Throughout the burgeoning “AI wars”, Apple has remained suspiciously silent, until now. The company is creating its very own chatbot, as originally reported by Bloomberg. Engineers have cheekily named the toolset “AppleGPT,” but it’s actually called Ajax, as the large language model (LLM) was built using Google’s JAX framework. Sources indicate that Apple has multiple teams working on the project, with one team devoted to addressing potential privacy concerns.

What will Apple actually do with the bot? That remains unclear as the company doesn’t seem to have any solid plans regarding use case scenarios, launch dates or platforms. An unnamed source told Bloomberg to expect an official announcement, along with more details, next year. Apple also holds its annual earnings call next month, which could shed some light on Ajax. 

This move comes after Apple CEO Tim Cook told Good Morning America that the generative AI is something the company is “looking at closely.” According to Bloomberg, John Giannandrea and Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering, Craig Federighi, are leading the initiative. Giannandrea was originally hired to oversee Siri and its machine learning capabilities, so maybe the beleaguered digital assistant is about to get a whole lot more useful.

The generative AI space has exploded in recent months, with just about every big tech company joining the hype train. Just yesterday, Meta and Microsoft released Llama 2, an AI chatbot intended for commercial use.

A three-judge panel with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled in favor of Meta-owned Instagram after a pair of photographers accused the social media giant of copyright infringement, as reported by Gizmodo. The basic gist of the case was that Instagram violated copyrights by letting outside websites and publications embed images without the explicit consent of content creators.

The case dates back to 2016, when Time embedded an Instagram image of Hillary Clinton taken by photographer Matthew Brauer without asking for permission. In 2020, Buzzfeed did the same thing with a photo taken by Alexis Hunley of a Black Lives Matter protest. The pair of photogs sued Instagram, alleging that the social media company never asked third parties to obtain a license to embed copyrighted photos or videos, opening them up to a charge of secondary infringement.

The suit was originally initiated in California back in 2021, but a judge dismissed it on the grounds that the news outlets in question didn’t store the original image or even display a copy of it. Rather, it was just displaying what was already available via Instagram as an embed. The pair appealed this decision, which has now failed in federal court. The reasoning follows the same line as California’s decision, with judges agreeing that when a photo or video is embedded, no copy is made of the underlying content.

It’s worth noting, however, that the federal panel of judges did say that Hunley and Brauer raised “serious and well-argued” policy concerns regarding copyright holders’ ability to actually control and ultimately profit from their work. Instagram has also addressed the issue in convening years, adding an option in 2021 that allows users to make images unembeddable. This change came after the platform was lobbied by the American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP) and the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA).

This may not be the end of the case, as Reuters reports that the photographers can petition for a rehearing with a panel of 11 randomly-selected judges, though Brauer and Hunley haven’t addressed this course of action.

There’s also the underlying meaning of this court decision. All by itself, the ruling indicates that third parties, such as media publications, can embed photos and videos at will without ever asking the original content creator for permission. However, related cases have been popping up with differing outcomes, setting the stage for a higher-court showdown at some point.

For instance, a New York judge handed down a somewhat contradictory ruling back in 2018 when a photographer sued various publications after they embedded tweets with an original image of NFL legend Tom Brady. The judge sided with the photographer here, stating in her decision that “the fact that the image was hosted on a server owned and operated by an unrelated third party does not shield them from this result,” adding “nowhere does the Copyright Act suggest that possession of an image is necessary in order to display it. Indeed, the purpose and language of the Act support the opposite view.”

Streaming service Peacock is raising the prices of its subscription plans, if you have an inclination to rewatch The Office for the hundredth time. The ad-supported Premium subscription goes up by a buck, to $6 per month, while the ad-free Premium Plus option shoots up two bucks to $12 per month. An annual Premium subscription is going up $10, so $60 per year, while the Premium Plus subscription increases $20, making it $120 per year. This all goes into effect on August 17th, according to an email sent to current subscribers.

This is actually the first price hike for the NBCUniversal-owned streaming service since launching back in 2020. The increase impacts both current and incoming subscribers. The streamer nixed its free tier earlier this year, so you have to pay up to learn if Jim and Pam ever share that paper-drenched kiss.

Why the price hike? Peacock is hemorrhaging money, despite a rapidly-increasing subscriber base. As of April, the streamer boasted 22 million paying subscribers, but increased programming costs led to a loss of more than $700 million. NBC’s golden child was the last holdout, as every other major streaming platform already slapped subscribers with price bumps. Paramount+ prices shot up in February and the same goes for Max, Disney+, Apple+ and all the rest.

This could all be moot if those dual Hollywood strikes aren’t resolved in the short-term, as the streamers will run out of content quicker than you can say “go outside and touch grass.” Shows premiering now were filmed last year, thereabouts, so expect a serious dry spell next year around this time.

As for Peacock, there’s a reason it reached over 20 million subscribers in just a couple of years. It’s not just home for The Office and other beloved, though ancient, sitcoms. The service streams tons of live sports, including NFL football, Premier League soccer and WWE wrestling. It’s also gotten itself a stable of decent original programming, from the absolute lunacy of Mrs. Davis to the critically-acclaimed old-school sleuthing of Poker Face.

NVIDIA just officially released the 2008 fan-made Portal mod, Portal: Prelude. The company dropped it on Steam and, what’s more, it’s free for anyone who has the original game. This isn’t a drab re-release, as the updated release features new textures, full ray tracing, DLSS 3 for increased performance, NVIDIA Reflex for decreased latency and RTX IO for quicker load times.

NVIDIA also dropped a GeForce Game Ready Driver to simplify setup. All of the changes to the remaster were done by modders, keeping with the spirit of the original release, via the company’s forthcoming RTX Remix creator toolkit. NVIDIA also hired famed modders to modernize assets and improve the lighting.

For the uninitiated, Portal: Prelude was originally released back in 2008 and developed by modders. It acts as a prequel to the original game and is set before the time of GLaDOS. The game offers a ten-hour campaign with nearly 20 test chambers, a fully voiced story and mechanics that go beyond the first Portal. It continues to be the highest-rated Portal mod, and there’s no shortage of competition.

This remake took eight months of dev time and acts as a showcase for the aforementioned modding toolkit, RTX Remix. Portal: Prelude is available right now on Steam and won’t cost you anything, as long as you have the original Portal, so get downloading.

Niche music gadget manufacturer Artiphon is back with a new instrument called the Chorda. This unique bit of gear is a combo meal of sorts, bundling together the form factor of the Instrument 1 with the standalone functionality and looper of the Orba 2. The Chorda builds upon the multi-instrument technology of the Instrument 1, with access to a diverse array of instruments, from guitar to drums and piano.

However, the Instrument 1 was tied to a phone or tablet, whereas the Chorda is fully standalone, making it an attractive entry in the burgeoning field of DAWless recording gadgets. There are “hundreds” of built-in sounds and corresponding control methods that actually resemble playing the analog version of the instrument. The device plays via micro-gestures that incorporate an array of control parameters. There are 12 pads that each respond to control methods like tapping, tilting, strumming, vibrato and more, via capacitive sensing technology and Midi Polyphonic Expression (MPE).

There’s also a new bridge section that allows non-musicians to automatically play chords, thus letting folks play along with their favorite songs. This bridge integrates with the built-in arpeggiator for changing the tempo and the key. The integrated looper lets you layer tracks as you see fit. Though there’s not much by way of sound design on the device itself, you can access an affiliated app to access the inner workings of the sound engine.

As for connectivity, the Chorda can control any MIDI-based software and hardware instruments via USB-C or Bluetooth. The device also automatically integrates with most DAWs, including GarageBand, Ableton, Logic, Pro Tools, Cubase and FL Studio. It also supports any standard MIDI and MPE-compatible mobile app or hardware. The battery life isn't winning any awards, however, at four hours of use per charge. 

The Artiphon Chorda is available for preorder via Kickstarter and is available in three colors: black, white and blue. The early bird pricing is locked in at around $200, but as the tiers sell out, the cost goes up. The instruments ship in November.

Let’s end the week with a bit of good news for our future as a species on this floating ball of dirt. Brimstone, a major player in the industrial decarbonization field, just announced that its decarbonized cement has passed a crucial third-party strength test, bringing the dream of net-zero construction one step closer to reality.

The company’s proprietary portland cement met the American Society for Testing and Materials' (ASTM) C150 standards for building products, indicating that it can do everything traditionally-made portland cement can do with regard to construction projects. This is a big deal, as portland cement is not some niche product, as it comprises 95 percent of all cement produced in the United States. Chances are, if you are in a building made from cement, you’re surrounded by ordinary portland cement (OPC).

Brimstone says the carbon-negative cement is identical in “all respects” to OPC, including performance, safety, and overall chemical composition. The only difference is that it wasn't manufactured using the conventional, carbon-intensive methods. The company also notes that its “strength, workability, durability, and compatibility with steel and other materials” make it an ideal choice to “build structures safely and efficiently.”

There are plenty of other alternative building materials out there, but this is actual portland cement, so adopting Brimstone’s product won’t force “millions of construction workers to get retrained to use a new material,” according to CEO Cody Finke. He also touts that the product will be “equal or lower cost to other options” and will “slash carbon emissions.”

Being as this is the same industry-standard portland cement used for over 150 years, the company won’t have to jump the usual regulatory hurdles when developing a new building material, with the company boasting “the same buildings, bridges and roads being built today can be built tomorrow without carbon.”

How did it manage such a feat? Conventional cement production involves heating limestone to ultra-high temperatures, which releases large quantities of CO2 embedded in the rock. Brimstone went with carbon-free calcium silicate rock, so there’s no CO2 to release. As a matter of fact, the process generates trace magnesium compounds that absorb pre-existing CO2 from the air, making this concrete carbon-negative.

It’s no secret that traditional cement is a major contributor to the world’s climate problem, as cement production accounts for 7.5 percent of global CO2 emissions and 5.5 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions. All told, the construction and real estate industries account for 40 percent of global carbon emissions, so this step toward net-zero construction could drastically reduce that number.

Of course, this is a brand-new manufacturing process and Brimstone’s cement has yet to be widely adopted by the industry. The company hopes to scale up production so they can sell its portland cement for the same price as conventionally-made materials. Brimstone’s constructing a manufacturing plant in Reno, Nevada and has already started negotiating with construction companies, real estate companies and various corporate partners. 

The Associated Press (AP) and ChatGPT parent company OpenAI have reached a news-sharing agreement, but not for the reasons you may think. It doesn’t involve AI chatbots quickly churning out content, but rather a way for OpenAI to train its algorithmic models, as reported by Axios. The two-year deal gives OpenAI access to select news content and technology from the AP archives, dating back to 1985. All of this sweet, sweet data will be used to improve the efficacy of future iterations of ChatGPT and related tools.

This is one of the first high-profile partnerships between a major news organization and an artificial intelligence company. The two firms are still working out the details, but it looks like AP will receive access to OpenAI’s proprietary technology as part of the exchange. AP has long relied on automation technology when filing news reports, so it’ll likely use OpenAI’s tech to streamline and improve this process.

AP doesn’t use generative AI to write articles but does use similar technologies to automate corporate earnings reports and coverage of local sporting events, among other article types. Additionally, the organization uses these tools to translate weather alerts into Spanish. AP launched an AI tool earlier this year to enable clients, which are mostly other newsrooms, to search for relevant photos, videos and stories. This software allows clients to make queries using descriptive language instead of dry metadata. In other words, having access to OpenAI’s treasure trove of data should dramatically improve this experience.

As for OpenAI, they are obviously looking to expand into news in the future, and this partnership gives them plenty of legally-obtained data to work with. Artificial intelligence threatens to upend traditional news business models, but AP says it “supports a framework that will ensure intellectual property is protected and content creators are fairly compensated for their work.” The organization also says that newsrooms “must have a seat at the table” to ensure they aren’t taken advantage of.

The problems keep mounting for Celsius founder Alex Mashinsky, as he’s been arrested and charged by federal authorities with fraud. Mashinsky faces seven criminal counts, including securities, commodities and wire fraud, as originally reported by CBS News. He and his company are being independent sued by three government agencies — the FTC, CFTC and SEC. The U.S. Attorney’s Office alleges that Mashinsky misled customers regarding the nature of his company, making it seem like a bank when it was actually a high-risk investment fund.

Celsius’s former chief revenue officer, Roni Cohen-Pavon, was also arrested, with both Pavon and Mashinsky being charged with manipulating the price of the company’s proprietary crypto token so they could sell their own stock at inflated prices. 

“Mashinsky misrepresented, among other things, the safety of Celsius’s yield-generating activities, Celsius’s profitability, the long-term sustainability of Celsius’ high rewards rates and the risks associated with depositing crypto assets with Celsius,'' federal prosecutors wrote in a charging document obtained by CNBC.

Additionally, the FTC reached a $4.7 billion settlement today with Celsius, which nearly matches the record fines levied against Meta in 2019 for violating the privacy of consumers. The company has agreed to these financial terms, but will only make payments once it returns what remains in customer assets as part of ongoing bankruptcy proceedings.

This all follows a New York-based lawsuit issued in January that also alleged massive fraud. That suit seeks appropriate damages after Celsius allegedly defrauded investors out of "billions of dollars" in cryptocurrency.

While details are scant on today’s arrest, the New York suit alleges that Mashinsky misled customers about the company’s worsening financial health and failed to register as a commodities and securities dealer, among many other allegations. New York State Attorney General Letitia James alleged that Mashinsky deceived hundreds of thousands of investors, with over 26,000 of them located in New York.

If convicted on all counts, Mashinsky and Pavon face decades in prison. Mashinsky resigned as CEO of Celsius last year and is no longer involved with the company.

The immensely popular online game creation platform/thingamajig Roblox is coming to VR, thanks to the Meta Quest platform. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg made the announcement, which was followed by an official Roblox blog post. A beta version of the app launches in just a few weeks, according to Zuckerberg, which will be accessible via the Quest platform’s dedicated App Lab.

The beta will be available for the Quest 2 and Quest Pro headsets, so OG Quest owners are out of luck. The recently-announced Quest 3 wasn’t mentioned, but that’s likely because it won’t be out in time for the beta release. A finished version of the game, however, would make for an extremely compelling launch title for the Quest 3, as Roblox boasts more than 66 million daily users across multiple platforms.

To that end, this is going to be a fully cross-platform title, so anything you interact with or make on your phone or console should be accessible in VR, though it depends on the developer. The Roblox team is actively encouraging developers to make experiences in VR with a forthcoming toolset accessible via the Creator Dashboard. You’ll soon see VR as a new device type on this dashboard, along with desktop, mobile, tablet and console.

Meta recently lowered the minimum age to operate a Quest headset from 13 to ten, but this change will not impact Roblox. You have to be at least 13 to use the app in VR. That’s probably for the best, given the addictive nature of the title and associated child safety concerns.

It’s hard to believe, but the James Webb Space Telescope started sending out stunning images of the universe one full year ago. To commemorate the milestone, NASA's letting the telescope do what it does best, showing us obscenely cool space shots. The latest and greatest image depicts a (relatively) nearby region of space that’s a galactic nursery of sorts, with 50 young stars that could one day form systems that resemble our own.

The Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex is approximately 390 light years from Earth, which is peanuts when compared to the vastness of space, though it would still take 14,500,000 years of travel to get there using current technology. The stars shown in the image are mostly similar in mass to our beloved sun and some even boast the beginnings of circumstellar disks, which are the swirling rings of gas and dust where planets are born.

NASA

So what are those gorgeous red swirls? Those are huge jets of molecular hydrogen, which occur when a star bursts through its natal envelope of cosmic dust and stretches out into the universe for the very time. New life is beautiful, and red. Mostly red.

“Webb’s image of Rho Ophiuchi allows us to witness a very brief period in the stellar life cycle with new clarity. Our own sun experienced a phase like this, long ago, and now we have the technology to see the beginning of another’s star’s story,” said project scientist Klaus Pontoppidan.

The James Webb Space Telescope has been dropping hit after hit throughout this past year. There was the first image of an interstellar asteroid belt, a harrowing scene depicting the Pillars of Creation, a picture of an early-universe galaxy cluster and so much more. It still hasn’t found aliens though. What’s up with that?