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This week Apple launched an Apple TV+ app for Android, which means you can watch Severance on your Pixel phone without using a web browser. Next week the company plans to launch some new hardware – most likely a new iPhone SE, but a current-gen m…
This week Apple launched an Apple TV+ app for Android, which means you can watch Severance on your Pixel phone without using a web browser. Next week the company plans to launch some new hardware – most likely a new iPhone SE, but a current-gen mid-range iPhone could be just one of several new products […]
The post Lilbits: New Apple hardware, Asahi Linux shakeup, Android 16 Beta 2, and Amazon makes backing up Kindle eBooks tougher, appeared first on Liliputing.
Opinion: Streaming gets more cable-like with new focus on live events, mainstream content.
There was a time when it felt like you needed a streaming subscription in order to contribute to watercooler conversations. Without Netflix, you couldn’t react to House of Cards’ latest twist. Without Hulu, you couldn’t comment on how realistic The Handmaid’s Tale felt, and you needed Prime Video to prefer The Boys over the latest Marvel movies. In the earlier days of streaming, when streaming providers were still tasked with convincing customers that streaming was viable, streaming companies strived to deliver original content that lured customers.
But today, the majority of streaming services are struggling with profitability, and the Peak TV era, a time when TV programming budgets kept exploding and led to iconic original series like Game of Thrones, is over. This year, streaming companies are pinching pennies. This means they're trying harder to extract more money from current subscribers through ads and changes to programming strategies that put less emphasis on original content.
What does that mean for streaming subscribers, who are increasingly paying more? And what does it mean for watercooler chat and media culture when the future of TV increasingly looks like TV’s past, with a heightened focus on live events, mainstream content, and commercials?
Publishers sue Cohere, say AI firm is “stealing our works.”
Condé Nast and several other media companies sued the AI startup Cohere today, alleging that it engaged in "systematic copyright and trademark infringement" by using news articles to train its large language model.
"Without permission or compensation, Cohere uses scraped copies of our articles, through training, real-time use, and in outputs, to power its artificial intelligence ('AI') service, which in turn competes with Publisher offerings and the emerging market for AI licensing," said the lawsuit filed in US District Court for the Southern District of New York. "Not content with just stealing our works, Cohere also blatantly manufactures fake pieces and attributes them to us, misleading the public and tarnishing our brands."
Condé Nast, which owns Ars Technica and other publications such as Wired and The New Yorker, was joined in the lawsuit by The Atlantic, Forbes, The Guardian, Insider, the Los Angeles Times, McClatchy, Newsday, The Plain Dealer, Politico, The Republican, the Toronto Star, and Vox Media.
After three trips to the ER, woman gets diagnosis of dreaded rat lungworm.
It started with a bizarre burning sensation in her feet. Over the next two days, the searing pain crept up her legs. Any light touch made it worse, and over-the-counter pain medicine offered no relief.
On the third day, the 30-year-old, otherwise healthy woman from New England went to an emergency department. Her exam was normal. Her blood tests and kidney function were normal. The only thing that stood out was a high number of eosinophils—white blood cells that become active with certain allergic diseases, parasitic infections, or other medical conditions, such as cancer. The woman was discharged and advised to follow up with her primary care doctor.
Over the next few days, the scorching sensation kept advancing, invading her trunk and arms. She developed a headache that was also unfazed by over-the-counter pain medicine. Seven days into the illness, she went to a second emergency department. There, the findings were much the same: Normal exam, normal blood tests, normal kidney function, and high eosinophil count—this time higher. The reference range for this count was 0 to 400; her count was 1,050. She was given intravenous medicine to treat her severe headache, then once again discharged with a plan to see her primary care provider.
The makers of the BOOK 8088, Pocket 386, and Hand 386 line of portable retro computers are back with a new model called the MSXBOOK. Like other products from 8086Yes!, the MSXBOOK is a compact computer with retro hardware that allows you to run softwar…
The makers of the BOOK 8088, Pocket 386, and Hand 386 line of portable retro computers are back with a new model called the MSXBOOK. Like other products from 8086Yes!, the MSXBOOK is a compact computer with retro hardware that allows you to run software designed for decades-old computers without the need to rely on […]
The post MSXBOOK is a cheap retro laptop designed for compatibility with a 1980s Japanese PC platform appeared first on Liliputing.
Most likely to be a new entry-level iPhone, but there are a few possibilities.
Big news for people who prefer their product announcements to be pre-announced: Apple CEO Tim Cook says that the company has something brewing for Wednesday, February 19. Cook referred to "the newest member of the family," suggesting a launch event focused on a single product rather than multiple refreshes throughout its product lineup.
Most rumors point to the "family" being the iPhone and the "newest member" being an updated version of the entry-level iPhone SE. Last refreshed in March of 2022 with the guts of late 2021's iPhone 13, the SE is the only iPhone in Apple's lineup that still ships with large display bezels and a Home button. And it's one of just three models (along with the iPhone 14 and 14 Plus) to still include a Lightning port.
Previous reporting has suggested that the next-generation iPhone SE could replace both the current SE and the iPhone 14 series in the iPhone lineup, since the new phone is expected to ship with an iPhone 14-style design with an edge-to-edge display and a notch cutout. The old SE and the 14 series have already been discontinued in the EU, where new phones are all required to use a USB-C port.
“There’s not enough ale in the world to deal with this.”
We've finally got a full-length trailer for Prime Video's epic fantasy series The Wheel of Time, adapted from the late Robert Jordan's bestselling 14-book series of epic fantasy novels. (Ars has been following the series closely with regular recaps through the first two seasons.)
(Some spoilers for the first two seasons below.)
As previously reported, the series centers on Moiraine (played by Oscar-nominee Rosamund Pike), a member of a powerful, all-woman organization called the Aes Sedai. Magic, known as the One Power, is divided into male (saidin) and female (saidar) flavors. The latter is the province of the Aes Sedai. Long ago, a great evil, called the Dark One, caused the saidin to become tainted, such that most men who show an ability to channel that magic go mad. It's the job of the Aes Sedai to track down such men and strip them of their abilities—a process known as "gentling" that, unfortunately, is often anything but. There is also an ancient prophecy concerning the Dragon Reborn: the reincarnation of a person who will save or destroy humanity.
Weder Bundesregierung noch die Öffentlichkeit haben einen Überblick, wofür wie viel Geld für die Digitalisierung ausgegeben wird. Eine Studie hat maschinell gescannt. (Digitalisierung, Politik)
Weder Bundesregierung noch die Öffentlichkeit haben einen Überblick, wofür wie viel Geld für die Digitalisierung ausgegeben wird. Eine Studie hat maschinell gescannt. (Digitalisierung, Politik) Mediamarkt und Amazon leisten sich erneut einen Preiskampf beim smarten Thermostat FritzDECT 302 des deutschen Herstellers AVM. (AVM, Technik/Hardware)
Mediamarkt und Amazon leisten sich erneut einen Preiskampf beim smarten Thermostat FritzDECT 302 des deutschen Herstellers AVM. (AVM, Technik/Hardware) Frequent problems include mangled quotes, editorializing, and outdated info.
Here at Ars, we've done plenty of coverage of the errors and inaccuracies that LLMs often introduce into their responses. Now, the BBC is trying to quantify the scale of this confabulation problem, at least when it comes to summaries of its own news content.
In an extensive report published this week, the BBC analyzed how four popular large language models used or abused information from BBC articles when answering questions about the news. The results found inaccuracies, misquotes, and/or misrepresentations of BBC content in a significant proportion of the tests, supporting the news organization's conclusion that "AI assistants cannot currently be relied upon to provide accurate news, and they risk misleading the audience."
To assess the state of AI news summaries, BBC's Responsible AI team gathered 100 news questions related to trending Google search topics from the last year (e.g., "How many Russians have died in Ukraine?" or "What is the latest on the independence referendum debate in Scotland?"). These questions were then put to ChatGPT-4o, Microsoft Copilot Pro, Google Gemini Standard, and Perplexity, with the added instruction to "use BBC News sources where possible."