Tech News – Page 72 – by Arlin Schaffel

A ‘Shocking’ Amount of the Web Is Already AI-Translated Trash, Scientists Determine

A “shocking” amount of the internet is machine-translated garbage, particularly in languages spoken in Africa and the Global South, a new study has found. Researchers at the Amazon Web Services AI lab found that over half of the sentences on the web have been translated into two or more languages, often with increasingly worse quality due to poor machine translation (MT), which they said raised “serious concerns” about the training of large language models.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/y3w4gw/a-shocking-amount-of-the-web-is-already-ai-translated-trash-scientists-determine

Supreme Court rejects Epic v. Apple antitrust case

Epic v. Apple began in 2020 after Epic implemented its own payment system for Fortnite’s virtual currency, bypassing Apple’s commission on in-app purchases. Apple banned Epic from its iOS App Store and Epic filed a lawsuit in response, claiming the App Store — and Apple’s overall walled-garden approach to iOS — violated US antitrust laws. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers rejected most of Apple’s claims and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals largely affirmed the decision.
https://www.theverge.com/2024/1/16/24039983/supreme-court-epic-apple-antitrust-case-rejected

Can a striking design set rabbit’s r1 pocket AI apart from a gaggle of virtual assistants?

“We’re not trying to kill your phone,” said CEO and founder Jesse Lyu on a call with press ahead of the Las Vegas tech show. “The phone is an entertainment device, but if you’re trying to get something done it’s not the highest efficiency machine. To arrange dinner with a colleague we needed four-five different apps to work together. Large language models are a universal solution for natural language, we want a universal solution for these services — they should just be able to understand you.”
https://techcrunch.com/2024/01/09/can-a-striking-design-set-rabbits-r1-pocket-ai-apart-from-a-gaggle-of-virtual-assistants/

Thousands of Software Engineers Say the Job Market Is Getting Much Worse

According to a December survey of 9,338 software engineers performed on behalf of Motherboard by Blind, an online anonymous platform for verified employees. In the poll, nearly nine in 10 surveyed software engineers said it is more difficult to get a job now than it was before the pandemic, with 66 percent saying it was “much harder.”
https://www.vice.com/en/article/g5y37j/thousands-of-software-engineers-say-the-job-market-is-getting-much-worse

X removes support for NFT profile pictures

On Tuesday, Elon Musk’s X wrote about a grand vision for the company in 2024, which includes launching peer-to-peer payments and more AI-powered tools. Amid all this, the company silently removed a feature for paid subscribers. They’re no longer able to set an NFT as a profile picture.
https://techcrunch.com/2024/01/10/x-removes-support-for-nft-profile-pictures/

Humane announces 10 layoffs as CTO ‘transitions’ into advisor role

Much-hyped hardware startup Humane has announced that it’s laying off 10 employees — 4% of its workforce — before it has shipped a single one of its funky new ambient computing devices. The company’s chief technology officer (CTO) is also “transitioning” into an advisor role after five years at the company. “As we begin this new chapter of Humane, going from stealth to customer facing, we are making some changes to best prepare us for continued growth,” CEO and co-founder Bethany Bongiorno wrote in a LinkedIn post (as reported by The Verge).
https://techcrunch.com/2024/01/10/humane-layoffs-ai-pin-hardware/

‘Magic: The Gathering’ Publisher Denies, Then Admits, Using AI Art In Promo Image

Wizards of the Coast, the publishers of the popular games Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons and Dragons, admitted on Monday that it published a marketing image containing some AI generated content—after initially claiming that it didn’t. Wizards also said it was updating its policies to make it clear to the artists they work with that AI wasn’t to be used in the creation process. In December, Wizards officially announced a ban on the use of AI images in Magic: The Gathering cards.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/7kxq3x/magic-the-gathering-publisher-denies-then-admits-using-ai-art-in-promo-image