Science and Technology

Connected media - Associated media In a survey that asked just over 2,500 Americans about digital payments, about 80% of Gen Z respondents said they use mobile wallets, and among them, half were eager to use their phone a lot of more than paying for things, according to recent data from Pymnts Intelligence, a research firm that studies trade. Younger people are increasingly using their phones for purposes that older adults would use a traditional wallet for, such as carrying around documents like driver’s licenses, boarding passes and event tickets. Some of these digital items can be added to Apple…

Connected media - Related media With the pay package, Musk would own 20.5% of Tesla, up from about 13%. He has said he would like a 25% stake, stressing in January that it would be “enough to be influential, but not so much that it can’t be overthrown.” If he didn’t get such a large stake, he said, “he would rather build products outside of Tesla.” Even after this week’s rally, Tesla shares are down more than 20% this year, versus a 14% gain in the broader stock market. The company remains by far the most valuable auto company, with…

Associated media - Connected media Because we forget to unsubscribe In May, Caroline Sinders, a designer and artist, published the results of an independent study on how companies like Netflix, Hulu, Vimeo and The New York Times make it difficult to unsubscribe from their services. The study, conducted in 2022, found that some media companies like The Times created friction in the process, requiring, in some cases, a phone call to cancel a subscription. The Times now allows subscribers to unsubscribe online without calling. Even though the study found that streaming services like Netflix and Hulu were easier to cancel,…

Associated media - Linked media California lawmakers last month advanced about 30 new AI measures aimed at protecting consumers and jobs, one of the largest efforts yet to regulate the new technology. The bills aim to impose the toughest nationwide restrictions on artificial intelligence, which some technologists warn could kill entire categories of jobs, throw elections into chaos with misinformation and pose national security risks. California’s proposals, many of which have won broad support, include rules to prevent AI tools from discriminating in housing and health services. They also aim to protect intellectual property and jobs. The California Legislature, which…

Associated media - Connected media Spending time in cemeteries and libraries may not be everyone’s idea of ​​summer fun, but for those interested in finding their roots, gathering information about their ancestors AND a “family” holiday. Sure, genealogy sites have made researching ancestral history much easier with digitized record archives, family tree-building software, and community forums. Hand anything it’s online. As you visit libraries, archives and cemeteries in search of your roots, keep your smartphone or tablet handy: it can help you with translation tools, document scanners and more. Here are some tips that can make your research trips more…

Linked media - Connected media A closer look, however, would have revealed that individual journalists at BNN published lengthy stories as often as multiple times a minute, writing in generic prose familiar to anyone who has tinkered with the A.I. chatbot ChatGPT. BNN’s “About Us” page featured an image of four children looking at a computer, some bearing the gnarled fingers that are a telltale sign of an A.I.-generated image. How easily the site and its mistakes entered the ecosystem for legitimate news highlights a growing concern: A.I.-generated content is upending, and often poisoning, the online information supply. Many traditional…

Linked media - Associated media Apple announced that later this year it will improve messaging between iPhone and Android users by adopting advanced communications services, a standard that Google and others built into their messaging apps years ago. Texts sent between iPhone and Android will remain green, but images and videos will be higher quality. Losing your Apple wallet For iPhones, the reference app for making mobile payments in stores is Apple Wallet and for Android users the equivalent app is Google Wallet. The experience of using each wallet app was identical: I loaded my credit cards and the Clipper…

Connected media - Related media Liz Reid, Google’s recently promoted head of search, wrote in a blog post Thursday that the company has pared down its AI overviews in certain ways, rolling out “additional opt-in refinements” to deliver more health-conscious answers , disabling misleading advice and limiting the inclusion of satire and user responses from forums like Reddit. “We will continue to improve when and how we show AI overviews and strengthen our protections,” he wrote, adding that Google is working on updates to improve broad sets of search results. Ashley Thompson, a spokeswoman for Google, said in a statement…

Linked media - Linked media The bot then spawned an even bigger Waldo. Subbarao Kambhampati, a professor and AI researcher at Arizona State University, also put the chatbot through some testing and said he didn’t notice any notable improvements in reasoning compared to the latest version. He presented ChatGPT with a puzzle involving blocks: The answer is that it is impossible to arrange the blocks under these conditions, but, just as with previous versions, ChatGPT-4o consistently found a solution that involved moving block C. With this and other reasoning tests, ChatGPT was occasionally able to take feedback to get the…