Victoria Fox's Blog, page 135

Wolo closes a round of 1.5 million to grow in rentals

The long-term rental platform achieves the support of Inderhabs, Farside Ventures, GVC Gaesco and Relats, among other investors.

Wolo , a Barcelona-based long-term rental management platform, has closed a €1.5 million round with the aim of accelerating its business. The operation has been led by Inderhabs , an investment vehicle of the

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Google launches Gemini Ultra, its most powerful AI, for 22 euros per month

The company unifies its AI brand image under the umbrella of Gemini, which replaces Bard, and announces a mobile app for its intelligent assistant.

Google is making progress in monetizing its commitment to generative artificial intelligence while unifying its brand strategy under the Gemini umbrella. The company has announced a smart assistant for consumers, called Gemini Advanced, which uses its most powerful AI model, Gemini Ultra , for the first time. The subscription price is 21.99 euros per month, with a two-month free trial. The fee is in line with offerings from competitors such as Microsoft Copilot Pro and OpenAI’s ChatGPT Plus .

This version of Gemini in English for computers is available today in more than 150 countries and territories, including Spain . Google, which like the rest of the technology companies has the challenge of demonstrating the positive impact of AI on its bottom line, has assured in a press conference that its goal is to launch it in more languages soon, without specifying dates.

The digital giant has also announced that subscribers to this plan, called Google One AI Premium , will be able to use Gemini “soon” as an intelligent assistant in productivity applications such as Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Slides and Meet. The subscription also includes the 2Tb cloud storage service that is already offered under Google One Premium.

“Gemini Advanced not only allows for longer and more detailed conversations, but also better understands the context of previous requests,” explained Sissie Hsiao, CEO of Google.

Goodbye Bard

Google has also ended the Bard brand, the chatbot it launched last year to compete with OpenAI’s ChatGPT . The assistant has been rebranded as Gemini , “with the goal of simplifying” the branding of its AI strategy and reflecting “the advanced technology at its core,” says Sissie Hsiao. The free version of Gemini (formerly Bard) uses Gemini Pro, a less powerful version than the paid Ultra, and has been available in Spanish since the beginning of February.

The commitment to the Gemini brand is also carried into the field of productivity tools, so Duet AI is renamed Gemini for Workspace . The name change also carries over to Google Cloud enterprise customers.

Gemini mobile app

Likewise, the company has launched the Gemini application for Android and iOS mobile phones. This conversational and multimodal assistant is available today in English in the United States, and will arrive next week in more countries in English, as well as Japan and South Korea. The company says it is working with European regulators to ensure it complies with EU digital regulations, and hopes to launch the app in Europe “very soon.”

Users will be able to use Gemini as the main smart assistant on their Android phones if they wish, replacing Google Assistant . In addition to direct access to the application, the assistant can be “called” using various formulas, such as the “Hey Google” voice command or the power button.

Sundar Pichai , CEO of Google, stressed in a statement that Gemini Advanced improves the experience when it comes to “reasoning, following instructions, coding and collaborating creatively.” Last December, the company launched Gemini, its most advanced natural language model, to stand up to the technology of OpenAI, the great partner of its rival Microsoft .

Pichai indicates that Gemini Ultra “is the first to surpass human experts in mass multitasking language understanding.” Ultra is the most powerful version of the three that Google introduced in December, but it has not been released until now due to the need to refine the model with fine-tuning and human reinforcement learning.

Gemini is a multimodal AI model, that is, it can generalize and understand, operate and combine different types of information, such as text, images, audio, video and code languages.

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Disney Metaverse: Lady vs. Tramp: Modern Wooffare

On Wednesday, Disney announced it would invest $1.5 billion in Epic Games, the company behind Fortnite and the Unreal Engine development platform. The companies want to create a “completely new gaming and entertainment universe,” they say. Epic had already announced similar plans with Lego in December. What exactly players can experience in this universe is still unclear. But we have a few ideas for the Disney-Marvel- Star-Wars – Fortnite multiverse.

“Above” meets “Flight Simulator”

Experience a balloon-powered flight house as realistically as never before. Blow up 162,524 balloons individually (microphone blow detection optional) and take off in the true-to-original cockpit. Keep an eye on the wind direction and use the individually adjustable doors and windows to steer your home towards picturesque hills and challenging cliffs across the globe.

“101 Dalmatians” meets “Resident Evil”

You open your eyes. It is dark. A voice breathes: “Run, Lucky, run!” BANG! The door slams open and the outline of a bony woman can be seen in the backlight. In her hand: a long knife and a black and white bundle dripping with blood. Clumsily you pad away on your paws, you stagger on, you run, run and run. Until you’re alone. Now you have to survive.

“Frozen” meets “GTA”

A snowman drives the sleigh you want? Drag his cold ass down and grab the reins. Sell smuggled Ahtohallan water on dark trails, lure merchants from the southern islands into fjord barracks, and make the slopes of Arendelle your turf.

“Star Wars” meets “The Sims”

Finally an open kitchen in the Death Star! Experience and shape the everyday life of Han, Palpatine, Anakin or Leia, without the stress of saving or destroying the world. And if you do want to avenge Obi-Wan, how about the old trick: send Vader into the pool and dismantle the stairs.

“Susi and the Tramp” meets “Call of Duty”

In Lady vs. Tramp: Modern Wooffare, you join the elite house dogs or the clever street dogs to finally decide who owns this damn city. Get out the spaghetti blaster and the meatball bazooka and show your opponent who the alpha male is! Special skins as Sergeant Tramp and Sniper Susi are only available as an in-game purchase.

“Bambi” meets “Baldur’s Gate”

First, choose your class: Do you want the high speed of a thumper that dances around enemies, the ranged skills of a flower that attacks from the background, or are you a Bambi tank that attacks head-on? Go on quests in the forest with your party, slay packs of hunting dogs and, after 300 hours of play, free Feline from the hunter’s clutches. Then again, but as Godrun , live on Twitch.

“Beauty and the Beast” meets “Stronghold”

The villagers come with torches and pitchforks – defend yourself! Recruit three-armed archers, standing clock knights and pour the hot water of the teapot cavalry on the attackers, the main thing is that the farmers don’t sniff your rose. But don’t forget that a beast also needs a lot to eat: the granary is empty, my lord.

“The Lion King” meets “Anno”

This will all be yours, Simba. But the eternal circle of life does not regulate itself. Giraffes want to graze, elephants need to be buried. And if you don’t allow enough zebras to hunt, your reputation among the hyenas will decrease. But a few Rafikis raise the spiritual contentment in the savannah.

“Finding Nemo” meets “Assassin’s Creed”

You are Nemo Auditore da Firenze, an Italian nobleman and member of the secret society of the Eel Assassins. Pull your kaalpuze deep into your face, solve the conspiracy of the temple sharks and assassinate your opponents with the hidden fin. But be careful: only those who can master the pacing course through the aquarium followed by the splash of death can be a true master eel assassin.

On Wednesday, Disney announced it would invest $1.5 billion in Epic Games, the company behind Fortnite and the Unreal Engine development platform. The companies want to create a “completely new gaming and entertainment universe,” they say. Epic had already announced similar plans with Lego in December. What exactly players can experience in this universe is still unclear. But we have a few ideas for the Disney-Marvel- Star-Wars – Fortnite multiverse.

Experience a balloon-powered flight house as realistically as never before. Blow up 162,524 balloons individually (microphone blow detection optional) and take off in the true-to-original cockpit. Keep an eye on the wind direction and use the individually adjustable doors and windows to steer your home towards picturesque hills and challenging cliffs across the globe.

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Facebook and Instagram: Facebook group Meta violates German law with paid subscriptions

The online group Meta violated provisions of German consumer protection law when introducing an ad-free version of the Facebook and Instagram networks. This was determined by the Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court. The injunction brought by the North Rhine-Westphalia Consumer Center concerned the design of the order button with which a subscription order is completed. The judgment is now legally binding.

According to the German Civil Code (BGB), order buttons must clearly indicate an obligation to pay. This was also previously decided by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in 2022. According to this, consumers must expressly confirm when placing an order that it is associated with a payment obligation.

Labeling of the order button needs to be changed

The button must then contain the wording “order with payment” or another clear text. But Meta had only labeled the order button “Subscribe”. In the apps on smartphones, the order button was labeled “Proceed to payment”.

The consumer advice center saw this as a violation of consumer protection law because the order buttons did not adequately indicate that a paid subscription contract would be concluded upon confirmation. The Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court granted the application. The wording “subscribe” is not enough because there are also free subscriptions. The fact that the cost of the subscription is clearly stated before and during the ordering process is irrelevant. Only the text on the button is decisive.

According to the ruling, the order button in the apps “Proceed to payment” also does not meet the legal consumer protection requirements. There is, however, no indication that there is a charge here. However, it is not clear to the consumer that he is already concluding a contract by pressing this button and is not simply being redirected to another page to provide his data and conclude a binding contract.

Consumer advice center NRW also wants to take action against the “pay-or-consent” model

The North Rhine-Westphalia consumer advice center welcomed the judge’s ruling. “Even a globally active company like Meta has to adhere to European and German consumer protection regulations,” said the consumer advice center’s board member, Wolfgang Schuldzinski.

According to consumer advocates, Meta is also violating data protection law by introducing the pay-or-consent model (pay or agree to advertising). For free but advertising-financed use, the provider does not obtain effective consent to the use of personal data for advertising purposes. According to the information, the data protection issues are the subject of further proceedings by the North Rhine-Westphalia Consumer Center against Meta.

Meta offers an ad-free version of the network for customers in Germany, among others. The price for Facebook without advertising is 9.99 euros per month. The subscription to Instagram costs 12.99 euros. Anyone who accepts personalized ads can continue to use the networks free of charge.

The online group Meta violated provisions of German consumer protection law when introducing an ad-free version of the Facebook and Instagram networks. This was determined by the Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court. The injunction brought by the North Rhine-Westphalia Consumer Center concerned the design of the order button with which a subscription order is completed. The judgment is now legally binding.

According to the German Civil Code (BGB), order buttons must clearly indicate an obligation to pay. This was also previously decided by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in 2022. According to this, consumers must expressly confirm when placing an order that it is associated with a payment obligation.

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One Sec: Finally down with screen time

Some things don’t change the world. But they make our everyday lives a little more pleasant. Or they are simply “nice to have”. Or even both. The ZEIT-ONLINE series “ nice and useful ” is about these gadgets and apps.

Lights off, sleep, but then being sucked into a TikTok maelstrom of stunt cats and Friends snippets for an hour: That’s the digital reality of 2024. Yes, of course, a lot of screen time really isn’t that bad. You can spend your time on screens very sensibly, memorizing three Wikipedia pages a day, for example. And whether we all have digital dementia is also rather questionable. But I doubt that many people feel really good after 45 minutes in the end-of-the-world Elon Musk Twitter algorithm. In any case, I don’t feel good afterwards.

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Artificial Intelligence: US bans automated calls using AI-generated voices

The US communications regulator has banned automated advertising calls with voices generated by artificial intelligence. The telecommunications authority FCC can thus impose fines on companies that use AI voices in their calls or block service providers that transmit such voices.

For calls with voices generated by artificial intelligence, the prior consent of the recipient is essential, the FCC said. The originators of such calls would also have to clearly identify themselves. The decision takes effect immediately. Violators can be fined more than $23,000 per call, according to the FCC.

A few weeks ago, automated calls with a deceptively real-sounding imitation of President Joe Biden’s voice caused a stir in the USA . The message of the calls was not to participate in the New Hampshire state Democratic Party primary.

Fear of influencing elections

The incident fueled concerns that in the coming months there could be attempts to influence the outcome of the November presidential election by spreading AI fakes. Authorities have now identified a Texas company as the originator of the calls and are taking action against them.

“Malicious actors are using AI-generated voices in unsolicited calls to blackmail vulnerable family members, impersonate celebrities, and misinform voters,” said agency Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel. “We are informing the fraudsters behind these calls.”

The US communications regulator has banned automated advertising calls with voices generated by artificial intelligence. The telecommunications authority FCC can thus impose fines on companies that use AI voices in their calls or block service providers that transmit such voices.

For calls with voices generated by artificial intelligence, the prior consent of the recipient is essential, the FCC said. The originators of such calls would also have to clearly identify themselves. The decision takes effect immediately. Violators can be fined more than $23,000 per call, according to the FCC.

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Indra is awarded a 10-year contract for air traffic control in Canada

Indra today announced an agreement to deploy its air traffic control systems with Nav Canada , the air navigation manager of the North American state, an entity similar to the Spanish company Enaire.

The first phase of the agreement will address the deployment of a next-generation flight data processing system (FDPS) and an air traffic flow management (iACM) system for complex airspace within the Nav Canada center responsible for managing the air navigation network of the country, as stated by the Spanish company in a statement.

The agreement involves introducing Trajectory Based Operations (TBO) in Canada, guiding air traffic management towards an approach with a more complete view of the flight from takeoff to landing. This new technology can calculate routes with great precision and predict the evolution of air traffic over a long horizon, allowing for greater planning and coordination. This will provide greater flexibility that will result in improved traffic flow within Canadian airspace and the rest of the network. The result will be more efficient routes for air operators and a reduction in fuel consumption and associated greenhouse gas emissions, while providing greater operational resilience and meeting the needs to increase capacity for manage more flights.

This agreement reinforces the collaboration between Nav Canada , the British NATS and the Norwegian Avinor , which also have Indra as a strategic technological partner. Both companies have welcomed this important agreement.

The technology will be deployed over ten years at all NAV CANADA facilities. “We are proud to announce that we have reached an agreement with Indra to deploy the next generation of air traffic management systems in Canada,” said Raymond G. Bohn , president and CEO of Nav Canada . “Once completed, it will be a generational leap in the tools we provide to our employees.”

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The National Court suspends the fine of 194 million to Apple and Amazon

The two technology giants face the second largest file imposed by the CNMC in their history. The sanction against Apple, of 143 million, is the largest for a single company

The National Court has provisionally suspended the sanction of 194 million euros imposed by the National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC) on Apple and Amazon for restricting competition in Amazon’s market place . Apple was saint

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Photo app: Shares of Snapchat operator collapse

The shares of the photo app operator Snap have fallen by almost a third. Wall Street reacted to the company’s latest figures. Accordingly, Snap missed analysts’ sales expectations and also startled investors with a surprisingly high loss forecast for the current quarter. In after-hours trading on Tuesday, the shares temporarily fell by more than 31 percent.

For the current quarter, the company, which operates the photo app Snapchat, expects sales of between $1.095 and $1.135 billion. At the same time, the company expects a loss before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. This should be between 55 and 95 million dollars.

In the fourth quarter of last year, Snap’s revenue was around $1.36 billion. Analysts had expected $1.38 billion. The company’s annual revenue was $4.6 billion in 2023 – unchanged from the previous year.

Snap wants to cut a tenth of its jobs

Earlier this week, Snap announced significant job cuts. According to this, around 10 percent of jobs will be lost. Around a fifth of the jobs had already been cut in August 2022.

Snap used to grow rapidly. The now slow sales growth at best is probably also related to the strong competition – for example from Google and the Facebook group Meta.

The shares of the photo app operator Snap have fallen by almost a third. Wall Street reacted to the company’s latest figures. Accordingly, Snap missed analysts’ sales expectations and also startled investors with a surprisingly high loss forecast for the current quarter. In after-hours trading on Tuesday, the shares temporarily fell by more than 31 percent.

For the current quarter, the company, which operates the photo app Snapchat, expects sales of between $1.095 and $1.135 billion. At the same time, the company expects a loss before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. This should be between 55 and 95 million dollars.

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AI Act: Regulated Intelligence

All questions at a glance: Will Europe become a role model worldwide? What exactly is regulated in the AI Act? Why do you need an AI law? What regulations apply to particularly powerful AI? Will Europe become a role model worldwide?

The EU is hoping for the “Brussels effect,” which should even affect large American corporations. The calculation is that the corporations do not want to do without their customers in the European Union; and since it would be expensive and time-consuming to produce products according to different standards, they end up following the rules of the most strictly regulated market – i.e. the European one. A positive example of this effect is the EU General Data Protection Regulation, which Microsoft adheres to worldwide.

However, how much the AI Act influences AI developers outside the EU will depend on where their systems are used. The AI Act will have little impact on local applications that are tailored to a specific country – such as systems for assessing the creditworthiness of Americans or AI applications in British authorities.

The situation is different with consumer products such as image generators or chatbots, which are operated across international platforms. The standards of the AI Act could become established internationally here. The same applies to applications that are classified as “high risk” by the EU and to which it sets particularly high security requirements.

This could bring contracts and funding to relevant research. In order to check whether the AI systems comply with EU rules, considerable scientific effort will be required in the future; also to develop AI systems whose functionality is understandable to third parties, which make fair decisions and are robust against cyber attacks.

And then there are the new transparency requirements: The AI Act, for example, requires companies to disclose their training data. So far, the big tech companies have been able to expand their market power because they kept their data sets secret – and independent developers had little chance of letting their machines learn with anywhere near as large amounts of data. The EU wants this secrecy to come to an end. However, whether and how the transparency obligation has a concrete impact will probably only become clear when the AI Act comes into force.

What exactly is regulated in the AI Act?

The core of the law is that AI applications are divided into risk classes. Low-risk programs are rarely regulated. However, special rules apply to high-risk applications.

A high-risk case, for example, would be an AI that helps decide whether a person receives unemployment benefits. If this program gives incorrect advice or disadvantages certain groups over others, it could have serious consequences for those affected. High-risk applications also include systems that could be used, for example, to process asylum applications or support human resources departments in searching application documents for suitable candidates.

Companies that develop or use such programs must meet requirements to minimize the risks. For example, they need to ensure that the data used to train the AI adequately represents the people it affects. In addition, humans must be able to monitor and review the AI’s decisions.

Of course, this cannot guarantee that something will never go wrong with such technology. Nevertheless, many experts believe that the approach is correct: not to regulate artificial intelligence in principle, but only to regulate certain applications of this technology. Even a very simple AI system can cause great damage if used in a critical area.

Why do you need an AI law?

An AI Act is better than no AI Act. This is what the proponents of the new EU law regulating artificial intelligence (AI) argue, somewhat pointedly. Last week, business associations, researchers and civil society organizations called for this AI law, the AI Act, not to be allowed to fail. A “missing legal framework” would be “risky for fundamental rights protection and innovation in Europe,” it said in one of several open letters. The concern was unfounded: last Friday the AI Act was adopted in the Council of the European Union. Europe’s Parliament still has to agree, but an important step has been taken towards the world’s first comprehensive AI law, which has been the subject of wrangling for years.

The law has been in the works since 2021. But it wasn’t until ChatGPT triggered the global AI hype in November 2022 that many people realized that artificial intelligence – similar to the Internet – could change every area of life in the future. This spurred the desire for rules to govern the use of the technology.

However, it was controversial until recently how far these rules should go. In the federal government, Digital Minister Volker Wissing in particular expressed concern that too much regulation could prevent European companies from catching up with American competition. However, Wissing was unable to assert himself in the cabinet; Like all other member states, the federal government also agreed to the AI Act.

This primarily concerns rules for companies that develop or use AI systems. Not everyone is happy with the duties that come their way; Nevertheless, even some companies spoke out in favor of the law in order to have legal certainty.

Among other things, the AI Act is intended to ensure that automated decisions that affect people are fair and understandable. Some AI applications are also simply banned. For example, employers are not allowed to install systems that automatically detect how employees are feeling based on their facial expressions or tone of voice. It should be clear to many people that such rules make sense.

What regulations apply to particularly powerful AI?

Until recently, there was debate about how to regulate the technology behind large language models such as ChatGPT. Because it has so many possible applications, it is difficult to classify it into one risk class. The so-called AI foundation models can not only drive chatbots, but also supplement the software of law firms or human resources departments, for example, to make critical decisions.

If such a system makes a mistake, it could be due to incorrect application – or the underlying basic model. In order to be able to understand this, the providers of such models must provide users with relevant information. This means: Large AI developers such as OpenAI or Google must reveal so many technical details to German medium-sized companies so that they can develop “a good understanding of the possibilities and limitations” of the basic AI systems.

Even stricter rules apply to providers of particularly large and technically sophisticated AI systems: for example, they must also take cybersecurity measures. A number of AI researchers have vehemently called for such rules because they assume that the most powerful models pose the greatest risks from AI.

Whether these strict rules apply to a system depends, among other things, on the computing power used to train the AI. The threshold is so high that hardly any system available on the market currently exceeds it.

During the negotiations, the federal government, among others, advocated that no special regulations should apply to basic models. The concern also played a role that the rules from Brussels could put European companies at a massive disadvantage compared to competition from the USA or China. This was pointed out in advance by both the French AI company Mistral AI and the German start-up Aleph Alpha, two of the most promising European AI hopes that are developing basic models themselves. She is worried that the AI Act could slow down her work before it has really gotten going. In this case, the Europeans once again left AI development (and future dominance in this field) to large American corporations.

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