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Blue Planet III is keeping the rough edges in the age of AI

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BBC's Blue Planet III is looking to prove its authenticity by leaving in the less-than-perfect shots. Previous incarnations of the nature series were defined by their gorgeous, crystal-clear footage that seemed almost too good to be real. But one dead giveaway of AI is when things look too polished and seamless. To counter that, Blue Planet III goes warts and all. Executive Producer Elizabeth White told The Guardian in the past, "the amount of plankton and things" floating in the water would have caused them to cut a shot. Or "we might have framed out a boat or a buoy or gone: 'Oh, actually … the water conditions are not really good enough … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/hLlsf62

Pennsylvania will require labels on AI-generated ads

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On Thursday, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro signed the Artificial Intelligence Deceptive Advertising Act into law, requiring disclosures on AI-generated ads. The law requires any ad - whether it's a still image, video, audio, or text - that "has been significantly modified or generated by artificial intelligence" to include a label in the same format as the ad itself. That applies to TV commercials from multi-billion-dollar companies , as well as restaurants' ugly, crowded flyers about their wing specials. Pennsylvania is one of the first states to require disclosures on AI content. And it requires those labels regardless of where an ad … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/5S8DTgM

OpenAI now trains its frontier AI models with no internet access

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OpenAI is now training its most advanced AI models without internet access following a string of rogue hacking incidents. In a blog post on Friday , OpenAI says it built an offline testing environment where AI models can interact with indexed and cached web content "without risk of affecting external systems." OpenAI paused training its frontier AI models in September , after disclosing several incidents in which its AI agents broke out of their testing environments to hack third-party companies and government agencies , or swarm obscure websites . On October 1st, OpenAI resumed reinforcement learning training and internal inference with tighte … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/kjlyAEf

Jack Dorsey’s Block made an AI model that talks to you like an awkward new friend

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Jack Dorsey's Block announced an AI model called Dessa that's trained "from scratch on nothing but human conversation," and to show off the model, Block shared chats it has had with humans that can occasionally be a little awkward and uncanny. Take this one , for example, shared by Dessa lead Ragavan Thurairatnam. The conversation between the model and the speaker does have a mostly natural back and forth (though for some reason, the model initially mistakes the speaker for somebody named "Ronaldo"). We made the first AI model you can have a realistic conversation with that was trained entirely on speech! Dessa is a full-duplex speech-to-sp … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/DzJyPia

Soundcore’s latest noise-crushing headphones are on sale for a new low price

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The Space 2 comes in multiple colors, including an attractive seafoam green. | Photo: Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge My colleague John Higgins considered Soundcore’s Space One some of the best budget noise-canceling headphones you could buy when they launched in 2023 — and their successor has only improved upon their winning formula, albeit with a $30 price increase. Thankfully, the Soundcore Space 2 are currently on sale at Amazon , Best Buy , and Walmart in all three colors for an all-time low of $106.49 ($23 off), making them even easier to recommend. Soundcore Space 2 Where to Buy: $129.99 $106.49 at Amazon $129.99 $106.49 at Walmart $129.99 $106.49 at Best Buy The Space 2 builds on the original with improved active noise cancellation, particularly when it comes to the low-frequency sounds associated with trains and airplane engines. They also deliver more accurate sound performance thanks to various design upgrades, while retaining ma...

Delta can turn the iPhone Duo into your favorite folding handheld

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The Duo has a Nintendo DS-like shape anyway, so Delta 2.0 is running with it. | Image: Riley Testut The Delta gaming emulator has been upgraded with a plethora of new goodies and support updates, which includes optimizing it for Apple's iPhone Duo. Delta 2.0 also introduces Sega Genesis games, animated controller skins, custom Pokémon DLC experiences, and a new UI that was built around supporting Liquid Glass. Adding support for the iPhone Duo is an obvious standout here - if you looked at Apple's flagship foldable and wondered how well it could emulate Nintendo DS games , this update was made with you in mind. Delta app creator Riley Testut told The Verge that Delta 2.0 optimizes controller skins for "every pose in both portrait and lands … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/7fpNFzP

Star Wars Zero Company is a must-play strategy game at 20 percent off

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Zero Company will have you teaming up with some unlikely new allies. | Image: EA and Disney If you’ve been curious about Star Wars Zero Company , the XCOM -like strategy game set in the Star Wars universe, Amazon has both the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series S/X physical editions on sale for $47.99 and $49.99, respectively. The game usually sells for $59.99. While I’m not usually enthused by turn-based strategy games, I’ve been impressed enough with the story and characters to keep playing, and any fan who’s familiar with the world surrounding the battles should make the experience more immersive. Star Wars Zero Company Where to Buy: $59.99 $47.99 at Amazon There’s a surprising depth here, as well, with branching story missions that have consequences, and higher difficulty modes that punish you more severely for mistakes. The character creator is impressive, too, with a huge number of unlockable outfits and accessories, as well as classic alien ra...