Month: January 2024

Enlarge / The Galaxy S24 line. (credit: Samsung)

Samsung has unveiled its new flagship phones for 2024: the Galaxy S24, S24+, and S24 Ultra.  Considering Samsung's usually conservative year-to-year changes, there are a lot of differences this year.

The S24 Ultra now has a titanium body, just like the iPhone 15. It also has a "fully flat display," ending years of Android's weird curved OLED panel gimmick that only served to distort the sides of the display. Samsung says the new Ultra design has "42 percent slimmer bezels" and a front hole-punch camera cutout that is "11 percent smaller" than those on the S23 Ultra. The rest of the design looks like Ultra models of past years, with rounded edges and a flat top and bottom. The bottom still houses an S-Pen for handwriting and drawing.

All that titanium will cost you. The S24 Ultra is $100 more than last year, coming to an eye-popping $1,299.99. An iPhone 15 Pro Max is $1,199.99, and a Pixel 8 Pro is $999.99, so that's a tough sell.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Benj Edwards)

On Monday, ChatGPT maker OpenAI detailed its plans to prevent the misuse of its AI technologies during the upcoming elections in 2024, promising transparency in AI-generated content and enhancing access to reliable voting information. The AI developer says it is working on an approach that involves policy enforcement, collaboration with partners, and the development of new tools aimed at classifying AI-generated media.

"As we prepare for elections in 2024 across the world’s largest democracies, our approach is to continue our platform safety work by elevating accurate voting information, enforcing measured policies, and improving transparency," writes OpenAI in its blog post. "Protecting the integrity of elections requires collaboration from every corner of the democratic process, and we want to make sure our technology is not used in a way that could undermine this process."

Initiatives proposed by OpenAI include preventing abuse by means such as deepfakes or bots imitating candidates, refining usage policies, and launching a reporting system for the public to flag potential abuses. For example, OpenAI's image generation tool, DALL-E 3, includes built-in filters that reject requests to create images of real people, including politicians. "For years, we’ve been iterating on tools to improve factual accuracy, reduce bias, and decline certain requests," the company stated.

Enlarge (credit: Georgijevic | E+)

The US seems to be getting serious about criminalizing deepfake pornography after teen boys at a New Jersey high school used AI image generators to create and share non-consensual fake nude images of female classmates last October.

On Tuesday, Rep. Joseph Morelle (D-NY) announced that he has re-introduced the “Preventing Deepfakes of Intimate Images Act,” which seeks to "prohibit the non-consensual disclosure of digitally altered intimate images." Under the proposed law, anyone sharing deepfake pornography without an individual's consent risks damages that could go as high as $150,000 and imprisonment of up to 10 years if sharing the images facilitates violence or impacts the proceedings of a government agency.

The hope is that steep penalties will deter companies and individuals from allowing the disturbing images to be spread. It creates a criminal offense for sharing deepfake pornography "with the intent to harass, annoy, threaten, alarm, or cause substantial harm to the finances or reputation of the depicted individual" or with "reckless disregard" or "actual knowledge" that images will harm the individual depicted. It also provides a path for victims to sue offenders in civil court.

Enlarge / Paul Patterson, co-CEO of Fujitsu's European division, giving evidence to the Business and Trade Committee at the Houses of Parliament, London on January 16, 2024. (credit: Getty Images | House of Commons - PA Images)

Fujitsu yesterday apologized for its role in the British Post Office scandal, acknowledging that its buggy accounting software contributed to the wrongful prosecutions of hundreds of postal employees.

"Fujitsu would like to apologize for our part in this appalling miscarriage of justice," Paul Patterson, co-CEO of Fujitsu's European division, said in a hearing held by the UK Parliament's Business and Trade Committee. "We were involved from the very start. We did have bugs and errors in the system and we did help the Post Office in their prosecutions of the sub-postmasters. For that we are truly sorry."

The committee hearing focused on possible compensation for victims of what has been called "the worst miscarriage of justice in British history." Patterson said that Fujitsu has "a moral obligation" to contribute to the compensation for victims.