November 21, 2024

How OpenAI stress-tests its large language models

OpenAI is once again lifting the lid (just a crack) on its safety-testing processes. Last month the company shared the results of an investigation that looked at how often ChatGPT produced a harmful gender or racial stereotype based on a user’s name. Now it has put out two papers describing how it stress-tests its powerful…

August 2023

Former Bose employees are resurrecting Sleepbuds

August 22, 2023
I can’t recall a piece of hardware of recent vintage that I wanted to like more than Bose Sleepbuds. That made them all the more frustrating. In recent years, I’ve been on a kind of mini-quest to find a suitable pair of sleeping headphones. As a terrible sleeper, I love the idea, but the reality […]

It’s official: Threads launches its highly anticipated web app

August 22, 2023
Starting today, Instagram Threads will begin the rollout of one of its most-requested features: the ability to use the service via the web, while logged in. At launch, Threads users will be able to post, view their feed, and interact with posts from the desktop, the company says, but the experience won’t be in complete […]

Meet Relume, the bootstrapped AI web builder that wants to supercharge Figma and Webflow

August 22, 2023
Despite the abundant venture capital available for startups in the current wave of generative AI breakthroughs, totaling $14 billion in equity funding as of August this year, Relume has turned down investments and instead relied on bootstrapping since its launch in November 2021. “We are focusing more on building a product that we can get […]

Microsoft is bringing Python to Excel

August 22, 2023
Microsoft today announced the public preview of Python in Excel, which will allow advanced spreadsheet users to combine scripts in the popular Python language and their usual Excel formulas in the same workbook. This feature will first roll out to Microsoft 365 Insiders as part of the Excel for Windows beta channel. Yet while the […]

Netflix announces interactive story game for ‘Love is Blind’ fans

August 22, 2023
Netflix just announced a new mobile game that many “Love is Blind” fans will want to know about. Netflix Stories is an upcoming interactive fiction story game designed to let viewers experience the worlds and characters from popular Netflix films and series. The first game launching on the app is Netflix Stories: Love is Blind, […]

Sidus Space acquires Exo-Space to ramp up on orbit data offerings

August 22, 2023
Sidus Space is taking another step toward full vertical integration with the acquisition of California-based Exo-Space, a startup that offers edge computing on orbit. While the exact financial details were not disclosed, Sidus is paying cash for 15% of Exo-Space, in return for the startup’s contract revenues. The remainder of the acquisition is being paid […]

Meta confirms AI ‘off-switch’ incoming to Facebook, Instagram in Europe

August 22, 2023
Meta has confirmed that non-personalized content feeds are incoming on Facebook and Instagram in the European Union ahead of the August 25 deadline for compliance with the bloc’s rebooted digital rulebook, the Digital Services Act (DSA). Meta’s move follows a similar announcement by TikTok earlier this month. The DSA requires larger platforms and search engines […]

The Download: spying keyboard software, and why boring AI is best

August 22, 2023
This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. How ubiquitous keyboard software puts hundreds of millions of Chinese users at risk For millions of Chinese people, the first software they download onto devices is always the same: a keyboard app. Yet…