List of All Articles with Tag 'tec'

By Mike Scarcella Microsoft Corp evaded a potential early legal obstacle in its $69 billion deal to acquire

New AI tools that use generative artificial intelligence to manipulate photos have rendered traditional editing tools like PhotoShop obsolete, according to experts. One recently unveiled product called DragGAN allows users to radically alter pictures – from facial expressions to the layout of a landscape – with no prior editing experience. Developed by researchers at Google and the Max Planck Institute of Informatics, DragGAN works through a system that uses multiple points that users can “drag” to create different effects without compromising the image’s realism. “RIP Photoshop,” wrote tech entrepreneur and AI commentator Lorenzo Green. “In just a few clicks, you’ll be able to edit any image exactly the way you want... The applications are endless.” Examples of applications include changing the position of the Sun in the sky, altering the size and setting of a vehicle and editing an animal’s head to change its expression and shape. A research paper detailing the technology explained how the approach can “hallucinate occluded content, like the teeth inside a lion’s mouth”, while also deforming an object’s rigidity, like the bending of a horse’s leg. “Through DragGAN, anyone can deform an image with precise control over where pixels go, thus manipulating the pose, shape, expression, and layout of diverse categories such as animals, cars, humans, landscapes, etc.,” the paper stated. Other features recently launched by generative AI companies include Stability AI’s upscaler that allows users to quadruple the resolution of an image without compromising the sharpness of the original. “Since the emergence of digital imagery, it has been nearly impossible to expand small images into larger ones without compromising the quality of the image,” the company wrote in a recent blog post detailing the advance. “Upscaling adds to popular tools by expanding small images into larger ones while maintaining – or even improving – their level of detail.” While these tools currently go beyond what Adobe’s Photoshop is capable of, the photo editing giant announced earlier this year that it is working on generative AI models. Collectively dubbed Firefly, the next-generation features will allow creators to create images, audio, video, illustrations and 3D models with simple text inputs. “Generative AI is the next evolution of AI-driven creativity and productivity, transforming the conversation between creator and computer into something more natural, intuitive and powerful,” David Wadhwani, president of Adobe’s Digital Media Business, said in March. He added that the tools would help customers by “increasing productivity and creative confidence... from high-end creative professionals to the long tail of the creator economy.” Read More 10 ways AI will change the world – from curing cancer to wiping out humanity WhatsApp will let people change messages after they are sent New Twitter boss says ‘game on’ over Instagram clone rumours Meta hit with record €1.2 billion fine

WhatsApp will finally let people edit messages after they are sent. It means the app joins a range of other platforms, such as iMessage and Slack, in letting people fix problems in a message. And it follows the recent addition of the option to delete messages entirely. The feature is now rolling out to users across the world and will be available to everyone in the “coming weeks”, said Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive of WhatsApp parent company Meta.

By Elvira Pollina and Supantha Mukherjee MILAN/STOCKHOLM Italy's data protection authority Garante plans to review other artificial intelligence

JERUSALEM Israel aims to parlay its technological prowess to become an artificial intelligence "superpower", the Defence Ministry director-general

Micron Technology Inc expects China's ban on company's infrastructure chips to impact revenue in the low-single to high-single

The incoming head of Twitter has said she is ready to take on Instagram’s rumoured rival to the text-based app. Linda Yaccarino, who is set to take over as chief executive of the social media platform at the end of June, shared her reaction to the anticipated Twitter clone, tweeting: “Game on!” Instagram’s parent company Meta reportedly shared details about its plan for a microblogging app with creators last week, claiming that it would be partially integrated with Instagram. Leaked details suggest the as-yet unnamed app, codenamed P92 or Barcelona, will be decentralised and could work with Twitter’s rival Mastodon. “We’re exploring a standalone decentralised social network for sharing text updates,” Meta said in a statement to Money Control. “We believe there’s an opportunity for a separate space where creators and public figures can share timely updates about their interests.” Social media consultant Matt Navarra claimed that it would launch this summer, and that Instagram’s billion-plus users around the world would be able to keep their username, followers, and verification on the new app. He added that Meta is targetting “film and television actors, producers, writers, directors, showrunners, athletes, and comedians” to join the new platform. Elon Musk revealed Ms Yaccarino as his successor earlier this month, saying that she will focus primarily on business operations, while he continues to oversee “product design and new technology”. Together, they plan to transform Twitter into “the everything app”, which is expected to have similar functionality to China’s WeChat. Stretching beyond social media, Mr Musk’s X app could support shopping, news, mobile payments, and other services like booking restaurants and ordering taxis. “WeChat has a lot of functionality that Twitter should have,” he said during a Twitter Spaces session last year, just one month after acquiring the company in a deal worth $44 billion. The tech billionaire has also committed to making Twitter the “digital town square”, while acting as “an accelerant” to the X app. Read More Linda Yaccarino: How Elon Musk may have hired his biggest critic to head Twitter Google to delete Gmail and Photos accounts in huge purge Elon Musk calls working from home ‘morally wrong’ Sky Mobile hit by massive outage

Meta has been fined a record-breaking €1.2 billion ($1.3 billion) by European regulators for transferring data belonging to Facebook's EU users to servers in the United States.

Meta will be forced to pay a record €1.2 billion fine over claims it abused its users’ data. The Irish Data Protection Commission said that Meta had broken the EU’s data protection rules by moving data between Europe and the US. It had failed to protect European users from having their data used under US law when it did so, regulators said. It will now be fined €1.2 billion, as well as being required to delete the Facebook data or move it back into Europe. That fine is easily a record under the EU’s General Data Protection Regulations, or GDPR. The previous record was held by Amazon – which was fine €746 million by regulators in Luxembourg – though the four biggest fines after that have been paid by Meta as part of data issues at Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. Meta called the fine “unjustified and unnecessary”, and said that it would appeal the ruling. It also said that there would be no immediate disruption to the way Facebook works. The company has repeatedly threatened that new limits on how data is transferred to the US could cause it to shut down Facebook and Instagram in Europe. Meta said in response to the new ruling that it will be able to continue to operate as it does today if a new data agreement between the EU and US is able to come into effect. Previously, data sharing between the US and Europe was governed by a framework called the “Privacy Shield”, which allowed that data to flow if US companies showed they were using proper data protections. In 2020, however, that was scrapped after the European Court of Justice said that it was not properly protecting data. Since then, lawmakers have been working on a new deal, known as the Trans-Atlantic Data Privacy Framework, though that is yet to go into effect. But lawmakers have indicated that it should be ready by October, when the deadline for Meta to delete the Facebook data at the heart of the fine is up. Read More Instagram back online after hours of global outages Instagram experiencing global outages Solar panel efficiency to increase 50% with first ‘miracle’ tandem cells

Facebook owner Meta Platforms Inc. was hit by a record €1.2 billion ($1.3 billion) European Union privacy fine

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. has reopened a lead over internet giant Tencent Holdings Ltd. as Asia’s biggest company

Volatility gauges suggest traders expect smaller near-term swings in Ether compared with Bitcoin, a reversal of the usual