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Tencent is Working on the Elden Ring Mobile Version: Reports

Emily Lawson — Tue, 06 Feb 2024 14:19:52 +0000

Elden Ring is one of the most successful games by FromSoftware Inc. According to anonymous sources, Elden Ring is getting a mobile version and the project was initiated in 2022. It was shortly after Tencent bought a 16% minority stake in FromSoftware.

A recent report by Reuters mentioned that the company wants to keep Elden Ring Mobile as a free-to-play game with in-app purchases akin to HoYoverse’s Genshin Impact. A couple dozen developers are working on the prototype but the progress has been slow, maybe, due to the free-to-play factor.

Tencent’s Chinese Rivalry

These reports of Elden Ring mobile came out due to the competition Tencent is facing in China. This fierce competition is from Chinese competitors miHoYo and NetEase, developers of titles like Genshin Impact and Eggy Party. This is why the company is trying to create new hits. However, a bigger obstacle they have is transferring premium console games to mobile is easier said than done.

Tencent’s chief executive and co-founder Pony Ma said during the company’s recent annual meeting in Shenzhen, “Gaming is our flagship business…But in the past year, we have faced significant challenges. We have found ourselves at a loss, as our competitors continue to produce new products, leaving us feeling having achieved nothing.” In response, Ma said, “Tencent is focusing on integrating its Hunyuan AI model into different parts of its business to increase efficiency.”

The IP Licensing Hiccup

Tencent got intellectual property licensing of Elden Ring mobile to develop free-to-play versions. This could be the latest in the long line of IP licenses they acquired. This is of course if the reports are accurate. The most successful mobile gaming were PUBG Mobile and Call of Duty: Mobile. These are not the only mobile games Tencent is working on, they are also working on mobile versions of Need for Speed and Assassin’s Creed.

Success is not guaranteed in the mobile versions of games and Tencent has proved it. In the previous year, they shut down the mobile version of Apex Legends which was created in collaboration with EA. Moreover, they also canceled a mobile game based on the Nier franchise over monetization concerns ( unannounced).

Concluding Thoughts

Tencent is putting in all the effort but mobile-based games like Elden Ring have the risk of failing more. So if it is successfully launched it will be a grand win for Tencent. Lastly, China’s approval system for video games can take months or years before it gives its approval. It can put any great game, even Elden Ring mobile, in jeopardy once they release it.

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Microsoft Mesh Now Available in Microsoft Teams: Supports 3D and VR Meetings

Noah Davidson — Thu, 25 Jan 2024 13:08:30 +0000

On January 24, Microsoft launched its immersive 3D meetings inside Microsoft Teams. It will let people meet in virtual spaces with or without a VR headset. The company’s mixed reality platform, Microsoft Mesh came out of preview and integrated into Teams. The 3D Mesh meetings in Teams perform at optimum with a VR headset, with the tech giant only supporting Meta’s Quest devices currently.

With Mesh VR, you can engage in virtual 3D meetings, and the spatial audio feature imitates the ability to have private conversations you have in an office by moving away from other co-workers in a virtual space. The amazing part about it is the 3D spaces are customizable and there are games like tossing bean bags or icebreaker questions for you to play with remote colleagues who you haven’t met before.

Is Microsoft Mesh Available for Users?

The standard features include 3D immersive experiences using next-generation technology that help virtual connections feel more like face-to-face interactions and are available on PC and Meta Quest VR devices. If you want to deploy it in your teams it is available in Microsoft Teams business plans and requires a Teams Premium license. The plans start for small businesses from $4 per user/ month and for enterprises, they have plans like Microsoft 365 E3 which is $36 per user/ month.

Enterprises Using Microsoft Mesh Today

Many organizations opted for the immersive 3D experience in Microsoft Teams. Beginning from Bp to Takeda, some of the biggest enterprises have done it.

Accenture

One of the largest consulting firms globally created a strategic partnership with Microsoft to design a solution that maintains authentic connections promotes cultural understanding, and encourages unity across the organization.

Ellyn Shook, Accenture’s Chief Leadership & Human Resources Officer in talks with Microsoft explained that the new onboarding experience helped the new employees understand the company’s culture, core values, and how Accenture drives value for the clients, people, and communities. All in a collaborative, immersive way that transcends space and place.

Takeda

Takeda had a unique challenge of finding a cost-effective way to help their geo-diverse workforce connect and further their common cultural understanding. They created a custom solution designed to inculcate engagement, strengthen the commitment to their corporate philosophy, and speed product innovation: the Hirameki Garden. The garden, created in Microsoft Mesh, enables a virtual location for large, company-wide events like town halls and all-hands meetings.

bp

They created a specialized physical meeting space called Highly Immersive Visualization Environments (HIVEs). This permitted experts to understand and team up on complex problems in a way that wouldn’t be possible with traditional tools.

Roger Rohatgi, Vice President and Global Head of Design for bp, shares that “highly immersive visualization environments open the path to a more digital and collaborative future for bp. By partnering with Microsoft Mesh, we can explore how to use advanced technology for faster, more informed, and safer decision-making as we pursue our ambition to become an integrated energy company.”

Final Thoughts

Microsoft has always been in the news, whether it was stopping updates of Windows 10 or launch an in-house AI chip. This feature though being innovative and engaging needs to witness the adaptability and utility of most organizations. As Microsoft confirmed many international organizations have been using it, but overall how many companies use Teams as their mode of corporate communication? We have to see since the upgrade how many enterprises actively engage in it.

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Black Friday Tech Deals: Deals You Don’t Want to Miss

Noah Davidson — Mon, 27 Nov 2023 12:28:46 +0000

Black Friday is traditionally the season when most products go on sale. The early deals open on October 30th but the official Black Friday sale will begin on November 24th this year. However, different brands and e-commerce companies give different dates for sales and discounts.

Best Buy’s full Black Friday sale started on November 17th and will end on November 25th. Target’s early Black Friday savings began on October 29th and are set to run through Thanksgiving weekend. Newegg has started on the 16th of November and will end on the 25th. Costco announced a fusion of in-warehouse and online deals going live from November 24th through November 27th.

There are more brands with their sale dates but the important part is the products and discounts on them. So let us see what products can be purchased this festive season.

Deals on Black Friday

This Black Friday deal can help you save on many electronic as well as technological items. The list is as follows:

The Best Mobile Phone Deals

1. Apple

Apple’s latest iPhone 15 has deals on it. Verizon is offering a free 10th-gen iPad 10.9 and a free 2nd-gen Apple Watch SE. For the iPhone 15 Pro up to $1,000 off with a trade-in, plus free iPad and Apple Watch, and Boost Infinite is giving the iPhone 15 Pro Max device and unlimited data for $65.55/mo.

iPhone 14 which was originally priced at $729.99 is now $679.99 at Best Buy. iPhone 14 Plus also has a $50 discount at Best Buy. The iPhone 14 Pro which is originally priced at $999 is now available at $899 after a discount at Walmart.

Also, iPhone 13 which was for $699 is now available at a price of $599 at Apple. iPhone 12 which was last priced at $499 is now available at $399 at Walmart.

2. Samsung

Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 (256 GB) has a 20% discount on Amazon and Best Buy. The latest 6.7-inch flip phone that folds in half was priced at $999 which in sale is available at $800.

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 (256 GB, Unlocked) has a 28% discount on it which is a steal deal. The phone was priced at $1799 and is available at %1300.

Lastly, Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra after a discount of 25% is priced at $900 which was originally for $1200.

3. Google Pixel

Google Pixel Fold (256 GB), Google’s first foldable device is available in the sale at $1399 whose original price is $1799.

The Google Pixel 7A is available at $374 at Amazon, Best Buy, and Google. The Google Pixel 8 Pro which is considered Google’s best camera yet is available at $799 at 20% off.

Stellar Deals for Headphones

1. Apple

AirPods (Second Gen) with lightning charging case, the cheapest model in the lineup has a whopping discount of 38% and you can buy it at $80 at Amazon and Target and $90 at Walmart.

Apple AirPods Pro (Second Gen) with USB-C charging case which was priced at $249 has a 24% off and is priced at $190 at Amazon, Best Buy, and Target.

2. Bose

Bose QC 45 Headphones have a 40% discount and are priced at just $199. These discounts are available at Best Buy, Amazon and Target.

Bose QuietComfort Earbuds and Headphones have 17% and 12% discounts respectively and are priced at $249 and $379.

3. Google Pixel

The Google Pixel Buds Pro was priced at $200 and in the Black Friday sale, it is available at a 43% discount. At WellBots $115, at Amazon $120, and at Best Buy $120.

Stunning Gaming Device Deals

1. PlayStation 5

New PlayStation 5 with Marvel Spider-Man 2 and Call of Duy: Modern Warfare III has an 11% discount and is now available at $499 at Amazon and $500 at Gamestop and Best Buy.

2. Wireless Controller

DualSense Wireless Controller designed for PS5 has a built-in microphone and haptic feedback technology. It has a 35% discount which was originally priced at $75 and is now available at $49.

Xbox Wireless Controller has a discount of 43% and is priced at $40 after the discount.

3. Handheld Gaming Console

Nintendo Switch Mario Cart 8 Deluxe Bundle is a holiday Switch bundle that includes the standard version of Nintendo’s terrific handheld, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, and a three-month subscription to Nintendo Switch Online and is priced at $300.

Asus Rog Ally (512 GB) has a great discount of 32% and is priced at $450. It’s a PC gaming handheld with a 7-inch, 1080p, 120Hz touchscreen and integrated gamepad controls.

Hori Split Pad Pro has a 20% discount on the original price of $50 and now is available at $40.

Great Laptop Deals

1. Asus

Asus Zenbook S 13 OLED (Intel Evo i7-1355U, 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD) can be a great buy in the OLED laptops category. Along with a stunning screen, the lightweight laptop features a good port selection that has HDMI 2.1, USB-A, and multiple Thunderbolt ports. The laptop right now has a discount of $100 and is priced at $1300 on Amazon and Asus.

2. Microsoft

Microsoft Surface Laptop 5 has a huge 20% off and is selling at $799 instead of $999 at Amazon and Best Buy.

The Microsoft Surface Pro 9 is selling at $799.99 with an off of $100 at Amazon and Best Buy with a 12th Gen Intel Core i5 processor, 8GB of RAM, and 256GB of storage.

3.Apple

The new 14-inch MacBook Pro is selling at 10% off at $1799 at Amazon and Best Buy.

The 16-inch MacBook Pro stays Apple’s largest laptop for creators and power users. It is now selling at $2299 at an 8% discount.

The sale is ongoing and most of the deals are great for purchase for tech enthusiasts and gamers. The sale is also live for tablets, watches, and games for PlayStation. There are deals on SteamCam, smart displays, speakers, and more for great prices and discounts. What products are you buying this Black Friday sale? Let us know in the comments.

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China’s Baidu Reveals New Version of Ernie, Claims To Be in Same League With GPT-4

Noah Davidson — Tue, 17 Oct 2023 11:33:26 +0000

On Tuesday, October 17, Chinese search engine and artificial intelligence firm Baidu revealed a new version of its AI model, Ernie 4.0. Baidu’s CEO Robin Li showcased Ernie 4.0 at the company’s annual Baidu World conference in Beijing. He posed questions on topics like buying property, posed math problems, and asked it to write a novel based on the world of ancient martial arts. He added that the model has achieved comprehension, reasoning, memory, and generation which uses algorithms to generate new content.

Li also mentioned that Ernie 4.0 has the ability to understand complex instructions and questions and it applies logic and reasoning to provide answers. When stating the latest model, he said, “It is not inferior in any aspect to GPT-4. Significantly improved compared to its original Ernie Bot model.”

Baidu’s Future Plan for the AI Model

Baidu is amongst the competitors in the AI race, racing to come up with artificial intelligence models. This is after OpenAI’s ChatGPT was introduced last year and people were hooked to it. China sees AI as a potential industry to rival the US and aims to become a global leader by 2030.

Baidu began its journey as a search engine firm and over the last few years has invested significantly in AI technology such as autonomous driving and now, generative AI to meet the competition.

It introduced Ernie Bot in March and made it available to the public in August 2023. Ernie 4.0 is not available to the public yet but some people are invited to try it. Also, following the announcement of Baidu’s share price fell 1.7% which is a bit unexpected.

Li also mentioned that the company plans to incorporate AI into its search engine, maps, and cloud drive services, and its business intelligence services for enterprise customers. However, he did not mention the timeline or any other information for the same.

Final Thoughts

Baidu is trying to compete with US tech giants like Google’s AI Chatbot Bard and Microsoft’s Dall-E 3. However, US sanctions on China’s access to advanced chips to train the AI models along with Beijing’s stringent censorship can create issues for them. They also have domestic rivals like ByteDance Ltd and Tencent to make things difficult for them.

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Australia Fines X for Not Addressing Questions on Child Abuse Content

Emily Lawson — Mon, 16 Oct 2023 12:43:26 +0000

On Sunday 15 October, Australia’s eSafety commissioner fined X, formerly known as Twitter. The penalty is 610,500 AUD which is $380,000 US dollars for not disclosing how it polices child abuse content. X has 28 days to respond to or pay the fine.

Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said in a statement, “Twitter/X has stated publicly that tackling child sexual exploitation is the number 1 priority for the company, but it can’t just be empty talk, we need to see words backed up with tangible action.”

Australia’s Protection Against Online Child Abuse

Australia penalized X as per the Online Safety Act, introduced in 2021. The Law requires online service providers to report how they handle child abuse content on their platforms. Moreover, a civil penalty can be imposed on the companies failing to meet the reporting requirement.

A legal memo was sent to X in February by Australia’s eSafety office along with other tech companies like Google, TikTok, Twitch, and Discord. The notice included several serious questions for the companies to address regarding how they handle child exploitation content.

As per the eSafety commissioner, X didn’t answer many of the questions and left ‘some sections entirely blank.’ Furthermore, X was not the only social media platform the eSafety office took issue with. They said they found ‘serious shortfalls’ in how child exploitation content is policed in five other platforms they filed legal notices to.

The office also mentioned that Google was issued a formal warning for providing ‘generic responses to specific questions.’ Google regional director Lucinda Longcroft said in a statement, “Protecting children on our platforms is the most important work we do. Since our earliest days, we have invested heavily in the industrywide fight to stop the spread of child sexual abuse material.”

However, as per the commissioner, “ X received an official fine because its failure to comply with Australia’s reporting standards was more egregious.” For instance, the company did not provide adequate information on how long it takes to respond to child abuse reports. Also, how long it takes to distinguish child sexual exploitation on its platform, and how many safety and public policy employees it has.

Also, in December 2022, NBC News and CNBC collected internal records showing that 25 employees held tags related to ‘Trust and Safety’ out of roughly 1600 employees who were employed at that time.

X’s Response to the News

Last year, Musk stated that removing child exploitation is priority #1. But when the commissioner asked X how the service prevented child grooming. The company said that it was ‘not a service used by large numbers of young people.’ The company also added that their available anti-grooming technology was ‘not sufficiently capable or accurate for deployment on Twitter.’

The question remains if X will respond to these questions with proper answers or if he will choose to pay the fines imposed. As it is relatively a small fine given the multibillion-dollar business that the platform holds now that it charges X users a small fee.

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Rising Concerns and the Israel-Palestine War Impact on Economy

Emily Lawson — Tue, 10 Oct 2023 12:53:29 +0000

With the Israel-Palestine war, industries all around the world are suffering from losses and threats. Nations are facing cybersecurity issues, investors are panicking about stocks, and tech companies are struggling with the spread of misinformation.

One instance of it is social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter. X updated its policies to combat hate speech and videos posted and shared on the platform. The video had content of violence faced by Israel and Palestine which killed hundreds of civilians in both nations in the last few days.

This isn’t just limited to violence but also extends to false and misinformation with the Israel-Palestine war’s impact on the economy being significant.

Tech Companies Stumble As Falsehoods Spread

The speed at which false information and news went online after the recent attack on Israel is concerning. Tech platforms like Meta and X are struggling to fight this spread of misinformation. The lack of content moderation policies, layoffs, and cost reduction have restricted the platforms’ ability to solve the issue effectively.

This false scenario was made by fake accounts impersonating journalists and war-themed video games surfacing around the Israel-Palestine conflict. Social media users are bombed with fake combat photos and old videos from Syria to look like they were taken in Gaza.

Andy Carvin, from the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, told AFP, “Social media platforms are struggling to keep up with the constant churn of misinformation and incitements to violence.”

Cyber Threats Increase With the War

Two days back, the Jerusalem Post, Israel’s news agency, was hacked into. Its official X handle said that the website crashed ‘due to a series of cyberattacks.’ The Israel-Palestine war is likely to spread in cyberspace as experts have warned of multiple instances of intelligence hacking and grid disruption that would affect allied nations on both sides. Cyber warfare consultants said that Dark web assaults may also be carried out for commercial gains while the world may see increasing malware attacks.

Siddharth Vishwanath, an emerging business leader at PwC told Livemint, “Israel has one of the most advanced security systems in the world. The Hamas attack on Israel perhaps means there may also have been a tech hack to suppress intelligence gathering and alerts. It is escalating in the physical world, and it is likely to escalate into a full-blown cyber warfare.”

Volatility in the Stock and Oil Markets

US and European stocks fell on Monday after investors reacted to the war between Palestine and Israel. The US stocks made a comeback by afternoon in the trading session. The Dow Jones rose 197 points or 0.6%, the S&P 500 added 0.6% and the Nasdaq Composite rose 0.4%.

David Donabedian, chief investment officer at CIBC Private Wealth US told CNN, “Right now there are a lot of ‘maybes’ and ‘ifs’ — and a real lack of clarity. Markets will continue to look at everything it usually looks at including climbing bond yields and the Federal Reserve’s future monetary policy decisions.”

The European stocks that fell in the morning stabilized a bit in the afternoon with France’s CAC 40 index falling 0.6%, while Germany’s DAX index dipped 0.7%. London’s FTSE 100 inched up 0.03%, propped up by gains in the shares of oil companies.

The price of oil also faced major changes as US oil prices settled at $86.38 a barrel, while Brent crude futures climbed to $88.15 a barrel.

Final Words

The question right now is whether the impact of the war on all aforementioned issues will conclude or go on to impact other industries and regions. The situation is still volatile and so are the stock and oil markets.

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Israel-Palestine War’s Impact on Israel’s Tech Sector

Olivia Carter — Mon, 09 Oct 2023 11:31:09 +0000

On October 9, the investors and analysts said, the tech companies running in Israel are expected to reinforce security as they could face disruptions. The tech sector is on alert after Hamas gunmen from Gaza killed hundreds of Israelis and abducted an unknown number of people.

Stock and bond prices of Israeli companies plunged and many organizations were closed on Sunday as the Palestinian group Hamas rampaged through the towns of Israel on Saturday. In addition, militants also fired thousands of rockets in a surprise attack in Israel some of which reached Tel Aviv and led to airlines suspending their flights.

Jack Ablin, chief investment officer and founding partner at Cresset Wealth Advisors said, “It is a huge disruption to business as usual.” He also added that in a short while, resources can be redirected if the conflict expands, such as employees at tech companies being called up as military reservists.

Thoughts of World Leaders on Rising Conflict

Quincy Krosby, chief global strategist at LPL Financial in Charlotte, North Carolina, said there will likely be a “tremendous effort” to safeguard physical installations for companies based in Israel from attacks because some technology spending is tied to the military.

Nvidia, the world’s largest manufacturer of chips used in AI and computer graphics said, it had canceled an AI summit scheduled for Tel Aviv next week, where its CEO Jensen Huang was due to speak.

A spokesperson from Intel Corp. said on Sunday that the company was “closely monitoring the situation in Israel and taking steps to safeguard and support our workers.” However, he refused to say if the chip production was affected by the conflict.

Other tech giants like Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Meta, and Apple gave no response when requested for their thoughts.

Increasing Artificial Intelligence Use in the Military

There are 500 MNCs operating in Israel most of them are research and development centres after acquiring Israeli start-ups. These MNCs include Intel, IBM, Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Facebook. Especially with the coming AI regulations, the RnD needed to bolster up.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in June said Intel was planning to invest $25 billion in a new factory in the southern city of Kiryat Gat. In his words, it is the largest-ever international investment in the country that can employ thousands of people and would add to its chip plants and design centers there.

Quincy Krosby said, “In the longer term, the tech and AI sector, where Israel has been a leader, could see increased investment because of the industries’ close tie-in with military spending.” “They will probably increase the investment in AI. When a country is caught literally off guard the first thing they look at – besides the obvious problems with intelligence – is what was missed within the security systems.”

He further added, “It could bolster support for more financial resources for tech for the military, which then ultimately transitions to the private sector tech companies.”

The tech sector in the past has shown perseverance in overcoming a number of conflicts with Hamas in Gaza. Apjit Walia the Managing Director at DVN Capital said, “The Israeli tech sector has historically bounced back from geopolitical tragedies.” If the conflict prolongs, that may not be the case this time.

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You Can Now Use the DALL-E 3 AI Image Generator in Microsoft Bing

Emily Lawson — Wed, 04 Oct 2023 12:39:22 +0000

On Tuesday, October 3rd, Microsoft announced that OpenAI’s latest model DALL-E 3 is now available to all Bing users. The feature was out over the last week, first for the Bing Enterprise users and then for Bing Image Creator. Now it is open for all Bing users to enjoy.

The tech giant in its blog post said, “We’re excited to share that DALL-E 3, the latest and most capable text-to-image model from OpenAI, is now generally available to everyone within Bing Chat and Bing.com/create—for free!”

Moreover, Bing is getting DALL-E 3 access way before OpenAI’s ChatGPT, bringing an advantage to Microsoft. The tech giant is likely to be the most popular image-generating tool for a long while.

The Significance of DALL-E 3

It is the third version of OpenAI’s image-generating model powered by a neural network. It can generate realistic and distinct images from a natural language prompt. DALL-E 3 understands the user’s prompt with much more precision and reliability than the previous models. Furthermore, this version produces images that are photorealistic meaning they are not just visually attractive but are backed by logic.

Microsoft has also attempted to design it in a way that is easier to use. It has integrated DALL-E 3 into Bing and ChatGPT instead of making a standalone product. This will make it convenient for users to create and improvise their images by conversing with the chatbot rather than trying to improve their initial attempt.

Microsoft Ensuring the Safety and Ethics

In the blog post, they mentioned the risks and challenges associated with synthetic media and have taken appropriate steps to ensure it. Microsoft has created a content moderation system of its own which enables it to avoid creating images that contain nudity, violence, hate speech, or illegal activities.

In Bing Image Creator, all AI-generated images will possess a watermark complying with the C2PA specification. This watermark will include the time and date of its creation and confirm the source of the image as AI-generated.

Since the launch of Bing Image Creator, users have generated one billion images. No wonder why the servers will be overloaded for a while.

Microsoft’s Mikhail Parakhin posted— we know the DALL-E 3.0 generation right now is taking longer than normal. We expected some strong interest, but we didn’t expect THAT much, especially given it’s a weekend. Bringing more GPUs in will be better soon.

What images will you be generating through Bing Chat and Image Creator? Let us know in the comments.

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Say Goodbye to Instagram and Facebook Ads With a $14 Monthly Ad-Free Plan

Olivia Carter — Tue, 03 Oct 2023 12:51:47 +0000

Meta platforms are introducing a plan involving users in the European Union shell to pay as much as $14 to access ad-free versions of Instagram or Facebook. Additionally, the users can agree to personalized ads for the free versions, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.

Under the plan, Meta can charge roughly 10 euros a month on a desktop for a Facebook or Instagram account, and around 6 euros for each additional linked account, as per the report. For mobile devices, the price for a single account would go up to 13 euros roughly as Meta would cover commissions charged by Apple and Google’s app stores. The users only have the option to buy this ad-free plan or agree to the personalized ads.

A Plan to Cover the 390 Million Euros Fine

Earlier this year, the social media giant was imposed a fine of 390 million euros by Ireland’s Data Privacy Commissioner. They also told Meta that it cannot utilize the so-called ‘contract’ legal basis to send users ads on the basis of their online activity.

Meta indicated its intention to ask users for their consent in the EU before allowing businesses to target advertising. This was a step to address multiple evolving regulatory requirements in the region.

Meta has now informed European Regulators that it is hoping to initiate an ad-free plan which is named subscription no ads (SNA), for European users in the coming months. A Meta spokesman told the Journal that the company believes in ‘free services which are supported by personalized ads’ but is experimenting with ‘options to ensure we comply with evolving regulatory requirements’.

One thing that is not clear is if the regulators in Ireland or Brusells will find the Meta’s new SNA plan in compliance with the European Union regulation. Moreover, as per the Meta estimates, the company has around 258 million Facebook users and 257 million Instagram users in the first six months of 2023. If the company charges $14 to all the Instagram and Facebook users the returns they will receive through this plan are daunting.

With rising compliances and the resulting paid plans, we will need to see if the users are intimidated by the new strategy. Will they be buying the SNA plan or agree to personalized ads?
What are you planning to do let us know in the comments.

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OpenAI and Jony Ive Are Reportedly Working On Building the ‘iPhone of AI’

Noah Davidson — Fri, 29 Sep 2023 12:44:49 +0000

Apple’s Former VP of Industrial Design Jony Ive is working with OpenAI to create something roughly described as the ‘iPhone of artificial intelligence’. The Financial Times reported that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has connected with Jony Ive’s company LoveFrom to develop OpenAI’s first consumer device.

The project is said to be in the early stages of planning but they have received funding of $1 billion from Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son. Despite being in the early stages of the project, the pair have discussed many potential designs and are looking forward to building something that gives a ‘more natural and intuitive user experience for interacting with AI’. The FT reports said that they are taking inspiration from how the iPhone used the touchscreen to transform how we interact with the mobile internet.

The Concept Behind the Rumoured Venture

The duo is said to be working on giving users a more natural and intuitive way of conversing with AI. Employing ChatGPT on a PC or an iPhone is ideal but that’s not what the devices were explicitly designed for. This project may hypothetically involve hardware embedded with AI. The climax will be creating a way of interacting with computers that is less dependent on the screen.

AI for the last decade has been hyped but recent advancements in Generative AI tools that can create content like text or art, have boosted the interest and funding drastically. This change was led by Open AI with its success with ChatGPT. This also created a need for tech giants like Microsoft and Google to release their AI systems. Amazon also collaborated with Anthropic to bring advancements in their AI systems.

30 Years in Apple

Jony Ive worked with Apple for nearly 30 years and left it in 2019 to start his own company LoveFrom. He made contributions to some of the finest physical designs of devices like the iPhone, iMac, iPad, and other iDevices. Since leaving Apple, working with OpenAI to design hardware embedded with AI will be a noteworthy effort and its success can mark his name in the world of innovation.

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