October 2023 – Tech News

Biden releases AI executive order directing agencies to develop safety guidelines

President Joe Biden signed an executive order providing rules around generative AI, ahead of any legislation coming from lawmakers. The order has eight goals: to create new standards for AI safety and security, protect privacy, advance equity and civil rights, stand up for consumers, patients, and students, support workers, promote innovation and competition, advance US leadership in AI technologies, and ensure the responsible and effective government use of the technology.
https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/30/23914507/

University of Chicago researchers seek to “poison” AI art generators with Nightshade

The open source "poison pill" tool (as the University of Chicago's press department calls it) alters images in ways invisible to the human eye that can corrupt an AI model's training process. Many image synthesis models, with notable exceptions of those from Adobe and Getty Images, largely use data sets of images scraped from the web without artist permission, which includes copyrighted material. (OpenAI licenses some of its DALL-E training images from Shutterstock.)
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/10/university-of-chicago-researchers-seek-to-poison-ai-art-generators-with-nightshade/

Google Play Games for PC is getting support for 4K and some console game controllers

Google is adding some new features to the Google Play Games Beta on PC, its service that lets you play Android games on a PC, including support for 4K screen resolution on “supported monitors” and for popular console gaming controllers. Google detailed the updates in a blog post from Arjun Dayal, Google Play Games’ director of product.
https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/23/23928877/google-play-games-pc-4k-game-controllers-clash-of-clans-royale

Tinder’s app gets more social by letting friends play matchmaker | TechCrunch

Dating app users will often sit with friends as they swipe through their matches in order to gain feedback, or even hand over their phone and let their friends swipe for them. Now, that real-life experience is becoming a part of Tinder’s product, as the company today is introducing a new feature called Tinder Matchmaker where users can invite their friends — including non-Tinder users — to view and suggest potential matches.
https://techcrunch.com/2023/10/23/tinders-app-gets-more-social-by-letting-friends-play-matchmaker/

Photon’s app for pro photographers lets you shoot and save to an external drive

Photon, an iOS app for pro photographers, is introducing a new feature that will allow iPhone 15 Pro users to save their photos directly to an external drive, freeing up valuable disk space on their device. The app, which hails from LateNightSoft, the makers of the popular consumer app Camera+, was launched this July to cater to a more professional audience with tools for adjusting focus, shutter speed, ISO, white balance, format and resolution, among other things.
https://techcrunch.com/2023/10/19/photons-app-for-pro-photographers-lets-you-shoot-and-save-to-an-external-drive/

Self-Checkout Is a Failed Experiment

You know how this process actually goes by now: You still have to wait in line. The checkout kiosks bleat and flash when you fail to set a purchase down in the right spot. Scanning those items is sometimes a crapshoot—wave a barcode too vigorously in front of an uncooperative machine, and suddenly you’ve scanned it two or three times.
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/10/self-checkout-kiosks-grocery-retail-stores/675676/?utm_source=apple_news