Good morning! This is your daily ☕️ Techpresso.
On this day, 26 years ago, Compaq Computer acquired pioneering computer company Digital Equipment Corporation for $9.6 billion, a move that followed Digital's struggle to adapt to the PC era, leading to Compaq's eventual merger with HP.
In today's Techpresso:
🍎 Apple brings sideloading and alternate app stores to the iPhone
🤖 Microsoft, Amazon and Google face FTC inquiry over AI deals
🧠 OpenAI cures GPT-4 ‘laziness’ with new updates
🤷♀️ Cruise wasn’t hiding the pedestrian-dragging video from regulators — it just had bad internet
🪦 NASA's Mars helicopter has died
🔍 NSA admits it buys web browsing data
🎁 + 7 other news you might like
🔮 + 5 handpicked research papers and tools
🍎 Apple brings sideloading and alternate app stores to the iPhoneLINK
Apple announced the allowance of third-party app stores on iOS devices in the EU in response to the Digital Markets Act, with the changes coming with iOS 17.4 in March.
iPhone users in the EU will be able to download apps from alternative marketplaces, which must be approved by Apple, and developers have the option to use third-party payment systems without an additional fee to Apple.
The new policy adjustments enable alternative app stores and payment systems, allow for non-WebKit browser engines, and the introduction of game streaming services on the App Store.
🤖 Microsoft, Amazon and Google face FTC inquiry over AI dealsLINK
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is investigating investments by big tech companies like Microsoft, Amazon, and Alphabet into AI firms OpenAI and Anthropic to assess their impact on competition in generative AI.
The FTC's inquiry focuses on how these investments influence the competitive dynamics, product releases, and oversight within the AI sector, requesting detailed information from the involved companies.
Microsoft, Amazon, and Google have made significant investments in OpenAI and Anthropic, establishing partnerships that potentially affect market share, competition, and innovation in artificial intelligence.
🧠 OpenAI cures GPT-4 ‘laziness’ with new updatesLINK
OpenAI updated GPT-4 Turbo to more thoroughly complete tasks like code generation, aiming to reduce its 'laziness' in task completion.
GPT-4 Turbo, distinct from the widely used GPT-4, benefits from data up to April 2023, while standard GPT-4 uses data until September 2021.
Future updates for GPT-4 Turbo will include general availability with vision capabilities and the launch of more efficient AI models, such as embeddings to enhance content relationship understanding.
🤷♀️ Cruise wasn’t hiding the pedestrian-dragging video from regulators — it just had bad internetLINK
Cruise attempted to share a video with regulators showing a driverless car incident but faced "internet connectivity issues," as detailed in a report by Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan.
The law firm's investigation, initiated by Cruise, aimed to determine if there was any misleading of regulators following an incident where a pedestrian was dragged by a Cruise vehicle.
Cruise's leadership's failure to explicitly highlight the pedestrian-dragging aspect in the video and a culture of antagonism toward regulators were criticized in the report.
🪦 NASA's Mars helicopter has diedLINK
The Ingenuity Mars Helicopter completed its final flight on January 18, after sustaining damage to one or more of its rotor blades during a rough landing, rendering it incapable of further flight.
NASA's press conference and subsequent analysis revealed that the damage likely occurred due to a rotor striking the Martian surface, a result of navigation challenges over featureless terrain that Ingenuity was not designed to handle.
Despite the end of its flight capabilities, Ingenuity's mission demonstrated the practicality and value of rotorcraft on Mars, laying the groundwork for future Mars exploration technologies and missions.
🔍 NSA admits it buys web browsing dataLINK
The National Security Agency (N.S.A.) purchases logs related to Americans' domestic internet activities from commercial data brokers without including the content of communications, highlighting a legal gray zone on privacy.
Senator Ron Wyden urges intelligence agencies to halt the purchase of internet data about Americans that does not meet the privacy standards set for location records, emphasizing the sensitivity of internet metadata.
The N.S.A. disclosed its practice of buying commercially available netflow data for cybersecurity missions, taking steps to minimize the collection of U.S. person information, amid broader scrutiny of government and law enforcement agencies' data purchasing practices.
Other news you might like
Musk brain implant company violated US hazardous material transport rules.LINK
Apple is finally allowing full versions of Chrome and Firefox to run on the iPhone.LINK
Meta bulks up Instagram safety and finally restricts strangers from messaging minors by default.LINK
The Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses’ new AI powers are impressive, and worrying.LINK
Epic Games to bring Fortnite to iOS in Europe via its own store, leveraging the EU's Digital Markets Act, amidst criticism of Apple's fees.LINK
A man sues after AI-based facial recognition wrongly linked him to a Sunglass Hut robbery, leading to his arrest and severe assault in jail.LINK
Harvard dropout creates Tab, a wearable AI necklace aimed at offering personalized insights by transcribing and analyzing conversations, aiming for widespread adoption.LINK
Latest research and tools
CVE-2023-40547: a security vulnerability that prevents systems from mistakenly trusting HTTP headers.LINK
Oasis: a small, statically-linked Linux system designed for simplicity and security.LINK
Lumos: a Chrome extension that functions as a local LLM (Large Language Model) for enhanced browsing.LINK
LLM App Stack: a framework designed to support and optimize Large Language Model applications by providing emerging architectures.LINK
Universal Self-Adaptive Prompting: the paper introduces a method for AI systems to improve their learning process by adjusting their training prompts automatically.LINK
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