List of All Articles with Tag 'tech'

Beats has launched a new version of its Studio Pro over-ear headphones, with a host of updates. The Studio headphones were Beats’ first product, launched 15 years ago. Since then, the company has been acquired by Apple and undergone a host of changes – and now released a new version of the Studio Pro. They include a new look as well as changes on the inside. The new headphones include better sound, adaptive noise cancellation and transparency modes, personalised spatial audio, better battery life, lossless audio and better performance on calls, Apple said. “When Beats approached me to bring a new design language to the Studio Pro, my goal was to retain the integrity of the design while creating a more sophisticated look and feel that compliments all of the technological advancements,” said Samuel Ross, Beats Principal Design Consultant. “The result is the perfect blend of design culture, creative culture, and engineering coming together.” Beats has also added new leather cushions to the ears, which it calls “UltraPlush”. Those should make the headphones more comfortable through the day, it said. The sound has also ben improved, with new components that reduce distortion at high volumes by up to 80 per cent. As with many Beats products, the headphones bring a range of features best known from Apple. They include spatial audio, for instance, which can be boosted by using an iPhone to examine your ears to customise the sound. But it also offers extra Android compatibility, too. They include fast pairing on Android and Chrome devices and the ability to switch between them, as well as compatibility with Google’s Find My Device app. Beats Studio Pro will go on sale from 10 August, for £349.99 – £200 cheaper than the now almost three year old AirPods Max made by Apple. The new Beats are available in four colours and available from Apple. Read More Rare ‘Holy Grail’ iPhone sells for almost $200,000 Apple’s next iPhone may include new battery technology, report suggests Apple launches huge new payment upgrade for iPhone

TikTok has "more work" to do to meet tough new European standards that are coming for social media and content moderation, according to a top EU official who performed a "stress test" of the company this week.

Microsoft and Activision have mutually agreed to extend their merger deadline by three months in the face of ongoing negotiations with the UK government that could allow the $69 billion acquisition to close, the two companies announced on Wednesday.

Chipotle’s ‘Autocado’ takes the drudgery out of making guacamole.

(Reuters) -Activision Blizzard said on Wednesday it has extended the deadline for the close of its $69 billion takeover by

Activision Blizzard Inc. agreed to give Microsoft Corp. three more months to close their $69 billion merger so

Temu has sued Shein in the United States, accusing its rival of violating antitrust laws by trying to monopolize suppliers and engaging in other allegedly illegal behavior.

NEW DELHI/BENGALURU Google said on Wednesday an Indian court's directive ordering the company to charge a lower 4%

Talk of artificial intelligence (AI) models posing a threat to humanity has “run ahead of the technology”, according to Sir Nick Clegg. The former Liberal Democrat leader and deputy prime minister said concerns around “open-source” models, which are made freely available and can be modified by the public, were exaggerated, and the technology could offer solutions to problems such as hate speech. It comes after Facebook’s parent company Meta said on Tuesday that it was opening access to its new large language model, Llama 2, which will be free for research and commercial use. Generative AI tools such as ChatGPT, a chatbot that can provide detailed prose responses and engage in human-like conversations, have become widely used in the public domain in the last year. The models that we’re open-sourcing are far, far, far short of that. In fact, in many ways they’re quite stupid Sir Nick Clegg Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Wednesday, Sir Nick, president of global affairs at Meta, said: “My view is that the hype has somewhat run ahead of the technology. “I think a lot of the existential warnings relate to models that don’t currently exist, so-called super-intelligent, super-powerful AI models – the vision where AI develops an autonomy and agency on its own, where it can think for itself and reproduce itself. “The models that we’re open-sourcing are far, far, far short of that. In fact, in many ways they’re quite stupid.” Sir Nick said a claim by Dame Wendy Hall, co-chair of the Government’s AI Review, that Meta’s model could not be regulated and was akin to “giving people a template to build a nuclear bomb” was “complete hyperbole”, adding: “It’s not as if we’re at a T-junction where firms can choose to open source or not. Models are being open-sourced all the time already.” He said Meta had 350 people “stress-testing” its models over several months to check for potential issues, and that Llama 2 was safer than any other large language models currently available on the internet. Meta has previously faced questions around security and trust, with the company fined 1.2 billion euros (£1 billion) in May over the transfer of data from European users to US servers. Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live

By Toby Sterling AMSTERDAM Dutch semiconductor equipment maker ASML reported second-quarter earnings that beat expectations on Wednesday and

BEIJING The U.S. government's moves to restrict trade threatens globalisation in the semiconductor sector and consumer interests, the

Meta has unveiled its new artificial intelligence system “Llama 2” rivalling the likes of OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot. The Facebook parent company’s chief Mark Zuckerberg said on Tuesday that the new AI system, created after partnering with Microsoft, is free to use for research and commercial purposes in contrast to its competitors. Microsoft also said it aims to “democratise AI and its benefits” with the launch of Llama 2. A previous version known as Llama, had been launched in February, but leaked onto the internet in March and was tinkered with by the public since. Compared to some of their Big Tech rivals developing large AI language models, Meta and Microsoft said they seek to provide “an open approach”, offering researchers and companies a peek into the data and code they use to build their AI. “We believe an open approach is the right one for the development of today’s AI models, especially those in the generative space where the technology is rapidly advancing,” Meta noted in a blog post. “Giving businesses, startups, entrepreneurs, and researchers access to tools developed at a scale that would be challenging to build themselves, backed by computing power they might not otherwise access, will open up a world of opportunities for them to experiment, innovate in exciting ways, and ultimately benefit from economically and socially,” the tech giant noted. The new AI system Llama 2 is in contrast with other chatbots like ChatGPT by OpenAI and Bard by Google that are not open source. “Open source drives innovation because it enables many more developers to build with new technology,” Mr Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post. “It also improves safety and security because when software is open, more people can scrutinize it to identify and fix potential issues. I believe it would unlock more progress if the ecosystem were more open, which is why we’re open sourcing Llama 2,” he said. However, despite Meta’s claims of open-sourcing its new AI system, the data it used to build Llama 2 still remains unclear. A research paper released along with the new model says it was trained on “a new mix of data from publicly available sources, which does not include data from Meta’s products or services”, but does not mention specifically what data was used. The paper, however, noted that Meta removed data from websites containing a “high volume of personal information about private individuals”. The new AI models can be directly downloaded or via a partnership, which makes them available on Microsoft’s cloud platform Azure, Meta said. “Starting today, Llama 2 is available in the Azure AI model catalog, enabling developers using Microsoft Azure to build with it and leverage their cloud-native tools for content filtering and safety features,” it said. “It is also optimized to run locally on Windows, giving developers a seamless workflow as they bring generative AI experiences to customers across different platforms,” it said. Llama 2 is also available via Microsoft’s rival Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Hugging Face, among other providers, Meta said. Read More Threads starts limiting how many posts people can see as it is hit by spam attacks $44 billion and eight months later. It’s finally all over for Elon Musk ChatGPT rival with ‘no ethical boundaries’ sold on dark web Xbox and PlayStation sign major deal on the future of Call of Duty Microsoft changes its default typeface for only the second ever time Microsoft’s attempt to buy Call of Duty developer reaches huge new development