By a vote of 79-18, the Senate approved a measure that would require ByteDance to sell TikTok or face a ban. Next up for President Biden is the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act. The President has already announced that he will sign the bill. (Yes, as predicted, I’m writing about it again.)
TikTok has been in the ire of US politicians for several years, but this bill has gained support from both political parties. It passed through the House before being approved by the Senate on Tuesday (along with a foreign aid package).
The bill says TikTok would have up to 12 months to separate from its parent company ByteDance or face a ban from US app stores and web hosting services. The company has, of course, protested this move, calling the bill unconstitutional and promising to take legal action if the bill were to become law. If this is the case, it could languish in the courts for years before eventually being banned if the company refuses to sell. A few years is a long time on social media. Ask Snap or, even worse, Vine.
And who would buy TikTok? While many big tech companies would like to capture the social network’s dedicated young audience, many politicians would shy away from making a big tech company even bigger. Steve Mnuchin, who served as Treasury secretary in the Trump administration, told CNBC he was in the process of putting together a group of investors. What could go wrong?
– Mat Smith
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It is said to react similarly to models ten times its size.
Microsoft has unveiled its latest lightweight AI model called Phi-3 Mini for smartphones and other local devices. The aim is to provide a cheaper alternative to cloud-based Large Language Models (LLMs), allowing smaller organizations to adopt AI, presumably with lower energy requirements and without high processing costs. Microsoft says the new model significantly outperforms its previous small model, the Phi-2, and is on par with larger models like the Llama 2. In fact, the company says the Phi-3 Mini responds almost on par with a model ten times its size . The trick apparently lies in the data Microsoft used to train its tiny model.
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The function should be available in the Tesla app “in the future”.
Tesla announced the introduction of ride-hailing features to its app ahead of the unveiling of a robot taxi in August. The company released mockups of the upcoming feature, showing the ability to “summon” a ride via the Tesla app. The company promises self-driving taxi services. Tesla hasn’t revealed many details, but it appears to have Uber-like functionality and the ability to remotely adjust the car’s temperature before arrival.
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Take this, Humane.
After several months of testing, Meta is bringing multimodal AI to its smart glasses. Multimodal AI means the system can process multiple types of information, including photos, videos, text and audio. You may have seen feature showcases of AI-connected devices that can see what a device is currently looking at and offer additional information – something like that. Meta also announced the integration of hands-free video calling with WhatsApp and Messenger, as well as a few others frame designs.
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