5 Model Outperforms Gemini and GPT-4o in STEM

Microsoft unveils Phi-3.5 small language model: Microsoft has released its latest iteration of small language models, Phi-3.5, available in three sizes and free to download. Model specifications and performance: Phi-3.5 comes in 3.8 billion, 4.15 billion, and 41.9 billion parameter versions, with the smallest model trained on 3.4 trillion tokens of data using 512 Nvidia H100 GPUs over 10 days. The model excels in reasoning tasks, second only to GPT-4o-mini among leading small models. Phi-3.5 significantly outperforms Llama and Gemini on math benchmarks. A vision-capable version of the model can process and understand images. The largest version utilizes a mixture...

read Aug 25, 2024

How Lab-Grown Mini Brains Could Power AI of the Future

Breakthrough in biocomputing: Scientists are exploring the potential of brain organoids, tiny lab-grown neural structures, to power AI systems with unprecedented efficiency and sustainability. The AI energy crisis: Current artificial intelligence systems consume enormous amounts of energy, raising concerns about their long-term sustainability. • OpenAI's ChatGPT alone requires 500,000 kilowatts of power daily to process 200 million user prompts. • The scale of resources needed to fuel the global AI boom is becoming increasingly unsustainable. Biological solutions to technological problems: Researchers are turning to neuroscience and biotechnology to address the energy demands of AI systems. • Companies like Cortical Labs...

read Aug 25, 2024

Google’s Pixel Screenshots and Studio Now Available in These Countries

Pixel 9 series phones are set to receive advanced AI-powered features, enhancing user experience with innovative screenshot and photo editing capabilities. New AI features for Pixel 9: Google is rolling out Pixel Screenshots and Pixel Studio, two AI-powered tools designed to enhance the functionality of its latest smartphone series. Pixel Screenshots and Pixel Studio are being introduced exclusively for the Pixel 9 series, marking a significant upgrade in the phone's capabilities. These features are currently available in English across eight countries: United States United Kingdom Canada Australia India Ireland Singapore Malaysia The release of these AI-powered tools underscores Google's commitment...

read Aug 25, 2024

How LLMs and the Human Brain Process Information Differently

The fundamental question: Can large language models (LLMs) truly think and reason like humans, or are their capabilities fundamentally different from human cognition? This question has sparked intense debate in the fields of artificial intelligence, cognitive science, and neuroscience as researchers seek to understand the similarities and differences between AI and human intelligence. The comparison between LLMs and human cognition centers on the critical cognitive function of inference, which allows for abstract reasoning and the application of knowledge across diverse contexts. The role of the hippocampus: The human brain's hippocampus plays a crucial role in enabling abstract reasoning and inference...

read Aug 25, 2024

Google Releases Free ‘Prompt Gallery’ as Part of AI Studio

Google enhances AI development with free Prompt Gallery: Google has introduced a new Prompt Gallery feature in its AI Studio platform, expanding the capabilities available to developers using the Gemini API. Key features of the Prompt Gallery: The gallery offers a diverse range of pre-built prompts showcasing Gemini models' capabilities Prompts cover various applications, from practical tools to creative exercises Examples include a JSON schema-based recipe generator, math tutor, worksheet creator, and image-based object identifier Significance for developers: The Prompt Gallery demonstrates the versatility of the Gemini API It caters to both technical tasks and creative endeavors The update enhances...

read Aug 23, 2024

Stanford Awards 6 Groundbreaking AI Projects with $3M Grant

Stanford's AI research initiative expands: Stanford University's Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI) has awarded $3 million in Hoffman-Yee grants to six interdisciplinary research teams for cutting-edge AI projects. The grants, part of a program that has awarded over $20 million to date, aim to support bold, interdisciplinary AI research aligned with HAI's key focus areas. This year's recipients were chosen from 39 proposals representing all seven Stanford schools, highlighting the university's commitment to cross-disciplinary AI research. The selected projects span diverse fields, including neuroscience, genomics, law enforcement, visual media, and cellular biology. Brain mapping and genomic modeling: Two of...

read Aug 23, 2024

Amazon Chief Tells Employees AI May Do Most Coding Within 2 Years

AI's transformative impact on software development: AWS CEO Matt Garman envisions a future where artificial intelligence significantly alters the role of developers, shifting their focus from coding to higher-level innovation and customer-centric problem-solving. During an internal fireside chat in June, Garman speculated that within approximately 24 months, most developers might not be actively coding in the traditional sense. This prediction aligns with a broader industry trend, echoing similar sentiments expressed by other tech leaders, including the CEOs of Nvidia and Microsoft. Garman framed this potential shift as an opportunity for developers to enhance their productivity and impact, rather than as...

read Aug 23, 2024

LambdaTest Launches KaneAI Agent for Automated Software Testing

Revolutionizing software testing with AI: LambdaTest, a California-based company known for cross-platform app testing, has launched KaneAI, an AI-powered agent for end-to-end software testing and quality assurance. KaneAI enables users to write, execute, debug, and evolve automated tests using natural language, eliminating the need for complex coding or low-code workflows. The new offering is currently available to select partners as an extension of LambdaTest's core platform. Asad Khan, co-founder and CEO of LambdaTest, emphasized that KaneAI is designed to meet the real-world challenges faced by testing teams daily. LambdaTest's journey and core offerings: The company has established itself as a...

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