Month: November 2023

Enlarge / The three pouches so far linked to lead contamination. (credit: FDA)

At least seven children across five states have suffered acute lead poisoning linked to at least three brands of apple cinnamon fruit puree pouches marketed to children and sold nationwide, the Food and Drug Administration announced in an updated safety alert Friday.

The brands include WanaBana apple cinnamon fruit puree pouches, Schnucks brand cinnamon-flavored applesauce pouches, and Weis brand cinnamon applesauce pouches. All three have been recalled. Consumers should not buy, sell, serve, or eat any of these products. Any pouches that have already been purchased should be thrown away. Parents or guardians of any children who may have eaten the purees should talk with health care providers about blood lead tests.

In an October 28 alert, the FDA said it was working with authorities in the state of North Carolina who had identified four children with elevated blood lead levels in the western part of the state. North Carolina considers a child to have elevated blood lead levels if they have two consecutive blood lead test results greater than or equal to 5 micrograms per deciliter (µg/dl)—at which point the child becomes eligible for an investigation into the lead source. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention meanwhile has a threshold of 3.5 µg/dl to consider a blood lead level high, which corresponds to the 97.5th percentile of blood levels in a survey of US children.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)

On Monday at the OpenAI DevDay event, company CEO Sam Altman announced a major update to its GPT-4 language model called GPT-4 Turbo, which can process a much larger amount of text than GPT-4 and features a knowledge cutoff of April 2023. He also introduced APIs for DALL-E 3, GPT-4 Vision, and text-to-speech—and launched an "Assistants API" that makes it easier for developers to build assistive AI apps.

OpenAI hosted its first-ever developer event on November 6 in San Francisco called DevDay. During the opening keynote delivered by Altman in front of a small audience, the CEO showcased the wider impacts of its AI technology in the world, including helping people with tech accessibility. Altman shared some stats, saying that over 2 million developers are building apps using its APIs, over 92 percent of Fortune 500 companies are building on their platform, and that ChatGPT has over 100 million active weekly users.

At one point, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella made a surprise appearance on the stage, talking with Altman about the deepening partnership between Microsoft and OpenAI and sharing some general thoughts about the future of the technology, which he thinks will empower people.

Enlarge / The little Android robot is watching everything you do. (credit: Aurich Lawson / Getty Images)

Google is killing off its proposal for "Web Environment Integrity API" as a new web standard, though Android phones may still have to deal with it. According to Google's proposal document, the primary goal of the project was to "allow web servers to evaluate the authenticity of the device and honest representation of the software stack"—basically Google wanted a DRM gatekeeper for the web. The project got widespread coverage in July and was widely panned.

The ominously vague plan was to allow web browsers to detect if your computer was "modified" in a way that the webpage didn't like. Presumably, this could be anything from a rooted/jailbroken phone to having an undesirable plug-in (read: ad blockers) installed. When you tried to access some protected content, a browser supporting the Web Integrity API would first contact a third-party "environment attestation" server, and your computer would have to pass some kind of test. After having your local environment uh... scanned? passing environments receive a signed "IntegrityToken" that points to the content you wanted unlocked. You would bring this back to the web server and would finally get the content unlocked.

Google's proposal did not go over well. The explainer was full of conflicting information about just how invasive it wanted to be and what its goals were. Google pinky-promised it wasn't meant to "enforce or interfere with browser functionality, including plugins and extensions"—this is a vague reference to ad blockers—but also the proposal's very first example had to do with more accurately measuring ad impressions. Even more alarming was that this wasn't a discussion—Google never publicized the feature for any kind of feedback, and the company was already actively prototyping the feature in Chrome before the Internet really found out about it.

Enlarge (credit: WPA Pool / Pool | Getty Images Europe)

At a moment when misinformation about the Israel-Hamas war is rapidly spreading on X (formerly Twitter)—mostly by verified X users—many researchers have given up hope that it will be possible to closely monitor this kind of misinformation on the platform, Reuters reported.

According to a "survey of 167 academic and civil society researchers conducted at Reuters' request by the Coalition for Independent Technology Research" (CITR) in September, more than 100 studies about X have been canceled, suspended, or switched to focus on another platform since Elon Musk began limiting researchers' access to X data last February. Researchers told Reuters that includes studies on hate speech and child safety, as well as research tracking the "spread of false information during real-time events, such as Hamas' attack on Israel and the Israeli airstrikes in Gaza."

The European Union has already threatened X with fines if the platform fails to stop the spread of Israel/Hamas disinformation. In response, X has reported taking actions to curb misinformation, like removing newly created Hamas-affiliated accounts and accounts manipulating trending topics, working with partner organizations to flag terrorist content, actioning "tens of thousands of posts," and proactively monitoring for antisemitic speech.

Enlarge / Google's conceptual rendering of its housing plan. (credit: Google)

Google has ended an agreement with a developer to build 15,000 homes in the San Francisco Bay Area, including affordable housing, as it continues a string of cost-cutting moves to reduce real estate costs. Google said it is "looking at a variety of options" to provide housing despite ending the development deal but didn't offer specific details on its plans.

Google partnered with the Australian company Lendlease in 2019 on a $15 billion plan for "residential, retail, hospitality, and community development space," with an expected completion date of 2038. Lendlease was to be the developer, builder, and owner of the residential, retail, hospitality, and community components, while Google also planned a related office expansion. Including office space, the developments could have covered 15 million square feet.

But on Friday, Lendlease and Google announced that they "mutually reached an agreement to end the Development Services Agreements of the four master-planned districts in San Jose (Downtown West), Sunnyvale (Moffett Park), and Mountain View (Middlefield Park and North Bayshore) in the San Francisco Bay area in California, collectively referred to as the San Francisco Bay Project." Google is making a payment to Lendlease as part of the agreement to part ways.

We've all had the misfortune of botching a dive into the pool and ending up in a painful belly flop—or perhaps we've done it deliberately to show off and instantly regretted that decision. Hitting the water in that body position can feel like hitting concrete and lead to bruising or (if one is falling from a greater height) internal injuries. While the basic physics is well-understood, scientists are always looking for greater insight into the phenomenon in hopes of finding novel ways to ameliorate the impact.

Scientists at Brown University have found that, surprisingly, adding a bit of extra spring to a body hitting the water can actually increase the impact force instead of decrease it under certain conditions, according to a new paper published in the Journal of Fluid Mechanics. The implications go beyond protecting divers; a better understanding of the hydrodynamics will improve designs of naval ships, seaplanes, or projectiles, as well as underwater autonomous vehicles.

From a physics standpoint, we're talking about an elastic body hitting the surface of water. The stress of moving from the medium of air to the much denser medium of water exerts a huge force as that body displaces it. The cohesive forces between water molecules are stronger at the surface, making it harder to break through. (It's why diving competitions often use aerators to create bubbles in the water, breaking the surface tension to protect the divers.) A large volume of fluid must be accelerated (displaced) in a short timeframe to match the speed of the impinging body. The larger the surface area of the object hitting the water, the more resistance there will be—and with belly flops there will be a much larger surface area than with a simple swan dive, resulting in that signature slam.

Enlarge / "GPTs" will allow ChatGPT users to create custom AI assistants that serve different purposes. (credit: Getty Images)

On Monday, OpenAI announced "GPTs," a new feature that allows ChatGPT users to create custom versions of its AI assistant that serve different roles or purposes. OpenAI will let users share GPT roles with others, and it plans to introduce a "GPT Store" later this month that will eventually share revenue with creators.

"Since launching ChatGPT, people have been asking for ways to customize ChatGPT to fit specific ways that they use it," writes OpenAI in a release provided to Ars. "We launched Custom Instructions in July that let you set some preferences, but requests for more control kept coming."

For example, in a screenshot of the GPTs interface provided by OpenAI, the upcoming GPT Store shows custom AI assistants called "Writing Coach," "Sous Chef," "Math Mentor," and "Sticker Whiz" available for selection. The screenshot describes the GPTs as assistants designed to help with writing feedback, recipes, homework help, and turning your ideas into die-cut stickers.