Hasta La Gadget!

FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel has drafted a series of letters to nine major telecom companies, including AT&T and Comcast, to ask if they’re actually doing anything about AI political robocalls. AI-generated voices are getting pretty good at mimicking humans and we’ve already seen this technology in action, when an audio deepfake urged voters to skip the New Hampshire Democratic primary.

“We know that AI technologies will make it cheap and easy to flood our networks with deepfakes used to mislead and betray trust. It is especially chilling to see AI voice cloning used to impersonate candidates during elections. As AI tools become more accessible to bad actors and scammers, we need to do everything we can to keep this junk off our networks,” wrote Rosenworcel.

It’s worth noting that all AI robocalls were banned back in February, political or not, but the big telecom companies have yet to announce any enforcement plans. The mandate, however, does give State Attorneys General the ability to prosecute those involved in the robocalls.

Rosenworcel has also been trying to force political campaigns to disclose whether or not they used AI in TV or radio ads, as reported by US News & World Report. The proposed plan, however, has faced opposition from the Republican chair of the Federal Election Commission. Chairman Sean Cooksey wrote in a letter to Rosenworcel that the plan would overwrite the authority of the FEC to enforce federal campaign law, prompting a legal challenge.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/fcc-chair-asks-telecoms-companies-to-prove-theyre-actually-trying-to-stop-political-ai-robocalls-184227549.html?src=rss

Amazon Web Services has started an investigation to determine whether Perplexity AI is breaking its rules, according to Wired. To, be precise, the company’s cloud division is looking into allegations that the service is using a crawler, which is hosted on its servers, that ignores the Robots Exclusion Protocol. This protocol is a web standard, wherein developers put a robots.txt file on a domain containing instructions on whether bots can or can’t access a particular page. Complying with those instructions is voluntary, but crawlers from reputable companies have generally been respecting them since web developers started implementing the standard in the ’90s. 

In an earlier piece, Wired reported that it discovered a virtual machine that was bypassing its website’s robots.txt instructions. That machine was hosted on an Amazon Web Services server using the IP address 44.221.181.252 that’s “certainly operated by Perplexity.” It reportedly visited other Condé Nast properties hundreds of times over the past three months to scrape their content, as well. The Guardian, Forbes and The New York Times had also detected it visiting their publications multiple times, Wired said. To confirm whether Perplexity truly was scraping its content, Wired entered headlines or short descriptions of its articles into the company’s chatbot. The tool then responded with results that closely paraphrased its articles “with minimal attribution.” 

A recent Reuters report claimed that Perplexity isn’t the only AI company that’s bypassing robots.txt files to gather content used to train large language models. However, Amazon’s investigation seems to be focused on Perplexity AI only. An Amazon spokesperson told Wired that its customers have to comply with robots.txt instructions when crawling websites. “AWS’s terms of service prohibit customers from using our services for any illegal activity, and our customers are responsible for complying with our terms and all applicable laws,” they said. 

Perplexity spokesperson Sara Platnick told Wired that the company has already responded to Amazon’s inquiries and denied that its crawlers are bypassing the Robots Exclusion Protocol. “Our PerplexityBot — which runs on AWS — respects robots.txt, and we confirmed that Perplexity-controlled services are not crawling in any way that violates AWS Terms of Service,” she said. Platnick admitted, however, that PerplexityBot will ignore robots.text when a user includes a specific URL in their chatbot inquiry. 

Aravind Srinivas, the CEO of Perplexity, also previously denied that his company is “ignoring the Robot Exclusions Protocol and then lying about it.” Srinivas did admit to Fast Company that Perplexity uses third-party web crawlers on top of its own, and that the bot Wired identified was one of them.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/amazon-investigating-perplexity-ai-after-accusations-it-scrapes-websites-without-consent-133003374.html?src=rss

There are plenty of Lego sets that feature astronauts, but now there are Lego bricks made out of the stuff that astronauts find out there in the void. The Danish brickmaker has teamed up with the European Space Agency (ESA) to make Lego pieces from actual meteorite dust. Pretty cool, right? They are on display at several Lego store locations until September 20, including the big 5th Avenue branch in Manhattan.

This project isn’t just for giggles, though it is pretty fun. It’s a proof of concept to show how astronauts could use moondust to build lunar structures. Consider the sheer amount of energy and money required to haul up building materials from Earth to the Moon. It would be a game changer to, instead, build everything from pre-existing lunar materials.

There’s a layer of rock and mineral deposits at the surface of the Moon, which is called lunar regolith. It’s long been thought that regolith of some kind would be required to build our first off-world colonies. It’s readily available and there are several prospective methods to transform it into building materials. After all, humans have been making structures out of dirt, soil and sand for thousands of years.

Lego

However, there isn’t too much lunar regolith here on Earth for folks to experiment with. ESA scientists made their own regolith by grinding up a really old meteorite. The dust from this meteorite was turned into a mixture that was used to 3D print the Lego pieces. Voila. Moon bricks. They click together just like regular Lego bricks, though they only come in one color (space gray obviously.)

Lego

“Nobody has built a structure on the Moon, so it was great to have the flexibility to try out all kinds of designs and building techniques with our space bricks. It was both fun and useful in scientifically understanding the boundaries of these techniques,” said ESA Science Officer Aidan Cowley.

Humanity is actually getting closer than ever before to our first real lunar base. NASA has teamed up with the Italian Space Agency and the Thales Alenia Space Corporation to build the first permanent human outpost on the Moon, though it won’t happen until at least the 2030s. Recent designs for lunar habitats have ranged from something resembling a mobile home to full-fledged inflatable villages.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/lego-made-bricks-out-of-meteorite-dust-and-theyre-on-display-at-select-stores-161440194.html?src=rss

It’s safe to say Apple and the European Commission aren’t exactly bosom buddies. The two sides have been at loggerheads over Apple’s compliance — or alleged lack thereof — with the European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), a law designed to rein in the power of major tech companies.

Apple said last week it would delay the rollout of certain features in the European Union, including Apple Intelligence AI tools, over concerns “that the interoperability requirements of the DMA could force us to compromise the integrity of our products in ways that risk user privacy and data security.” As it turns out, the EU is not exactly happy about that decision.

The call to push back the rollout of Apple Intelligence in the EU is a “stunning, open declaration that they know 100 percent that this is another way of disabling competition where they have a stronghold already,” EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager said at a Forum Europa event, according to Euractiv. Vestager added that the “short version of the DMA” means companies have to be open for competition to keep operating in the region.

Not to leap to the defense of Apple here, but these comments are sure to raise an eyebrow or two, especially after Vestager also said she “was personally quite relieved that I would not get an AI-updated service on my iPhone.” Apple does intend to bring Apple Intelligence to Europe more broadly, but it’s taking a cautious approach with the tech in that region due to “regulatory uncertainties” and ensuring it won’t have to compromise on user safety.

As it stands, the European Commission is carrying out multiple investigations into the company over possible violations of the DMA. This week, it accused Apple of violating the law’s anti-steering provisions by blocking app developers from freely informing users about alternate payment options outside of the company’s ecosystem. If it’s found guilty, Apple could be on the hook for a fine of up to 10 percent of its global annual revenue. Based on its 2023 sales, that could be a penalty of up to $38 billion. The percentage of the fine can double for repeated violations.

Earlier this year, before the DMA came into force, the European Commission fined Apple €1.8 billion ($1.95 billion) over a violation of previous anti-steering rules. According to the Commission, Apple prevented rival music streaming apps from telling users that they could pay less for subscriptions if they sign up outside of iOS apps. Apple has challenged the fine.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/eu-competition-chief-jabs-at-apple-from-both-sides-over-ai-delay-140022585.html?src=rss

Lost Records: Bloom & Rage is a brand-new game from the creators of Life is Strange. It’s been described as a spiritual successor to that series and was previously scheduled to arrive in late 2024. However, publisher Don’t Nod has opted to delay Lost Records: Bloom & Rage and release it in early 2025 instead.

In fact, the delay is in large part due to a new Life is Strange game from another studio. Life is Strange: Double Exposure marks the return of the original game’s protagonist Max Caulfield. The sequel, from Square Enix and developer Deck Nine Games, is set to hit PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S in October, with a Switch release planned for later.

Don’t Nod says it wanted to give Lost Records: Bloom & Rage some breathing space to succeed following “an in-depth assessment of recent trends and developments in the industry.” But a quote from CEO Oskar Guilbert makes the reasoning more explicit. “We know that many of our fans are eagerly awaiting this game, just as they are the recently announced next installment of Life is Strange,” Guilbert said in a statement. “Let’s give both titles the space they need to be enjoyed by our players within the large community we have built.” 

While this update might be disappointing for those who were looking forward to Lost Records, it’s a smart call. It gives fans plenty of time to experience both games without too much overlap. 

In the meantime, Don’t Nod reckons that Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden, a surprisingly emotional action RPG from earlier this year that I enjoyed quite a bit, will boost its bottom line, especially in the long term. It also released the thoughtful climbing puzzle game Jusant late last year.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/life-is-strange-spiritual-successor-delayed-to-avoid-life-is-strange-sequel-124553471.html?src=rss