Gadgets And Technology Daily News | 17 May 2023
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OpenAI Chief to Propose Mandatory License for Firms Building ChatGPT-Like Powerful AI at US Congress
OpenAI, the startup behind ChatGPT, wants the US to consider mandating licenses for companies to develop powerful artificial intelligence like the kind underpinning its chatbot, its chief executive plans to tell Congress on Tuesday.
In his first appearance before a congressional panel, CEO Sam Altman is set to advocate licensing or registration requirements for AI with certain capabilities, his written testimony shows. That way, the US can hold companies to safety standards, for instance testing systems before their release and publishing the results.
"Regulation of AI is essential," Altman said in the prepared remarks which were seen by Reuters.
For months, companies large and small have raced to bring increasingly dexterous AI to market, throwing endless data and billions of dollars at the challenge. Some critics fear the technology will exacerbate societal harms, among them prejudice and misinformation, while others warn AI could end humanity itself.
The White House has convened top technology CEOs including Altman to address AI. US lawmakers likewise are seeking action to further the technology's benefits and national security while limiting its misuse. Consensus is far from certain.
An OpenAI staffer recently proposed the creation of a US licensing agency for AI, which could be called the Office for AI Safety and Infrastructure Security, or OASIS, Reuters has reported.
Altman did not comment on OASIS in the written testimony, though he advocated "a governance regime flexible enough to adapt to new technical developments" and "regularly update the appropriate safety standards."
Technology experts have said licenses risked crowding out smaller players or losing relevance if AI evolves too quickly, though they would help the US focus oversight and protect against abuses.
OpenAI is backed by Microsoft. Altman is also calling for global cooperation on AI and incentives for safety compliance.
Tuesday's hearing marks an important step toward US oversight, leaders of the Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on Privacy, Technology & the Law have said.
"AI is no longer fantasy or science fiction. It is real, and its consequences for both good and evil are very clear and present," said Senator Richard Blumenthal, the subcommittee's chair. It is important that AI does not lead to an explosion of disinformation and identity fraud, he said, and the industry should be subject to transparency and accountability.
Another witness on Tuesday will be Christina Montgomery, International Business Machines Corp's chief privacy and trust officer. She is expected to urge Congress to focus regulation on areas with the potential to do the greatest societal harm.
© Thomson Reuters 2023
Royal Challengers Bangalore Enters Web3 Space, Ties Up With Rario for Digital Trading Cards of RCB Players
Cricket in India boasts a distinct and massive fan following, one that is unmatched by other sports. In addition to the Indian team, the Indian Premier League (IPL), too, enjoys unrivalled popularity in the country, regularly logging record streaming views. Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB), the team comprising former India captain and cricket superstar Virat Kohli, as well as a host of international players, is currently competing for a playoff spot in the ongoing edition of the IPL. RCB has now hopped onboard the Web3 wagon, which could give the sector a notable push among cricket loyalists in the world's most populous nation. The IPL team has partnered up with Rario, an India-based digital collectibles platform developed especially for cricket fans, to launch digital trading cards for their supporters.
The Web3 partnership was announced on Tuesday, May 16. In the coming days, RCB fans will be able to purchase exclusive, blockchain-supported collectibles, featuring popular team members including Glenn Maxwell, Kedar Jadhav, Shahbaz Ahmed, and Virat Kohli, who is the world's most followed sportsperson on Instagram, among other players.
The move is expected to contribute to the evolution of cricket fandom and fan engagement in the coming times, Rajesh Menon, the Head and Vice President of RCB, believes.
“Our partnership will give fans a sense of ownership and a deeper sense of connection with their favourite team, RCB. This represents the next step in the sports engagement landscape, and we are proud to set our step in the right direction as a progressive franchise,” Menon said in a prepared statement.
Previously, Rario had teamed up with other IPL teams including Punjab Kings, Gujarat Titans, and Kolkata Knight Riders to offer similar digital trading cards to the supporters of these teams.
Thankyou @rariohq @shubh_vachanA cherished possession for life! Signed bat by @virendersehwag pic.twitter.com/PkolUgNgsO
Happy to see, I'm got @venkateshiyer in gold badge:purple_heart::partying_face: ..@KKRiders @rariohq @shubh_vachan pic.twitter.com/DL8Em3daSS
Rario lets fans collect and trade iconic moments from games and store them in the form of video formats and player cards. These digital cards essentially fall into the category of non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
Founded in 2021 by IIT Alumni Ankit Wadhwa and Sunny Bhanot, Rario lets users use these digital cards in fantasy contests in the D3 Club.
The company, which claims to be the first licensed cricket collectible platform in the world, recently ran into trouble with law enforcement authorities in India.
Earlier this month, the Delhi High Court dismissed Rario's plea that questioned its rival marketplace Striker's practice of developing NFTs inspired by the public information available on cricket players. Rario, in its petition, had said that Striker is even producing digital artworks related to the cricketers who have signed NFT and Web3-related partnerships with Rario.
Replying to Rario's plea, the court said that no company has any exclusive rights on the identities of any public personality and that the NFT is open for industry payers to experiment with.
Cryptocurrency is an unregulated digital currency, not a legal tender and subject to market risks. The information provided in the article is not intended to be and does not constitute financial advice, trading advice or any other advice or recommendation of any sort offered or endorsed by NDTV. NDTV shall not be responsible for any loss arising from any investment based on any perceived recommendation, forecast or any other information contained in the article.
OnePlus 12 Specifications Tipped, Likely to Have Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC: All Details
OnePlus 12 is expected to succeed the OnePlus 11 5G, which launched earlier this year in February. The phone is speculated to be released with several improvements in specifications and design over its preceding models. The OnePlus 11 is powered by an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 SoC and features a triple rear camera unit with a 50-megapixel Sony IMX890 primary sensor. A tipster has now suggested that the purported OnePlus 12 will feature a considerable camera upgrade and will likely launch with a more powerful processor than its predecessor.
Well-known tipster Digital Chat Station wrote in a Weibo post that OnePlus and Realme were both testing periscope lenses on handsets with the SM8650 chipset. An Android Authority report said that the model number SM8659 hints at a yet-to-be-announced Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC. The tipster added that out of all the handsets that are reportedly testing periscope lenses, not all of them feature the OmniVision OV64B camera sensor.
The upcoming OnePlus model cited in the post can be deduced to be the OnePlus 12, the successor to the flagship OnePlus 11 model. The OnePlus 12 is expected to logically launch next year, in 2024. It is likely to be released after Qualcomm launches the new Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset, succeeding the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 SoC, the company's fastest and most powerful chip yet.
As per the tipster, the periscope lens being suggested in the post will result in higher quality zoomed photos, as well as a higher capacity to zoom, beyond the usual 2x zoom. Oppo's Find X6 Pro features periscopic lenses alongside Samsung's Galaxy S23 Ultra, which offers up to 10 times optical zoom. Meanwhile, the popular Google's Pixel 7 Pro also offers up to five times optical zoom. Even upcoming iPhone models are expected to sport periscopic lenses.
The OnePlus 11 5G used Sony IMX890, IMX581, and IMX709 sensors with zooming capabilities of up to two times. The rumoured successor to this model, the OnePlus 12, could likely use the OmniVision OV64B sensor and help create better, more detail-oriented zoomed images with the reported periscopic lenses.
OnePlus 11 5G is powered by an octa-core Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 SoC with an Adreno 740 GPU, paired with up to 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM and up to 256GB of UFS 4.0 inbuilt storage. It is backed by a 5,000mAh battery with 100W wired SuperVOOC fast charging support. Offered in Eternal Green and Titan Black colour options, the 8GB + 128GB variant of the phone is marked at Rs. 56,999, while the 12GB + 256G is priced at Rs. 61,999.
The Witcher Multiplayer Spin-Off Studio Hit With Layoffs Due to Game Reboot: Report
The Witcher multiplayer spin-off game — codenamed ‘Sirius' — underwent a major overhaul last week, thanks to a developmental restart that defined a ‘new framework.' In the process, developer The Molasses Flood has reportedly laid off 29 employees — 21 team members in the US and eight from Poland. The Boston-based studio, best known for the roguelike survival game The Flame in the Hood, was confirmed to be leading development on The Witcher multiplayer spin-off last year, with direct support from CD Projekt Red. At the time, a single-player campaign mode was mentioned as well, though now, it's unclear if it's still on the table.
The Molasses Flood was founded in 2014 by a group of veteran developers who worked on Halo and BioShock, after which, it was acquired by The Witcher maker in 2021. “Because the project changed, so has the composition of the team that's working on it–mainly on The Molasses Flood's side,” a CD Projekt Red spokesperson said in a statement to Kotaku. Back in March, the publisher filed an impairment charge on Sirius, which is naturally done as a means to write off assets because they serve negligible value to the company. But during a financial earnings call in April, the company confirmed that the project had not been cancelled and that it was simply being reevaluated.
“So this is a project which is, I would say, insourced. It's also new to us in terms of design and format. For those reasons, it's very different from the big productions we are known for,” Adam Kiciński, CEO, CD Projekt Red, said in the Q&A session. “To stay competitive, we have to keep looking for new ways to extend our franchises.”
The multiplayer-focused ‘Sirius' was announced in October last year, alongside plans for a new The Witcher trilogy — dubbed ‘The Witcher Polaris' — and an open-world remake of the first game in the fantasy RPG franchise, fully rebuilt from the ground up using Unreal Engine 5. Polish studio Fool's Theory is leading development on it, which consists of veteran The Witcher series staff and likely follows the same story as the original — monster hunter Geralt of Rivia going on a quest to regain his memories across a fantastical landscape. While the 2007 title received an Enhanced Edition before, this one is the first time it's being fully rebuilt. Meanwhile, we already received an update on The Witcher 4 in March 2022, which marks the first entry in the new trilogy.
CD Projekt Red is also working on the Cyberpunk 2077 expansion, Phantom Liberty, featuring actor Idris Elba as Solomon Reed, an FIA agent for the ‘New United States of America.' Currently, there is no release date for the same but is expected to drop sometime this year on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series S/X. During the October presentation, the publisher also announced a sequel, codenamed ‘Orion,' which is touted to take the “Cyberpunk franchise further and continue harnessing the potential of this dark future universe.” Kiciński noted at the time that development on the sequel was still in the early stages and required further growth of the team.
Boat Storm Connect Plus Smartwatch With Bluetooth Calling, 2.5D Curved Display Launched in India: Price, Features
Boat Storm Connect Plus smartwatch was unveiled in India on Tuesday. The smartwatch is equipped with a 1.91-inch display with up to 550 nits of peak brightness and a 2.5D curved glass with a 90 percent screen-to-body ratio. The smartwatch features support for Bluetooth calling, along with the company's ENx algorithm, which is claimed to eliminate background noise during Bluetooth calls. It features over 100 watch faces and also offers health measurement tools including a heart rate tracker and SpO2 monitor.
Boat Storm Connect Plus smartwatch price in India is set at Rs. 1,999. It is worth noting that the company says this is introductory pricing and is yet to reveal the retail pricing of the device. It is available in four colour variants — Active Black, Active Blue, Cool Grey, and Maroon.
The smartwatch can be purchased via the official Boat website.
Boat Storm Connect Plus smartwatch sports a 1.91-inch HD display with 550 nits brightness and 2.5D curved glass with a 90 percent screen-to-body ratio. The watch is equipped with a square dial. It supports Bluetooth calling enabling users to make and receive phone calls directly from the watch while the company's ENx algorithm is claimed to cancel background voice to offer noise-free calling using the watch.
The smartwatch also offers health-tracking features like SpO2 monitoring and heart rate sensors. The Boat Storm Connect Plus also features over 100 sports modes.
Users can also pick from over 100 watch faces to customise the wearable device. The Boat Storm Connect Plus also has an IP68 rating for dust and water resistance.
The Boat Storm Connect Plus smartwatch houses a 300mAh battery which is said to be fully charged in 2 hours. The watch is claimed to last for up to seven days with regular use. Other highlights of the watch are an alarm, countdown timer, stopwatch, push notification for SMS, social media and apps. It also features music controls, camera controls, and weather updates, according to the company.
Vivo V29e Specifications and Launch Timeline Leak, May Feature Dimensity 7000 Series SoC: Details
Vivo V29e specifications and features have surfaced on the Internet, hinting at the upcoming launch of a new Vivo V-series handset. It is likely to launch next month, according to a new report. The phone is speculated to be powered by a Dimensity 7000 Series SoC. However, Vivo is yet to reveal any details of the purported smartphone, which is tipped to arrive in three colour options. It is also said to be equipped with a 4,600mAh battery along with support for 80W fast charging.
According to a Pricebaba report citing tipster Paras Guglani (Twitter @passionategeekz), the purported Vivo V29e could be powered by a Dimensity 7000 Series SoC, up to 12GB of RAM, 256GB of storage and a 4,600mAh battery with support for 80W charging.
The report also suggests that the phone will ship with a 64-megapixel primary camera sensor. Additionally, the phone is expected to debut in Gold, Blue, and Black colour options.
Vivo is yet to announce any details of the purported handset's launch timeline, but the report states that the Vivo V29e will be launched in June.
Earlier this year, Vivo unveiled the Vivo V27e in Malaysia. The phone sports a 6.62-inch Full HD+ AMOLED display with a 2,400 × 1,080-pixel resolution, capacitive multi-touch support and 120Hz refresh rate.
The handset is powered by a MediaTek Helio G99 SoC coupled with 8GB RAM and runs Android 13-based Funtouch OS 13. The smartphone features a 64-megapixel primary rear camera with OIS and dual 2-megapixel sensors for bokeh and macro shots. For selfies and video calls, it houses a 32-megapixel front-facing camera.
The Vivo V27e is equipped with up to 256GB storage and is equipped with a 4,600mAh battery with support for 66W flash charging. It also has an in-display fingerprint sensor. The Vivo comes in Glory Black and Lavender Purple colours.
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