Getty Images | Future Publishing reader comments 112 with Share this story Portions of Twitter’s source code recently appeared on GitHub, and Twitter is trying to force GitHub to identify the user or users who posted the code. GitHub disabled the repository on Friday shortly after Twitter filed a DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) takedown […]
Monthly Archives: March 2023
Microplastics are messing with the microbiomes of seabirds
To find out if the microbes being introduced might be “good” or “bad,” Fackelmann and her colleagues analyzed the microbiomes and looked up individual types of microbes in databases to learn what they do. They found that with more plastic, there were more microbes that are known to break down plastic. There were also more […]
Android app from China executed 0-day exploit on millions of devices
Getty Images reader comments 11 with Share this story Android apps digitally signed by China’s third-biggest e-commerce company exploited a zero-day vulnerability that allowed them to surreptitiously take control of millions of end-user devices to steal personal data and install malicious apps, researchers from security firm Lookout have confirmed. The malicious versions of the Pinduoduo […]
The Download: AI’s gold rush, and how to regulate generative models
Whether it’s based on hallucinatory beliefs or not, a gold rush has started over the last several months to make money from generative AI models like ChatGPT. You can practically hear the shrieks from corner offices around the world: “What is our ChatGPT play? How do we make money off this?” But while companies and […]
An early guide to policymaking on generative AI
She wanted to know if I had any suggestions, and asked what I thought all the new advances meant for lawmakers. I’ve spent a few days thinking, reading, and chatting with the experts about this, and my answer morphed into this newsletter. So here goes! Though GPT-4 is the standard bearer, it’s just one of […]
ChatGPT is about to revolutionize the economy. We need to decide what that looks like.
Power struggle When Anton Korinek, an economist at the University of Virginia and a fellow at the Brookings Institution, got access to the new generation of large language models such as ChatGPT, he did what a lot of us did: he began playing around with them to see how they might help his work. He […]
ChatGPT gets “eyes and ears” with plugins that can interface AI with the world
Aurich Lawson | Getty Images reader comments 17 with Share this story On Thursday, OpenAI announced a plugin system for its ChatGPT AI assistant. The plugins give ChatGPT the ability to interact with the wider world through the Internet, including booking flights, ordering groceries, browsing the web, and more. Plugins are bits of code that […]
Huge collection of vintage Apple computers goes to auction next week
Enlarge / I mostly recognize this early laptop from its resemblance to a similar-looking computer in the film 2010. It’s up for auction along with hundreds of other old Apple computers. Julien’s Auctions reader comments 22 with Share this story If you’ve been thinking your home or workspace is perhaps deficient when it comes to […]
Fostering innovation through a culture of curiosity
And so I think a big part of it as a company, by setting these ambitious goals, it forces us to say if we want to be number one, if we want to be top tier in these areas, if we want to continue to generate results, how do we get there using technology? And […]
The Download: covid’s origin drama, and TikTok’s uncertain future
This week, we’ve seen the resurgence of a debate that has been swirling since the start of the pandemic—where did the virus that causes covid-19 come from? For the most part, scientists have maintained that the virus probably jumped from an animal to a human at the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan at some point […]