Police in Southern California are warning residents about QR codes that are being attached to parking meters and directing unsuspecting people to a website that has nothing to do with actually paying the local governments. The official companies that handle payments in the area are known by names like ParkMobile and PayByPhone, but the QR codes direct people to impersonation websites that are often just one letter off.
https://gizmodo.com/stop-scanning-random-qr-codes-2000492837
A panel of Brazil’s federal supreme court justices voted unanimously to uphold orders suspending the use of Elon Musk’s social network X nationwide. X had earlier defied court requests to take down accounts or posts that it said violated Brazil’s laws on political misinformation and hate speech online.
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/09/02/x-blocked-in-brazil-after-court-majority-upholds-suspension-order.html
Social networking startup Bluesky continues to benefit from X’s shutdown in Brazil having now added over 2 million new users over the past four days, up from just half a million as of Friday.
https://techcrunch.com/2024/09/03/bluesky-continues-to-soar-adding-2m-more-new-users-in-a-matter-of-days/
Sony has announced that it is pulling online shooter Concord from sale just two weeks after its launch. The multiplayer title was released exclusively for PlayStation 5 and PC on August 23rd, but has reportedly struggled to attract players.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5y3zw5w7l3o
How many times does the letter “r” appear in the word “strawberry”? According to formidable AI products like GPT-4o and Claude, the answer is twice. Large language models (LLMs) can write essays and solve equations in seconds. They can synthesize terabytes of data faster than humans can open up a book. Yet, these seemingly omniscient AIs sometimes fail so spectacularly that the mishap turns into a viral meme, and we all rejoice in relief that maybe there’s still time before we must bow down to our new AI overlords.
https://techcrunch.com/2024/08/27/why-ai-cant-spell-strawberry/
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According to The Information, Meta had already started developing the La Jolla headset in November but told employees to stop working on the device this past week. The decision was due in part to the fact that the La Jolla headset would’ve used pricey MicroOLED displays. The move suggests that Meta as a whole may be souring on the idea of premium VR. Purportedly, the goal was to keep the cost of the headset under $1,000, which was looking increasingly difficult given how expensive MicroOLED can be to produce.
https://www.theverge.com/2024/8/23/24226856/meta-vr-ar-la-jolla-rumor-quest-pro-2
On Sunday, former President Donald Trump posted a collection of memes on Truth Social — the platform owned by his media company — that make it seem like Taylor Swift and her fans are coming out in support of his candidacy. But as new legislation takes effect, these images could have deeper implications about the use of AI-generated images in political campaigns, especially when those images misrepresent a celebrity’s likeness.
https://techcrunch.com/2024/08/19/could-trumps-ai-generated-taylor-swift-endorsement-be-illegal/