Good morning! This is your daily ☕️ Techpresso.
On this day in 1987, Steve Wozniak ended his employment with Apple.
In today's Techpresso:
📜 AI reveals hidden text of 2,000-year-old scroll
👋 Adam Neumann wants to buy WeWork
🔮 Midjourney hires veteran Apple engineer to build its 'Orb'
🖼️ Meta to start labeling AI-generated images
🦋 Bluesky opens its doors to the public
🛡️ Bumble’s new AI tool identifies and blocks scam accounts, fake profiles
🎁 + 9 other news you might like
🔮 + 6 handpicked research papers and tools
📜 AI reveals hidden text of 2,000-year-old scrollLINK
A group of classical scholars, assisted by three computer scientists, has partially decoded a Roman scroll buried in the Vesuvius eruption in A.D. 79 using artificial intelligence and X-ray technology.
The scroll, part of the Herculaneum Papyri, is believed to contain texts by Philodemus on topics like food and music, revealing insights into ancient Roman life.
The breakthrough, facilitated by a $700,000 prize from the Vesuvius Challenge, led to the reading of over 2,000 Greek letters from the scroll, with hopes to decode 85% of it by the end of the year.
👋 Adam Neumann wants to buy WeWorkLINK
Adam Neumann, ousted CEO and co-founder of WeWork, expressed interest in buying the company out of bankruptcy, claiming WeWork has ignored his attempts to get more information for a bid.
Neumann's intent to purchase WeWork has been supported by funding from Dan Loeb’s hedge fund Third Point since December 2023, though WeWork has shown disinterest in his offer.
Despite WeWork's bankruptcy and prior refusal of a $1 billion funding offer from Neumann in October 2022, Neumann believes his acquisition could offer valuable synergies and management expertise.
🔮 Midjourney hires veteran Apple engineer to build its 'Orb'LINK
Generative AI startup Midjourney has appointed Ahmad Abbas, a former Apple Vision Pro engineer, as head of hardware to potentially develop a project known as the 'Orb' focusing on 3D data capture and AI-generated content.
Abbas has extensive experience in hardware engineering, including his time at Apple and Elon Musk's Neuralink, and has previously worked with Midjourney's founder, David Holz, at Leap Motion.
While details are scarce, the 'Orb' may relate to generating and managing 3D environments and could signify Midjourney's entry into creating hardware aimed at real-time generated video games and AI-powered 3D worlds.
🖼️ Meta to start labeling AI-generated imagesLINK
Meta is expanding the labeling of AI-generated imagery on its platforms, including content created with rivals' tools, to improve transparency and detection of synthetic content.
The company already labels images created by its own "Imagine with Meta" tool but plans to extend this to images generated by other companies' tools, focusing on elections around the world.
Meta is also exploring the use of generative AI in content moderation, while acknowledging challenges in detecting AI-generated videos and audio, and aims to require user disclosure for synthetic content.
🦋 Bluesky opens its doors to the publicLINK
Bluesky, funded by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey and aiming to offer an alternative to Elon Musk’s X, is now open to the public after being invite-only for nearly a year.
The platform, notable for its decentralized infrastructure called the AT Protocol and open-source code, allows developers and users greater control and customization, including over content moderation.
Bluesky challenges existing social networks with its focus on user experience and is preparing to introduce open federation and content moderation tools to enhance its decentralized social media model.
🛡️ Bumble’s new AI tool identifies and blocks scam accounts, fake profilesLINK
Bumble has introduced a new AI tool named Deception Detector to identify and block scam accounts and fake profiles, which during tests blocked 95% of such accounts and reduced user reports of spam by 45%.
The development of Deception Detector is in response to user concerns about fake profiles and scams on dating platforms, with Bumble research highlighting these as major issues for users, especially women.
Besides Deception Detector, Bumble continues to enhance user safety and trust through features like Private Detector for blurring unsolicited nude images and AI-generated icebreakers in Bumble For Friends.
Other news you might like
EU repair rights bill tells manufacturers to fix up or ship out.LINK
Ex-Blue Origin leaders want to mine the moon.LINK
Mozilla’s new service tries to wipe your data off the web.LINK
Roblox adds real-time AI chat translation using its own language model.LINK
Huawei just retasked a factory to prioritize AI over its bestselling phone.LINK
Spotify crosses the 600M monthly active users mark.LINK
YouTube says a Vision Pro app is ‘on the roadmap’.LINK
Users who forgot their Apple Vision Pro headset passcode have to return device to store to reset it.LINK
Microsoft to share details on bringing Xbox games to PlayStation next week.LINK
Latest research and tools
pgserver: a pip-installable Postgres+pgvector wheel designed for Python projects, enabling the use of a self-contained Postgres server without needing admin privileges.LINK
CLI for generating PDFs: a command-line interface that allows users to create PDF files for offline reading.LINK
Destruction of nuclear bombs using ultra-high energy neutrino beam (2003): the study explores using powerful neutrino beams to neutralize nuclear weapons.LINK
Better Call GPT: large language models can perform on par with lawyers in some legal tasks.LINK
The HTTP Garden: a parser vulnerability research tool designed for identifying weaknesses in HTTP implementations.LINK
Towards Sustainable Workplace Mental Health: Early Intervention and Support: early intervention and support strategies are crucial for improving mental health in the workplace.LINK
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