Google has released its AI assistant, Gemini Live, and is positioning it to replace Google Assistant on mobile. Gemini Live is rolling out on Android to subscribers of Gemini Advanced, which is part of the $20 monthly Google One AI Premium plan. Those consumers who purchase the new Pixel 9 Pro — which begins shipping this week — will get the assistant as part of a year of free access to Gemini Advanced, a $240 value, according to the company. Google claims that Gemini Live technology enables natural, flowing conversations with the AI assistant, putting “a sidekick in your pocket.” Continue reading Google Rolls Out Its Gemini Live, Challenging ChatGPT Voice

ByteDance has debuted a text-to-video mobile app in its native China that is available on the company’s TikTok equivalent there, Douyin. Called Jimeng AI, there is speculation that it will be coming to North America and Europe soon via TikTok or ByteDance’s CapCut editing tool, possibly beating competing U.S. technologies like OpenAI’s Sora to market. Jimeng (translation: “dream”) uses text prompts to generate short videos. For now, its responsiveness is limited to prompts written in Chinese. In addition to entertainment, the app is described as applicable to education, marketing and other purposes. Continue reading ByteDance Intros Jimeng AI Text-to-Video Generator in China

The battle between Epic Games and Apple has arrived at a truce that finds the game maker’s massively popular “Fortnite” title back on iOS in the European Union, where Apple was pushed into the move by the competition-fostering Digital Markets Act. “Fortnite” is now available for iPhones there via the new Epic Games Store as well as the third-party outlet AltStore PAL. The launch comes after years of litigation between Epic and Apple in Europe and the U.S., where the Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal, resulting in a decision Epic found less satisfactory than the EU outcome. Continue reading Epic Launches App Store for iOS in the EU, Android Globally

The list of potential risks associated with artificial intelligence continues to grow. “Global AI adoption is outpacing risk understanding,” warns the MIT Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), which has joined with the MIT multidisciplinary computer group FutureTech to compile the AI Risk Repository, a “living database” of more than 700 unique risks extracted across 43 source categories. Organized by cause, classifying “how, when and why these risks occur,” the repository is comprised of seven risk domains (for example, “misinformation”) and 23 subdomains (such as “false or misleading information”). Continue reading MIT’s AI Risk Assessment Database Debuts with 700 Threats

Grok-2 and Grok-2 mini, the latest generative chatbots from Elon Musk’s xAI, create images with seemingly few guardrails. Early pictures of notable personalities such as Bill Gates, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris in questionable or compromising settings may not appear photorealistic to a trained eye, but they are still described in many cases to be quite realistic. Powered by the FLUX.1 AI model from Black Forest Labs, Grok-2 and Grok-2 mini are available in beta on X social for Premium and Premium+ subscribers and will be coming to xAI’s enterprise API later this month, according to the company. Continue reading xAI’s Grok-2 Generates Realistic Images with Few Guardrails

WordPress parent Automattic has launched Write Brief with AI to help make documents more concise. Available for free to WordPress.com users, Write Brief with AI measures “readability,” suggests edits and will even make them for you. It identifies complex words and offers alternatives and focuses on simplifying convoluted sentences — all from within the editor function in the WordPress dashboard. Write Brief with AI is now built-in to Jetpack for those who host through WordPress.com, available only in English, though the company says it is working to expand language support. Continue reading WordPress Introduces AI Assistant to Help Users with Writing

Sahara AI, a company co-founded in 2023 by Sean Ren, an associate professor in computer science at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering, has raised $43 million to pursue its goal of widely implementing a platform to ensure IP-owners are compensated in the age of generative AI. Ren, who launched the company with former Binance Labs Investment Director Tyler Zhou, says the funding will be used to expand its team and further develop a decentralized AI blockchain platform that recognizes and tracks copyrighted assets, ultimately establishing a system of credit and compensation for work that contributes to model training. Continue reading AI Startup Co-Founded by USC Professor Raises New Funding

TikTok is entering the messaging services space with a new group chat feature that supports up to 32 participants, conversing and sharing content. TikTok users have taken to sharing the platform’s short-form videos on third-party apps such as Meta’s WhatsApp and Apple’s Messages, and this move aims to keep them doing so in-app, where people can also now view and comment together. The result takes TikTok into the realm of connecting with friends and community-building, as opposed to just passively viewing content. The group chats are only available for those over 15 years of age, as is the policy with DMs. Continue reading TikTok Introduces Group Messaging to Share Content In-App

In a unanimous vote, the Federal Trade Commission has banned the use of fake reviews, such as those generated by artificial intelligence, and also prohibits reviews or testimonials that are paid for, even if written by humans. The new rule, finalized Wednesday, also reins in other deceptive practices, like paying for fake social media followers, in an effort to stem misleading practices that are increasingly used by marketers. Generative AI has made manufactured reviews easily available, though the agency’s readiness to seek fines against knowing violators may make fabulists think twice before using them. Continue reading FTC Rule Takes Aim at Fake Reviews, Influence Manipulators

VFusion3D is the latest AI model unveiled by Meta Platforms, which developed it in conjunction with the University of Oxford. The powerful model, which uses single-perspective images or text prompts to generate high-quality 3D objects, is being hailed as a breakthrough in scalable 3D AI that can potentially transform sectors including VR, gaming and digital design. The platform tackles the challenge of scarce 3D training data in a world teeming with 2D images and text descriptions. The VFusion3D approach leverages what the developers call “a novel method for building scalable 3D generative models utilizing pre-trained video diffusion models.” Continue reading Meta, Oxford Advance 3D Object Generation with VFusion3D

Music streaming service SoundCloud has added a digital merch outpost, the SoundCloud Store, where select artists who have signed up for the paid Next Pro tier can design exclusive merchandise for their fans — “with minimal effort — letting them focus on their craft while driving meaningful revenue beyond streaming.” The items will be manufactured by SoundCloud, which is launching what it calls “the first edition” of the SoundCloud Store in the U.S., Canada and European Union. Only artists that own 100 percent of their merchandise rights are invited to apply to participate. Continue reading SoundCloud Helping Artists to Design for New Merch Stores

Popular video platform Max and food delivery service DoorDash are the latest promotional pairing as streamers vie for new subscribers in an increasingly crowded field. Warner Bros. Discovery has teamed with DoorDash to offer DashPass Annual Plan customers a Max with Ads subscription at no additional cost. It is DoorDash’s first available DashPass member benefit that extends beyond the DoorDash platform. The DashPass Annual Plan membership costs $96 per year, while the Max with Ads tier runs $9.99 per month or $99.99 annually. The new promotion starts this week. Continue reading DoorDash Teams with WBD for a DashPass and Max Bundle

Yesterday’s Made by Google new product event was held earlier this year. Google was no doubt eager to announce, ahead of the holiday season, that it has joined Samsung as a leading smartphone manufacturer with system-level artificial intelligence across its flagship phone line. The mobile-optimized Gemini Nano AI tech, added in limited fashion to the Pixel 8 Pro, will now drive features across the Pixel 9 line, which has gone all-pro with three new models — the Pro 9, Pro 9 XL and Pro 9 Fold — all powered by Google’s latest Tensor 4 processor, designed to enhance AI functionality. Samsung has had AI-first phones since the Q1 debut of its Galaxy S24 line. Continue reading Made by Google Event Highlights Gemini AI, Pixel 9 and More

YouTube, which began testing crowdsourced fact-checking in June, is now expanding the experiment by inviting users to try the feature. Likened to the Community Notes accountability method introduced by Twitter and continued under X, YouTube’s as yet unnamed feature lets users provide context and corrections to posts that might be misleading or false. “You can sign up to submit notes on videos you find inaccurate or unclear,” YouTube explains, adding that “after submission, your note is reviewed and rated by others.” Notes widely rated as helpful “may be published and appear below the video.” Continue reading YouTube Tests Expanded Community Fact-Checking for Video

Meta Platforms has expanded its licensing deal with Universal Music Group, which now covers users sharing songs from the UMG library across Facebook, Instagram, Threads, WhatsApp and Horizon without fear of copyright violation. As part of a multiyear partnership, Meta and UMG will work together to address “unauthorized AI-generated content that could affect artists and songwriters.” This could encompass everything from users experimenting with voice copying or scraping songs for AI mashups to enterprise level crawling and theft for model training, and suggests Meta will be implementing a filtering system to detect infractions. Continue reading Meta, UMG Music Deal Emphasizes the Responsible Use of AI