Month: January 2024

Enlarge / A cropped portion of an AI-generated image of Pope Francis wearing a puffy coat that went viral in March 2023. (credit: @skyferrori on Twitter / Getty Images (background))

After a realistic AI-generated image of Pope Francis in a puffy coat went viral on social media last year, the Pope himself apparently took notice, reports Reuters. In a message for the 58th World Day of Social Communications, Francis writes, "We need but think of the long-standing problem of disinformation in the form of fake news, which today can employ 'deepfakes,' namely the creation and diffusion of images that appear perfectly plausible but false (I too have been an object of this)."

The Pope also warns about audio messages that "use a person’s voice to say things which that person never said," he continues. "The technology of simulation behind these programs can be useful in certain specific fields, but it becomes perverse when it distorts our relationship with others and with reality."

In March 2023, a Twitter user named "skyferrori" used the Midjourney v5 image synthesis service to create a convincing fake photo of Pope Francis wearing a long white puffer coat and posted it on the service. It quickly went viral and today stands at over 197,000 likes and 28.1 million views. Many people thought it was a real photo, and it was notable at the time for being one of the first AI-generated images that fooled a large audience online.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | OsakaWayne Studios)

Republican officials from 20 states, including 19 state attorneys general, are backing Florida and Texas in a Supreme Court battle over states' authority to regulate how social media firms moderate user-submitted content. The states on Monday submitted a brief arguing that they "have authority to prohibit mass communication platforms from censoring speech."

"The Federal Government knows it will be much more difficult for federal officials to induce social media companies to suppress speech if state law prohibits it," the Republican state officials wrote, pointing out that the US government previously submitted a brief opposing the state laws. The US opposition "shows that the Texas and Florida laws, far from infringing the First Amendment, in fact shield social media companies from government pressure and deprive government of the opportunity to control expression," the state officials wrote.

The Florida law would make it illegal for large social media sites like Facebook and Twitter to ban politicians, while the Texas law prohibits social media companies from moderating content based on a user's "viewpoint." NetChoice, a lobby group for tech companies, challenged both laws in court.

Enlarge / A sample of the RTX Remix user interface being used to develop the enhanced Portal with RTX. (credit: Nvidia)

In the waning days of 2022, when Nvidia was preparing to release the impressive, ray tracing-enabled Portal with RTX, we were already looking toward a future when "the Nvidia RTX Remix modding platform used to remaster Portal will also be released to the general public at some point, making it easier to create updated versions of old DirectX 8 and DirectX 9 games with AI-upscaled textures and modern lighting effects," as we wrote at the time. That "at some point" future has fully arrived this week with Nvidia's open beta launch of its RTX Remix modding tools.

This isn't the wider modding community's first taste of RTX Remix's upscaling and lighting tools. Nvidia released an alpha version of the RTX runtime last April, offering "capture and replacement" modules that could upgrade older game assets and add modern graphical features like DLSS3 at playback. ModDB lists dozens of older games with an RTX.conf file that offers some level of RTX-powered graphical enhancement.

But this week's official open beta launch gives "experienced modders" new tools to easily create and insert these kinds of updated graphical effects and models in classic titles. That includes "generative AI texture tools" that Nvidia says use "our own proprietary model trained on our in-house dataset" to automatically upscale low-res textures to up to four times the original resolution. It also means the ability to add "physically accurate dynamic lights" that work with ray-tracing-capable hardware and a variety of open source models and material maps for modders to play with.

Enlarge / Canoo will supply six LDV 190s to the USPS by the end of this quarter. (credit: Canoo)

The electric vehicle startup Canoo announced today that it has signed a purchase agreement with the United States Postal Service to supply USPS with six LDV 190 EVs by the end of March. The futuristic-looking electric vans will be provided in a right-hand drive configuration for ease of deliveries.

"The multi-purpose platform with steer-by-wire technology, and a unique low-profile suspension system allows for a readily configurable right-hand drive system while maintaining desired roll and ride stability," said Canoo CEO and Executive Chairman Tony Aquila.

The news comes two days after the USPS formally unveiled its first EV charging stations, which have been installed at its South Atlanta Sorting and Delivery Center. It's the first in what will be hundreds of installations at about 400 sites across the US, which the USPS says it will convert to sorting and delivery centers that will act as local hubs for EVs on local carrier routes. Currently, it has opened 29 so far.