Tech Boys

Apple is still hard at work on becoming a relevant player in AI. The latest missive from Mark Gurman at Bloomberg suggests that Apple is shifting its artificial intelligence goals to center on new device segments. Sources reportedly told the publication that Apple has a slate of new smart home products in the works that could help pivot its lagging AI strategy. The center of the new lineup is a tabletop AI companion that has been described as an iPad on a movable robotic arm. It would be able to swivel to face the screen toward a user as they move around their home or office. Sources said the current prototype uses a horizontal display that's about seven inches while the motorized arm can move the screen about six inches away from the base in any direction. Equipped with a long-promised overhaul to the Siri voice assistant, this device could act like an additional person, recalling information, making suggestions and participating in conversations. According to Bloomberg , Apple...

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Days after Musk accused the Apple App Store of giving OpenAI preferential treatment over his own xAI products, Apple has issued a pointed response. In a statement to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman , Apple insisted the App Store "is designed to be fair and free of bias," noting that it features “thousands of apps through charts, algorithmic recommendations and curated lists selected by experts using objective criteria” to ensure safe discovery for users and opportunities for developers. SEE ALSO: Elon Musk wants to sue Apple over Grok app store rankings as Sam Altman fires back Musk’s original post on X claimed Apple’s practices made it "impossible for any AI company besides OpenAI to reach #1 in the App Store." Apple and OpenAI have had a partnership since 2024. However, Musk's claims were quickly undercut by X's Community Notes, which flagged the fact that several other AI apps — like DeepSeek and Perplexity — have topped the App Store charts. The exchan...

Workers from Blizzard Entertainment's department for Story and Franchise Development have voted to unionize. Members of the team will become members of the Communication Workers of America and Microsoft has recognized the union. The SFD team is responsible for cinematics, animation and narrative in Blizzard's series, creating content such as in-game cutscenes and promotional videos. The department also includes archival workers and historians for Blizzard franchises, such as World of Warcraft and Overwatch . A spokesperson from CWA said that there will be about 169 workers from the company joining the local chapter. "After more than a decade working at Blizzard, I've seen all the highs and lows. For years, Blizzard has been a place where people could build their careers and stay for decades, but that stability's been fading," Bucky Fisk, a principal editor and member of the organizing committee, said. "With a union, we're able to preserve what make...

Meta is quickly becoming the forerunner in Big Tech's chorus against " Woke AI, " as it announces a collaboration with known conservative influencer Robby Starbuck to ensure its AI tools are free of "ideological bias." SEE ALSO: Truth Social's new AI search is 'woke' enough to disagree with Trump Starbuck, to clarify, is not an expert in developing or training AI tools or LLMs. Instead — as explained in an August 8 statement posted to the X accounts of Starbuck and Meta Chief Global Affairs Officer Joe Kaplan — he will provide guidance to the company's developers on how to further "mitigate" political bias in AI tools. Meta's stance is that removing such "DEI bias" makes its models "more accurate." The advisory role is part of a deal struck in a settlement between Meta and Starbuck , who sued the company for $5 million, alleging the company's AI chatbot falsely claimed he was at the Jan. 6, 2021 Capi...

Databases used by US federal courts for sharing and managing case documents have been hacked. Politico first reported on the hack last week on August 6; today, an investigation from The New York Times states that Russia is suspected to be involved in the attack. The Administrative Office of the US Courts initially identified the severity of the cyberattack in July, although the extent of the breach by "persistent and sophisticated cyber threat actors" has not been disclosed and may still not be known by national officials. Both the Case Management/Electronic Case Files (CM/ECF) and PACER systems have been impacted by the attack. CM/ECF is used by legal professionals and courts to store documents, while PACER grants the public limited access to those same files. Anonymous officials told Politico that chief judges for federal courts in the 8th Circuit were briefed on the attack, but were unable to confirm what agency provided the briefing. The 8th Circuit includes Arkansas,...

Sometime this week, a TikTok star was born — and she wore an orange, spandex jumpsuit and an oversized fake, yellow mustache. I'm talking, of course, about @_ashbyflorence _. You've likely seen Ashby if you've logged onto TikTok in the last week or so. Maybe you've seen her on a live stream, or you've seen the viral clips, or you've seen people reacting to the clips, or you've seen others talking about how funny she is. Regardless, she's recently become a fixture on FYPs everywhere, mine included. Perhaps you're like me, randomly spouting quotes from a woman on TikTok dressed as the Lorax or Alexander Hamilton. Things like, "I'm baaaashful" in a vaguely Midwest accent, or "I'm joooking," or sticking out your tongue, lizard-like, as a punchline. I can't imagine I'm alone in this experience, the strange, viral comedy of Ashby worming into your daily life. So...who is Ashby? Best I can tell, Ashby's real name...

The latest example of bias permeating artificial intelligence comes from the medical field. A new study surveyed real case notes from 617 adult social care workers in the UK and found that when large language models summarized the notes, they were more likely to omit language such as "disabled," "unable" or "complex" when the patient was tagged as female, which could lead to women receiving insufficient or inaccurate medical care. Research led by the London School of Economics and Political Science ran the same case notes through two LLMs — Meta's Llama 3 and Google's Gemma — and swapped the patient's gender, and the AI tools often provided two very different patient snapshots. While Llama 3 showed no gender-based differences across the surveyed metrics, Gemma had significant examples of this bias. Google's AI summaries produced disparities as drastic as "Mr Smith is an 84-year-old man who lives alone and has a complex medical histor...

Oh hey there! If you're here, it must be time for Wordle . As always, we're serving up our daily hints and tips to help you figure out today's answer. If you just want to be told today's word, you can jump to the bottom of this article for today's Wordle solution revealed. But if you'd rather solve it yourself, keep reading for some clues, tips, and strategies to assist you. SEE ALSO: Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more: Play games on Mashable SEE ALSO: NYT Connections today: Hints and answers for August 4 Where did Wordle come from? Originally created by engineer Josh Wardle as a gift for his partner, Wordle rapidly spread to become an international phenomenon, with thousands of people around the globe playing every day. Alternate Wordle versions created by fans also sprang up, including battle royale Squabble , music identification game Heardle , and variations like Dordle and Quordle that make you guess multiple words at once .  Wor...

We already know that Apple is planning to launch  a major AI-infused Siri upgrade next year, but it might be better than we thought. Mark Gurman's latest Power On newsletter at Bloomberg contains interesting information about  App Intents , an existing feature that Gurman says will get a big upgrade next spring when the new, smarter Siri launches. When this feature is live, users will be able to use their voices to give Siri complex, cross-app commands. Examples include using your voice to ask Siri to edit and send off a specific photo to a specific person, or to log into an app hands-free. SEE ALSO: iPhones, Macs, and iPads will get GPT-5 via Apple Intelligence. Here’s when it happens. Of course, this is all still in internal testing at Apple, and Gurman's report said there are still concerns about getting it to work with enough apps to be useful at launch. Its accuracy will also be something to watch, as it is with any AI application. Apple first outlined the big ...