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As state lawmakers rush to get a handle on fast-evolving artificial intelligence technology, they’re often focusing first on their own state governments before imposing restrictions on the private sector. Legislators are seeking ways to protect constituents from discrimination and other harms while not hindering cutting-edge advancements in medicine, science, business, education and more. “We’re starting with the government. We’re trying to set a good example,” Connecticut state Sen. James Maroney said during a floor debate in May. Connecticut plans to inventory all of its government systems using artificial intelligence by the end of 2023, posting the information online. And starting next year, state officials must regularly review these systems to ensure they won’t lead to unlawful discrimination. Maroney, a Democrat who has become a go-to AI authority in the General…

I won’t forget the first time I took a ride in a car without anyone sitting in the driver’s seat. It happened one night last September when a Chevy Bolt named Peaches picked me up outside a San Francisco bar. Our ensuing half-hour ride together produced, at first, a titillating display of technology’s promise. Then an unexpected twist made me worry that the encounter had turned into a mistake I would regret. Peaches and I were getting along great for most of our time together, as the car deftly navigated through hilly San Francisco streets similar to those Steve McQueen careened through during the famous chase scene in the 1968 film “Bullitt.” Unlike McQueen, Peaches never exceeded 30 mph (48 kph) because of restrictions imposed by state regulators on a…

When OpenTable CEO Debby Soo joined the restaurant reservation company in 2020, the industry was struggling through the pandemic. “It was all hands on deck and ‘How do we help restaurants keep afloat?’” she said. “It was a very intense period, but it was also a very clear period. That was what the whole company was focused on doing.” These days, she is focused on growing the 25-year-old company, which was acquired by Amsterdam-based Booking Holdings in 2014. OpenTable manages reservations for 55,000 restaurants worldwide and seats more than 1 billion diners per year. In 2021, OpenTable launched “Experiences,” which lets diners book special offerings like wine tastings or cooking classes. Last year, it partnered with inline, a Taiwan-based restaurant software provider, to expand its presence in Asia. And in…

Georgia could join other states requiring children to have their parents’ explicit permission to create social media accounts. Two top Republicans in the Georgia state Senate — Lt. Gov. Burt Jones and Sen. Jason Anavitarte of Dallas — said in a news conference they will seek to pass such a law in 2024. The proposal could also restrict accounts on other online services. “It’s important that we empower parents,” Anavitarte said. “A lot of parents don’t know how to restrict content.” Anavitarte said Georgia’s rules would be modeled on a law Louisiana passed this year. That measure, which takes effect in 2024, says social media services must verify an account holder’s age and can’t let someone younger than 18 join without parental consent. Arkansas, Texas and Utah also passed laws…

It was born in the break, all those decades ago — that moment when a song’s vocals dropped, instruments quieted down and the beat took the stage. It was then that hip-hop came into the world, taking the moment and reinventing it. Something new, coming out of something familiar. At the hands of the DJs playing the albums, that break moment became something more: a composition in itself, repeated in an endless loop, back and forth between the turntables. The MCs got in on it, speaking their own clever rhymes and wordplay over it. So did the dancers, the b-boys and b-girls who hit the floor to breakdance. It took on its own visual style, with graffiti artists bringing it to the streets and subways of New York City. It…

Apple’s eked out a slightly higher profit last quarter even though sales dipped during the period, a showing that may not be enough to sustain investor enthusiasm that recently made the iPhone maker the first publicly held U.S. company to be valued at $3 trillion. The results released last week (03) covered April through June, the third consecutive quarter that the Cupertino, California, company has posted a year-over-year decline in revenue. That’s its longest stretch of falling sales in nearly seven years. Apple also indicated revenue for the current July through September quarter is expected to decline, despite the anticipated release of the next iPhone. The disappointing forecast, coupled with the lukewarm results for the past quarter, caused Apple’s stock to fall 2% after the announcement. The shares behave similarly…

For the gamers out there, macOS Sonoma’s Game Mode could signify a turning point. Once known as a platform unsuited for gaming, Apple is making strides to transform the Mac into a competitive gaming machine, albeit with that signature simplicity that Apple is famous for. INTRODUCING GAME MODE Game Mode promises to provide an optimized gaming experience by prioritizing CPU and GPU resources for the game, reducing background task usage, and delivering smoother frame rates. Combined with the impressive capabilities of Apple Silicon, this means Mac users can expect a significant boost in performance. Apple Silicon, such as the M1 chip, has already demonstrated remarkable capabilities in processing and energy efficiency. By dedicating a mode for gaming, Apple is extracting the best of the Mac, potentially matching or even surpassing…

The Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game franchise says it won’t allow artists to use artificial intelligence technology to draw its cast of sorcerers, druids and other characters and scenery. D&D art is supposed to be fanciful. But at least one ax-wielding giant seemed too weird for some fans, leading them to take to social media to question if it was human-made. Hasbro-owned D&D Beyond, which makes online tools and other companion content for the franchise, said it didn’t know that an illustrator it has worked with for nearly a decade used AI to create commissioned artwork for an upcoming book. The franchise, run by the Hasbro subsidiary Wizards of the Coast, said in a statement that it has talked to that artist and is clarifying its rules. “He will not…

SPACE The four astronauts assigned to fly around the moon in another year got their first look at their spacecraft, as NASA warned there could be more delays. They peeked into their unfinished Orion capsule, red “Remove Before Flight” tags still dangling from it, and came away impressed. “Nothing else looks like that ... that’s what gave me shivers,” astronaut Christina Koch told reporters. The U.S.-Canadian crew inspected the capsule during a visit to Kennedy Space Center this week. NASA plans to send the four around the moon and back late next year. Investigations into the capsule’s heat shield, however, could delay this first lunar trip by astronauts in more than half a century. Last year’s test flight around the moon, with no one on board, resulted in unexpected charring…

Scientists are wondering if global warming and El Nino have an accomplice in fueling this summer’s record-shattering heat. The European climate agency Copernicus reported that July was one-third of a degree Celsius (six-tenths of a degree Fahrenheit) hotter than the old record. That’s a bump in heat that is so recent and so big, especially in the oceans and even more so in the North Atlantic, that scientists are split on whether something else could be at work. Scientists agree that by far the biggest cause of the recent extreme warming is climate change from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas that has triggered a long upward trend in temperatures. A natural El Nino, a temporary warming of parts of the Pacific that changes weather worldwide, adds a…

An update to Zoom’s terms of service is raising alarm bells on social media, with users claiming it reveals the videoconferencing company is now tapping their online doctor visits and virtual happy hours to train artificial intelligence models. “Zoom terms of service now require you to allow AI to train on ALL your data — audio, facial recognition, private conversations — unconditionally and irrevocably, with no opt out,” read one widely-shared tweet this week that has since been deleted. “Don’t try to negotiate with our new overlords.” The company quickly responded with a blog post stressing that it “will not use audio, video, or chat customer content to train our artificial intelligence models without your consent,” and adding a line to the terms to make this clearer. Online privacy experts…

The company whose name became synonymous with remote work is joining the growing return-to-office trend. Zoom, the video conferencing pioneer, is asking employees who live within a 50-mile radius of its offices to work onsite two days a week, a company spokesperson confirmed in an email. The statement said the company has decided that “a structured hybrid approach – meaning employees that live near an office need to be onsite two days a week to interact with their teams – is most effective for Zoom.” The new policy, which will be rolled out in August and September, was first reported by the New York Times, which said Zoom CEO Eric Yuan fielded questions from employees unhappy with the new policy during a Zoom meeting last week. Zoom, based in San…

The landmark Broadway musical “Hamilton” has landed on Roblox, turning the innovative stage show into an immersive online environment for a new generation. “’Hamilton’ has global recognition. Roblox has 66 million daily active users from all around the world. What a perfect match,” Matt Edelman, president and chief commercial officer for Super League — which designed and built the online experience. In the Hamilton Simulator, players use their own avatars as they rub shoulders with the musical’s characters and negotiate through 10 levels set during the Revolutionary War. It starts at the New York docks and the goal is to free the city from British yoke. Appropriately, the music-filled game requires no real money from players. “The intent here was to create a fun experience for this community and by…

Before we, ahem, dive into our review of “Meg 2,” a few fun facts on the Megalodon, the titular real-life prehistoric shark, according to some unusually detailed production notes from the studio: It weighed up to 50 tons (45 metric tons) and exceeded 60 feet (18 meters) in length. Its vertebrae were the size of a large dinner plate — no salad plates here! There’s “no likelihood” that any actually survived to this day (we’d feel better with “no chance,” but OK.) And, its jaw was so wide, it could swallow two adults side by side. We know what you’re thinking, and so are we: Jack and Rose could’ve BOTH fit into that jaw! Case closed. James Cameron, are you listening? Way to nip a controversy in the bud. In…

Wind power developers proposed four new projects off the New Jersey Shore, a surge that would more than double the number of wind farms built off its coast if they are approved by regulators. At least two of them are more than twice as far out to sea than others that have drawn the ire of residents who don’t want to see windmills on the horizon. These two would not be visible from the beach, the companies proposing them say. They would join three wind farms already approved by New Jersey regulators as the state races to become the East Coast capital of the fast-growing offshore wind industry. In the first project to be made public by the companies proposing it, Essen, Germany-based RWE and New York-based National Grid applied…