Technology

USB was supposed to rule them all but it's now a mess of standards sharing the same connector. Different speeds, voltage, charging protocols, alt modes, even the number of pins used is variable.... For those asking, the thing is available on Kickstarter

In the early years, getting AI models like ChatGPT or its rival Cohere to spit out human-like responses required vast teams of low-cost workers helping models distinguish basic facts such as if an image was of a car or a carrot.

But more sophisticated updates to AI models in the fiercely competitive arena are now demanding a rapidly expanding network of human trainers who have specialized knowledge -- from historians to scientists, some with doctorate degrees.

"A year ago, we could get away with hiring undergraduates, to just generally teach AI on how to improve," said Cohere co-founder Ivan Zhang, talking about its internal human trainers.

"Now we have licensed physicians teaching the models how to behave in medical environments, or financial analysts or accountants."

Finally, a good use for drone and AI/ML technology!

From the maker of the poop-shooting laser turret and the AI/ML poop image detector.

Sept 28 (Reuters) - The European Union is planning to vote on whether to introduce tariffs as high as 45% on imported electric vehicles made in China on Oct. 4, Bloomberg News reported on Saturday, citing people familiar with the matter.

Member states have received a draft of the regulation for the proposed measures, the report said, adding that the new date could still change.

According to the report, the vote among the bloc's member states was slightly delayed amid last-minute negotiations with Beijing to try to find a resolution that would avoid the new levies.

The European Commission is on the verge of proposing final tariffs of up to 35.3% on EVs built in China, on top of the EU's standard 10% car import duty.

Elon Musk's X is blocking links to the JD Vance "dossier" containing the Trump campaign's research on the vice presidential nominee. X also suspended Ken Klippenstein, the journalist who published the dossier that apparently comes from an Iranian hack of the Trump campaign.

The Israeli Defense Tech Conference, aimed at tech companies working with the Israeli military, was scheduled for November at the Google for Startups campus in Tel Aviv.

The event, according to a listing posted on the event RSVP app Luma, was pitched at “founders, investors and innovators” looking to network and learn more about the defense tech space. It was co-sponsored by Google, Fusion Venture Capital, Genesis, a startup accelerator, and the Israeli military’s research and development arm, known as the Directorate of Defense Research and Development (DDR&D, or Ma’fat).

When The Intercept contacted Google, the event page disappeared.

Google was not only listed as the physical host of the event and one of its sponsors, but the event listing also included a notice that attendees “approve of sharing [their] details with the organizers (Fusion & Google)” as part of signing up.

When The Intercept contacted Google, as well as the other companies and venture capital firms on the event page, the event page disappeared.

STOCKHOLM, Sept 25 (Reuters) - Vienna-based advocacy group NOYB on Wednesday said it has filed a complaint with the Austrian data protection authority against Mozilla accusing the Firefox browser maker of tracking user behaviour on websites without consent.

NOYB (None Of Your Business), the digital rights group founded by privacy activist Max Schrems, said Mozilla has enabled a so-called “privacy preserving attribution” feature that turned the browser into a tracking tool for websites without directly telling its users.

Mozilla had defended the feature, saying it wanted to help websites understand how their ads perform without collecting data about individual people. By offering what it called a non-invasive alternative to cross-site tracking, it hoped to significantly reduce collecting individual information.

A new project launching today aims to capitalize on the momentum seen within the fediverse, also known as the open social web, which describes interconnected social networking services powered by the ActivityPub protocol. Co-founded by the co-author and current editor of ActivityPub, Evan Prodromou, a new nonprofit organization called the Social Web Foundation will focus on expanding the fediverse, improving ActivityPub and the user experience, informing policymakers, and educating people about the fediverse and how they can participate.

TL;DR: iOS Safari is more than an inconvenience for developers, it's the fundamental reason interoperability has been stymied in...

Some of the world’s largest companies have been accused of undermining democracy across the world by financially backing far-right political movements, funding and exacerbating the climate crisis, and violating trade union rights and human rights in a report published on Monday by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC).

Amazon, Tesla, Meta, ExxonMobil, Blackstone, Vanguard and Glencore are the corporations included in the report. The companies’ lobbying arms are attempting to shape global policy at the United Nations Summit of the Future in New York City on 22 and 23 September.

https://archive.is/fR7RB

Meta announced the Quest 3S, the latest virtual reality headset to come out of the company’s Reality Labs division and a cheaper offering than its predecessor.

The device will go on sale on Oct. 15, and it’ll retail starting at $299, down from the $499 starting price for 2023′s Quest 3. The device can be used to watch movies, as well as run VR fitness apps and gaming, Meta said Wednesday at its Connect event in Menlo Park, California. The company positioned the headset as a multitasking computer, putting it in competition with Apple’s $3,499 Vision Pro headset that launched in February.

In addition to the Quest 3S, Meta on Wednesday also showcased its latest prototype of augmented-reality smart glasses and announced a flurry of new features for its Meta AI chatbot.