6 takeaways from the OpenAI senate hearing | Mashable

May 17, 2023May 16, 2023 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Apparently, one of generative AI’s extraordinary capabilities is unifying politicians, the public, and the private sector in regulating it.

We saw that today in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing(opens in a new tab) about how to govern AI. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, IBM chief privacy and trust officer Christina Montgomery, and NYU emeritus professor Gary Marcus testified in front of the privacy, technology, and law subcommittee about what to do now that generative AI has been freed from Pandora’s Box. Altman was open and cooperative, even advocating for regulation of ChatGPT and generative AI. But that seemed to have a disarming effect on the subcommittee, who asked mostly softball questions.

A man’s rare gene variant may have shielded him from devastating form of early Alzheimer’s | Live Science

May 16, 2023May 15, 2023 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

A newly discovered genetic variant protects against a particularly devastating form of early Alzheimer’s disease, raising scientists’ hopes of finding treatments that can prevent or slow the progression of this and other forms of the disease.

The discovery is only the second gene variant reported to protect against autosomal dominant Alzheimer’s disease (ADAD), a form of Alzheimer’s caused by an inherited genetic mutation. People with ADAD begin to show signs of dementia in their mid-40s and rarely survive past the age of 60, study co-author Dr. Joseph Arboleda-Velasquez(opens in new tab), a biomedical researcher at Harvard University, told Live Science.

The patient at the heart of the new study was a male member of a Colombian family that researchers have been following for a long time because they’re known carriers of the genetic mutation that causes ADAD. This man carried that gene, but instead of succumbing to early dementia, he remained healthy into his late sixties and developed only mild Alzheimer’s disease by age 72. He died at 73 years old of non-dementia-related causes.

SpaceX and Vast’s private space station could launch in 2025 | Digital Trends

May 12, 2023May 10, 2023 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

As the International Space Station nears the end of its life, SpaceX and Los Angeles-based startup Vast have unveiled a plan to launch the first commercial space station.

SpaceX will use a Falcon 9 rocket to send the station’s main module, Haven-1, into low-Earth orbit as early as August 2025.

US border crisis: El Paso braces for worst as Title 42 deadline looms | BBC News

May 11, 2023May 10, 2023 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

A record number of migrants – more than 10,000 – were recently apprehended at the US-Mexico border in a 24-hour period, fuelling fears over what comes next when a controversial immigration policy expires this week.

Nowhere are the realities of what some have termed a border “crisis” more evident than in the Texas city of El Paso.

Here, migrants – many of them confused about the impending rule changes – have been left sleeping rough in makeshift campsites on city streets over the last several days.

Several thousand were camped out earlier this week around a single church in the city centre.

Google I/O 2023 is a wrap — here’s a list of everything announced | TechCrunch

May 11, 2023May 10, 2023 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

On Google I/O keynote day, the search and internet advertising provider put forth a rapid-fire stream of announcements during its developer conference, including many unveilings of recent things it’s been working on.

Since we know you don’t always have time to watch a two-hour presentation, the TechCrunch team took that on and delivered story after story on new products and features. Here, we give you quick hits of the biggest news from the keynote as they were announced, all in an easy-to-digest, easy-to-skim list. Here we go:

Americans Caught Smuggling Fruit Roll-Ups Into Israel | Entrepreneur

May 10, 2023May 9, 2023 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

On TikTok, all it takes is one viral video or trend to make a product sell out at an exponential rate.

And while this is good news for some retailers looking to make a splash, it can have an adverse effect on companies in smaller markets that quickly run out of items without being able to immediately restock.

This has been the case for Fruit Roll-Ups, the famed sweet snack that recently went viral on TikTok after users started a trend of taking a scoop of mango sorbet (or another ice cream) and placing it inside a roll-up, which quickly (and surprisingly) hardens to become crunchy.

Jobs report: Who’s hiring and who’s firing? | CNN Business

May 9, 2023May 8, 2023 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

All signs were pointing to a cooling labor market. Instead, the latest jobs report showed the unemployment rate fell to 3.4% in April after 253,000 jobs were added last month.

But hiring isn’t strong across the board, and is concentrated in a handful of industries.

“Employers continue to hire for in-demand skills while pulling back on non-essential headcount,” said Becky Frankiewicz, president and chief commercial officer at ManpowerGroup, a staffing agency.

8-year-old girl unearths Stone Age dagger by her school in Norway | Live Science

May 9, 2023May 8, 2023 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

While playing outside her school in Norway, an 8-year-old girl found an unexpected treasure — not a lost ball or a discarded jump rope, but a flint dagger crafted by Stone Age people 3,700 years ago.

The student, identified only as Elise in a statement translated from Norwegian, discovered the gray-brown dagger when she was playing in a rocky area by her school in Vestland County. “I was going to pick up a piece of glass, and then the stone was there,” she said in the statement.

Elise showed the stone to her teacher, Karen Drange, who saw that the stone looked ancient. Drange contacted Vestland county council, and archaeologists from the county examined the artifact.

Why companies are impact investing in the frontline workforce | Fast Company

May 5, 2023May 4, 2023 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Tech industry layoffs have been grabbing headlines for months now, but in retail, hospitality, manufacturing, healthcare, and other sectors that rely on large numbers of frontline workers, employers are facing the opposite problem—a severe and ongoing labor crunch. Companies in these industries are still struggling to recoup jobs lost during the pandemic and are finding they can’t hire fast enough to meet rebounding demand. In the leisure and hospitality sector, for example, employers added 128,000 jobs in January, followed by another 105,000 in February. That same month, the number of information-related jobs fell by 25,000.

The difference in employment trends between the tech industry, which relies mostly on salaried desk workers, and industries that employ tens of millions of hourly frontline workers reflects a new, post-pandemic reality.

YouTube Unveils New AI-Powered Music Ad Solutions | Small Biz Trends

May 4, 2023May 3, 2023 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

In a strategic move to help small businesses capitalize on Gen Z’s engagement with music, YouTube has launched innovative AI-powered music ad solutions. As a small business owner, these tools can offer you an effective avenue to reach and connect with Gen Z audiences who are highly active on YouTube.

The announcement came on the heels of the Coachella music festival, one of the industry’s largest stages. YouTube serves as a hub for festival content, especially among Gen Z. The platform is flooded with videos ranging from performance highlights to outfit inspiration, vlogs, and more, making it a fertile ground for businesses targeting this age group.

YouTube’s new music ad solutions aim to get your brand in front of trending music, such as from festival headliner BLACKPINK. They will be available across devices and formats, including long-form, audio, and, in the near future, YouTube Shorts.