New AI headphone prototype filters out noise, focuses on voices
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Why it matters: If you are fed up with the noisy co-worker who won't stop hammering at their keyboard or that wailing baby on your flight, a headphone prototype from researchers at the University of Washington could be the upgrade you've been waiting for. Instead of simply dampening ambient sounds, this device uses AI to let you selectively filter out noises and focus on specific voices.
Most active noise-
WD's large-capacity portable hard drives are back with 6TB models
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In brief: Western Digital's 5TB My Passport Ultra is one of our top picks for large-capacity portable storage, and the company recently released the HDD's first significant update in years. Although SSDs are more or less standard now, HDDs can still provide large amounts of cold storage at relatively low prices.
Western Digital's portable 2.5-inch HDDs are now available in 6TB variants
Slack has been siphoning user data to train AI models, enrolling you automatically
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Facepalm: For organizations, the specter of internal data being used to train AI models raises serious concerns around security and compliance. But Slack has still apparently been slurping up messages, files, and data to train its AI features behind the scenes. Even worse, users were automatically opted into this arrangement without knowledge or consent.
The revelation, which blew up online this week after a user called it out on X/Twitter
Six ways to eliminate the unhelpful "AI Overviews" in Google search results
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Full disclosure: I hate Google's new AI search integration. All it does is get in the way of seeing my results. Most of the time, the "AI Overview" is not the information I am looking for or is outright wrong, and it's frequently plagiarized from an article that I could have read myself had Google given me the search results without its two cents.
If you share my feelings
Valve's next game is a hero shooter called Deadlock – mixes Overwatch, Valorant, DOTA, and others
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Rumor mill: Valve rarely releases new video games, but rumors of a new competitive title from the makers of Half-Life and DOTA 2 have been circulating for some time. Leaked images and a brief description of the project indicate that Valve is preparing a unique take on the hero shooter and MOBA genres.
A leaker known for reporting on Valve projects recently shared screenshots of a rumored upcoming online game from the company. Called
Microsoft plans to make the next Call of Duty a day-one release on Xbox Game Pass
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In context: Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer recently confirmed the company's ambition to bring Activision Blizzard games to the Xbox Game Pass subscription service. The Xbox division will likely formalize the plan next month as it introduces the next installment in the Call of Duty series.
The enormously successful Call of Duty franchise has entertained first-person shooter fans on all platforms since 2003. The title is one of the main
NASA's Juno images hint at shifting ice shell over Europa's underground ocean
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What just happened? NASA's Juno spacecraft has captured the closest images of Jupiter's moon Europa in over two decades. These images reveal bizarre surface features that could be signs of a shifting icy crust atop an interior ocean.
The high-resolution pictures, taken during Juno's flyby of Europa on September 29, 2022, seem to support the "true polar wander" theory – that
Sony doesn't want companies to use its music to train generative AI algorithms
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A hot potato: Sony Music Group is one of the "big three" record labels, along with Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group. Together, they own and manage a significant portion of the world's music and artists. Along with its competitors, SMG strongly opposes AI companies using music content to train their chatbots or generative algorithms.
Sony sent a letter to more than 700 companies and organizations to
OpenAI partners with Reddit to put users' posts in ChatGPT
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What just happened? OpenAI has entered into a partnership with Reddit that will allow it to surface user discussions from the site within ChatGPT and other products. In exchange, Reddit will start offering OpenAI-powered AI features to users and mods, and use the company's LLMs to build apps. OpenAI will also become an advertising partner on Reddit.
In a joint statement announcing the partnership, the companies say that the internet
TikTok is testing a new option to upload 60-minute videos, YouTube style
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Size Matters: TikTok was originally designed to give users a quick and easy way to share short video clips within their social circle – it's been like the Twitter of video. The company now seems interested in encroaching into YouTube's territory with extended time limits and new forms of entertainment.
Despite suffering legal pressures coming from many parts of the Western world, TikTok is still trying to grow its business prospects with new