Your Tech Story

Suhani Jain

I am a student pursuing my bachelor's in information technology. I have a interest in writing so, I am working a freelance content writer because I enjoy writing. I also write poetries. I believe in the quote by anne frank "paper has more patience than person

Immersive View

Google has rolled out Immersive View for Maps across five cities

Immersive View for Google Maps has become available in five cities in the world, following its debut last year all over hundreds of excellent landmarks.

It integrates huge amounts of Street View as well as aerial pictures, letting people glide over neighbourhoods and afterwards drop back down to floor level for a deeper inspection at points of interest. The experience is equivalent to Google Earth, but there is the ability to explore in greater depth in Street View.

Immersive View
Image Source: cnet.com

Immersive View was first officially confirmed in May 2021 & grew to include 250 worldwide landmarks in September of the year before, which include Tokyo Tower as well as the Acropolis of Athens.

Also Read: Google will blur explicit images in search by default

The feature is now accessible in London, New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, as well as Tokyo, also with Indoor Live View functionality broadening to thousands of airports, shopping malls and train stations.

Interactive View can be utilized to make trips to exhibitions, parks, and perhaps activities by virtually gliding atop black and white building structures to find entry points, verify near the area traffic as well as parking, and determine which regions are likely to draw the most throngs of people. A time slider is also available for viewing a destination at various times of day and under various weather conditions.

Users searching for near area eateries or food outlets can just use New interactive View to develop immersive walkthroughs by morphing pictures with neural radiance fields, NeRF, which is an AI-Based advanced technique and by mapping colour & light from numerous still photographs from widely different angles, it develops a three-Dimensional constructed spectacle.

Also Read: Twitter to start charging developers for API access

With the help of NeRF, Google can “accurately recreate the full context of a place including its lighting, the texture of materials and what’s in the background,” according to a blog post. “All of this allows you to see if a bar’s moody lighting is the right vibe for a date night or if the views at a cafe make it the ideal spot for lunch with friends.”

Source: engadget.com

In the meantime, Search On google has Live View, as well as Indoor Live View, which will be expanded to even more places in the following months. The firm also offered a quick glimpse at its forthcoming Search chatbot known as Bard.

Google

Google will blur explicit images in search by default

In the following months, Search engine giant, Google, will introduce a brand new SafeSearch blurring functionality available by default to all consumers.

The filter is designed to safeguard individuals as well as their households from accidentally having to experience explicit images and videos on Search. The search engine giant says it’s launching the function on 7 February to commemorate Safer Internet Day.

Google
Image Source: canadatoday.news

A new setting, rolling out “in the coming months,” “will blur explicit imagery if it appears in Search results when SafeSearch filtering isn’t turned on,” writes Google’s Jen Fitzpatrick, senior vice president of Core Systems & Experiences. “This setting will be the new default for people who don’t already have the SafeSearch filter turned on, with the option to adjust settings at any time.”

Source: arstechnica.com

The option will shortly become the latest default for users who are not yet using the SafeSearch filter enabled. As a result, if explicit imagery shows up on results pages, Google will distort it.

Also Read: Google announces Bard A.I. in response to ChatGPT

Explicit sexual content such as violence, pornography, and gore are examples of explicit results. Google mentions that users can change the configuration at any moment. Previous to this development, the filter had already been enabled by default for registered members under the age of 18.

When the setting would become the default, Google would then inform you that SafeSearch blurring has been enabled. If users get brought near a graphic image, users can view it by simply clicking the “view image” button.

Alternatively, you can change the filter as well as turn it off entirely by selecting the “manage setting” toggle. Users can, for instance, choose the “filter” option to assist in filtering explicit pictures, text, & links.

Alternatively, you can select “off,” which also means you’ll see all useful results for your request, regardless of whether they’re explicit.

Also Read: Can ChatGPT assist Microsoft in dethroning Google Search?

It is important to note that SafeSearch just works on results from Google searches and will not restrict explicit content found on other browsers or webpages that you visit directly. Google as well observes that, even though SafeSearch isn’t perfect, it does help extract explicit material in Google’s search results for all of your inquiries, including pictures, videos, as well as websites.

Bard

Google announces Bard A.I. in response to ChatGPT

Google disclosed on Monday that the company will gradually launch an artificial intelligence chatbot software called Bard in the following weeks. The declaration backs up previous CNBC news. Bard will directly compete with OpenAI’s ChatGPT, an AI service.

LaMDA, or Language Model for Dialogue Applications, is the firm’s large language model that powers Bard. Google revealed in a blog post on Monday that it would make the chat technology accessible to reliable testers before adding it much more widely accessible to the general public.

Bard
Image Source: businessinsider.in

According to CNBC, Search Engine Giant, Google, is running tests on some of these functionalities with staff as part of a code red response plan to ChatGPT, a renowned AI chatbot supported by Microsoft in part. A chatbot labeled “Apprentice Bard” was added, in addition to the latest search desktop design concepts that can be utilized in a question-and-answer format.

Also Read: ChatGPT creator made a free tool for detecting AI-generated text

Soon, you’ll see AI-powered features in Search that distill complex information and multiple perspectives into easy-to-digest formats, so you can quickly understand the big picture and learn more from the web: whether that’s seeking out additional perspectives, like blogs from people who play both piano and guitar, or going deeper on a related topic, like steps to get started as a beginner,” wrote CEO Sundar Pichai.

Source: cnbc.com

The corporation used Bard to demonstrate new findings from the James Webb Space Telescope of NASA to just a 9-year-old as an illustration of how it can be used to ease complex subjects.

The software tests follow the latest all-hands discussion in which employees voiced concerns over the firm’s competitive aspect in AI, provided ChatGPT’s rising popularity.

According to CNBC, Google’s AI lead, Jeff Dean, told staff at the time that now the firm has a significantly higher reputational damage risk of offering inaccurate information and is therefore moving “extra cautiously than just a small project.” Even so, he & Pichai hinted at the time that Google could perhaps release parallel products to the general public the following year.

Also Read: Dell to slash about 6,650 jobs in latest tech job cuts

Google’s primary business is simple website search, and the firm has long positioned itself as an AI innovator. In recent weeks, officials have asked more staff for input on the attempts.

The company emphasized Monday that it will need rigorous testing, saying “we’ll combine external feedback with our own internal testing to make sure Bard’s responses meet a high bar for quality, safety, and groundedness in real-world information.”

Source: cnbc.com
Dell

Dell to slash about 6,650 jobs in latest tech job cuts

Dell Technologies Inc is laying off 6,650 workers, or 5 percent of its worldwide workforce, as it faces challenges with a downturn in the market for personal computers and prepares for a global recession.

Dell’s decision aligns it with a slew of U.S. firms on Monday, ranging from Goldman Sachs Group Corporation to Alphabet Inc, that already have fired thousands this year to weather a demand slump caused by high rising prices and increasing interest rates.

Dell
Image Source: bloomberg.com

Dell had already implemented cost-cutting measures such as a hiring freeze and travel restrictions because it coped with a post-pandemic slump in PC sales, which also comprise more than half of its earnings.

Also Read: Twitter to start charging developers for API access

However, those actions are “no longer sufficient,” according to Jeff Clarke, the co-Chief Operating Officer, as he stated in a memo to the workforce.

“What we know is market conditions continue to erode with an uncertain future,” Clarke said. Dell expects to book costs related to the layoffs in its fiscal fourth quarter, which ends in January.

Source: reuters.com

HP Inc has also announced job cuts of up to 6,000 people. As per a research company IDC, the PC, as well as tablet market, will decline by 2.6 percent in 2023 after experiencing fast expansion during the global epidemic due to working remotely.

“It was only a matter of time before the wave of tech layoffs reached Dell’s shores, given how sensitive the company is to both consumer and corporate confidence,” said Susannah Streeter, markets analyst, Hargreaves Lansdown.

Source: reuters.com

As of January 28, 2022, Dell had approximately 133,000 staff members, with approximately one-third located in the United States.

Bloomberg News announced the news of the job cuts earlier today.

Dell’s stock was unchanged before the bell.

Also Read: Samsung, Google & Qualcomm team up on mixed-reality platform

According to preliminary findings from industry expert International Data Corp. (IDC), personal computer deliveries will drop dramatically in the final quarter of 2022. According to IDC, Dell experienced the greatest decline within and between major corporations, with a 37 percent drop when compared to the same period in 2021. PCs account for approximately 55 percent of Dell’s earnings.

In 2022, the technical sector declared 97,171 job cuts, an increase of 649 percent compared to the previous year.

API

Twitter to start charging developers for API access

Twitter will stop providing free access to the Twitter API on February 9 and instead will release a paid version as the mini-blogging platform owned by Elon Musk tries new ways to profit from the platform.

The Twitter Developer account announced in several tweets that the company will be discontinuing assistance for both the legacy v1.1 as well as the latest v2 Twitter APIs. It did not say how much it intends to begin charging for API usage right away.

API
Image Source: cnbc.com

The change comes after Twitter suddenly changed the conditions of its API over the past weeks, the API seems to have been used by many famous Twitter service users, including Tweetbot and Twitterrific. The majority of third-party Twitter applications have discontinued their mobile apps.

Twitter data are among the world’s most powerful data sets. We’re committed to enabling fast & comprehensive access so you can continue to build with us,” the Twitter Dev account said Thursday. “Over the years, hundreds of millions of people have sent over a trillion Tweets, with billions more every week.”

Source: techcrunch.com

In light of recent modifications which saw Twitter shutter third-party customers, several other application developers became wary of how they progressed development atop the Twitter API. This new change may force some devs to give up their brands or pass the expense on to their consumers.

Also Read: Why major advertisers are leaving Twitter?

Large numbers of developers use the Twitter API for a variety of purposes, including monitoring Twitter accounts and providing alerts. These are enjoyable side projects for those who are unwilling to pay service charges for something which they are not monetizing.

Then there’s yet another type of Twitter API user, the researchers. Twitter’s latest revelation could have an influence on research in a wide range of sectors, such as hateful speech and online harassment.

Academic institutions frequently use Twitter to understand human behavior in various regions. Limiting free API usage could also deter companies from developing methods to detect the dissemination of false information on Twitter.

Ever since its founding, Twitter has had an odd relationship with developers. But, even though there was an inconvenience, both parties benefitted from the relationship.

Also Read: What Does Twitter 200 Million User Email Leak Actually Mean?

Third-party companies were frequently the ones releasing new services and features for Twitter, and the social media platform helped by not charging people for API usage.

Twitter has even aimed to improve relationships with developers in recent times by introducing new programs such as the Twitter toolkit for app discovery. Several of these initiatives have been halted under the new administration.

chatGPT

ChatGPT creator made a free tool for detecting AI-generated text

The firm behind the renowned ChatGPT, OpenAI, has launched free software, that it claims can differentiate between text written by humans & text created by AIs. In a press statement, it warns that the classifier is not yet fully reliable.

So, we should not use it as a main decision-making tool. As per OpenAI, it can be useful in determining whether an individual is intending to pass off the obtained text as human-written text.

ChatGPT
Image Source: thejakartapost.com

The tool which is known as a classifier is easy to use, but you require a free OpenAI account to begin using it. Simply insert text into a box, press a button, and it will show you if the content is very unlikely, unlikely, unclear if it is, possibly, or likely generated by AI.

Also Read: China’s Baidu to launch ChatGPT-style bot in March

In its press release, OpenAI says it trained the model powering the tool using “pairs of human-written text and AI-written text on the same topic.”

Source: theverge.com

However, It includes a variety of concerns regarding how to use the tool. The firm stated some drawbacks above the text box:

A requirement of a minimum of 1,000 characters, or roughly 150-250 words, is placed.

The classifier may not always be correct; it can classify both AI-generated as well as human-written text incorrectly.

AI-generated content can be easily edited to avoid detection by the classifier.

Since it was trained mainly on English text written by grownups, the classifier is susceptible to errors when reading text written by kids or text written in a language other than English.

The firm also claims that it will occasionally imprecisely but confidently Identify human-written content as AI, particularly if it deviates greatly from any of the training data. It emphasizes that the classifier is currently a work in progress.

Also Read: BuzzFeed will use ChatGPT bots instead of writers

OpenAI is not the first to create a tool that could detect ChatGPT-created text. Some websites such as GPTZero, created by a student named Edward Tian to identify AI plagiarism, appeared nearly quickly after the chatbot hit the internet.

One area where OpenAI is concentrating its efforts with this detection technology is education.

According to the press release, identifying AI-generated text has been a main concern among educators, as education systems have reacted to ChatGPT by prohibiting or embracing it. According to the firm, it is interacting with educators in the United States to learn what they perceive from ChatGPT in their schools and is asking for feedback from anybody associated with education.