The Cross Heads

TCL TVs will use films made with generative AI to push targeted ads

Advertising has become a focal point of TV software. We’re seeing companies that sell TV sets be increasingly interested in leveraging TV operating systems (OSes) for ads and tracking. This has led to bold new strategies, like an adtech firm launching a TV OS and ads on TV screensavers. With new short films set to […]

December 11, 2024 | ads, AI, Culture, films, generative ai, movies, streaming, tcl, Tech, TVs | No comments

Google goes “agentic” with Gemini 2.0’s ambitious AI agent features

On Wednesday, Google unveiled Gemini 2.0, the next generation of its AI-model family, starting with an experimental release called Gemini 2.0 Flash. The model family can generate text, images, and speech while processing multiple types of input including text, images, audio, and video. It’s similar to multimodal AI models like GPT-4o, which powers OpenAI’s ChatGPT. […]

December 11, 2024 | agentic AI, AI, AI agents, Biz & IT, ChatGPT, chatgtp, Gemini 2.0, Gemini 2.0 Flash, Google, Google Gemini, large language models, machine learning, openai, Project Astra | No comments

iOS 18.2, macOS 15.2 updates arrive today with image and emoji generation

Apple has announced that it will be releasing the iOS 18.2, iPadOS 18.2, and macOS Sequoia 15.2 updates to the public later this afternoon, following weeks of beta testing for developers and users. As with iOS 18.1, the headlining features are new additions to Apple Intelligence, mainly the image-generation capabilities: Image Playground for general images, […]

December 11, 2024 | Apple, ios 18, iPadOS 18, macOS 15, Tech | No comments

Reminder: Donate to win swag in our annual Charity Drive sweepstakes

If you’ve been too busy punching virtual Nazis to take part in this year’s Ars Technica Charity Drive sweepstakes, don’t worry. You still have time to donate to a good cause and get a chance to win your share of over $4,000 worth of swag (no purchase necessary to win). In the first three days of […]

December 11, 2024 | Gaming | No comments

NASA believes it understands why Ingenuity crashed on Mars

Eleven months after the Ingenuity helicopter made its final flight on Mars, engineers and scientists at NASA and a private company that helped build the flying vehicle said they have identified what probably caused it to crash on the surface of Mars. In short, the helicopter’s on-board navigation sensors were unable to discern enough features […]

December 11, 2024 | ingenuity, Mars, Science, Space | No comments

Report: Google told FTC Microsoft’s OpenAI deal is killing AI competition

Google reportedly wants the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to end Microsoft’s exclusive cloud deal with OpenAI that requires anyone wanting access to OpenAI’s models to go through Microsoft’s servers. Someone “directly involved” in Google’s effort told The Information that Google’s request came after the FTC began broadly probing how Microsoft’s cloud computing business practices […]

December 11, 2024 | ai industry, AI models, Antitrust law, Artificial Intelligence, federal trade commission, FTC, Google, large language models, LLMs, microsoft, openai, Policy | No comments

Congressional Republicans conclude SARS-CoV-2 originated in a lab leak

Reaching those conclusions, however, can be a bit of a challenge for two reasons. One, which we won’t really go into here, is that some policies that are now disfavored were put in place while Republicans were in charge of the national pandemic response. This leads to a number of awkward juxtapositions in the report: […]

December 11, 2024 | Covid, Lab leak, pandemic, Science, scientific evidence | No comments

The latest in poker cheats: Tiny cameras that can see cards as they’re dealt

“I think it’s kind of surprising that a lot of these things don’t happen sooner, to be perfectly honest,” Coles says, noting that many of these cameras, earpieces, and transmitters have existed for a decade or more. “You could do it with a very cheap investment,” Piallat says. “You won’t need a lot of money.” […]

December 11, 2024 | cameras, poker, syndication, Tech | No comments

Seeing no road to profit, GM shutters Cruise

After spending more than $10 billion to try to develop an autonomous robotaxi, General Motors is now calling time on the endeavor. On Tuesday afternoon, the automaker announced that it is done investing in Cruise’s robotaxi development and will instead combine the startup’s technical team with its internal efforts at GM. After several years, GM […]

December 11, 2024 | autonomous vehicles, Cars, Cruise, robotaxis | No comments

Ranking the 25 coolest things in space so far during the 21st century

NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley inside Crew Dragon. With their mission in 2020, NASA broke its dependence on Russia for access to space. Credit: SpaceX NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley inside Crew Dragon. With their mission in 2020, NASA broke its dependence on Russia for access to space. Credit: SpaceX 16. […]

December 11, 2024 | Features, Space, top 25 biggest space achievements | No comments

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