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A bill that could ban TikTok is now all but certain to become law. The Senate approved a measure that requires ByteDance to sell TikTok or face a ban, in a vote of 79 - 18. The Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, will next head to President Joe Biden, who has said he would sign the bill into law. While its far from the first effort to force a ban or divestment of the social media app, the bill managed to draw far more support than previous attempts. The bill was introduced in March and sailed through the House of Representatives with overwhelming bipartisan agreement. A slightly revised version was approved as part of a package of foreign aid legislation on Saturday. Under the updated terms, TikTok would have up to 12 months to divest from parent company ByteDance or face a ban in US app stores and web hosting services. The company has called the bill unconstitutional and indicated it would mount a legal challenge to such a law, which could further delay an eventual sale or ban. The company didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. TikTok has long been viewed with suspicion by lawmakers and the intelligence community. Ahead of votes in the House and Senate, members of Congress were briefed by intelligence officials on the alleged national security threat posed by the app. The exact nature of those concerns is still unclear, though some members of Congress have asked for details from the briefings to be declassified. At the same time, some lawmakers have expressed skepticism, saying that the alleged threat posed by TikTok is largely hypothetical. Free speech and digital rights groups also oppose the bill, noting that comprehensive privacy legislation would be a more effective way of protecting Americans personal data. TikTok CEO Shou Chew has made a similar argument, telling Congress last year that a forced sale wouldnt resolve data concerns about the app. But TikToks recent efforts to muster opposition to the bill may have backfired. Lawmakers rebuked the company for sending in-app notifications to users about the bill after the alerts resulted in a flood of calls to Congressional offices. And the app may have drawn even more suspicion when Politico reported last week that Chinese diplomats were lobbying Congressional staffers to oppose the bill. Officials in China have condemned the measure. A Chinese law, passed in 2020, could prevent ByteDance from including TikToks recommendation algorithm in a sale of the app.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/senate-passes-bill-that-could-ban-tiktok-014124533.html?src=rss
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Leading artificial intelligence companies including OpenAI, Microsoft, Google, Meta and others have jointly pledged to prevent their AI tools from being used to exploit children and generate child sexual abuse material (CSAM). The initiative was led by child-safety group Thorn and All Tech Is Human, a non-profit focused on responsible tech. The pledges from AI companies, Thorn said, set a groundbreaking precedent for the industry and represent a significant leap in efforts to defend children from sexual abuse as a feature with generative AI unfolds. The goal of the initiative is to prevent the creation of sexually explicit material involving children and take it off social media platforms and search engines. More than 104 million files of suspected child sexual abuse material were reported in the US in 2023 alone, Thorn says. In the absence of collective action, generative AI is poised to make this problem worse and overwhelm law enforcement agencies that are already struggling to identify genuine victims. On Tuesday, Thorn and All Tech Is Human released a new paper titled Safety by Design for Generative AI: Preventing Child Sexual Abuse that outlines strategies and lays out recommendations for companies that build AI tools, search engines, social media platforms, hosting companies and developers to take steps to prevent generative AI from being used to harm children. One of the recommendations, for instance, asks companies to choose data sets used to train AI models carefully and avoid ones only only containing instances of CSAM but also adult sexual content altogether because of generative AIs propensity to combine the two concepts. Thorn is also asking social media platforms and search engines to remove links to websites and apps that let people nudity images of children, thus creating new AI-generated child sexual abuse material online. A flood of AI-generated CSAM, according to the paper, will make identifying genuine victims of child sexual abuse more difficult by increasing the haystack problem an reference to the amount of content that law enforcement agencies must current sift through. This project was intended to make abundantly clear that you dont need to throw up your hands, Thorns vice president of data science Rebecca Portnoff told the Wall Street Journal. We want to be able to change the course of this technology to where the existing harms of this technology get cut off at the knees. Some companies, Portnoff said, had already agreed to separate images, video and audio that involved children from data sets containing adult content to prevent their models from combining the two. Others also add watermarks to identify AI-generated content, but the method isnt foolproof watermarks and metadata can be easily removed.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-worlds-leading-ai-companies-pledge-to-protect-the-safety-of-children-online-213558797.html?src=rss
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Tesla has shown off a preview of an upcoming ride-hailing feature in its app ahead of an August robotaxi unveiling. The company released mock-ups of the upcoming feature, which showed the ability to summon a ride from the Tesla app. The company didnt offer many details about how it would work, but images show Uber-like functionality, with the ability to remotely set the cars temperature ahead of its arrival. Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced earlier this month that the company would unveil its long-promised robotaxis August 8. Tesla has been promising a self-driving ride hailing service for years, with Musk promising the companys robotaxi would start picking up riders back in 2019. For now, its unclear exactly when such a service might launch. We are currently working on ride-hailing functionality that will be available in the future, the company wrote in its latest earnings report. We believe the Tesla software experience is best-in-class across all our products, and plan to seamlessly layer ride-hailing into the Tesla App. The update was shared in Teslas first-quarter earnings report for 2024. The automaker reported a revenue decline of 9 percent from last year, its steepest loss in more than a decade. During a call with investors, Musk suggested the ride hailing service, which he referred to as "Cyber Cab," would function like some combination of Airbnb and Uber, so Tesla owners could choose to make their vehicles part of the service. There'll be some number of cars that Tesla owns itself and operates in the fleet, Musk said. There'll be a bunch of cars where they're owned by the end user, but that end user can add or subtract their car to the fleet whenever they want. And they can decide if they want to only let the car be used by friends and family, or only by five star users, or by anyone.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/tesla-previews-ride-hailing-experience-ahead-of-august-robotaxi-unveil-212738199.html?src=rss
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Roland has a new on-the-go podcasting setup with an eye-catching price. The companys Go:Podcast studio includes a USB condenser mic (with support for four polar patterns) and a companion app that can stream to platforms like YouTube, Twitch and Facebook. The company describes the Go:Podcast as the simplest way to do high-quality live streaming with a mobile device. For $140, you get the USB microphone and access to the companion app (iOS and Android), which supports live streaming, including dual-camera setups. The latter can work simultaneously with your smartphones front and back cameras, or you can pair a second satellite camera to complement your phones. It also supports wireless screen sharing for things like live-streaming mobile gameplay. The microphones polar pattern options include cardioid (best for one person speaking), omni (multi-directional) and stereo (best for two people or musical performances). A fourth option lets you flip the stereo channels to match your video. Roland Somewhat confusingly, many of Rolands product photos (like the one above) show a mini smartphone tripod and V-Moda headphones alongside the mic, but those accessories arent included. A Roland spokesperson clarified to Engadget that those were meant to illustrate an example of a complete mobile podcasting system with the mic and app at its center. The Go:Podcast app includes perks like overlaying text and images, playing video clips and audio tracks, picture-in-picture and split screen. It has free-to-use background music tracks (which hopefully sound better than I imagine) along with stock photos and videos. Rolands $140 Go:Podcast studio will arrive in early May. You can learn more (and look out for more specific availability as its launch date approaches) at Rolands website.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/rolands-mobile-podcasting-studio-gives-you-a-mic-and-streaming-app-for-140-193359879.html?src=rss
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The Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses have been something of a pleasant surprise. They make videos, take photos, livestream and act as an adequate replacement for headphones, all while looking like a normal pair of sunglasses. However, everyones been waiting for the addition of multimodal AI after early access testing began in January. Now its here. What is multimodal AI? Simply put, its a toolset that allows an AI assistant to process multiple types of information, including photos, videos, text and audio. Its an AI that can view and understand the world around you in real time. This is the underlying concept behind Humanes maligned AI Pin. Metas version is more conservative with its promises and, honestly, we came away impressed during our initial hands-on. Multimodal Meta AI is rolling out widely on Ray-Ban Meta starting today! It's a huge advancement for wearables & makes using AI more interactive & intuitive.Excited to share more on our multimodal work w/ Meta AI (& Llama 3), stay tuned for more updates coming soon. pic.twitter.com/DLiCVriMfk Ahmad Al-Dahle (@Ahmad_Al_Dahle) April 23, 2024 Heres how it works. The glasses have a camera and five microphones, acting as the AIs eyes and ears. With this in mind, you can ask the glasses to describe anything you are looking at. Do you want to know a dogs breed before you go up and give it a good pet? Just ask the glasses. Meta says it can also read signs in different languages, which is great for traveling. We enjoyed exclaiming Hey Meta, look at this and tell me what it says and listening as it did just that. Theres even a landmark identification feature, though that wasnt available to test. There are some other potential use case scenarios, like staring at loose ingredients on a kitchen counter and asking the AI to whip up a relevant recipe. However, we need a few weeks of real people running the tech through its paces to gauge what it's actually good at. Real-time translation is going to be something of a killer app, particularly for tourists, but here's hoping it keeps the hallucinations to a minimum. Mark Zuckerberg has shown the AI picking out clothes for him to wear but, come on, thats about as pie in the sky as it gets. Multimodal AI wasnt the only update for the smart glasses announced today. Meta revealed hands-free video call integration with WhatsApp and Messenger. There are also some new frame designs for the fashion-conscious. These new styles can be fitted with prescription lenses and are available for preorder right now. The Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses start at $300, which isnt chump change but is certainly better than $700 for a clunky pin.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ray-ban-meta-smart-glasses-do-the-ai-thing-without-a-projector-or-subscription-175403559.html?src=rss
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