ASU reflects on first semester with Open AI partnership
On Wednesday, more than 500 ASU IT staff came together to brainstorm how AI can be used to better the community, using the tool itself.
At Google’s I/O developer conference, the company made its case to developers -- and to some extent, consumers -- why its bets on AI are ahead of rivals. At the event, the company unveiled a revamped AI-powered search engine, an AI model with an expanded context window of 2 million tokens, AI helpers across its suite of Workspace apps, like Gmail, Drive and Docs, tools to integrate its AI into developers’ apps and even a future vision for AI, codenamed Project Astra, which can respond to sight, sounds, voice and text combined.
Exploring AI at ASU
Is Gemini Live sort of like Google Lens? X is rolling out a revamped version of its Communities feature, which lets users network around topics of interest, each with its own dedicated space and timeline. The company on Thursday announced a number of changes to Communities, including improved discovery tools, recommendations, search, and sorting options, with other updates on the way. Communities are an important part of making X, formerly Twitter, a more valuable company, in terms of the data it has to offer.
Future Plans and Collaborations
Microsoft has a Surface showcase and its Build developer conference planned for early next week. Like every other chip manufacturer, Ampere is looking to profit from the AI boom. The company's focus, however, has always been on fast and power-efficient server chips, so while it can use the Arm IP to add some of these features to its chips, it's not necessarily a core competency.
Strava on Thursday announced a slew of new features and updates at its annual Camp Strava event, as the San Francisco-headquartered company doubles down on efforts to make its social fitness app stickier both for free and premium subscribers — with artificial intelligence (AI) playing a central role. One of the perennial complaints emanating from the Strava community is that users sometimes cheat to attain lofty leaderboard positions on the app. Strava already has some mechanisms in place to let users manually flag dubious leaderboard activity, and last year, the company updated its algorithms to "make leaderboards more credible."
New Developments in Technology
The letter, which was obtained by TechCrunch, says Sony Music has “reason to believe” that the recipients of the letter have “may already have made unauthorized uses” of its content. The company’s portfolio of artists includes numerous notable artists like Harry Styles, Beyoncé, Adele, and Celine Dion. “We support artists and songwriters taking the lead in embracing new technologies in support of their art,” Sony Music said in a statement.
Sony just announced a new smartphone, the Xperia 1 VI. The company used to be a major smartphone manufacturer until falling off.
Legislation and Funding
On Wednesday, the US House of Representatives passed a bill that could provide at least some accountability for Ticketmaster and other live event vendors. It moves on to the Senate, which is considering two similar bills. More money for the generative AI boom: Y Combinator-backed developer infrastructure startup Recall.ai announced Thursday it has raised a $10 million Series A funding round, bringing its total raised to over $12 million. The startup has built infrastructure and a unified API that enables companies to access raw data from virtual meeting platforms like Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Slack Huddles, Zoom, and even platforms with no API. With the video and audio data, users can build AI-powered meeting bots or apps such as sales coaching, meeting notetaker, or daily standup bots.
Sports Updates
Tiger Woods is hurting as he tries to find his form yet again at a major. Scott Pianowski breaks down the recent NFL schedule release from a fantasy football perspective.
Global Affairs
YouTube said it would comply with an order blocking access to videos of Hong Kong’s protest anthem inside the region. The decision comes after an appeals court banned the protest song “Glory to Hong Kong,” which the largely China-controlled government predictably framed as a national security issue.
