Author: GT

TORONTO (AP) — At 77 years old, Geoffrey Hinton has a new calling in life. Like a modern-day prophet, the Nobel Prize winner is raising alarms about the dangers of uncontrolled and unregulated artificial intelligence.Frequently dubbed the “Godfather of AI,” Hinton is known for his pioneering work on deep learning and neural networks which helped lay the foundation for the AI technology often used today. Feeling “somewhat responsible,” he began speaking publicly about his concerns in 2023 after he left his job at Google, where he worked for more than a decade.As the technology — and investment dollars — powering…

An overly broad age assurance law in Mississippi is leading to arguments about which platforms — Bluesky, Mastodon, or others — offer the best solution for avoiding crackdowns on internet freedoms. The company that makes the Bluesky social app announced last week that it would block access to its service in the state of Mississippi rather than comply with the new age verification law. In a blog post, the company explained that, as a small team, it lacked the resources to implement the substantial technical changes required by the law, and it raised concerns about the law’s broad scope and…

The Alibaba office building in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, China, on Aug. 28, 2024.CFOTO | Future Publishing | Getty ImagesAlibaba posted a better-than-expected bottom line in the June quarter fueled by accelerated sales at its cloud computing unit and a continued revival of its e-commerce business.Still, the Chinese giant’s revenues came in under analyst forecasts.Alibaba’s stock was up more than 1% in premarket trade in the U.S. after initially dipping.Here’s how Alibaba did in its fiscal first quarter ended June, compared with LSEG estimates:Revenue: 247.65 billion Chinese yuan ($34.6 billion), versus 252.9 billion yuan expected.Net income: 43.11 billion yuan, compared with…

Will Smith posted a video on social media that shows oceans of fans cheering him on during his recent European tour. “My favorite part of the tour is seeing you all up close,” the caption says. “Thank you for seeing me too.” In these thousands-deep crowds, some fans are holding up signs espousing their love for Smith, with one even saying that his music helped them survive cancer. But the video gives off an odd aura — it looks believably real at first glance, until you look closer and find digitally mangled faces, nonsensical finger placements, and oddly augmented features…

Fusion power startup Commonwealth Fusion Systems has raised $863 million from a long list of investors that includes Nvidia, Google, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, and more.  “We’re continuing our trend here of looking into the world and saying, ‘How do we advance fusion as fast as possible?’” co-founder and CEO Bob Mumgaard told reporters in a call this week. “This round of capital isn’t just about fusion just generally as a concept, but it’s about how do we go to make fusion into a commercial industrial endeavor.” The Massachusetts-based company has raised nearly $3 billion to date, the most of any…

Anthropic is making some big changes to how it handles user data, requiring all Claude users to decide by September 28 whether they want their conversations used to train AI models. While the company directed us to its blog post on the policy changes when asked about what prompted the move, we’ve formed some theories of our own. But first, what’s changing: Previously, Anthropic didn’t use consumer chat data for model training. Now, the company wants to train its AI systems on user conversations and coding sessions, and it said it’s extending data retention to five years for those who…

The Trump administration seems intent on controlling Intel’s ability to make key business decisions around its floundering foundry business unit. According to reporting from the Financial Times, at a Deutsche Bank conference on Thursday, Intel’s CFO David Zinsner shared new details about the company’s recent deal with the Trump administration, which gave the U.S. government a 10% equity stake. The deal was structured in a way to penalize Intel if it spins out its foundry business unit, which makes custom chips for outside customers, within the next few years. Last week’s deal included a five-year warrant that would allow the…

TOKYO (AP) — Mount Fuji hasn’t erupted since 1707. But for Volcanic Disaster Preparedness Day, Japanese officials have released computer- and AI-generated videos showing a simulation of a potential violent eruption of the active volcano.The videos, released this week, are meant to prepare the 37 million residents in the greater Tokyo metropolitan area for potential disasters.The Tokyo Metropolitan Government’s video warns an eruption could strike “at any moment, without warning,” depicting volcanic ash shrouding central Tokyo, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) away, within hours, paralyzing transportation, disrupting food and power, and causing long-term respiratory problems.The video ends with the message:…

Seven years after unveiling Mirror at TechCrunch Disrupt 2018, Brynn Putnam is returning to the stage where it all began. The serial entrepreneur who turned a fitness concept into a $500 million acquisition by Lululemon will debut her latest venture at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 at San Francisco’s Moscone West in October. Putnam’s path from that breakthrough Disrupt moment to today is a story of very smart timing. Mirror, the connected fitness device that brought boutique workout classes into homes, launched just as the pandemic created unprecedented demand for home fitness solutions. The timing proved so prescient that Lululemon acquired the…

Hardware company Plaud.ai released its new physical notetaker, the Plaud AI Pro, on Wednesday. The notetaker, priced at $179, comes two years after the original Plaud Note was released, and a year after the company released an AI pin. For people who haven’t seen one, the Plaud Note is a credit-card-sized hardware notetaker, which can stick on the back of your phone and help you take notes for calls or in-person meetings. The Note Pro looks similar to the original Note, but there’s one major difference. The new device has a small 0.95-inch AMOLED screen, which shows information like a…