At its I/O developer conference, Google announced the launch of PaLM 2, its newest large language model (LLM). PaLM 2 will power Google’s updated Bard chat tool, the company’s competitor to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, and function as the foundation model for most of the new AI features the company is announcing today. PaLM 2 is now...Read More

To paraphrase Andreessen Horowitz, generative AI, particularly on the text-to-art side, is eating the world. At least, investors believe so — judging by the billions of dollars they’ve poured into startups developing AI that creates text and images from prompts. Not to be left behind, Big Tech is investing in its own generative AI art solutions, whether...Read More

Meta has announced a new open-source AI model that links together multiple streams of data, including text, audio, visual data, temperature, and movement readings. The model is only a research project at this point, with no immediate consumer or practical applications, but it points to a future of generative AI systems that can create immersive, multisensory experiences...Read More

Three years after the emergence of a novel coronavirus brought the world to a standstill, the World Health Organization announced that covid-19 no longer represents a global health emergency. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of WHO, said in a tweet that the organization’s covid emergency committee recommended “an end to the public health emergency of international concern” and...Read More

Say goodbye to passwords, and hello to passkeys. Nearly a year after tech titans Google, Apple, Microsoft, and the FIDO Alliance joined forces to usher in a passwordless future, Alphabet’s Google announced that passkeys are now coming to Google account users. Starting today, they can create and use passkeys on their Google accounts, bypassing the...Read More

Google turns 25 this year. Can you imagine? It’s only 25 — yet it’s almost impossible to recall life without being able to just Google it, without immediate access to answers. Google Search is everywhere, all the time; the unspoken background of every problem, every debate, every curiosity. Google Search is so useful and so pervasive that its...Read More

Banks have warned of a large increase in fraud in 2022, with much of this originating online. Barclays told the BBC that 77% of scams are now happening on social media, online marketplaces and dating apps. TSB said a large increase in cases of impersonation, investment and purchase fraud were the main drivers of this....Read More

Space Machines Company (SMC), the Australian in-space transportation and  logistics startup, today announced it has secured the support of SpaceX as a launch partner to carry its Optimus Orbital Transfer Vehicle (OTV) to space as part of its April 2023 mission. SMC’s Optimus OTV is one of the largest commercial spacecraft designed and manufactured in...Read More

Sophisticated systems for the detection of biomarkers — molecules such as DNA or proteins that indicate the presence of a disease — are crucial for real-time diagnostic and disease-monitoring devices. Holger Schmidt, distinguished professor of electrical and computer engineering at UC Santa Cruz, and his group have long been focused on developing unique, highly sensitive...Read More

GOOGLE IS ANNOUNCING a major effort to let its personal account holders log in with the password replacement known as “passkeys.” The feature launches today for the company’s billions of accounts, and users will be able to proactively seek it out and turn it on. Google says it plans to promote passkeys in the coming months and start nudging...Read More