Consumer & Gadgets news

Consumer & Gadgets

More user control may help ease negative reactions to ads on voice assistants

Voice assistants (VAs) like Alexa and Siri continue to gain popularity in households and on personal devices. According to digital trends research company Emarketer, the number of VA users will surpass 150 million in 2025. ...

Consumer & Gadgets

Microsoft pushes for gaming supremacy with 'Call of Duty' release

Microsoft's ambition to become the "Netflix of video games" faces a huge test this week with the release of "Call of Duty: Black Ops 6" on Friday.

Consumer & Gadgets

DeepMind researchers find LLMs can serve as effective mediators

A team of AI researchers with Google's DeepMind London group has found that certain large language models (LLMs) can serve as effective mediators between groups of people with differing viewpoints regarding a given topic. ...

Consumer & Gadgets

Humans sympathize with, and protect, AI bots from playtime exclusion, finds study

In an Imperial College London study, humans displayed sympathy towards and protected AI bots who were excluded from playtime. The researchers say the study, which used a virtual ball game, highlights humans' tendency to treat ...

Consumer & Gadgets

New tool can detect malware on Android phones

Screen readers, voice-to-text, and other accessibility features have enabled people with disabilities to use smartphones. Yet these same features make the phones more accessible to hackers, too.

Consumer & Gadgets

Exploring the hidden costs of free apps

Procrastination, sleep deprivation and reduced focus are part of the price we pay for free mobile apps. This is according to researchers at Linköping University and RISE, who have investigated the costs hidden behind the ...

Consumer & Gadgets

Q&A: Generative AI embraced faster than internet, PCs

ChatGPT's debut in November 2022 caused a near-instant sensation. It gave most users their first opportunity to try out a new type of artificial intelligence that uses existing data and published materials to create content ...

Consumer & Gadgets

Will Meta's Orion smart glasses be the next 'iPhone moment'?

Meta supremo Mark Zuckerberg unveiled Orion smart glasses, a new augmented reality (AR) prototype, at the annual Meta Connect developer conference. Ten years in the making, and still not expected on high streets until 2027, ...

Consumer & Gadgets

Apple rolls out buy now, pay later service: What to know

Apple is getting into the buy now, pay later space with a few tweaks to the existing model—including no option to pay with a credit card. The company will roll out the product to some consumers this spring, and will begin ...

Consumer & Gadgets

Microsoft's GitHub to add OpenAI chat functions to coding tool

Microsoft Corp.'s GitHub unit created one of the first widely deployed programs using OpenAI's language-generation tools—an app called Copilot that helped software developers write computer code. Now GitHub is adding a ...

Consumer & Gadgets

Is AI the future of Hollywood? How the hype squares with reality

For every problem you can think of, someone is out there pitching a solution that involves artificial intelligence. AI could help solve such intractable problems as climate change and dangerous work conditions, the technology's ...

Consumer & Gadgets

EU unveils 'right to repair' rules to cut tech waste

The EU's executive arm proposed new rules on Wednesday that would force manufacturers to allow customers to have broken products repaired, in a bid to cut the number thrown out.

Consumer & Gadgets

An AI tutor who teaches foreign language reading

The Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) has developed a reading comprehension education AI technology that allows you to learn foreign language listening, speaking, and reading by talking to an artificial ...

Consumer & Gadgets

Artificial intelligence expert weighs in on the rise of chatbots

What if a chatbot comes across as a friend? What if a chatbot extended what could be perceived as intimate feelings for another? Could chatbots, if used maliciously, pose a real threat to society? Santu Karmaker, assistant ...

Consumer & Gadgets

Can you spot the bots? New research says no

Until recently it has been a challenge to make convincing fake social media profiles at scale because images could be traced back to their source, and the text often didn't sound human-like.