Month: July 2024

Enlarge / A stock photo of a robot whispering to a man. (credit: AndreyPopov via Getty Images)

On Tuesday, OpenAI began rolling out an alpha version of its new Advanced Voice Mode to a small group of ChatGPT Plus subscribers. This feature, which OpenAI previewed in May with the launch of GPT-4o, aims to make conversations with the AI more natural and responsive. In May, the feature triggered criticism of its simulated emotional expressiveness and prompted a public dispute with actress Scarlett Johansson over accusations that OpenAI copied her voice. Even so, early tests of the new feature shared by users on social media have been largely enthusiastic.

In early tests reported by users with access, Advanced Voice Mode allows them to have real-time conversations with ChatGPT, including the ability to interrupt the AI mid-sentence almost instantly. It can sense and respond to a user's emotional cues through vocal tone and delivery, and provide sound effects while telling stories.

But what has caught many people off-guard initially is how the voices simulate taking a breath while speaking.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images |NurPhoto)

Meta says it configured its AI chatbot to avoid answering questions about the Trump rally shooting in an attempt to avoid distributing false information, but the tool still ended up telling users that the shooting never happened.

"Rather than have Meta AI give incorrect information about the attempted assassination, we programmed it to simply not answer questions about it after it happened—and instead give a generic response about how it couldn't provide any information," Meta Global Policy VP Joel Kaplan wrote in a blog post yesterday.

Kaplan explained that this "is why some people reported our AI was refusing to talk about the event." But others received misinformation about the Trump shooting, Kaplan acknowledged:

Enlarge / Intel's Lunar Lake Core Ultra CPUs will be announced in September. (credit: Intel)

Intel announced today that it plans to launch its next-generation Core Ultra laptop chips on September 3rd, just ahead of this year's IFA conference in Berlin.

This announcement-of-an-announcement offers few specifics on what the next-gen chips will be like beyond promising "breakthrough x86 power efficiency, exceptional core performance, massive leaps in graphics performance and... unmatched AI computing power." But we do already know a few things about the next-generation CPUs, codenamed Lunar Lake.

We know that, like current-generation Meteor Lake chips, Lunar Lake will combine multiple silicon "tiles" into one large die thanks to Intel's Foveros packaging technology. We know that Intel will use a mix of up to four E-cores and four P-cores in the CPU, a step down in core count from what was available in Meteor Lake. We know Lunar Lake includes a next-generation Arc GPU based on the "Battlemage" architecture that promises up to 1.5 times better performance than the current Arc integrated GPU. We know that at least some models are shifting to RAM that's soldered to the CPU package, similar to how Apple packages RAM in its M-series processors. And we know that Lunar Lake includes a boosted neural processing unit (NPU) for local generative AI processing, Intel's first chip fast enough to qualify for Microsoft's Copilot+ label.

Enlarge / The tumbling continues.

Microsoft's revenue from Xbox console sales was down a whopping 42 percent on a year-over-year basis for the quarter ending in June, the company announced in its latest earnings report.

The massive drop continues a long, pronounced slide for sales of Microsoft's gaming hardware—the Xbox line has now shown year-over-year declines in hardware sales revenue in six of the last seven calendar quarters (and seven of the last nine). And Microsoft CFO Amy Hood told investors in a follow-up call (as reported by GamesIndustry.biz) to expect hardware sales to decline yet again in the coming fiscal quarter, which ends in September.

The 42 percent drop for quarterly hardware revenue—by far the largest such drop since the introduction of the Xbox Series X/S in 2020—follows an 11 percent year-over-year decline in the second calendar quarter of 2023.

Enlarge / The cosmetic changes to the MY25 Ford Maverick include a new front bumper, front grille, and new headlamps. (credit: Ford)

Ford is giving its Maverick pickup truck a midlife refresh for model year 2025. And while the changes aren't earth-shattering, they will probably pique your interest. The headline news for Ars readers is probably this: the hybrid is back, and now you can spec an all-wheel drive hybrid Maverick as well as a front-wheel-drive electrified model.

When we tested the Maverick back in 2021, we were very impressed with it, particularly the front-wheel drive hybrid powertrain. The 191 hp (142 kW) pickup was capable of exceeding 42 mpg (5.6 L/100 km). It was the right size, as opposed to being gargantuan like almost every other pickup on sale, yet it still had the ability to carry 1,500 lbs (680 kg) in the bed or tow 2,000 lb (907 kg) trailers. All for a starting price of just under $20,000, assuming you ignored the destination charge.

Even better, the 2.5 L hybrid powertrain was the standard option, with the more powerful 2.0 L EcoBoost hybrid as a cost-option, either with front- or all-wheel drive. Sadly, more recent supply chain issues got in the way of that, with Ford dropping the hybrid as standard for MY24.