Month: July 2024
Best Internet Providers in Palm Springs, California
Spectrum provides cable internet throughout town, but other providers are also vying for your attention. Here is the best home internet in Palm Springs.
Spectrum provides cable internet throughout town, but other providers are also vying for your attention. Here is the best home internet in Palm Springs.
‘Date Like Goblins’ Thinks Playing Games Can Fix Dating Apps
More niche dating apps hope to disrupt the dominance of giants like Tinder and Hinge. The latest encourages people to date in “goblin mode.”
More niche dating apps hope to disrupt the dominance of giants like Tinder and Hinge. The latest encourages people to date in “goblin mode.”
Google Maps is getting even more like Waze
Improved incident reporting UI and new Destination Guidance in Google Maps. | Image: Google
Google is updating its two navigation apps — Google Maps and Waze — with a slew of new features, including some changes that bring the two closer together.
One of the big updates here continues to integrate the biggest features from Waze directly into Maps. Maps is getting improved Waze-like incident reporting that adds larger icons to share updates like road closures, construction, speed cameras, or police presence. Other drivers will be prompted to confirm incidents with a tap.
It can feel like Waze and Google Maps are on a collision course, but the two apps continue to remain separate. Head of product for Google Maps Can Comertoglu told The Verge at a press briefing on Tuesday that Waze users are very dedicated. “They prefer some of the things that Waze does over Google Maps, and we know the reverse is true as well.” Waze has over 500,000 contributors, Waze director Tim Queenan tells us.
Google Maps service is also adding new destination guidance that will identify a building’s entrance as you approach it. The feature will pinpoint the exact building you’re navigating to by highlighting it in red, with a green indicator pointing to the main entrance of the building. Google will also start showing nearby parking lots.
The improved incident reporting is rolling out now to Google Maps on Android, iOS, cars with Google Built-in, and Android Auto and Apple Carplay, while the destination guidance is rolling out “in the coming weeks.”
GIF: Google
Waze has support for reporting of different types of traffic cameras.
GIF: Google
New Waze notification for events causing road closures.
Not to be overshadowed by Google Maps, Waze is getting some new tricks, too. Waze users can now report new types of traffic cameras, like ones that go off if you drive in the bus or HOV lanes, or ones that check for seatbelts and whether you’re texting and driving.
Waze also has a new dedicated experience for event information that can tell you about road closures for area happenings, like a marathon, concert, or ballgame. You’ll get a push notification after the first road closure for an event that is near your work or home address, or somewhere you drove to recently. The new feature is launching with the 2024 Olympic games and will roll out for future events as well.
Improved incident reporting UI and new Destination Guidance in Google Maps. | Image: Google
Google is updating its two navigation apps — Google Maps and Waze — with a slew of new features, including some changes that bring the two closer together.
One of the big updates here continues to integrate the biggest features from Waze directly into Maps. Maps is getting improved Waze-like incident reporting that adds larger icons to share updates like road closures, construction, speed cameras, or police presence. Other drivers will be prompted to confirm incidents with a tap.
It can feel like Waze and Google Maps are on a collision course, but the two apps continue to remain separate. Head of product for Google Maps Can Comertoglu told The Verge at a press briefing on Tuesday that Waze users are very dedicated. “They prefer some of the things that Waze does over Google Maps, and we know the reverse is true as well.” Waze has over 500,000 contributors, Waze director Tim Queenan tells us.
Google Maps service is also adding new destination guidance that will identify a building’s entrance as you approach it. The feature will pinpoint the exact building you’re navigating to by highlighting it in red, with a green indicator pointing to the main entrance of the building. Google will also start showing nearby parking lots.
The improved incident reporting is rolling out now to Google Maps on Android, iOS, cars with Google Built-in, and Android Auto and Apple Carplay, while the destination guidance is rolling out “in the coming weeks.”
GIF: Google
Waze has support for reporting of different types of traffic cameras.
GIF: Google
New Waze notification for events causing road closures.
Not to be overshadowed by Google Maps, Waze is getting some new tricks, too. Waze users can now report new types of traffic cameras, like ones that go off if you drive in the bus or HOV lanes, or ones that check for seatbelts and whether you’re texting and driving.
Waze also has a new dedicated experience for event information that can tell you about road closures for area happenings, like a marathon, concert, or ballgame. You’ll get a push notification after the first road closure for an event that is near your work or home address, or somewhere you drove to recently. The new feature is launching with the 2024 Olympic games and will roll out for future events as well.
Google tweaks Search to help hide explicit deepfakes
Illustration: The Verge
Google is rolling out new online safety features that make it easier to remove explicit deepfakes from Search at scale and prevent them from appearing high up in search results in the first place.
When users successfully request the removal of explicit nonconsensual fake content that depicts them from Search, Google’s systems will now also aim to filter out all explicit results on similar searches about them and remove any duplicate images.
“These protections have already proven to be successful in addressing other types of non-consensual imagery, and we’ve now built the same capabilities for fake explicit images as well,” Google product manager Emma Higham said in the announcement. “These efforts are designed to give people added peace of mind, especially if they’re concerned about similar content about them popping up in the future.”
Google Search queries that intentionally seek deepfake images of a real person should instead surface “high-quality, non-explicit content”
Google Search rankings are also being adjusted to better handle queries that carry a higher risk of surfacing explicit fake content. For example, searches that intentionally seek deepfake images of a real person (such as the sexually explicit AI-generated images of Taylor Swift that were circulated earlier this year) should instead surface “high-quality, non-explicit content” like relevant news stories. Sites that receive a substantial amount of removals for fake explicit imagery will be demoted in Google Search rankings.
Google says that previous updates have reduced exposure to explicit image results on queries that are specifically looking for such deepfake content by over 70 percent this year. The company is also working on a way to distinguish between real explicit content — such as an actor’s consensual nude scenes — and explicit fake content so that legitimate images can still be surfaced while demoting deepfakes.
These updates follow similar changes that Google has made to tackle how dangerous and / or explicit content appears online. In May, Google started banning advertisers from promoting deepfake porn services. Google also expanded the types of “doxxing” information that can be removed from Search in 2022 and started blurring sexually explicit imagery by default in August 2023.
Illustration: The Verge
Google is rolling out new online safety features that make it easier to remove explicit deepfakes from Search at scale and prevent them from appearing high up in search results in the first place.
When users successfully request the removal of explicit nonconsensual fake content that depicts them from Search, Google’s systems will now also aim to filter out all explicit results on similar searches about them and remove any duplicate images.
“These protections have already proven to be successful in addressing other types of non-consensual imagery, and we’ve now built the same capabilities for fake explicit images as well,” Google product manager Emma Higham said in the announcement. “These efforts are designed to give people added peace of mind, especially if they’re concerned about similar content about them popping up in the future.”
Google Search rankings are also being adjusted to better handle queries that carry a higher risk of surfacing explicit fake content. For example, searches that intentionally seek deepfake images of a real person (such as the sexually explicit AI-generated images of Taylor Swift that were circulated earlier this year) should instead surface “high-quality, non-explicit content” like relevant news stories. Sites that receive a substantial amount of removals for fake explicit imagery will be demoted in Google Search rankings.
Google says that previous updates have reduced exposure to explicit image results on queries that are specifically looking for such deepfake content by over 70 percent this year. The company is also working on a way to distinguish between real explicit content — such as an actor’s consensual nude scenes — and explicit fake content so that legitimate images can still be surfaced while demoting deepfakes.
These updates follow similar changes that Google has made to tackle how dangerous and / or explicit content appears online. In May, Google started banning advertisers from promoting deepfake porn services. Google also expanded the types of “doxxing” information that can be removed from Search in 2022 and started blurring sexually explicit imagery by default in August 2023.
Wix’s AI will now write whole blog posts for you
Image: Álvaro Bernis / The Verge
Wix is releasing new generative AI tools that can produce entire SEO-optimized blog posts, right down to the imagery. Available now for English-speaking users of the website builder, Wix says its new tools can create “AI-generated drafts or outlines” that real human writers can use as a foundation to create blog posts that maintain “the quality and authenticity of user-generated content.”
“We see that on average sites with blogs get 86 percent more organic traffic compared to sites without blogs,” said Wix blog general manager Einat Halperin in the announcement. “With our range of new blog creation tools, we’re looking forward to more users producing top-notch content.”
Wix is being blunt about why these tools exist: SEO-optimized blog posts get ranked higher on Google, and Google results drive people to websites. Now, with AI tools, you don’t even have to write the blog posts yourself. The result will be a web further filled with AI-generated garbage at the expense of legitimate, genuinely useful information.
The suite of AI-powered blogging features can suggest topics for upcoming posts based on previously published blog content, alongside automatically gathering website information to create posts about specific products, events, or services. Wix says these tools will also offer recommendations for blog titles, copy, and images and allow users to specify SEO keywords to be incorporated throughout the finished blog.
For images specifically, Wix says users can describe the image and style they want to create using prompts. The new blogging tools also allow business users to connect their blogs to the Wix business solutions platform, enabling them to access features like sending promotional emails to subscribers and linking blog content to pricing plans.
This is one of several AI-related projects that Wix has been attached to over the last few years. In March, the platform released an AI chatbot that enables users to build entire websites using descriptive text-based prompts, and art portfolio site DeviantArt — which Wix acquired in 2017 — has allowed its users to host, generate, and sell AI-generated content on the platform, which has drawn scrutiny from the online creator community. When interviewed on the Decoder podcast last year, Wix CEO Avishai Abrahami said he isn’t concerned about the potential for AI-generated SEO content to destroy web-based business models.
Image: Álvaro Bernis / The Verge
Wix is releasing new generative AI tools that can produce entire SEO-optimized blog posts, right down to the imagery. Available now for English-speaking users of the website builder, Wix says its new tools can create “AI-generated drafts or outlines” that real human writers can use as a foundation to create blog posts that maintain “the quality and authenticity of user-generated content.”
“We see that on average sites with blogs get 86 percent more organic traffic compared to sites without blogs,” said Wix blog general manager Einat Halperin in the announcement. “With our range of new blog creation tools, we’re looking forward to more users producing top-notch content.”
Wix is being blunt about why these tools exist: SEO-optimized blog posts get ranked higher on Google, and Google results drive people to websites. Now, with AI tools, you don’t even have to write the blog posts yourself. The result will be a web further filled with AI-generated garbage at the expense of legitimate, genuinely useful information.
The suite of AI-powered blogging features can suggest topics for upcoming posts based on previously published blog content, alongside automatically gathering website information to create posts about specific products, events, or services. Wix says these tools will also offer recommendations for blog titles, copy, and images and allow users to specify SEO keywords to be incorporated throughout the finished blog.
For images specifically, Wix says users can describe the image and style they want to create using prompts. The new blogging tools also allow business users to connect their blogs to the Wix business solutions platform, enabling them to access features like sending promotional emails to subscribers and linking blog content to pricing plans.
This is one of several AI-related projects that Wix has been attached to over the last few years. In March, the platform released an AI chatbot that enables users to build entire websites using descriptive text-based prompts, and art portfolio site DeviantArt — which Wix acquired in 2017 — has allowed its users to host, generate, and sell AI-generated content on the platform, which has drawn scrutiny from the online creator community. When interviewed on the Decoder podcast last year, Wix CEO Avishai Abrahami said he isn’t concerned about the potential for AI-generated SEO content to destroy web-based business models.
Brazil’s Radical Plan To Tax Global Super-Rich To Tackle Climate Crisis
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Proposals to slap a wealth tax on the world’s super-rich could yield $250 billion a year to tackle the climate crisis and address poverty and inequality, but would affect only a small number of billionaire families, Brazil’s climate chief has said. Ministers from the G20 group of the world’s biggest developed and emerging economies are meeting in Rio de Janeiro this weekend, where Brazil’s proposal for a 2% wealth tax on those with assets worth more than $1 billion is near the top of the agenda. No government was speaking out against the tax, said Ana Toni, who is national secretary for climate change in the government of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. “Our feeling is that, morally, nobody’s against,” she told the Observer in an interview. “But the level of support from some countries is bigger than others.”
However, the lack of overt opposition does not mean the tax proposal is likely to be approved. Many governments are privately skeptical but unwilling to publicly criticize a plan that would shave a tiny amount from the rapidly accumulating wealth of the planet’s richest few, and raise money to address the pressing global climate emergency. Janet Yellen, the US Treasury secretary, told journalists in Rio that the US “did not see the need” for a global initiative. “People are not keen on global taxes,” Toni admitted. “And there is a question over how you implement global taxes.” But she said levying and raising a tax globally was possible, as had been shown by G7 finance ministers’ agreement to levy a minimum 15% corporate tax. “It should be at a global level, because otherwise, obviously, rich people will move from one country to another,” she said.
Only about 100 families around the world would be affected by the proposed 2% levy, she added. The world’s richest 1% have added $42 trillion to their wealth in the past decade, roughly 36 times more than the bottom half of the world’s population did. The question of how funds raised by such taxation should be spent had also not been settled, noted Toni. Some economists have argued that the idea was more likely to be accepted if the proceeds were devoted to solving the climate crisis than if they were used to address global inequality. Other experts say at least some of the money should be used for poverty alleviation.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Proposals to slap a wealth tax on the world’s super-rich could yield $250 billion a year to tackle the climate crisis and address poverty and inequality, but would affect only a small number of billionaire families, Brazil’s climate chief has said. Ministers from the G20 group of the world’s biggest developed and emerging economies are meeting in Rio de Janeiro this weekend, where Brazil’s proposal for a 2% wealth tax on those with assets worth more than $1 billion is near the top of the agenda. No government was speaking out against the tax, said Ana Toni, who is national secretary for climate change in the government of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. “Our feeling is that, morally, nobody’s against,” she told the Observer in an interview. “But the level of support from some countries is bigger than others.”
However, the lack of overt opposition does not mean the tax proposal is likely to be approved. Many governments are privately skeptical but unwilling to publicly criticize a plan that would shave a tiny amount from the rapidly accumulating wealth of the planet’s richest few, and raise money to address the pressing global climate emergency. Janet Yellen, the US Treasury secretary, told journalists in Rio that the US “did not see the need” for a global initiative. “People are not keen on global taxes,” Toni admitted. “And there is a question over how you implement global taxes.” But she said levying and raising a tax globally was possible, as had been shown by G7 finance ministers’ agreement to levy a minimum 15% corporate tax. “It should be at a global level, because otherwise, obviously, rich people will move from one country to another,” she said.
Only about 100 families around the world would be affected by the proposed 2% levy, she added. The world’s richest 1% have added $42 trillion to their wealth in the past decade, roughly 36 times more than the bottom half of the world’s population did. The question of how funds raised by such taxation should be spent had also not been settled, noted Toni. Some economists have argued that the idea was more likely to be accepted if the proceeds were devoted to solving the climate crisis than if they were used to address global inequality. Other experts say at least some of the money should be used for poverty alleviation.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Applied Carbon’s farm robot turns plant waste into biochar to capture CO2
The startup has raised $21.5 million to build more of its machines and deploy them throughout the U.S.
© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
The startup has raised $21.5 million to build more of its machines and deploy them throughout the U.S.
© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
Checkly tests software by mimicking the way people use it
Checkly helps devs get signals about an app’s performance and downtime, offering a set of subscription-based synthetic monitoring tools.
© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
Checkly helps devs get signals about an app’s performance and downtime, offering a set of subscription-based synthetic monitoring tools.
© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
Kids Online Safety Act passes Senate despite concerns it will harm kids
submitted by /u/AdSpecialist6598 [link] [comments]
submitted by /u/AdSpecialist6598
[link] [comments]
Spotify gives up on trying to charge for song lyrics
Image: Nick Barclay / The Verge
Spotify has stopped trying to make users pay for song lyrics. After expanding a test that put the feature behind a Premium paywall, Spotify is now reversing the change.
A Spotify spokesperson tells Engadget that the company will be “expanding Lyrics availability for Spotify Free users so more people can enjoy viewing more lyrics, globally,” adding that it will be available to all users “over the coming weeks.” Spotify didn’t immediately respond to The Verge’s request for comment.
Spotify didn’t originally charge for its song lyrics feature, which lets you follow along with the words of a song as it plays. But last September, users began noticing that they couldn’t view the lyrics for more than three songs per month without paying for a Premium subscription. Spotify rolled out the test more widely in May, much to the discontent of its users.
It usually never goes over well when a company tries to charge for a feature that was once free. It also doesn’t help that Spotify raised the price of its Premium subscription from $10.99 to $11.99 per month in June.
Image: Nick Barclay / The Verge
Spotify has stopped trying to make users pay for song lyrics. After expanding a test that put the feature behind a Premium paywall, Spotify is now reversing the change.
A Spotify spokesperson tells Engadget that the company will be “expanding Lyrics availability for Spotify Free users so more people can enjoy viewing more lyrics, globally,” adding that it will be available to all users “over the coming weeks.” Spotify didn’t immediately respond to The Verge’s request for comment.
Spotify didn’t originally charge for its song lyrics feature, which lets you follow along with the words of a song as it plays. But last September, users began noticing that they couldn’t view the lyrics for more than three songs per month without paying for a Premium subscription. Spotify rolled out the test more widely in May, much to the discontent of its users.
It usually never goes over well when a company tries to charge for a feature that was once free. It also doesn’t help that Spotify raised the price of its Premium subscription from $10.99 to $11.99 per month in June.