Microsoft's Bing Chat is no longer exclusive to the Edge browser, as it's now rolling out to Chrome and Safari, The Verge reported. "We are flighting access to Bing Chat in Safari and Chrome to select users as part of our testing on other browsers," a Microsoft spokesperson told The Verge. "We are excited to expand access to even more users once our standard testing procedures are complete."

It seems to be more than a small test, as a number of users (including myself on Chrome but not Safari) have gained access. There are a few limitations, though. You have to be logged into your Microsoft account, and prompts are limited to 2,000 characters compared to 4,000 on Edge. Conversations reset after five queries rather than 30, and it constantly prompts you to download Edge (never change, Microsoft). 

Bing Chat is powered by OpenAI's ChatGPT-4, giving users access to the latter's features without the need to pay. There are some differences, though, as Bing Chat has access to Bing Search while ChatGPT-4 by itself doesn't, so can provide more up-to-date information and sources for responses. However, OpenAI's chat generally provides more detailed responses. Recently, a paper came out claiming that ChatGPT-4's capabilities have declined, but some experts have downplayed the conclusions. 

On top of releasing it for other browsers, Microsoft also introduced a dark mode for Bing Chat. To use it, click on the hamburger menu at the top right and select "Appearance/Dark." That function may not yet be available for all users. 

The humble sedan isn't seeing much love these days. Most are being put out of production, clearing factory manufacturing lines to make room for ever-more SUVs. But, for Mercedes-Benz, luxury sedans are life, and the E-Class is one of their longest-running.

For the 2024 E-Class, Mercedes-Benz hasn't radically reinvented this stoic sedan, giving it a refreshed look and some new, more efficient engines with hybrid power. But more interestingly, the new E is loaded with interesting tech tricks and toys that, for now at least, are only found on Mercedes' mid-tier option.

The E-Class is Mercedes' first car with a selfie camera and the first car in the world that offers TikTok, WebEx, and Zoom right there in the dashboard. All that, paired with some advanced driver assistance on the highway plus all the luxuries you've come to expect from a Mercedes, creates a sedan that's perhaps a bit too steady for some, but will be right on the money for many. Watch the video below for the full story.

Last month, theoretical physicist Avi Loeb made headlines with the sensational claim that tiny spherules recovered from the bottom of the ocean were probably of alien origin. “It’s most likely a technological gadget with artificial intelligence,” he said to The New York Times, which published a story today about the Harvard professor’s contentious claims. Although the biggest scientific breakthroughs often start with a bold hypothesis, Loeb’s peers believe the decorated astrophysicist’s assertions can be called many things — but “good science” isn’t one of them.

Loeb’s proclamations stem from an object that US government sensors logged on January 8th, 2014: a fireball from space that blazed into the western Pacific Ocean off the northeastern coast of Papua New Guinea. Highlighting its logged speed and direction as an anomaly, Loeb and undergraduate assistant Amir Siraj targeted the otherwise inconsequential planetary entry as an object worthy of further investigation.

Fast-forward to last month, when Loeb led a voyage — funded by a crypto entrepreneur — to recover evidence from the fireball’s calculated crash path. Dragging a magnetic sled attached to the expedition boat across the ocean floor, the team recovered a series of tiny spherical objects which Loeb says “appear under a microscope as beautiful metallic marbles.” Preliminary analysis indicated that the sub-millimeter orbs were 84 percent iron, with silicon, magnesium and trace elements comprising the rest. Loeb believes that “as a result of being exposed to the fireball’s heat, the surface of the object likely disintegrated into tiny spherules, similar in number per unit area to those recovered by the expedition.”

Avi Loeb / Medium

Not one to exercise much caution with public pronouncements, Loeb wrote in a Medium post, “Their discovery opens a new frontier in astronomy, where what lay outside the solar system is studied through a microscope rather than a telescope.” He summarized, in an equally dramatic manner, “The discovery of spherules felt like a miracle.” Soon after, CBS News picked up on his excitement and published an attention-grabbing article titled, “Harvard professor Avi Loeb believes he’s found fragments of alien technology.” Loeb has sent the mysterious spheres to Harvard University, the University of California, Berkeley and the Bruker Corporation in Germany for more in-depth analysis.

“It has material strength that is tougher than all space rock that were seen before, and catalogued by NASA,” CBS Newsreported Loeb as saying earlier this month. “We calculated its speed outside the solar system. It was 60 km per second, faster than 95% of all stars in the vicinity of the sun. The fact that it was made of materials tougher than even iron meteorites, and moving faster than 95% of all stars in the vicinity of the sun, suggested potentially it could be a spacecraft from another civilization or some technological gadget.”

It all sounds fascinating, especially with the resurgent interest in UFOs and the quest to discover signs of alien life. But there’s one problem: The scientific community, by and large, believes Loeb is, if not entirely full of it, practicing something far outside what they’d call science.

Peter Brown, a meteor physicist at Western University in Ontario, said that “several percent” of detected events appear interstellar at first but almost always end up chalked up to a measurement error. Steve Desch, an astrophysicist at Arizona State University, argued at a recent conference that if the object were traveling as fast as the data suggests — one of the points Loeb uses to indicate its origin was from outside our solar system — it would have been wholly incinerated entering the Earth’s atmosphere. Brown and other scientists also highlight Loeb’s lack of engagement with peers who study similar unidentified fireballs.

Brown recently presented data (accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal) demonstrating that NASA’s recordings in cases like these often end up being proven untrustworthy. He believes the fireball likely impacted at a slower speed than the recorded data suggested. “If the speed was overestimated, then the object becomes, more or less, within the realm of what we see in terms of other bound solar system objects,” he said. (Loeb retorted by citing an unbendable trust in government data: “They are responsible for national security. I think they know what they are doing.”) The New York Times adds that the government is unlikely to declassify the data that would allow the scientific community to learn how precise (or not) it is.

Avi Loeb / Medium

Regardless of the spherules’ origins, researchers are alarmed by Loeb’s penchant for venturing outside science to make bold (and highly publicized) claims — with his scientific background boosting their perceived legitimacy. The gist of their alarm is that becoming a Harvard-employed astrophysicist doesn’t grant you the wizard-like ability to know the answers to questions the scientific method hasn’t yet confirmed. On the contrary, it’s supposed to mean your peers respect you for exercising restraint and doing quite the opposite. “[Loeb’s claims are] a real breakdown of the peer review process and the scientific method,” Desch said to The New York Times. “And it’s so demoralizing and tiring.”

Loeb’s views about his peers’ harsh response can be summarized in his cited quote from philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer from a recent blog post. “All truth passes through three stages: First, it is ridiculed; second, it is violently opposed; and third, it is accepted as self-evident.” Notably, Loeb seemingly refers to his team’s preliminary findings — with plenty of question marks still intact — as “truth.”

The Oxford English Dictionary defines confirmation bias as “the tendency to interpret new evidence as confirmation of one's existing beliefs or theories.” Loeb’s words and excited tone suggest he knows the answer and that his peers’ criticism stems from their resistance to the new frontier he’s discovered. However, their criticism seems only partially about his specific conclusions; it’s paired with a larger concern about an esteemed cohort jumping to conclusions that fall far outside of the scientific method. “What the public is seeing in Loeb is not how science works,” remarked Desch. “And they shouldn’t go away thinking that.”

Dall-E and Stable Diffusion were only the beginning. As generative AI systems proliferate and companies work to differentiate their offerings from those of their competitors, chatbots across the internet are gaining the power to edit images — as well as create them — with the likes of Shutterstock and Adobe leading the way. But with those new AI-empowered capabilities come familiar pitfalls, like the unauthorized manipulation of, or outright theft of, existing online artwork and images. Watermarking techniques can help mitigate the latter, while the new "PhotoGuard" technique developed by MIT CSAIL could help prevent the former.

PhotoGuard works by altering select pixels in an image such that they will disrupt an AI's ability to understand what the image is. Those "perturbations," as the research team refers to them, are invisible to the human eye but easily readable by machines. The "encoder" attack method of introducing these artifacts targets the algorithmic model's latent representation of the target image — the complex mathematics that describes the position and color of every pixel in an image — essentially preventing the AI from understanding what it is looking at. 

The more advanced, and computationally intensive, "diffusion" attack method camouflages an image as a different image in the eyes of the AI. It will define a target image and optimize the perturbations in its image so as to resemble its target. Any edits that an AI tries to make on these "immunized" images will be applies to the fake "target" images resulting in an unrealistic looking generated image. 

""The encoder attack makes the model think that the input image (to be edited) is some other image (e.g. a gray image)," MIT doctorate student and lead author of the paper, Hadi Salman, told Engadget. "Whereas the diffusion attack forces the diffusion model to make edits towards some target image (which can also be some grey or random image)." The technique isn't foolproof, malicious actors could work to reverse engineer the protected image potentially by adding digital noise, cropping or flipping the picture.

“A collaborative approach involving model developers, social media platforms, and policymakers presents a robust defense against unauthorized image manipulation. Working on this pressing issue is of paramount importance today,” Salman said in a release. “And while I am glad to contribute towards this solution, much work is needed to make this protection practical. Companies that develop these models need to invest in engineering robust immunizations against the possible threats posed by these AI tools."

How do you create a large audience for a game's spiritual sequel? Make sure everyone has played the original. Sega and Amplitude Studios have made Dungeon of the Endlessavailable for free on Steam before its follow-up, Endless Dungeon, arrives on October 19th. You have until July 27th to grab the freebie. You can also download both DLC packs through the community hub "while supplies last," according to the developers. The older game is available for both Mac and PC, although it won't work with Macs running macOS Catalina or newer.

Dungeon of the Endless drew attention by mashing up multiple game genres, including roguelikes (a brutal crawl through dynamically generated dungeons), classic role-playing, squad tactics and tower defense. You lead a team that has to defend its crashed spaceship against a horde of enemies while exploring an ever-larger dungeon. No one element is particularly complicated, but juggling them all can be challenging.

Endless Dungeon is still a hybrid game, but it's now more of a twin-stick shooter and has a gentler "roguelite" progression that lets you keep some of what you earn each time you fail. It's also built from the ground up for multiplayer. While you still lead a squad in solo play, you can invite two friends to join in. While it's more accessible, our early play session suggested it was still difficult. It'll be available on PC, PS4, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, with a closed beta available in September to Last Wish Edition pre-order customers.

Mastodon has gained popularity over the past year as Twitter users looked for alternatives following Elon Musk’s takeover. Part of its appeal is its decentralized nature that insulates it against the whims of billionaires who speak before they think. Unsurprisingly, though, what makes it so appealing has also proven to be a headache, making content moderation all but impossible.

A study from Stanford found 112 matches of known child sexual abuse material (CSAM) over a two-day period, with almost 2,000 posts using common hashtags related to abusive material. Researcher David Thiel says, “We got more photoDNA hits in a two-day period than we’ve probably had in the entire history of our organization of doing any kind of social media analysis, and it’s not even close.” We’ve reached out to Mastodon for comment and will update this story once we’ve heard back.

Of course, the big problem with unfederated social media platforms such as Mastodon is that no one company or entity controls everything on the platform. Every instance has its own administrators, and they are the ones who are ultimately responsible. However, those admins cannot control and moderate what goes on in other instances or servers.

This isn’t uniquely a Mastodon problem, either. Meta’s popular Threads is also built around the decentralized model. While it’s not supported just yet, Threads plans on being interoperable with ActivityPub. This means Threads users will be able to follow, reply and repost content from Mastodon, and vice versa.

This creates a unique problem for Meta, which can’t control the entire moderation flow like it could with Facebook or Instagram. Even then, the company struggles to keep up with moderation. Presumably, larger instances on Mastodon and other platforms such as Threads could outright block access to problematic instances. Of course, that wouldn’t “solve” the problem. The content would still exist. It would just be siloed and left to the moderators of that specific instance to remove it.

If Apple is going to make the Vision Pro a success, it's going to need compelling apps — and that means giving developers hardware ahead of time. Accordingly, the company is now making Vision Pro developer kits available. If you qualify, you'll get a loaned mixed reality headset as well as help with setup, expert "check-ins" and extra support requests beyond what developers normally get.

The operative term, as you might guess, is "if." You're submitting an application, not buying a product like the old Apple Silicon Developer Transition Kit. In addition to being part of the Apple Developer Program, you'll need to detail your existing apps and overall team talent. The company will favor creators whose app "takes advantage" of the Vision Pro's features. You can't just assume you'll get a headset, then, and you're less likely to get one if you're a newcomer or simply porting an iPad app. You'll have to be content with the visionOS beta software if you don't make the cut.

You also can't use the wearable for bragging rights. Apple requires that developers keep the Vision Pro in a secure workspace that only authorized team members can access. The company can also request a unit return at any time. Don't expect many leaked details, in other words.

The current kit may only end up in the hands of larger developers as a result. However, the launch shows how Apple intends to court app creators, and what titles you're likely to see when Vision Pro arrives early next year. The focus is on polished experiences that help sell the concept, rather than a huge catalog. That's not surprising when the Vision Pro is a $3,499 device aimed at professionals and enthusiasts, but you may have to wait a while before small studios release apps based on real-world testing.

Twitter’s rebrand to X is officially underway, and CEO Linda Yaccarino has offered some new clues about what it may mean for the company. In a memo reported byCNBC, Yaccarino suggested that payments and banking features could feature prominently in Elon Musk’s new vision.

“Our usage is at an all time high and we’ll continue to delight our entire community with new experiences in audio, video, messaging, payments, banking – creating a global marketplace for ideas, goods, services, and opportunities,” she wrote.

It’s long been rumored that Musk is keen to bring banking features to Twitter. In January, the Financial Timesreported that he wanted “to offer fintech services such as peer-to-peer transactions, savings accounts and debit cards” to users, as well as additional tipping and shopping features. The paper reported the company had applied for regulatory paperwork necessary to offer such features in the US, but the executive reportedly overseeing the project departed in February.

Yaccarino’s memo suggests those plans have been revived, though it’s light on specifics. Musk has previously talked about his desire to turn Twitter into an “everything app” akin to WeChat in China, where the messaging app is central to users’ daily activities.

Overall, Yaccarino’s memo is notably vague. She said that X would “go even further to transform the global town square” and cited recent updates the company has made around creator monetization and longform content. “Many companies say they want to move fast — but we enjoy moving at the speed of light, and when we do, that’s X,” she wrote. “With X, we serve our entire community of users and customers by working tirelessly to preserve free expression and choice, create limitless interactivity, and create a marketplace that enables the economic success of all its participants.”

Netflix's interface can sometimes make you wade through screens and tabs just to find the show you wanted to watch, but it's hopefully getting easier as of today. The streaming service is rolling out a My Netflix tab on iOS (Android in early August) that puts everything you're watching (or want to watch) in one place. That includes in-progress videos and downloads, of course, but you'll also see My List items, notifications, shows with viewed trailers and other earmarked content. In theory, you can quickly start a series without remembering how you learned about it.

The tab is available worldwide, and will replace the Downloads section when it reaches the app. Netflix notes the tab will grow the more you interact with the platform, so there's a strong incentive to leave likes or add to your viewing queue. The Home tab will remain if you're more interested in discovering new material.

To some extent, this is an admission that the Netflix front-end can sometimes be overwhelming when you're just trying to find that show you were eager to watch. However, it's also a way to keep viewers coming back. In theory, you're more likely to stay subscribed if you have an easier time finding the titles you want to watch next. This also helps Netflix boost interaction and identify popular shows using more than viewing counts.

The company isn't hurting for demand. Netflix's password crackdown appears to be paying off with a surge in subscriptions from customers that previously borrowed friends' accounts. The feature isn't likely to sustain that momentum by itself. With that said, this may give new customers an incentive to continue paying instead of switching to rivals like Amazon.

Amazon has Apple’s iPhone Leather Wallet with MagSafe on sale for close to its all-time lowest price — and its cheapest price (so far) in 2023. The magnetic wallet, usually $59, is currently available for $48. It’s handy for bringing a few identification and credit cards out into the world without having to lug along a standalone wallet. Although the sale only applies to the Midnight (black) colorway, the neutral hue shouldn’t clash with any phone model or case.

If you have a MagSafe-friendly Apple handset (iPhone 12 or later), you can snap the leather wallet onto the back of your phone (or a MagSafe-compatible case) for safekeeping. The magnets are plenty strong, so you can avoid worrying about losing your IDs or credit cards on the go. And, although it only has room for three cards, it can serve as minimalist card storage for trips out where you don’t need a thick stack of payment or store discount cards.

The iPhone Leather Wallet with MagSafe now supports Find My. This feature allows you to link the accessory with your Apple ID and view its last known location on a map if you ever lose it. To set it up, your iPhone will ask you if you want to connect it to Find My when you first attach it to your phone. Or, you can add it later in the Find My app by selecting the plus symbol and then “Add MagSafe Accessory.”

In addition to a deal on the latest AirPods Pro, Amazon’s Apple accessories sale also includes the Apple MagSafe Battery Pack: Instead of its usual $99, you can get the charging add-on for $84. Also designed for the iPhone 12 and later, it snaps onto your handset to supply extra battery power to help your device make it through longer days. It also has some advantages over third-party magnetic battery packs: higher voltage (making it more potent than its mere 1,460 mAh capacity may suggest) and greater charging efficiency. Finally, it integrates tightly with iOS, letting the software manage charging for you and allowing you to view its remaining level in a battery widget on your home screen.

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