Innehållsförteckning för #656 från AppleMagazine

Knowledge advantage can save lives, win wars and avert disaster. At the Central Intelligence Agency, basic artificial intelligence – machine learning and algorithms – has long served that mission. Now, generative AI is joining the effort. CIA Director William Burns says AI tech will augment humans, not replace them. The agency’s first chief technology officer, Nand Mulchandani, is marshaling the tools. There’s considerable urgency: Adversaries are already spreading AI-generated deepfakes aimed at undermining U.S. interests. A former Silicon Valley CEO who helmed successful startups, Mulchandani was named to the job in 2022 after a stint at the Pentagon’s Joint Artificial Intelligence Center. Among agency projects: A ChatGPT-like generative AI application that draws on open-source data (meaning unclassified, public or commercially available). Thousands of analysts across the 18-agency U.S. intelligence community…

Cars, trucks and SUVs in the U.S. keep getting older, hitting a record average age of 12.6 years in 2024 as people hang on to their vehicles largely because new ones cost so much. S&P Global Mobility, which tracks state vehicle registration data nationwide, said Wednesday that the average vehicle age grew about two months from last year’s record. But the growth in average age is starting to slow as new vehicle sales start to recover from pandemic-related shortages of parts, including computer chips. The average increased by three months in 2023. Still, with an average U.S. new-vehicle selling price of just over $45,000 last month, many can’t afford to buy new — even though prices are down more than $2,000 from the peak in December of 2022, according to…

Mastercard said this week that it expects to be able to discover that your credit or debit card number has been compromised well before it ends up in the hands of a cybercriminal. In its latest software update rolling out, Mastercard is integrating artificial intelligence into its fraud-prediction technology that it expects will be able to see patterns in stolen cards faster and allow banks to replace them before they are used by criminals. “Generative AI is going to allow to figure out where did you perhaps get your credentials compromised, how do we identify how it possibly happened, and how do we very quickly remedy that situation not only for you, but the other customers who don’t know they are compromised yet,” said Johan Gerber, executive vice president of…

Digital diversions may have us tethered to tech, but screen fatigue is real. Even my digitally-native, young-millennial kids prefer printed books these days. And a recent weekend together at home had us busting out some craft kits. There might have been Netflix in the background, but everybody’s hands were busy with markers, paper clay and pompoms. We all agreed that being hands-on creative, instead of tapping with our fingers, was a simple and satisfying distraction we wanted more of. Many people, apparently, can relate. Among the innovative gadgets and gizmos at recent toy and consumer products fairs were lots of booths offering kits that explore art, science and a lot in between. Several newly launched craft kits caught the eye of James Zahn, senior editor of The Toy Insider. One…

Leading artificial intelligence companies made a fresh pledge at a mini-summit this week to develop AI safely, while world leaders agreed to build a network of publicly backed safety institutes to advance research and testing of the technology. Google, Meta and OpenAI were among the companies that made voluntary safety commitments at the AI Seoul Summit, including pulling the plug on their cutting-edge systems if they can’t rein in the most extreme risks. The two-day meeting is a follow-up to November’s AI Safety Summit at Bletchley Park in the United Kingdom, and comes amid a flurry of efforts by governments and global bodies to design guardrails for the technology amid fears about the potential risk it poses both to everyday life and to humanity. Leaders from 10 countries and the…

Consumer labels designed to help Americans pick smart devices that are less vulnerable to hacking could begin appearing on products before the holiday shopping season, federal officials said this week. Under the new U.S. Cyber Trust Mark Initiative, manufacturers can affix the label on their products if they meet federal cybersecurity standards. The types of devices eligible for labels include baby monitors, home security cameras, fitness trackers, refrigerators and other internet-connected appliances. The White House first announced the “Cyber Trust” labels last year and the Federal Communications Commission finalized the details in March, clearing the way for the labels to start showing up in several months. “You should hopefully, by the holiday season, start to see devices that have this trustmark on it,” said Nicholas Leiserson, the assistant national cyber…

Apple’s ecosystem is renowned for its seamless integration between devices, with the Mac and iPad prime examples. The Mac, a powerhouse for processing and professional tasks, is complemented perfectly by the iPad, which offers an advanced display and touch capabilities. Together, they provide the best of both worlds for creativity and productivity. THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS It’s easy to see how the iPad and the Mac could be positioned as competitors. In short, the iPad is now a powerhouse machine that’s head and shoulders above some of the world’s most respected PC brands. But combine macOS and iPadOS, and you’ll soon discover how the devices work in harmony rather than in competition, providing a holistic experience for users. The iPad Pro’s screen technology has dramatically improved, incorporating Pro Display…

The head of the Federal Communications Commission introduced on Wednesday a proposal to require political advertisers to disclose when they use content generated by artificial intelligence in broadcast television and radio ads. If adopted by the five-person commission, the proposal would add a layer of transparency that many lawmakers and AI experts have been calling for as rapidly advancing generative AI tools churn out lifelike images, videos and audio clips that threaten to mislead voters in the upcoming U.S. election. Yet the nation’s top telecommunications regulator would only have authority over TV, radio and some cable providers. The new rules, if adopted, would not cover the tremendous growth in advertising on digital and streaming platforms. “As artificial intelligence tools become more accessible, the commission wants to make sure consumers are…

The United States said this week that Russia last week launched a satellite that could be part of weaponizing space, a possible future global trend that members of the United Nations Security Council condemned even as they failed to pass a measure against it. The Security Council resolution drafted by Russia rivaled one backed by the U.S. and Japan that failed last month. The rival drafts focused on different types of weapons, with the U.S. and Japan specifying weapons of mass destruction. The Russian draft discussed all types of weapons. The U.S. and its allies said the language that the 15-member council debated was simply meant to distract the world from Russia’s true intention: weaponizing space. “The culmination of Russia’s campaign of diplomatic gaslighting and dissembling is the text before…

Whether it’s tapioca balls or computer chips, Taiwan is stretching toward the United States and away from China — the world’s No. 2 economy that threatens to take the democratically ruled island by force if necessary. That has translated to the world’s biggest maker of computer chips — which power everything from medical equipment to cellphones — announcing bigger investments in the U.S. last month after a boost from the Biden administration. Soon afterward, a Taiwanese semiconductor company said it was ending its two-decade-long run in mainland China amid a global race to gain the edge in the high-tech industry. These changes at a time of an intensifying China-U.S. rivalry reflect Taiwan’s efforts to reduce its reliance on Beijing and insulate itself from Chinese pressure while forging closer economic and…

OpenAI says it plans to halt the use of one of its ChatGPT voices after some users said it sounded like Scarlett Johansson, who famously voiced a fictional, and at the time futuristic, AI assistant in the 2013 film “Her.” In a post on the social media platform X Monday, OpenAI said it is “working to pause” Sky — the name of one of five voices that ChatGPT users can chose to speak with. The company said it had “heard questions” about how it selects the lifelike audio options available for its flagship artificial intelligence chatbot, particularly Sky, and wanted to address them. OpenAI was also quick to debunk the internet’s theories about Johansson in an accompanying blog post detailing how ChatGPT’s voices were chosen. “We believe that AI voices…

Let the debate begin. Who has the best music albums ever? Apple Music certainly has an idea. The music streaming giant announced on Wednesday their 10 greatest albums of all time with Lauryn Hill’s 1998 iconic“The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill”claiming the top spot. Hill’s debut album outpaced other classic records from Beyoncé,The Beatles,Michael Jackson,Prince,Stevie Wonder, Kendrick Lamar,Amy Winehouse,Frank Ocean and Nirvana. “This is my award, but it’s a rich, deep narrative, and involves so many people, and so much sacrifice, and so much time, and so much collective love,” Hill said after receiving the news. The top 10 albums culminated Apple Music’s inaugural 100 best albums, which started with a 10-day countdown last week. There’s only five artists with two albums on the full list including The Beatles, Wonder, Prince,…

California could eventually join the European Union in requiring all new cars to alert drivers when they break the speed limit, a proposal aimed at reducing traffic deaths that would likely impact motorists across the country should it become law. The federal government sets safety standards for vehicles nationwide, which is why most cars now beep at drivers if their seat belt isn’t fastened. A bill in the California Legislature — which passed its first vote in the state Senate — would go further by requiring all new cars sold in the state by 2032 to beep at drivers when they exceed the speed limit by at least 10 mph (16 kph). “Research has shown that this does have an impact in getting people to slow down, particularly since some…

How do you make a kid’s movie that appeals not only to the kids, but the adults sitting next to them? Most movies try to achieve this by throwing in a layer of wink-wink pop culture references that’ll earn a few knowing laughs from parents but fly nicely over the heads of the young ones. So let’s credit John Krasinski for not taking the easy way out. Writing and directing (and acting in, and producing) his new kid’s movie, “IF,” Krasinski is doing his darndest to craft a story that works organically no matter the age, with universal themes — imagination, fear, memory — that just hit different depending on who you are. Or maybe sometimes, they hit the same — because Krasinski, who wanted to make a movie his…