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A former senior executive at Google predicted that sex robots powered by artificial intelligence could eliminate the need for a human partner in the bedroom. Mo Gawdat, who was chief business officer for Google’s clandestine research-and-development arm X, said that AI will usher in a “redesign of love and relationships” in that people won’t be able to tell the difference between real-life sexual encounters and those that are created artificially. Human beings will soon be able to simulate sex through virtual reality and augmented reality headsets such as Apple’s Vision Pro or a Quest 3, Gawdat told YouTube host Tom Bilyeu of the “Impact Theory” podcast. The headsets combined with AI-powered bots will trick people into thinking that the sex robot is real, according to Gawdat. “Just think about all of the illusions that we’re now unable to decipher,” Gawdat told Bilyeu. “But if we can convince you that this sex robot is alive, or that sex experience in a virtual reality headset or an augmented reality headset is alive,  » Read More

Facebook parent company Meta is making its artificial intelligence chatbot, Llama 2, available for commercial use through partnerships with major cloud providers including Microsoft. For those unaware, Meta has built an artificial intelligence system that rivals the likes of ChatGPT and Google's Bard. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that the company is partnering with Microsoft to introduce the next generation of its AI large language model and making the technology, known as LLaMA 2, free for research and commercial use. Zuckerberg said people can download its new AI models directly or through a partnership that makes them available on Microsoft's cloud platform Azure "along with Microsoft's safety and content tools.""Open source drives innovation because it enables many more developers to build with new technology," Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post Tuesday. "It also improves safety and security because when software is open, more people can scrutinize it to identify and fix potential issues. I believe it would unlock more progress if the ecosystem were more open, which is why we're open sourcing Llama 2." What Microsoft saidMicrosoft on its part is making Llama 2 available through the Azure AI catalog to use with cloud tools,  » Read More

That fun “all about you” quiz on Facebook might seem harmless, but it could actually be a serious cybersecurity risk. Quizzes, challenges, and questionnaires on Facebook (and indeed other social media sites) can trick you into giving away valuable personal information. Some are straight-up scams. How can you spot scam quizzes, and what should you do if you fill one out? What Are Facebook Quizzes? We’ve all been there: you’re scrolling through Facebook and run into a quiz promising to match you with a fictional character. It might ask you to fill out a long list of favorites to share with friends or advertise “accurate results” for your Hogwarts house, for instance. While these quizzes might look fun at a glance, they can actually be a big security risk. The most suspicious types are the “challenges” that have you answer a long list of questions. For example, a challenge might ask for your pets’ names, your favorite color, the elementary school you attended, or your mother’s maiden name. The Better Business Bureau issued a warning about these quizzes—and they have a good reason for it.  » Read More

Facebook will make its cutting edge artificial intelligence technology freely available to the public to use for research and building new moneymaking products, doubling down on an “open source” approach to the tech that has garnered both praise and criticism.Facebook’s Llama 2 is a “large language model” — a highly complex algorithm trained on billions of words scraped from the open internet. It’s Facebook’s answer to Google’s Palm-2, which powers its AI tools, and OpenAI’s GPT4, the tech behind ChatGPT. App developers will be able to download the model directly from Facebook, or access it through cloud providers including Microsoft, Amazon and open source AI start-up Hugging Face.The announcement shows how Facebook is doubling down on making its AI openly available, in contrast with companies like OpenAI and Google, which have chosen to keep the details of how their tech works secret and charge for access to it. It also drives home the point that Facebook doesn’t have a large cloud computing business through which to sell software directly to business customers,  » Read More

Facebook announced new video-related features today ranging from editing to discovery to make the platform competitive with YouTube and TikTok. It is also renaming its “Watch” tab to “Video” tab to unify all its video experiences under one place. The company is porting editing tools for Reels to videos for the main feed — this way, people can create short and long videos from one place. Meta is rolling out these tools to Meta Business Suite users already. Additionally, the company is releasing additional editing features, such the ability to adjust speed, reverse, or replace a clip. Meta is also introducing support for HDR videos on Reels — both video uploading and playback. Image Credits: Meta For audio, Facebook is making it easier to find the right audio track, reduce noise, and record a voiceover on top of a video. The social network is also rebranding its “Watch” tab to “Video,” which will now include all visual content from Reels to long-form content and live videos. Users will be able to scroll vertically to jump from one video to another,  » Read More

VideoAmp said it expanded its integration with Meta to include measuring the incremental lift generated by TV tune-in campaigns on Facebook and Instagram.The analytics use randomized controlled trials to determine conversion lift and may be used to help clients optimize across Meta properties alongside promotional efforts on linear TV, streaming and other digital media.Meta’s RCT tests are designed to establish true causality by controlling for outside variables and ensuring that users within the advertiser’s target audience are randomly assigned to test and control groups, where only the test group is eligible to receive an ad. “We are thrilled to announce the expansion of our integration with Meta,“ VideoAMp senior VP, solutions specialist JP Pereira said. “Entertainment brands spend a lot of money trying to drive viewership of their content and we are happy to bring them a closed-loop solution that enables them to more accurately measure the incremental impact of their investments on Meta properties. With this integration, and the use of Meta’s Conversion Lift Study, VideoAmp clients will be able to better understand the causal impact of an ad.” In addition to tune-in lift,  » Read More

TEL HASHOMER, Israel, July 16 (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was discharged from hospital on Sunday after being admitted the previous day for dehydration, with doctors saying he was in good health.Netanyahu, 73, was taken on Saturday to Sheba Hospital in Tel Hashomer, near his private residence in coastal Caesarea, and kept overnight under observation.His motor convoy was seen departing Sheba as Israeli media quoted his office as saying he had been discharged.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivers a statement at the Palmachim Air Force Base near the city of Rishon Lezion, Israel July 5, 2023. REUTERS/Amir Cohen/File PhotoIn a video statement on Saturday, a smiling and blazer-wearing Netanyahu said he had holidayed at the Sea of Galilee without properly protecting himself from a heatwave.Sheba on Sunday confirmed its original diagnosis of dehydration and said additional tests involving a subcutaneous holter had found Netanyahu to be "in complete cardiac health".Israel's weekly cabinet meeting, usually held on Sunday, has been postponed to Monday,  » Read More

Data collected from the Met Police's website where people report sexual offences, domestic abuse and other crimes has been passed onto Facebook ...  » Read More

In Hollywood, robots have come in many shapes and sizes. There’s the classic, corrugated-tubing-limbed Robot from the television series Lost In Space (1965); the clunky C-3PO and cute R2-D2, the Star Wars (1977) duo; the tough Terminator from The Terminator (1984) played by Arnold Schwarzenegger; the mischievous Johnny 5 from Short Circuit (1986); the kind-hearted, ill-fated Sonny in I, Robot (2004); and WALL-E (2008), the endearing trash-collecting robot. Robot-reality, however, still lags behind robot-fiction by quite a bit. Even Elon Musk’s October 2022 debut of Optimus—a distinctly masculine humanoid-frame robot prototype built by Tesla that, for the first time, wobbled along sans cables—failed to wow critics, who compared it to decades-old Japanese robotics and noted that it lacked any differentiating capabilities.  And yet, automatons—self-propelled machines—are not new. More than two millennia ago, Archytas, an inventor from ancient Greece, built a pulley-activated wooden dove, capable of flapping its wings and flying a very short distance (a puff of air triggered a counterweight that set the bird in motion).  » Read More

A man who killed three teenage boys in Riverside County after they played a doorbell-ringing prank on him in 2020 was sentenced to life in prison on Friday. Anurag Chandra, 45, from Corona, faces life in prison without the possibility of parole after he was convicted by a jury in April of three counts of first-degree murder and three counts of attempted murder, according to the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office. The deadly crash happened on Jan. 19, 2020, as six teenage boys were having a sleepover that night. One of the boys was given a dare to approach Chandra’s home on Modjeska Summit Road. After ringing Chandra’s doorbell, the teens quickly drove away in a 2002 Toyota Prius. Chandra chased down the six teens in his 2019 Infiniti Q50 and eventually caught up with them on Temescal Canyon Road near Squaw Mountain Road. Chandra rear-ended and sideswiped their vehicle until they were forced off the road before slamming into a tree. Chandra had reached speeds of 99 miles per hour at the time,  » Read More