GPT-4 Will Make ChatGPT Smarter but Won’t Fix Its Flaws

With its uncanny ability to hold a conversation, answer questions, and write coherent prose, poetry, and code, the chatbot ChatGPT has forced many people to rethink the potential of artificial intelligence. The startup that made ChatGPT, OpenAI, today announced a much-anticipated new version of the AI model at its core.  The new algorithm, called GPT-4, follows GPT-3, a groundbreaking… Continue reading GPT-4 Will Make ChatGPT Smarter but Won’t Fix Its Flaws

Silicon Valley Bank’s Failure Deals a Blow to Europe’s Startups

Silicon Valley Bank’s struggles started with a bad bet on long-dated US bonds. Rising interest rates meant that the value of those bonds fell. As depositors started to worry about the bank’s balance sheet, they pulled their money out. High interest rates have become a challenge across the industry, ending the cheap loans  that tech companies… Continue reading Silicon Valley Bank’s Failure Deals a Blow to Europe’s Startups

TikTok and Meta’s Moderators Form a United Front in Germany

Screening social media content to remove abuse or other banned material is one of the toughest jobs in tech, but also one of the most undervalued. Content moderators for TikTok and Meta in Germany have banded together to demand more recognition for workers who are employed to keep some of the worst content off social… Continue reading TikTok and Meta’s Moderators Form a United Front in Germany

Solar Panels Floating in Reservoirs? We’ll Drink to That

In 2021, Campbell published another paper based on the same principle: If California spanned 4,000 miles of its canal system with panels, it would save 63 billion gallons of water from evaporation each year and provide half the new clean energy capacity the state needs to reach its decarbonization goals.  Because the US has so many… Continue reading Solar Panels Floating in Reservoirs? We’ll Drink to That

10 Best Apple 3-in-1 Wireless Chargers (2023): For iPhone, AirPods, Apple Watch

If you have an iPhone, AirPods, and an Apple Watch, congrats! You have the holy trinity of Apple products. But keeping all of these gadgets powered up can be annoying, since they all have individual cables and proprietary charging solutions. Why deal with all that hassle when a single 3-in-1 wireless charger can accommodate everything?… Continue reading 10 Best Apple 3-in-1 Wireless Chargers (2023): For iPhone, AirPods, Apple Watch

Silicon Valley Has a FOMO Problem

Good artists borrow, great artists steal feature ideas from the app du jour. That might as well be the collective mantra of consumer tech companies, some of which have a well documented copycat habit. This week, it was Spotify’s turn. While not literally in Silicon Valley, in geographic terms, Spotify is for sure a tech giant.… Continue reading Silicon Valley Has a FOMO Problem

Twitter’s $42,000-per-Month API Prices Out Nearly Everyone

Since Twitter launched in 2006, the company has acted as a kind of heartbeat for social media conversation. That’s partly because it’s where media people go to talk about the media, but also because it’s been willing to open up its backend to researchers. Academics have used free access to Twitter’s API, or application programming… Continue reading Twitter’s $42,000-per-Month API Prices Out Nearly Everyone

‘Pig Butchering’ Scams Are Now a $3 Billion Threat

For seven years, the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) has tallied the reports the US law enforcement agency receives about all different types of digital crime, and it has consistently found that business email compromise (BEC) scams resulted in the highest total losses each year. But in its latest Internet Crime Report, released today… Continue reading ‘Pig Butchering’ Scams Are Now a $3 Billion Threat

Spotify Has Your Ears. It’s Coming for Your Eyes

Spotify has long been a platform that evolves more quickly than our personal music tastes might. It has updated its iconic year-end Wrapped promotion and added an AI DJ in the past few months alone. But this week, the streaming giant announced what its CEO, Daniel Ek, called the biggest change to the platform in a decade: a… Continue reading Spotify Has Your Ears. It’s Coming for Your Eyes

Congressman Darin LaHood Says FBI Targeted Him With Unlawful ‘Backdoor’ Searches

Jeramie Scott, senior counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center and director of the nonprofit’s surveillance oversight project, says LaHood’s admission served as further confirmation that “the FBI’s backdoor searches are ripe for abuse.” He adds that Congress should outlaw the practice and implement comprehensive reforms to “rein in the surveillance state and protect Americans’… Continue reading Congressman Darin LaHood Says FBI Targeted Him With Unlawful ‘Backdoor’ Searches