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An anonymous reader shares a report: Apple is widely expected to unveil major new artificial intelligence features with iOS 18 in June. Code found by 9to5Mac in the first beta of iOS 17.4 shows that Apple is continuing to work on a new version of Siri powered by large language model technology, with a little help from other sources. In fact, Apple appears to be using OpenAI's ChatGPT API for internal testing to help the development of its own AI models. According to this code, iOS 17.4 includes a new SiriSummarization private framework that makes calls to the OpenAI's ChatGPT API. This appears to be something Apple is using for internal testing of its new AI features. There are multiple examples of system prompts for the SiriSummarization framework in iOS 17.4 as well. This includes things like "please summarize," "please answer this questions," and "please summarize the given text." Apple is unlikely to use OpenAI models to power any of its artificial intelligence features in iOS 18. Instead, what it's doing here is testing its own AI models against ChatGPT. For example, the SiriSummarization framework can do summarization using on-device models. Apple appears to be using its own AI models to power this framework, then internally comparing its results against the results of ChatGPT. In total, iOS 17.4 code suggests Apple is testing four different AI models. This includes Apple's internal model called "Ajax," which Bloomberg has previously reported. iOS 17.4 shows that there are two versions of AjaxGPT, including one that is processed on-device and one that is not.

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Apple's new rules in the European Union mean browsers like Firefox can finally use their own engines on iOS. Although this may seem like a welcome change, Mozilla spokesperson Damiano DeMonte tells The Verge it's "extremely disappointed" with the way things turned out. From a report: "We are still reviewing the technical details but are extremely disappointed with Apple's proposed plan to restrict the newly-announced BrowserEngineKit to EU-specific apps," DeMonte says. "The effect of this would be to force an independent browser like Firefox to build and maintain two separate browser implementations -- a burden Apple themselves will not have to bear." In iOS 17.4, Apple will no longer force browsers in the EU to use WebKit, the underlying engine that powers Safari. The change opens the door for other popular engines, such as Blink, which is used by Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge, as well as Gecko, the engine used by Firefox. It also means third-party browsers could become fully functional on iOS without any of the limitations that come along with WebKit.

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Honestly, it sounds like a fun time

The FBI plans to use Amazon's controversial Rekognition cloud service "to extract information and insights from lawfully acquired images and videos," according to US Justice Department documents.…

Microsoft and Salesforce the latest to toss more pink slips onto industry's employment bonfire

More than 20,000 people working in tech lost their job in January, continuing the 2023 trend when 250,000+ were ditched after companies hired heavily in the pandemic and couldn't justify headcount amid slowing customer spending.…

And software makers seem to be OK with this, apparently

Comment There's a line in the latest plea from CISA – the US government's cybersecurity agency – to software developers to do a better job of writing secure code that may make you spit out your coffee.…

California lawmakers are drawing up multiple plans to require watermarks on content created by AI to curb the abuses within the emerging technology, which has affected sectors from political races to the stock market. From a report: At least five lawmakers have promised or are considering different proposals that would require AI companies to implement some type of verification that a video, photo, or written work was made by the technology. The activity comes as advanced AI has rapidly evolved to create realistic images or audio on an unprecedented level. Advocates worry the technology could be ripe for abuse and lead to a wider proliferation of deepfakes, where a person's likeness is digitally manipulated to typically misrepresent them -- with it already being used in the presidential race. But such measures are likely to face scrutiny by the tech sector. Amid a pivotal election year and an online world full of disinformation, the ability to know what's real or not is crucial, said Drew Liebert, director of the California Initiative for Technology and Democracy. The harm from AI is already happening, with Liebert noting the aftermath of an AI-generated photo that went viral in May of last year that falsely portrayed another terrorist attack in the US. "The famous photograph now that was put on the internet that alleged that the Pentagon was attacked, that actually caused momentarily a [$500 billion] dollar loss in the stock market," he said. The loss would not as been as severe, he said, "if people would have been able to instantly determine that it was not a real image at all." Ask Slashdot:Could a Form of Watermarking Prevent AI Deep Faking?

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If you could just not harvest our info unlawfully and without a warrant, that would be great

US Senator Ron Wyden on Thursday asked US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines to stop US intelligence agencies from purchasing Americans' unlawfully collected personal data from data brokers.…

Global regulators, aviation security specialists and manufacturers failed to reach an agreement on a quick technical fix to the problem of GPS spoofing near war zones, instead calling for better training of pilots to deal with the issue, Reuters reports, citing sources briefed on the talks. From the report: Airlines have been urging quick action after a series of incidents where navigation systems were disrupted to show a false location or wrong time, though aircraft flight controls remained intact. Spoofing might involve one country's military sending false Global Positioning System signals to an enemy plane or drone to hinder its ability to function, which has a collateral effect on nearby airliners. GPS jamming and spoofing have grown worse in Eastern Europe, the Black Sea and the Middle East, according to industry group OpsGroup. GPS is a growing part of aviation infrastructure as it replaces traditional radio beams used to guide planes towards landing. The first international meeting bringing together the sector was held on Thursday in Cologne, Germany, organized by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and international trade group the International Air Transport Association (IATA). GPS interference "can pose significant challenges to aviation safety," and requires that airlines increase data-sharing on jamming and spoofing events, EASA and IATA said in a joint statement.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm can relate to Americans' anxiety over electric vehicles. The former governor of Michigan and longtime EV owner (who currently drives a Ford Mach-E) says she has experienced her own challenges with public charging on road trips. She has heard from drivers who are reluctant to give up their eight-cylinder engines and large trucks and SUVs for an electric model. But she is convinced that more Americans will soon realize the benefits of owning one, helping to change the current anti-EV rhetoric in this country. [...] "All of those factories that I was talking about regarding building electric vehicles and electric vehicle batteries, 60% of them are going into red states. So, you know, people in red states love their EVs, too, and are working at these factories," Granholm said. "I just think that over time, the political nonsense about it will die down and people's experience will speak much more loudly."

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Apple faces strong action if changes to its App Store do not meet incoming European Union regulations, the bloc's industry chief said on Friday. Reuters: In a move designed to comply with the EU's incoming Digital Markets Act (DMA), the company will soon allow software developers to distribute their apps to Apple devices via alternative stores. From early March, developers will be able to offer alternative app stores on iPhones and opt out of using Apple's in-app payment system, which charges commissions of up to 30%. However, critics have said the changes do not go far enough, arguing Apple's fee structure remains unfair, and that the changes may be in violation of the DMA. Asked about Apple's plans, EU industry chief Thierry Breton exclusively told Reuters: "The DMA will open the gates of the internet to competition so that digital markets are fair and open. Change is already happening. As from 7 March we will assess companies' proposals, with the feedback of third parties." He added: "If the proposed solutions are not good enough, we will not hesitate to take strong action."

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An interview with Ilia Shumailov

AI Software Week What happens to machine learning models when they feed on themselves, when the data they ingest comes more and more from other generative models rather than human authors?…

Beta Channel Insiders can return to retail Windows 11 23H2 with click of a toggle

Liberation beckons for Microsoft's Beta Channel Windows Insiders thanks to an optional installation of Windows 11 23H2 for users who wish to opt out.…

prisoninmate shares a 9to5linux report: Flathub is currently one of the most popular app stores for Linux serving 1.6 billion downloads of over 2,400 apps in the Flatpak format, of which more than 850 apps have been verified by their original authors. And now, Flathub proudly announced today that it surpassed 1 million active users of Flatpak apps. The team believes that the recent growth in users comes from several factors, including the availability of some very popular apps (e.g. Firefox, Thunderbird, VLC, Spotify, OBS Studio, Google Chrome, Telegram), support for new and verified apps, the inclusion of Flathub as the default app source for the Steam Deck's desktop mode, as well as the growing adoption among many popular GNU/Linux distributions like Fedora Linux, Linux Mint, KDE neon, and others.

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Astronomers have discovered a mysterious group of giant elderly stars at the heart of the Milky Way that are emitting solar system-sized clouds of dust and gas. The stars, which have been named "old smokers," sat quietly for many years, fading almost to invisibility, before suddenly puffing out vast clouds of smoke. The discovery was made during the monitoring of almost a billion stars in infrared light during a 10-year survey of the night sky. The Guardian: The astronomers had set out to capture rarely seen newborn stars -- known as protostars -- while undergoing the equivalent of a stellar growth spurt. During these periods, young stars rapidly acquire mass by gorging on surrounding star-forming gas, leading to a sudden increase in luminosity. The team tracked hundreds of millions of stars and identified 32 erupting protostars that increased in brightness at least 40-fold and in some cases more than 300-fold. Another group of red giant stars near the centre of the Milky Way unexpectedly showed up in the analysis, however. When they were studied in more detail using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope, seven of the stars were deemed to be a new type of red giant star, which the researchers named "old smokers." Convection currents and instabilities within the star could trigger the release of enormous columns of smoke, Prof Philip Lucas of the University of Hertfordshire, who led the observations, suggested.

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Breach filings show Reddit post led to the discovery rather than any sophisticated cyber defenses

Biotech and DNA-collection biz 23andMe, the one that blamed its own customers for the October mega-breach, just admitted it failed to detect any malicious activity for the entire five months attackers were breaking into user accounts.…

Nintendo plans to launch a new 8-inch LCD-equipped Switch game console this year, well-regarded analyst firm Omdia said Friday [unpaywalled-link]. Bloomberg: The new device from the Kyoto-based games maker will be responsible for a doubling in shipments of so-called amusement displays in 2024, Hayase said in Tokyo on Friday. His research focuses on small and medium displays and he bases annual forecasts on checks with companies in the supply chain. Nintendo's seven-year-old Switch has sold over 132 million units and is approaching the end of its life cycle. The company has been tight-lipped about any potential successor, but expectations have narrowed to this year's holiday period for the release of the next generation.

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Startups hoping to compete in the industry face an uphill battle

Panel The dominance of big tech in cloud computing, coupled with a shortage of chips, is preventing smaller AI software and hardware startups from competing fairly, according to panelists at the FTC Tech Summit this week.…

In response to new EU regulations, Apple on Thursday outlined plans to allow iOS developers to distribute apps outside the App Store starting in March, though developers must still submit apps for Apple's review and pay commissions. Now critics say the changes don't go far enough and Apple retains too much control. Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney: They are forcing developers to choose between App Store exclusivity and the store terms, which will be illegal under DMA (Digital Markets Act), or accept a new also-illegal anticompetitive scheme rife with new Junk Fees on downloads and new Apple taxes on payments they don't process. 37signals's David Heinemeier Hansson, who is also the creator of Ruby on Rails: Let's start with the extortion regime that'll befell any large developer who might be tempted to try hosting their app in one of these new alternative app stores that the EU forced Apple to allow. And let's take Meta as a good example. Their Instagram app alone is used by over 300 million people in Europe. Let's just say for easy math there's 250 million of those in the EU. In order to distribute Instagram on, say, a new Microsoft iOS App Store, Meta would have to pay Apple $11,277,174 PER MONTH(!!!) as a "Core Technology Fee." That's $135 MILLION DOLLARS per year. Just for the privilege of putting Instagram into a competing store. No fee if they stay in Apple's App Store exclusively. Holy shakedown, batman! That might be the most blatant extortion attempt ever committed to public policy by any technology company ever. And Meta has many successful apps! WhatsApp is even more popular in Europe than Instagram, so that's another $135M+/year. Then they gotta pay for the Facebook app too. There's the Messenger app. You add a hundred million here and a hundred million there, and suddenly you're talking about real money! Even for a big corporation like Meta, it would be an insane expense to offer all their apps in these new alternative app stores. Which, of course, is the entire point. Apple doesn't want Meta, or anyone, to actually use these alternative app stores. They want everything to stay exactly as it is, so they can continue with the rake undisturbed. This poison pill is therefore explicitly designed to ensure that no second-party app store ever takes off. Without any of the big apps, there will be no draw, and there'll be no stores. All of the EU's efforts to create competition in the digital markets will be for nothing. And Apple gets to send a clear signal: If you interrupt our tool-booth operation, we'll make you regret it, and we'll make you pay. Don't resist, just let it be. Let's hope the EU doesn't just let it be. Coalition of App Fairness, an industry body that represents over 70 firms including Tinder, Spotify, Proton, Tile, and News Media Europe: "Apple clearly has no intention to comply with the DMA. Apple is introducing new fees on direct downloads and payments they do nothing to process, which violates the law. This plan does not achieve the DMA's goal to increase competition and fairness in the digital market -- it is not fair, reasonable, nor non-discriminatory," said Rick VanMeter, Executive Director of the Coalition for App Fairness. "Apple's proposal forces developers to choose between two anticompetitive and illegal options. Either stick with the terrible status quo or opt into a new convoluted set of terms that are bad for developers and consumers alike. This is yet another attempt to circumvent regulation, the likes of which we've seen in the United States, the Netherlands and South Korea. Apple's 'plan' is a shameless insult to the European Commission and the millions of European consumers they represent -- it must not stand and should be rejected by the Commission."

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Until we can hook schadenfreude directly into our veins, this will have to do

Kettle What was your favorite tech failure this week? You may well agree with our vultures who for this latest Kettle episode selected theirs to talk about.…

Pat's gonna need to sell a lotta AI PCs if he wants to make a profit this quarter

Intel execs this week painted a grim picture of early 2024, forecasting steep declines ahead for the company's core businesses.…