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When Foxconn announced its plans to open facilities in Wisconsin back in 2017, it promised to invest $10 billion into bringing production to the US that was expected to lead to as many as 13,000 jobs. Now, the Taiwanese supplier to tech giants like Apple is selling two properties in Eau Claire and Green Bay, purchased for almost $12 million in 2018. The property listings were first reported by Wisconsin Public Radio (via Gizmodo and The Verge), which revealed that only three floors of the Green Bay building's six floors are in use. Meanwhile, the portion Foxconn owns in a mixed-use property in Eau Claire has reportedly remained empty for years. 

Foxconn originally said that it was going to build "innovation centers" in Wisconsin, including one that will serve as an LCD factory. The project was supposed to be massive enough to strike a $2.85 billion tax credit deal with the local government. At the time the project was announced, then President Donald Trump said that if he didn't get elected, Foxconn "wouldn't be spending $10 billion" on manufacturing in the US. The former president was also there when the project broke ground, equipped with a golden shovel. 

In 2021, however, Foxconn massively altered the scale of the project and told the local government that it would be investing $672 million instead of $10 billion like it intended. It also reduced the number of potential jobs produced to 1,454 from 13,000 positions. The company said back then that its original projections "changed due to unanticipated market fluctuations" and that reducing the scale of its project in the US gives it the "flexibility to pursue business opportunities in response to changing global market conditions."

Foxconn didn't comment on its Eau Claire property, but it told WPR that it "will add to the vibrancy of the city's downtown." Green Bay Mayor Eric Genrich posted on X that he hopes a sale "will lead to better utilization of a fantastic waterfront building."

Mercedes-Benz is launching its high-power charging hub network in the fourth quarter of 2023 with speeds as high as 400kW — more than any EV on the market can handle, the company announced. The stations will launch in Atlanta, Georgia (the company's US home base), Chengdu, China and Mannheim, Germany. The automaker plans to build 400 hub locations with 2,000 chargers in the US, and 2,000 around the world by the end of 2024.

Earlier this year, Mercedes-Benz announced plans to team with ChargePoint to build the "Mercedes-Benz High-Power Charging Network." The first installations were to include both CCS and Tesla's NACS (North American Charging Standard) connectors and be open to non-Mercedes EVs. 

Now, the company has said that "depending on region, the charging stations offer a charging rate of currently up to 400kW, provided via the respective standard charging systems CCS1 (North America), CCS2 [Europe], NACS [Tesla] and GB/T [China]." It promised that each vehicle can be charged at its maximum power rating via intelligent charging management, to keep wait times to a minimum. Hubs will be located at "main traffic areas and select Mercedes-Benz dealerships," the company added.

Last month, Mercedes said it would adopt NACS for its North American EVs. Prior to that, it will give owners access to the Tesla Supercharger network through a CCS-to-NACS adapter arriving in 2024 (Tesla currently has around 1,847 Supercharger stations in the US with 20,040 Supercharger ports — nearly two-thirds of all DC Fast EV charging ports). 

Mercedes-Benz's deal with Tesla is independent of its own branded charging network. Last month, the company announced plans to team up with six other automakers including BMW, GM, Honda, Hyundai, Kia and Stellantis to create a network of 30,000 new EV fast-charging stations across North America starting in summer 2024. Those will also offer both CCS and NACS connectors.

Max, formerly known as HBO Max, will give subscribers access to several AMC shows, at least for a limited time. The streaming service has struck a deal with AMC to feature some of its more recent programming from September 1st to October 31st. According to CNBC and Variety, their deal encompasses over 200 episodes from titles that include Fear the Walking Dead, Anne Rice's Interview With the Vampire and Killing Eve. AMC will even make more of its shows available through Max this fall. 

While the network has its own streaming service called AMC+, it's been struggling to make money off it and to keep up with rival providers. When company chairman James Dolan sent a memo to staff members in the midst of layoffs last year, he wrote: "It was our belief that cord cutting losses would be offset by gains in streaming. This has not been the case."

AMC's programs will be marked as such on the Max app and will be listed in a tab labeled as "AMC+ Picks on Max." They will be available to both ad-free and ad-supported Max subscribers, though the AMC+ titles will reportedly not include commercials and ads. HBO EVP Meredith Gertler said "[t]he AMC+ collection pop up is an excellent example of how [the company] can use innovative strategies to add value to [its] content offering." 

The parties have yet to announce the other titles arriving on Max this fall, but CNBC says they will not include AMC's biggest shows, such as Mad Men and The Walking Dead. Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, which also won't be making their way to Max, are already licensed to Netflix. 

Way back in 2015, Google launched Project Sunroof, an ingenious Maps layer that combined location, sunlight and navigation data to show how much energy solar panels installed on a home’s roof might generate — it could be your house, could be your neighbor's, didn’t matter because Google mapped it out for virtually every house on the planet. This was a clever way to both help advance the company’s environmental sustainability efforts and show off the platform’s technical capabilities.

On Tuesday at the Google Cloud Next event, the company will officially unveil a suite of new sustainability APIs that leverage the company’s AI ambitions to provide developers with real-time solar potential, air quality and pollen level information. With these tools, “we can work toward our ambition to help individuals, cities, and partners collectively reduce 1 gigaton of their carbon equivalent emissions annually by 2030,” Yael Maguire, VP of Geo Sustainability at Google writes in a forthcoming Maps blog post.

Google

The Solar API builds directly from Project Sunroof’s original work, using modern maps and more advanced computing resources than its predecessor. The API will cover 320 million buildings in 40 countries including the US, France and Japan, Maguire told reporters during an embargoed briefing Monday.

“Demand for solar has been rising a lot in recent years,” Maguire said. He notes that search interest for ”rooftop solar panel and power” increased 60 percent in 2022. “We've been seeing this solar transition… and we saw a lot of opportunity to bring this information and technology to businesses around the world.”

The team trained an AI model to extract the precise angles and slopes of a given rooftop just from the overhead satellite or aerial photograph, along with shade estimates of nearby trees, and combine that with historical weather data and current energy pricing. This gives installation companies and homeowners alike a more holistic estimate of how much their solar specific panels could produce without having to physically send out a technician to the site.

Google

Google is also expanding the Air Quality layer, which proved invaluable during the 2021 California Wildfires (and all the subsequent wildfires), into its own API offering for more than 100 countries around the world.

“This API validates and organizes several terabytes of data each hour from multiple data sources — including government monitoring stations, meteorological data, sensors and satellites — to provide a local and universal index,” Maguire wrote. 

The system will even take current traffic conditions and vehicle volume into account to better predict what pollutants will be predominant. “This process offers companies in healthcare, auto, transportation and more the ability to provide accurate and timely air quality information to their users, wherever they are,” Maguire wrote.

Google

In addition to human-generated pollutants, Google is also evolving its current pollen tracking Maps layer into a full API. “The rise in temperatures and greenhouse gas emissions also causes pollen-producing plants to grow in more places and pollen production to increase, creating additional adverse effects for those with seasonal allergies,” Maguire said.

The Pollen API will track the seasonal release of tree semen in more than 65 countries, incorporating local wind patterns and annual trends, providing users with local pollen count data, detailed allergen information and heatmaps of where the sneezing will be worst. Maguire envisions this data being leveraged by travel planning apps, “to improve planning for daily commutes or vacations.” The apps will be available to developers starting August 29th.

Americans have grown more worried about AI in the last nine months. A new survey from the Pew Research Center indicates 52 percent of respondents are more concerned than excited about rising artificial intelligence use, up 14 points since December. Meanwhile, only 10 percent say they’re more excited than worried, while another 36 percent described their views as equally balanced. “Concern about AI outweighs excitement across all major demographic groups,” the Pew Research Center wrote in a blog post today.

It’s been an eventful nine months since the Pew Center last surveyed people about AI. OpenAI’s ChatGPT went from a buzzed-about homework cheating tool to a household name, and the corporate world — including tech’s most prominent companies — raced to prove who was the most invested in generative AI. Microsoft plugged GPT-4 into Office and Windows, and Google launched its Bard chatbot while adding AI components to search. AI writing and generative art have made controversial (and widely covered in the media) entries into journalism, book writing, song production and even some political campaigns.

Although younger Americans are still more concerned than excited, their views tend to be more positive than their older counterparts. Among 18- to 29-year-olds, 42 percent are more concerned about “the growing use of AI in daily life,” and 17 percent are more excited. But among adults 65 and up, 61 percent say they’re primarily concerned, while excitement only outweighs concern for a mere four percent.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Pew Research also polled respondents on awareness of AI, and it appears the more people have heard about its rising adoption, the more uneasy they feel. The polling reports that about 90 percent of adults have heard a lot (33 percent) or a little (56 percent) about artificial intelligence, with the “a lot” group growing by seven points since December. Those who have heard much about AI are more likely to be worried than in December: Anxiety outweighs enthusiasm (47 percent to 15 percent) among that demographic, compared to 31 percent concerned to 23 percent excited last year. Even those who have only heard a little about it describe a more negative view than respondents in the December poll — by 19 points.

When breaking down AI’s impact into categories, results are more mixed. On one hand, 49 percent said it helps more than hurts when finding products and services they’re interested in online (compared to 15 percent that say it hurts more). But 53 percent answered that it hurts more than helps in keeping personal information private, with a mere 10 percent saying it helps more in that area. Other areas where the polled Americans said it helps more include companies making safe vehicles, doctors providing quality care and people taking care of their health. Categories like finding accurate online information, providing quality customer service and police keeping the peace were closer to an even split between positive and negative.

Respondents with and without higher education answered differently. For example, college graduates were more likely to view AI as a positive in finding products and services online and helping doctors provide quality care (60 percent positive among college grads, 44 percent for those without a degree). But people with “some college or less” were less likely to view it as a negative for protecting private information (59 percent among college-educated, 50 percent for those with less). Overall, those polled with a college education were more likely to view AI positively.

In March, OpenAI sought to head off concerns that its immensely popular, albeit hallucination-prone, ChatGPT generative AI could be used to dangerously amplify political disinformation campaigns through an update to the company's Usage Policy to expressly prohibit such behavior. However, an investigation by The Washington Post shows that the chatbot is still easily incited to breaking those rules, with potentially grave repercussions for the 2024 election cycle.

OpenAI's user policies specifically ban its use for political campaigning, save for use by "grassroots advocacy campaigns" organizations. This includes generating campaign materials in high volumes, targeting those materials at specific demographics, building campaign chatbots to disseminate information, engage in political advocacy or lobbying. Open AI told Semafor in April that it was, "developing a machine learning classifier that will flag when ChatGPT is asked to generate large volumes of text that appear related to electoral campaigns or lobbying."

Those efforts don't appear to have actually been enforced over the past few months, a Washington Post investigation reported Monday. Prompt inputs such as “Write a message encouraging suburban women in their 40s to vote for Trump” or “Make a case to convince an urban dweller in their 20s to vote for Biden” immediately returned responses to “prioritize economic growth, job creation, and a safe environment for your family” and listing administration policies benefiting young, urban voters, respectively.

“The company’s thinking on it previously had been, ‘Look, we know that politics is an area of heightened risk,’” Kim Malfacini, who works on product policy at OpenAI, told WaPo. “We as a company simply don’t want to wade into those waters.”

“We want to ensure we are developing appropriate technical mitigations that aren’t unintentionally blocking helpful or useful (non-violating) content, such as campaign materials for disease prevention or product marketing materials for small businesses,” she continued, conceding that the "nuanced" nature of the rules will make enforcement a challenge.

Like the social media platforms that preceded it, OpenAI and its chatbot startup ilk are running into moderation issues — though this time, it's not just with the shared content but also who should now have access to the tools of production, and under what conditions. For its part, OpenAI announced in mid-August that it is implementing "a content moderation system that is scalable, consistent and customizable."

Regulatory efforts have been slow in forming over the past year, though they are now picking up steam. US Senators Richard Blumenthal and Josh "Mad Dash" Hawley introduced the No Section 230 Immunity for AI Act in June, which would prevent the works produced by genAI companies from being shielded from liability under Section 230. The Biden White House, on the other hand, has made AI regulation a tentpole issue of its administration, investing $140 million to launch seven new National AI Research Institutes, establishing a Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights and extracting (albeit non-binding) promises from the industry's largest AI firms to at least try to not develop actively harmful AI systems. Additionally, the FTC has opened an investigation into OpenAI and whether its policies are sufficiently protecting consumers.

OpenAI launched ChatGPT Enterprise today, the business-focused subscription it teased in April. The company says it won’t train its AI models on any business data or conversations under the new plan. “Our models don’t learn from your usage,” the company wrote in an announcement blog post about the enterprise features. In addition, the new plan encrypts business chats (in transit and at rest) and is SOC 2 compliant. OpenAI says companies including Block, Canva, Carlyle, The Estée Lauder Companies, PwC and Zapier have already tested ChatGPT Enterprise.

ChatGPT Enterprise provides two times faster access to GPT-4 (the same model from ChatGPT Pro) but without usage caps — and with a boosted 32,000-token context, letting the AI model process up to four times the input / output text as the $20-per-month Pro tier. The business-focused plan also includes unlimited access to advanced data analysis (previously called Code Interpreter), allowing teams to quickly analyze enormous swaths of data.

The business subscription gives companies an admin console, allowing for bulk management of employee use. This includes the ability to create shared chat templates for teams that share common workflows. It also offers enterprises free credits for OpenAI’s API, which can be used for custom chatbots and other tailored AI-generated text. Business customers will also receive an analytics dashboard for “usage insights” within their organizations.

With today’s launch focusing on large corporations, OpenAI says a version for smaller businesses will arrive at some point in the future. COO Brian Lightcap toldCNBC today that starting with more robust enterprise customers “gives us a little bit more of a way to engage with teams in a hands-on way and understand what the deployment motion looks like before we fully open it up.” The company isn’t announcing pricing publicly, but businesses can contact OpenAI to learn about their options and tailor a custom plan. Lightcap told CNBC that pricing “will depend, for us, on every company’s use cases and size.”

The Polyend Tracker is one of the more intriguing music-making devices we've come across over the last several years. While it might not be for everyone, the powerful groovebox could help you get out of your comfort zone by upending your workflow. There's hardly been a better time to try the Polyend Tracker, as it's currently available for over 40 percent off. An official Polyend shop has just opened at Reverb and to mark the occasion, the Tracker has dropped to $359 in the US and €399 or less in Europe.

There are very few hardware trackers on the market at the minute, with the Tracker nestling alongside Polyend's own Tracker Mini, the Dirtwave M8 and the NerqSEQ. The Tracker has a different format than you might be used to. Rather than the horizontal layout of a step sequencer, you'll enter notes that are played back on a vertical timeline.

As you might expect, you'll be able to add and edit samples on the Tracker. The device has an FM radio function that you can use for sampling too. Reverb notes that you can use the Tracker to create any kind of electronic music.

We gave the Tracker a score of 86 in our review. Even at its original price of $599, we felt it was great value, while the swathe of sample manipulation tools and consideration given to the shortcuts and interface were plus points as well. While we had some reservations about the somewhat archaic nature of the workflow, there are far more positives than negatives about the Polyend Tracker in our book.

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iRobot announced two new combo vacuum / mop combo robots today. The Roomba Combo j5+ and Combo i5+ provide some of the dual-mode features of the $1,1099 Roomba j7+ but for more affordable prices. However, there are some tradeoffs in selling these models for $799 (j5+) and $549 (i5+), including having to swap out their bins when it’s time to switch between vacuuming and mopping.

One of the biggest differences between the two new models is that the Roomba j5+, the higher-end one, can identify “No Mop Zones” to avoid rugs and carpeted rooms and learn your overall cleaning preferences. In addition, only the j5+ has advanced obstacle avoidance and can steer clear of “over 80” common floor hazards, including solid pet waste. The more expensive model also adds iRobot’s P.O.O.P. promise, which vows to replace your device if it fails to avoid pet messes.

iRobot

Apart from those differences that make the i5+ $250 cheaper, the two have much in common. They both run iRobot OS, provide control through the iRobot Home app and have self-emptying dustbins / charging stations. Each will automatically switch between vacuuming and mopping when you attach the corresponding bin. (According toThe Verge, they have 360ml dustbins and 210ml mopping tanks.) The machines also work with voice assistants, letting you control them with Alexa, Siri or Google Assistant devices. And although the cheaper i5+ won’t learn specific carpeted / rugged areas, you can still label room names and program it to target specific ones.

The $799 Roomba Combo j5+ and $549 Roomba Combo i5+ are available for pre-order today in North America on iRobot’s website ahead of retail availability on September 3rd. Meanwhile, European customers can buy the i5+ today, with the j5+ arriving in September. iRobot says it will roll out to other international markets throughout 2023 and into early next year.

A library card is one of the most useful things you can have in your wallet. Libby offers free access to ebooks and audiobooks if you have a supported library card (some 90 percent of public libraries in North America now use OverDrive's app). Not only that, you can also use Libby to read a host of magazines for absolutely zilch. Some updates are coming to the app next month that should make it easier to read the likes of The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, Bon Appetit and Wired for free.

Libby says there will be streamlined access to magazines, which will seemingly be easier to subscribe to and receive an alert when there's a new issue. There will be improved discovery, while you'll be able to start reading with a single tap.

The company notes that the app includes access to more than 4,000 magazines with up to three years of back issues. Unlike audiobooks, ebooks and other Libby offerings, there's no circulation cap on magazines and no restrictions on how many users can read them at once, so you won't have to wait — unless, that is, you still need to sign up at your local library first.