Innholdsfortegnelse for #589 i Techlife News

Nearly a quarter-century after Google’s search engine began to reshape how we use the internet, big tech companies are racing to revamp a familiar web tool into a gateway to a new form of artificial intelligence. If it seems like this week’s newly announced AI search chatbots — Google’s Bard, Baidu’s Ernie Bot and Microsoft’s Bing chatbot — are coming out of nowhere, well, even some of their makers seem to think so. The spark rushing them to market was the popularity of ChatGPT, launched late last year by Microsoft’s partner OpenAI and now helping to power a new version of the Bing search engine. First out of the gate among big tech companies with a publicly accessible search chatbot, Microsoft executives said this week they had been hard at…

Australia’s Defense Department will remove surveillance cameras made by Chinese Communist Party-linked companies from its buildings, the government said Thursday after the U.S. and Britain made similar moves. The Australian newspaper reported Thursday that at least 913 cameras, intercoms, electronic entry systems and video recorders developed and manufactured by Chinese companies Hikvision and Dahua are in Australian government and agency offices, including the Defense Department and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Hikvision and Dahua are partly owned by China’s Communist Party-ruled government. Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles said his department is assessing all its surveillance technology. “Where those particular cameras are found, they’re going to be removed,” Marles told Australian Broadcasting Corp. “There is an issue here and we’re going to deal with it.” Asked about Australia’s decision,…

It’s not often Apple brings back a product line from the dead, but when it does, it has good reason. The second-generation HomePod is Apple’s attempt to reinvigorate its smart home range and offer consumers more choices in an ever-competitive smart home hub landscape. INTRODUCING HOMEPOD 2 After using press releases to announce new Mac minis and M2-powered MacBooks, Apple took the same approach in January to announce the second-generation HomePod. Rather than its usual lavish in-person or remote events, Apple appears to be taking a new approach to product announcements in 2023: get quality products out there as quickly as possible for consumers to enjoy, even if we don’t have time to shout about them at Apple Campus. Apple has described the new device as a “powerful smart speaker…

A federal judge has sided with Facebook parent Meta and cleared the way for the company to buy virtual reality startup Within Unlimited, the maker of the popular fitness app Supernatural. Federal antitrust regulators had sought to block the acquisition on the grounds that it would hurt competition in the emerging virtual reality market. But U.S. District Judge Edward Davila denied the Federal Trade Commission’s request for a preliminary injunction against the deal. The judge’s ruling said the agency did not provide sufficient evidence to prove its case. Meta said it will now proceed with its acquisition of Within Unlimited. The FTC had argued that Meta’s acquisition of the small company — reminiscent of Facebook’s early purchases of Instagram and WhatsApp — would hurt competition in the emerging virtual reality…

Government regulators announced that videogame maker Activision Blizzard has agreed to pay $35 million to settle charges that it failed to maintain controls to collect and assess workplace complaints with regard to disclosure requirements and violated a federal whistleblower protection rule. The lack of necessary controls left Activision “without the means to determine whether larger issues existed that needed to be disclosed to investors,” said Jason Burt, director of the SEC’s Denver office. “Moreover, taking action to impede former employees from communicating directly with the Commission staff about a possible securities law violation is not only bad corporate governance, it is illegal.” In paying the settlement, Activision neither admitted nor denied the SEC’s findings and agreed to a cease-and-desist order, the agency said. The settlement comes after the troubled Santa…

Asia will for the first time use half of the world’s electricity by 2025, even as Africa continues to consume far less than its share of the global population, according to a new forecast released by the International Energy Agency. Much of Asia’s electricity use will be in China, a nation of 1.4 billion people whose share of global consumption will rise from a quarter in 2015 to a third by the middle of this decade, the Paris-based body said. “China will be consuming more electricity than the European Union, United States and India combined,” said Keisuke Sadamori, the IEA’s director of energy markets and security. By contrast, Africa — home to almost a fifth of world’s nearly 8 billion inhabitants — will account for just 3% of global electricity…

Google, a company built on finding quick answers to people’s questions, suddenly finds itself grappling for a response to a potential threat to its internet empire — a form of artificial intelligence that long-time rival Microsoft is now deploying to attack its dominant search engine. Microsoft’s assault combined with concerns about Google’s ability to ward it off hammered its corporate parent, Alphabet Inc., whose stock price plunged nearly 8% Wednesday in a selloff that wiped out about $100 billion in shareholder wealth. It marked the steepest one-day decline since October when an Alphabet earnings report disclosed a slowdown in digital ad revenue that rattled investors. Those concerns have escalated since another report released last week revealed Google’s ad sales during the holiday-season quarter fell from the same time in the…

Whether looking for love or a casual encounter, 3 in 10 U.S. adults say they have used a dating site or app — with mixed experiences, according to a Pew Research Center study. For the under-35 set, more than half have tried it. The overall number, which amounts to 30%, is unchanged since 2019, the last time the center took a broad look at online dating. In 2015, 15% of U.S. adults said they had used a dating site or app, said lead researcher Colleen McClain. “When we talk to users who have been on the sites more recently, we see that there is really a mix of emotions,” she said. “Everything from burnout to elation.” Among the study’s key takeaways for McClain: 1 in 10 adults who have a…

Microsoft is fusing ChatGPT-like technology into its search engine Bing, transforming an internet service that now trails far behind Google into a new way of communicating with artificial intelligence. The revamping of Microsoft’s second-place search engine could give the software giant a head start against other tech companies in capitalizing on the worldwide excitement surrounding ChatGPT, a tool that’s awakened millions of people to the possibilities of the latest AI technology. Along with adding it to Bing, Microsoft is also integrating the chatbot technology into its Edge browser. Microsoft announced the new technology at an event Tuesday at its headquarters in Redmond, Washington. But the strengthening partnership with OpenAI was also years in the making, starting with a $1 billion investment from Microsoft in 2019 that led to the development…

Tesla has raised prices on its Model Y in the U.S., apparently due to rising demand and changes in U.S. government rules that make more versions of the small SUV eligible for tax credits. The Austin, Texas, electric vehicle company bumped up the price of the Model Y Long Range version by about 2% to $54,990 and the Performance version by about 2.7% to $57,990, according to its website. The prices exclude shipping and an order fee. The moves come three weeks after Tesla cut prices nearly 20% on some versions of the Model Y, the company’s top-selling vehicle. The price cuts were made to boost sagging demand, and also to make more versions of the Model Y eligible for the $7,500 electric-vehicle tax credit in the Inflation Reduction Act.…

Britcoin is moving closer to reality. U.K. authorities said British businesses and consumers are likely to need a digital version of the pound, formally asking for public comment on the idea of introducing a central bank digital currency. Britain, home to the world’s second-biggest financial center, is trailing former colonies such as Nigeria, the Bahamas and Jamaica in rolling out a digital currency. More than 80% of the world’s central banks are considering launching digital currencies or have already done so, according to the consultant PwC. “While cash is here to stay, a digital pound issued and backed by the Bank of England could be a new way to pay that’s trusted, accessible and easy to use,”Treasury chief Jeremy Hunt said in a statement. “That’s why we want to investigate…

Netflix has a plan to deal with rampant account sharing: a program that lets subscribers pay extra to share their account with people outside their household. The streaming giant introduced paid sharing in Canada, New Zealand, Portugal and Spain on Wednesday. It was previously rolled out in multiple markets in Latin America. While Netflix won’t say when paid sharing will come to other countries, some version of the plan is expected to be introduced in the U.S. in the next few weeks. Around one-third of Netflix’s subscribers live in the U.S. and Canada. Netflix has more than 231 million paid subscribers in 190 countries. The Los Gatos, California-based company estimates that 100 million households are currently sharing their accounts with others, which impacts the company’s ability to invest in new…

Shopping for a new or used car over the last few years has become a frustrating and expensive undertaking. Car shoppers have had to deal with vehicle shortages, high prices, dwindling incentives and rising interest rates. Will 2023 bring any relief? Yes and no. “Many buyers exited the market due to inventory issues or pricing that was not what they were expecting,” said Ivan Drury, senior manager. “While some of those issues will subside for 2023, current buyers will face a new set of challenges. The cost of financing continues to climb, which can offset some of the discounts from the manufacturer’s suggested retail price.” Experts have gathered five important issues you need to know about the current car-buying climate, plus tips on how to make the best of them.…

If you’ve heard it once in a president’s State of the Union speech, you’ve heard it 100 times: There is nothing the American people can’t do when they pull together. But you haven’t heard that thought in a State of Union address from William Shakespeare: “Lo,” said the bard. “With kindness, love, and understanding clear, we shall conquer all, and have naught to fear.” Nor from the noggin-knocking Three Stooges of last century’s fame: “We just put our heads together, come up with a plan, and bam! Problem solved!” Let’s face it, State of the Union speeches are mostly rote. Presidents roll out a list of accomplishments, a few anecdotes about guests in attendance, a sober assessment of the problems of the day and a crescendo about glory times ahead.…

Wall Street had its eyes on big tech after some of the biggest companies in the world posted lackluster quarterly financial performances. That included Apple Inc. The company posted its first quarterly revenue drop in nearly four years after pandemic-driven restrictions on its China factories curtailed sales of the latest iPhone during the holiday season. Amazon reported worse-than-expected fourth-quarter profits, but its revenue beat expectations boosted by sales in its cloud-computing unit AWS, which is also seeing a slow-down in growth. Google’s parent company Alphabet posted a lower profit and a small revenue increase for last year’s fourth quarter, as a decline in online ad spending and competition from rivals weigh on the search giant. While overall revenue grew, advertising revenue fell by nearly 4% and revenue at YouTube declined…

North Korean hackers working for the government stole record-breaking virtual assets last year estimated to be worth between $630 million and more than $1 billion, U.N. experts said in a new report. The panel of experts said in the wide-ranging report seen this week that the hackers used increasingly sophisticated techniques to gain access to digital networks involved in cyberfinance, and to steal information that could be useful in North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs from governments, individuals and companies. With growing tensions on the Korean Peninsula, the report said North Korea continued to violate U.N. sanctions, producing weapons-grade nuclear material, and improving its ballistic missile program, which “continued to accelerate dramatically.” In 2022, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea – the North’s official name – launched at least…