Author: TechBrunch

Following an investigation into how Meta handles AI-generated explicit images, the company's semi-independent watchdog, the Oversight Board, is calling on the company to improve its policies regarding such images. The Oversight Board wants Meta to change the term it uses from “derogatory” to “non-consensual,” and to move its policy regarding such images from the “Bullying and Harassment” section to the “Sexual Exploitation Community Standards” section. Currently, Meta's policy on AI-generated explicit images is derived from its “offensive and sexual Photoshop” rule in its bullying and harassment section. The committee also asked Meta to replace the word “Photoshop” with a more…

Google Maps is rolling out new AI-powered features to help drivers easily navigate flyovers and narrow roads in India, the world's most populous country that has huge, obstructed roads and multiple flyovers to tackle traffic congestion. Google said on Thursday it has built an AI model specifically for Indian roads that uses satellite imagery and Street View data to estimate road widths, and also takes into account factors like road type, distance between buildings, trees, utility poles and drains to help lidar avoid narrow roads. Navigation Features Google Maps will show routes that avoid narrow roads when users select four-wheel…

The hackers claim to be selling data relating to thousands of current and former employees of the Piramal Group, an Indian conglomerate with businesses in pharmaceuticals, financial services and real estate. A listing on a popular cybercrime forum seen by TechCrunch last week showed an anonymous threat actor publishing some of the allegedly stolen Piramal data for an undisclosed amount. The data samples included names and email addresses. The allegedly stolen data could be of great value to cybercriminals, who could use it to launch cyber attacks targeting employees. According to the Piramal Group website, with offices in over 30…

Indian fintech startup CRED has introduced new features to help customers manage their cash flow and gain deeper insights as the company looks to drive engagement by providing much-needed personal finance tools. The Bengaluru-based startup, primarily known for its credit card bill payment and consumer lending services, is now foraying into the personal finance management space with a new feature it has dubbed CRED Money. CRED Money consolidates financial data from all your bank accounts and allows you to track your bank transactions and recurring payments (SIP investments, rent, staff salaries, etc.) on a single dashboard. Users can also search…

A powerful new video-generative AI model became widely available today, but it comes with a problem: The model appears to censor topics deemed too politically sensitive by the government in its native China. Developed by Beijing-based company Kuaishou, the model, “Kling,” was launched on a waiting list earlier this year for users with a Chinese phone number. Today, it's available to anyone willing to provide an email address. After signing up, users fill out a prompt and the model generates a five-second video of themselves describing themselves. Kling works as advertised: The 720p videos, which take a minute or two…

When it rains, it pours when it comes to cutting-edge AI models. Mistral released its latest flagship model, the Large 2, on Wednesday, which the company claims is on par with the latest state-of-the-art models from OpenAI and Meta in terms of code generation, mathematics and inference. The release of Mistral Large 2 comes just one day after Meta released its latest and greatest open source model, Llama 3.1 405b. Mistral says Large 2 raises the bar for performance and cost for open models, and they back that up with some benchmarks. The Large 2 appears to outperform Llama 3.1…

There are many reasons why we don't see many robots in our homes, other than robot vacuums, the most important of which is the challenge of unstructured and semi-structured environments. From floor plans to lighting, surfaces, and even people and pets, no two homes are the same. Even if robots could effectively map each home, the space is in constant flux. This week, researchers at MIT CSAIL announced a new way to train domestic robots in simulation: You can use your iPhone to scan parts of your home and upload them into the simulation. Simulation has been a fundamental element…

Apple announced on Wednesday that Apple Maps is now available on the web through a public beta, meaning you can now access the service directly from your browser. The release puts Apple Maps in direct competition with Google Maps, which has been available on the web for some time. Maps on the web are accessible in English and are compatible with Safari and Chrome on Mac and iPad, and Chrome and Edge on Windows PC. Apple plans to support additional languages, browsers, and platforms in the future. The web version of Apple Maps works just like the mobile app: you…

Alternative app store AltStore has released its first third-party iOS app in the European Union. The launch comes months after the company released an updated version of its app marketplace in the EU. AltStore PAL comes as a response to the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which forces Apple to open up to new rivals. The first batch includes torrent app iTorrent, which allows users to download P2P (peer-to-peer) files, and qBitControl, a qBittorrent remote client for iOS devices. Also included in the list is PeopleDrop, a social discovery platform designed to help you connect with people nearby. There's also UTM…

Microsoft this afternoon previewed Bing Generated Search, its answer to Google's AI-powered search experience. Currently available only to a “small percentage” of users, Bing Generated Search is based on a combination of large- and small-scale generative AI models (it's not clear exactly which models) that aggregate information from across the web and generate summaries in response to search queries. For example, if a user searches for “What is a Spaghetti Western?”, a Bing-generated search will surface information about the history, origins, and top examples of the film subgenre, along with links and sources to show where those details came from.…