The European Union is checking whether Microsoft’s investment in generative AI giant OpenAI is reviewable under the bloc’s merger regulations, it said today.
“Finally, the European Commission is checking whether Microsoft’s investment in OpenAI might be reviewable under the EU Merger Regulation,” it added.
Commenting in a statement, EU competition chief Margrethe Vestager said:Virtual worlds and generative AI are rapidly developing.
They also told us there are no “particular concerns” the EU has identified yet vis-a-vis competition and generative AI as yet.
Per the spokesperson, a transaction would be notifiable to the Commission under the EU Merger Regulation if it involves ” a change of control on a lasting basis”.
Samsung wants to make the smart home smarter — if your home’s a Samsung home, that is.
Elsewhere, Samsung launched a new “map view” for SmartThings similar to Amazon’s recently launched Map View.
Samsung’s take shows an interactive map of your home complete with the location of any smart home devices (e.g.
In a cute (or creepy, depending on your point of view) touch, the new SmartThings maps show “AI characters” that stand in for family members and pets inside the home.
But once that’s done, they’ll display on supported Samsung TVs, the screen of the Samsung Family Hub smart fridge and Samsung’s M8 monitors.
YouTube is updating its harassment and cyberbullying policies to clamp down on content that “realistically simulates” deceased minors or victims of deadly or violent events describing their death.
The policy change comes as some true crime content creators have been using AI to recreate the likeness of deceased or missing children.
In these disturbing instances, people are using AI to give these child victims of high profile cases a childlike “voice” to describe their deaths.
In recent months, content creators have used AI to narrate numerous high-profile cases including the abduction and death of British two-year-old James Bulger, as reported by the Washington Post.
TikTok’s policy allows it to take down realistic AI images that aren’t disclosed.
In late December, The New York Times sued OpenAI and its close collaborator and investor, Microsoft, for allegedly violating copyright law by training generative AI models on Times’ content.
Today, OpenAI published a public response in which the startup — unsurprisingly — claims that the case is without merit.
“Interestingly, the regurgitations The New York Times [cite in its lawsuit] appear to be from years-old articles that have proliferated on multiple third-party websites,” OpenAI writes.
The Times is only the latest copyright holder to sue OpenAI over what it believes is a clear violation of IP rights.
Actress Sarah Silverman joined a pair of lawsuits in July that accuse Meta and OpenAI of having “ingested” Silverman’s memoir to train their AI models.
Not uncommonly, KYC authentication involves “ID images,” or cross-checked selfies used to confirm a person is who they say they are.
There’s no evidence that gen AI tools have been used to fool a real KYC system — yet.
But the ease with which relatively convincing deepfaked ID images is cause for alarm.
Feeding deepfaked KYC images to an app is even easier than creating them.
The takeaway is that KYC, which was already hit-or-miss, could soon become effectively useless as a security measure.
Kicking off the first day are some bigger announcements from companies, including Nvidia, Panasonic, Samsung, Sony and Honda.
Nvidia gets its game onToday, Nvidia gets into artificial intelligence in a big way with the unveiling of its GeForce RTX, including the GeForce RTX 40 Super series of desktop graphics cards.
Apple Vision Pro to go on sale Feb. 2And Apple, in a surprise announcement preempting CES, stole some of the show’s thunder by announcing the Vision Pro will be available in the U.S.
The consumer electronics giant confirmed that the Vision Pro will be available in the U.S. starting February 2.
This startup is bringing a ‘voice frequency absorber’ to CES 2024.
LG will also feature updates on home, mobility and, you guessed it, AI in its CES event.
ETPanasonic is leading with their energy and climate policies, in a break from the other companies keeping a big focus on AI reveals.
As has been the case for several years, Samsung will focus on the rest of their product lines at CES 2024.
Sony has highlighted the use of its technology within its film and gaming efforts at past CES events, and by focusing on “Powering Creativity with Technology,” that looks to be the same at CES 2024.
ETHonda’s been pretty clear about what to expect from its CES event this year: the reveal of a new EV series, complete with a purple-tinted tease of its form factor.
Given it’s a free alternative, it’s somewhat surprising that Copilot’s launch hasn’t seemingly impacted ChatGPT’s installs or revenue as of yet — but that could be explained by the lack of promotion.
Unlike some apps, Copilot’s installs are also somewhat evenly split across iOS and Android, with 59% on Google Play vs. 41% on the App Store.
According to Appfigures, ChatGPT’s downloads have also been slowing in December — but this started before Copilot’s release.
During the time that Copilot was amassing its 2.1 million installs, ChatGPT gained another 4.2 million downloads.
The firm told TechCrunch there’s nothing to indicate that Copilot itself is having any impact on ChatGPT’s installs or its revenue, the latter of which continues to rise, in fact.
After recently turning to generative AI to enhance its product reviews, e-commerce giant Amazon today shared how it’s now using AI technology to help customers shop for apparel online.
With the personalized size recommendations, Amazon Fashion used AI to develop a deep learning algorithm that will help customers find their best-fitting size across a variety of styles.
This system works by considering the size relationship between brands’ size systems, the product’s reviews, and the customer’s own fit preferences.
With a Fit Insights Tool from Amazon Fashion, sellers are provided with an understanding of customer’s fit needs so they can improve how they communicate sizing to customers — e.g.
Beyond the customer review highlights, Amazon also debuted generative AI tools to help sellers write their product descriptions and enhance their product images.
So it’s no surprise Nvidia promises a focus on AI and content creation during their kickoff address at CES.
LG will also feature updates on home, mobility and, you guessed it, AI in its CES event.
ETPanasonic is leading with their energy and climate policies, in a break from the other companies keeping a big focus on AI reveals.
ETHonda’s been pretty clear about what to expect from its CES event this year: the reveal of a new EV series, complete with a purple-tinted tease of its form factor.
As has been the case for several years, Samsung will focus on the rest of their product lines at CES 2024.
