Tech Boys

A few months back, reports emerged that Reddit had signed a $60 million deal with OpenAI to allow the ChatGPT creator to train its LLM using Reddit content. On Thursday, the deal was confirmed. In a blog post shared by Reddit and OpenAI the companies unveiled the details of the agreement, which essentially sees the "front page of the internet" trading its content for access to AI tools and an advertising partnership. "Keeping the internet open is crucial, and part of being open means Reddit content needs to be accessible to those fostering human learning and researching ways to build community, belonging, and empowerment online," reads the blog post. "Reddit is a uniquely large and vibrant community that has long been an important space for conversation on the internet." SEE ALSO: The women getting guys to rate their nudes on Reddit But what exactly does this mean for Reddit's users? How will your posts, comments, and images be affected by

Springtime means it’s keynote season in the tech world, and in 2024, that means “time to show off your AI bona fides.” Google and OpenAI have already revealed big new upgrades to Gemini and ChatGPT this month, and now it’s time for Microsoft Build. The tech giant’s annual developer conference kicks off with a keynote slated for Tuesday, May 21 at 12 PM ET/9 AM PT, and you can watch the entire event live on YouTube (which is also embedded below) and at Microsoft's site (registration required). What about that Microsoft Surface event you may have heard about? Well, that’s actually happening a day earlier: Monday, May 20. Confused? Don’t worry, here’s the tl;dr version of what to expect, summarized from our more in-depth What to expect from Microsoft Build 2024: The Surface event, Windows 11 and AI . New Microsoft Surface products expected: Monday, May 20 One day before the official Build keynote, Microsoft is hosting a more intimate event for journalists at which it plans to

The following contains spoilers for “Boom.” It should be a given any new series needs time to find its footing, even when it’s a revival of an already-running hit. The first three episodes of “new” Doctor Who have been fun, but not without their own idiosyncrasies that made them hard to love. Now it’s time for Steven Moffat, the series’ greatest 21st century writer, to show what this new season can do. There’s the usual degree of showboating and cleverness, but it’s hard to deny the man’s genius when he pens the first genuine classic of the Disney+ era. Bloody hell. “Boom” thrusts the Doctor and Ruby into the smallest corner of a war, and lets it play out in microcosm. This is an angry story about how money, power and cruelty make people inhuman, and is the sort of episode Doctor Who excels at. This story makes no bones about the pointlessness of war and why money is the engine that keeps it going. Its framing may be modern — there’s one too many uses of the word “algorithm” her

OpenAI and Reddit announced a partnership on Thursday that will allow OpenAI to surface Reddit discussions in ChatGPT and for Reddit to bring AI-powered features to its users. The partnership will “enable OpenAI’s tools to better understand and showcase Reddit content, especially on recent topics,” both companies said in a joint statement . As part of the agreement, OpenAI will also become an advertising partner on Reddit, which means that it will run ads on the platform. The deal is similar to the one that Reddit signed with Google in February, and which is reportedly worth $60 million. A Reddit spokesperson declined to disclose the terms of the OpenAI deal to Engadget and OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment. OpenAI has been increasingly striking partnerships with publishers to get data to continue training its AI models. In the last few weeks alone, the company has signed deals with the Financial Times and Dotdash Meredith . Last year, it also partnered with Germa

Grand Theft Auto VI ’s return to Vice City is officially scheduled for fall 2025. On Thursday, parent company Take-Two Interactive wrote in its Q4 2024 earnings report that it’s narrowed GTA 6’ s previously announced 2025 window to autumn of next year. “Our outlook reflects a narrowing of Rockstar Games’ previously established window of Calendar 2025 to Fall of Calendar 2025 for Grand Theft Auto VI ,” Take-Two Chairman and CEO Strauss Zelnick wrote in the earnings report. “We are highly confident that Rockstar Games will deliver an unparalleled entertainment experience, and our expectations for the commercial impact of the title continue to increase.” The sixth mainline installment in the open-world series will be set in Leonida (Rockstar’s Florida equivalent), focused mostly on Vice City (Miami). The game appears to have a contemporary setting, as opposed to the charming '80s cheese from 2002’s Grand Theft Auto: Vice City . You can catch a glimpse of protagonists Jason and Lu

On Wednesday, the US House of Representatives passed a bill that could provide at least some accountability for Ticketmaster and other live event vendors. NBC News reports the TICKET Act (not to be confused with the Senate’s separate bill with the same try-hard acronym) would mandate that ticket sellers list upfront the total cost of admission — including all fees — to buyers. In addition to the full pricing breakdown, the bill would require sellers to indicate whether the tickets are currently in their possession. It would also ban deceptive websites from secondary vendors and force sellers to refund tickets to canceled events. The bill doesn’t appear to address price gouging or extravagant fees. It now moves to the Senate, which is floating two separate event-reform bills: the other TICKET Act and a bipartisan Fans First Act . The latter was introduced in December to strengthen the 2016 BOTS Act that bars the use of bots to buy tickets , a practice that Taylor Swift fans (amon

People have had a fascination with famous people for eons — and in the age of the internet, it's only increased. Influencers , often online content creators, have made both the definition of "celebrity" and our relationships with them fuzzy.  While it may seem like influencers are followers' friends due to how they interact with them online, this more than likely isn't the case. Instead, these relationships are parasocial — one-sided. But what are parasocial relationships exactly, and are they healthy? SEE ALSO: Influencers aren't going anywhere. So what does that mean for today's teens? What is a parasocial relationship? Parasocial relationships are one-sided relationships, typically with an everyday individual and a celebrity or fictional character, said assistant professor of communication studies at Colorado State University, Natalie Pennington.  According to chief strategy officer at media tech company IMGN Media Noah Mallin, parasocial relat

If you've ever used an AI chatbot, you'd know it's a very singular experience. Your chatbot interacts with what an individual says or asks. At Google I/O, as part of its Gemini for Workspace platform, the search giant shared a new feature: AI Teammate. AI Teammate basically takes that solo chatbot experience and puts the AI bot in a multi-user space, turning the AI chatbot into sort of a mock fellow co-worker. SEE ALSO: Google I/O 2024: 'AI Agents' are AI personal assistants that can return your shoes Setting up an AI Teammate in Gemini for Workspace Credit: Google According to Google, an AI Teammate can appear alongside others within the company in chat groups, emails, and documents just as any other employee would. The AI Teammate can have an identity – at Google I/O, they showcased an AI Teammate named "Chip" – as well as its own workspace account. The AI Teammate can have a specific role in the company and carry out specific objectives. Fo

OpenAI announced on Monday that ChatGPT, the popular AI chatbot, would get a desktop app. But if you're a Windows user, don't get too excited — it'll just be for Macs, at least for the time being. The announcement came during a highly anticipated livestream , during which OpenAI unveiled GPT-4o, its new model that combines text, vision, and audio . SEE ALSO: OpenAI announces GPT-4o, a multimodal voice assistant that's free for all ChatGPT users The desktop app could prove useful for many people. It allows users to pull up ChatGPT in a small window. From there, the AI assistant should be able to "see" what is on your screen and troubleshoot any problems, such as working on code. In essence, it should make ChatGPT assistance much easier to use in daily tasks. Tweet may have been deleted The desktop app, for now, is just for Mac users, though a Windows version of the app should be available later this year. from Mashable https://ift.tt/AwnRJup via

It’s no secret that Meta is eager to prove itself as an AI company, and it might be eyeing a new hardware project to help it get there. The company is in the early stages of “exploring” designs for AI-enabled headphones, according to a new report in The Information . The company is reportedly calling it “Camerabuds,” because the headphones or earbuds (the company is considering both designs) would have two outward-facing cameras that would be able to detect the wearer’s surroundings and power real-time AI features. In that way, it sounds a but like what the company has done with the multimodal AI features in its smart glasses . For now, it’s unclear if such a project would actually move forward and Meta didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Mark Zuckerberg has reportedly “seen several possible designs for the device” but hasn’t been “satisfied” with any so far. Internally there are also engineering concerns, like issues around battery life and heat, as well as the my

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 May 12's Wordle solution revealed. But if you'd rather solve it yourself, keep reading for some clues, tips, and strategies to assist you. 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 .  Wordle eventually became so popular that it was purchased by the New York Times , and TikTok creators even livestream themselves playing . Not the

Connections is the latest New York Times word game that's captured the public's attention. The game is all about finding the "common threads between words." And just like Wordle , Connections resets after midnight and each new set of words gets trickier and trickier—so we've served up some hints and tips to get you over the hurdle. If you just want to be told today's puzzle, you can jump to the end of this article for May 11's Connections solution. But if you'd rather solve it yourself, keep reading for some clues, tips, and strategies to assist you. What is Connections ? The NYT 's latest daily word game has become a social media hit. The Times credits associate puzzle editor Wyna Liu with helping to create the new word game and bringing it to the publications' Games section. Connections can be played on both web browsers and mobile devices and require players to group four words that share something in common. Tweet may have been

More kaleidoscopic light shows could be visible in the sky across the Northern Hemisphere as a powerful solar storm ramps up.  An extreme geomagnetic storm that first hit last week is expected to become more intense, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, as several coronal mass ejections are due to bombard Earth's outer atmosphere in space later on May 12. That means many people who haven't witnessed a rare aurora borealis may still have a chance to see it. People throughout the United States, United Kingdom, and other locations worldwide reported sightings Saturday of the Northern Lights, usually only visible at night near the North Pole. However, a similar effect happens near Antarctica, too.  The sun had a strong solar flare — a gigantic burst of energy — at 12:26 p.m. ET Sunday. This flare was classified as an X-1.0 , among the most intense flares observed. Experts warned the incident could create temporary problems or lost signals fo

It seems Apple’s recently added option for App Store developers to include links to external payment methods isn’t actually all that appealing. In a hearing on Friday as part of the ongoing legal battle with Epic, Apple said only 38 developers have applied to add such links — out of roughly 65,000 that could, according to Bloomberg . The new guidelines, introduced in January , require developers get Apple’s approval before they can add alternative payment options and stipulate that they’ll still have to pay a commission fee of up to 27 percent. The changes were intended to satisfy an injunction ordered by U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in 2021, but, per Reuters , Epic in March called Apple’s attempt at compliance “a sham” and filed a complaint with the court. At this point, Rogers doesn’t really seem impressed either. “It sounds to me as if the goal was to then maintain the business model and revenue you had in the past,” Rogers said of Apple's solution during the late

Connections is the latest New York Times word game that's captured the public's attention. The game is all about finding the "common threads between words." And just like Wordle , Connections resets after midnight and each new set of words gets trickier and trickier—so we've served up some hints and tips to get you over the hurdle. If you just want to be told today's puzzle, you can jump to the end of this article for May 11's Connections solution. But if you'd rather solve it yourself, keep reading for some clues, tips, and strategies to assist you. What is Connections ? The NYT 's latest daily word game has become a social media hit. The Times credits associate puzzle editor Wyna Liu with helping to create the new word game and bringing it to the publications' Games section. Connections can be played on both web browsers and mobile devices and require players to group four words that share something in common. Tweet may have been

Amid rumors that OpenAI has its own voice assistant in the works, Apple is reportedly planning a significant update for Siri. The tech giant plans to integrate advanced generative AI technology akin to ChatGPT into its oft-forgotten digital assistant, according to reporting by The New York Times . This shift from Apple's top executives came about, the Times says, after they were wowed by ChatGPT. The information in the Times article is from "people familiar with the company’s work, who didn’t have permission to speak publicly." SEE ALSO: What will OpenAI announce Monday? Quite possibly an AI voice assistant. Around the same time the Times ' story was published, a related report saying that Apple is close to finalizing a deal with OpenAI itself came to light. Historically, Siri has struggled with maintaining conversations and understanding context in queries — limitations that newer AI like ChatGPT and Google's Gemini seem to have overcome. Siri was f

Amid its period of peak activity, the sun is launching electromagnetic bombs at Earth, and all you can think of is gazing up at the northern lights? Good. You have your priorities in order, because nothing bad is likely to happen despite the recent solar flare eruptions. Here's how to enjoy the show: According to NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center a "Geomagnetic Storm Watch" is in effect for Saturday, May 11. That means unless you normally wake up at about 1:00 a.m., staying up Friday, May 10 will be the best to way to see the local results of the sun's recent strong flares. On the night of May 11 and early morning of May 12, aurora conditions will be less favorable. Credit: NOAA Auroras will potentially be visible at latitudes so far south that residents of Alabama and California may be able to catch a rare glimpse of the northern lights if they play their cards right and the weather permits. SEE ALSO: This breathtaking Martian vista is a crucial l

Apple will reportedly focus its first round of generative AI enhancements on beefing up Siri’s conversational chops. Sources speaking with The New York Times say company executives realized early last year that ChatGPT made Siri look antiquated. The company allegedly decided that the large language model (LLM) principles behind OpenAI’s chatbot could give the iPhone’s virtual assistant a much-needed shot in the arm. So Apple will reportedly roll out a new version of Siri powered by generative AI at its WWDC keynote on June 10 . Apple Senior Vice Presidents Craig Federighi and John Giannandrea reportedly tested ChatGPT for weeks before the company realized that Siri looked outdated. (I would argue that the epiphany came about a decade late.) What followed was what The NYT describes as Apple’s “most significant reorganization in more than a decade.” The company sees generative AI as a once-in-a-decade tentpole area worth shifting heaps of resources to address. You may recall the c