Archives 2023

Microsoft Copilot appears to have been quietly rolled out to Android users. Copilot, driven by the latest OpenAI models GPT-4 and DALL-E 3, is capable of generating content and creating visuals from basic text descriptions and requests. It is Microsoft’s Bing Chat AI chatbot and other existing AI features rebranded and bundled together as a generative AI assistant. Although the company has not announced the release officially, Microsoft Copilot is currently listed on Google’s Play Store and is available for download to all Android users.

The Play Store listing (first spotted by Neowin) of Microsoft Copilot lists the app as free-to-use, suggesting there could be in-app purchases. As per the listing on the Play Store, the app was last updated on December 19. Microsoft rebranded its Bing Chat AI to Copilot in September this year. However, unlike Bing Chat, the new app is completely dedicated to providing access to Microsoft’s AI conversation helper. There is no distraction from Bing’s search engine or rewards, but advertisements will show up occasionally in this new app.

Copilot, as suggested by the listing, offers free access to OpenAI’s GPT-4 and DALL-E 3 artificial intelligence models, which are claimed to help offer users “fast, complex, and precise responses, as well as the ability to create breathtaking visuals” from simple text cues. 

The Microsoft Copilot app for Android does not require users to sign in to a Microsoft account. However, the company explains that signing in using a Microsoft email ID would allow “more questions” and “longer conversations” with the chatbot. The app also asks for an approximate location permission but it is not mandatory to share. A toggle within the Microsoft Copilot application enables users to turn on GPT-4 access, which the app also warns will be “slower while being creative.”

Meanwhile, a report by Windows Latest citing internal sources suggests that Microsoft is working on an iOS version of Copilot. The report claims that it is “nearly ready” and could launch soon although it does not detail a timeline. For the time being, iOS users can access Microsoft Copilot via the Bing Chat app.

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A Tesla engineer was reportedly attacked by an assembly robot after it suffered a malfunction at the company’s Giga Texas factory near Austin in the US. According to a report in the Daily Mail, quoting an injury report, two employees watched in horror as their fellow employee was attacked by the robot. The robot that attacked was designed to grab and move freshly cast aluminium car parts.
How the attack took place
The robot reportedly pinned the man, who was then programming software for two disabled Tesla robots nearby. He then sank its metal claws into the worker’s back and arm, leaving a ‘trail of blood’ along the factory surface. The incident is said to have left the victim with an ‘open wound’ on his left hand. The attack occurred in 2021 and was revealed in an injury report report filed to Travis county and federal regulators. DailyMail.com claims to have reviewed the report.
The report further adds that as the bleeding Tesla engineer attempted to wrestle free from the assembly robot’s grasp, a fellow worker hit an emergency ‘stop’ button. Once free, the engineer reportedly fell a couple of feet down a chute designed to collect scrap aluminium.
Incidentally, no other robot-related injures were reported to regulators by Tesla at the Texas factory in either 2021 or 2022. The incident comes amid years of heightened concerns over the risks of automated robots in the workplace.
Industrial robot crushes worker to death
Earlier this year, an industrial robot crushed a worker to death at a vegetable packaging plant in South Korea. According to police officials in the southern county of Goseong, the man died of head and chest injuries after he was grabbed and pressed against a conveyor belt by the Robot’s arms. The deceased employee was of the company that instals industrial robots and was sent to the plant to examine whether the machine was working properly. The machine was one of two pick-and-place robots used at the facility that packages bell peppers and other vegetables exported to other Asian countries, police said.

It’s official: Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child of Time is a hit. According to Netflix the sci-fi spectacular generated an impressive 23.9 million views in its first three days of streaming, a result that The Hollywood Reporter says is a “solid kickoff for the movie”. That puts it comfortably at the top of the global Netflix movie streaming chart, ahead of both Leave The World Behind and Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget. 

That should make Netflix feel reassured about its investment: after all, it’s also committed not just to a second movie, Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver, but to extended Snyder cuts too. Despite fairly mixed reviews it looks like the franchise is off to a pretty stellar start.

Come on baby light my fire(place)

Poco on Wednesday (December 27) confirmed the arrival of the new Poco X6 series in India. While the Xiaomi sub-brand has only mentioned the Poco X6 lineup, we can expect it to include the regular Poco X6 and Poco X6 Pro, successors to last year’s Poco X5 and Poco X5 Pro, respectively. The lineup is claimed to be the first smartphone to feature the MediaTek Dimensity 8300 Ultra SoC in India. The Poco X6 Pro 5G is expected to be a rebranded version of the Redmi K70E.

Through an X (formerly Twitter) post, Poco has announced that the Poco X6 series will launch soon in India. The brand has not disclosed the exact launch date of the lineup. However, given the release of the teasers, the launch could take place in January. The lineup is confirmed to debut as India’s first MediaTek Dimensity 8300 Ultra-powered smartphone.

Additionally, Flipkart has created a dedicated webpage to tease the arrival of the Poco X6 series. Poco India Head Himanshu Tandon earlier hinted at the launch of new X series smartphones.

The Poco X6 Pro is expected to be a rebranded version of the Redmi K70E, which was launched in China in November with a starting price tag of CNY 1,999 (roughly Rs. 23,000) for the 12GB RAM + 256GB model.

Redmi K70E and Poco X6 Pro should have identical specifications if the latter is indeed a rebranded handset. The Redmi K70E features a 6.67-inch OLED 1.5K(1,220×2,712 pixels) display with up to 120Hz refresh rate. It is powered by a 4nm MediaTek Dimensity 8300 Ultra, paired with 16GB of LPDDR5x RAM, and a maximum of 1TB of UFS4.0 storage. It has a triple rear camera unit led by 64-megapixel main camera with OIS. A 16-megapixel front camera, 5,500mAh battery, support for 90W wired fast charging are the other key specifications of the handset.

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Tang Tan, the design chief for iPhone and Watch at Apple, is leaving the company this coming February. He is headed to LoveForm, reuniting with another Apple veteran, Jony Ive, where he will be heading the work on an upcoming “artificial intelligence hardware device,” for which Ive is collaborating with Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI.
Tan, as reported by Bloomberg, will lead the hardware designing at LoveForm, working on the look and shape of the upcoming products.While at Apple, Tan worked on the iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods.
Ive’s upcoming line of AI products is considered his most ambitious project since leaving Apple in 2019 to start LoveForm, his design company. He and Altman have had a brainstorming session lately to discuss the development of this “hardware for the age of AI.”
This device, which The Information calls the “iPhone for AI,” would offer a “natural and intuitive way” to interact with artificial intelligence; people familiar with the development say it would be how the first iPhone changed mobile computing with its touchscreen.
The project is said to be bankrolled by SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son, who is looking to invest $1 billion, and it is reported that Arm, the chip designer in which SoftBank holds a stake, may also be involved.
Ive aims to turn his AI device work into a new company, although it is still in the early stages of development. as. The focus right now is on hiring talent and creating concepts. If a hardware product is ever created, it will take years before it is brought to market.
Currently, the firm is said to be conceptualising devices for the home. Sam Altman’s OpenAI will provide software for these products, people familiar with the development told.

Google Chrome is the go to web browser these days. It is also the most widely used browser across the globe. That said, a wide range of people use it on a daily basis and some may not be that comfortable with the English language that the browser defaults to.
Thankfully, the browser supports multiple other languages including Hindi and other regional ones.Here’s how to change the default Chrome language of Chrome on PC, Android and iOS.
Change Chrome language on Windows PC

Change Chrome language on Android

Change Chrome language on Mac and iPhone
On Mac, iPhone and iPad, Chrome defaults to the default language of the device. This means, if your iPhone, Mac or iPad is set to Hindi by default, then Chrome will adapt to it and display the entire user interface in Hindi. The same applies to other languages as well.

Infinix recently expanded its notebook lineup with the launch of its new Inbook Y2 Plus in India. The laptop comes with up to Intel 11th-generation Core i7 processor, a 15.6-inch display, fast charging support and a larger battery.
Infinix Inbook Y2 Plus: Price and availability
Inbook Y2 Plus is priced starting at Rs 27,490 and is set to go on sale starting tomorrow — December 27 via Flipkart as well as offline retail stores across the country.
Infinix Inbook Y2 Plus: Specifications
Inbook Y2 Plus features a 15.6-inch FHD display with 83% sRGB Color Gamut, 260-nits of peak brightness and an 82% screen-to-body ratio.
In terms of design, the laptop features a compact and portable form factor and premium design. Also, the laptop is built from light metal — aluminium alloy– for added durability. The laptop comes with up to 1TB SSD storage and supports PCIe 3.0 for faster read and write speeds.
Apart from these, Infinix has equipped the laptop with a 50Whr battery with fast charging support that claims to offer 70% charge in 60 minutes. The laptop is equipped with dual speakers and comes with Windows 11 operating system pre-installed.

The world of artificial intelligence keeps developing at an exponential rate. Just a few months ago, we saw multimodal large language models (LLM), that were capable of generating responses in voice as well as images. Now, we have AI models that can even generate videos from simple text prompts. Technically, there was only one such AI model accessible to the public by Runway, but now we have another. Pika Labs, the AI firm, has launched its AI video generator, Pika 1.0, and has opened its waitlist to the public.

The company announced its AI video tool on X, and in its post, it showcased the AI model’s capabilities in a short video. It said, “Introducing Pika 1.0, the idea-to-video platform that brings your creativity to life. Create and edit your videos with AI. Rolling out to new users on web and discord, starting today”.

Pika Labs launches AI video generator Pika 1.0

The AI video generator can work with both text-to-video formats as well as image-to-video formats. That means you can give it a simple text prompt or an image to generate a new 3-second-long video. According to Pika, it can generate videos in a wide variety of styles including 3D, animation, cinematic, live-action, stop motion, and more.

Alongside video generation, the tool also allows you to edit the generated video. You can add a new prompt to improve the result, or just apply those changes to a certain region of the video. This gives you granular control over the video and you can control how you want it to look. You can also increase the length of the video and add 4 more seconds to it. You can also expand the frame and generate more content to fill the frame automatically. You can also edit these elements with further prompts.

“Video is at the heart of entertainment, yet the process of making high-quality videos to date is still complicated and resource-intensive,” the company said in its announcement blog post. “Our vision for Pika is to enable everyone to be the director of their own stories and to bring out the creator in each of us,” it added.

Currently, to access the platform, you will need to register using your Google account or Discord account. After that, you will be put on a waitlist. Once a spot opens up, you will receive an email from the company to try out the AI video generator.

The PC market has had quite a few tough quarters in a row. According to a report by IDC, there has been an “unprecedented trend” in the PC market — two consecutive years of double-digit year-over-year drops. However, the research firm is optimistic about the market’s recovery. “Despite the short-term challenges, IDC continues to expect a market rebound in 2024 and beyond with many factors converging within the next two years,” said IDC in the report.
Two factors that may ‘revive’ the PC market
IDC believes that the integration of AI capabilities into PCs is expected to serve as a catalyst for upgrades, hitting shelves in 2024 and at first aimed toward certain segments of the enterprise PC market. “Over time, further advancement in use cases and cost reductions could spread to the broader market,” noted IDC.
Secondly, the vast and aging installed base of commercial PCs surpassing the four-year mark by 2024 is expected to necessitate a refresh, coinciding with the pressing demand to migrate toward Windows 11. The total PC market of 2024 should see growth of 3.4% compared to 2023, as per IDC.
Jay Chou, research manager for IDC Mobility and Consumer Device Trackers, said “While we still expect eight consecutive quarters of year-over-year volume declines from Q1 2022 through Q4 2023, it still pales to the 19 consecutive quarters of year-over-year PC declines from Q2 2012 to Q4 2016.”
He also added that notebooks are already at higher levels than 2019, signaling a sizable expansion of the notebook market even after COVID-induced purchases have subsided. “We maintain that factors like hybrid work, commercial refresh, and growth in premium PCs can lead to a compound annual growth rate of 3.1% from 2023 through 2027.”

As we reported last year, Amazon is going to start putting adverts in Prime Video for paying subscribers this year – and that advertising starts later this month on January 29. If you want to keep your ad-free viewing you’ll need to pay extra for it: $2.99 a month in the US and £2.99 per month in the UK. The ad-free option will cover everything but live sports, which will continue to include ads.

Amazon’s email sent last night to subscribers and its previous blog post tries to portray this as a good thing: the ads are coming to make your TV experience better! The introduction of ads “will allow us to continue investing in compelling content and keep increasing that investment over a long period of time. We aim to have meaningfully fewer ads than linear TV and other streaming TV providers.”