Consumer & Gadgets news

Consumer & Gadgets

Tech savvy users have most digital concerns, study finds

Digital concerns around privacy, online misinformation, and work-life boundaries are highest among highly educated, Western European millennials, finds a new study from researchers at UCL and the University of British Columbia.

Consumer & Gadgets

Can AI be a good creative partner?

What generative AI typically does best—recognize patterns and predict the next step in a sequence—can seem fundamentally at odds with the intangibility of human creativity and imagination. However, Cambridge researchers ...

Consumer & Gadgets

New industry standards and tech advances make pre-owned electronics a viable holiday gift option

Electronic gifts are very popular, and in recent years, retailers have been offering significant discounts on smartphones, e-readers and other electronics labeled as "pre-owned." Research I have co-led finds that these pre-owned ...

Internet

Australia's social media ban won't stop cyberbullying

The Australian Federal government's Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Act, commonly referred to as the "social media ban," is now in effect.

Consumer & Gadgets

Residential solar panels can raise electricity rates

A modeling study shows how, under some conditions, increasing numbers of households with rooftop solar panels can lead to higher rates for those without their own solar system. When utility customers cancel their accounts ...

Consumer & Gadgets

How 'everyday AI' encourages overconsumption

From automatically generated overviews to chatbots in spreadsheets, so-called artificial intelligence is increasingly being integrated into our watches, phones, home assistants and other smart devices.

Consumer & Gadgets

Number's up: Calculators hold out against AI

The humble pocket calculator may not be able to keep up with the mathematical capabilities of new technology, but it will never hallucinate.

Consumer & Gadgets

Using food to uncover AI's cultural blind spots

CISPA researcher Tejumade Àfọ̀njá has co-authored a new international study that uses food as a starting point to reveal significant cultural blind spots in today's AI systems. The study also introduces a new participatory ...

Software

Software platform helps users find the best hearing protection

The world is loud. A walk down the street bombards one's ears with the sound of engines revving, car horns blaring, and the steady beeps of pedestrian crossings. While smartphone alerts to excessive sound and public awareness ...

Consumer & Gadgets

Chinese smart glasses firms eye overseas conquest

In China, AI glasses let the wearer pay in shops with just a glance at a QR code and a voice command, as a growing number of companies look to conquer both growing domestic and overseas markets.

Consumer & Gadgets

How platform design steers demand

Digital platforms have gained strong economic positions in many industries. On the one hand, they enable more providers than ever before to make their products, services, or information available. On the other hand, this ...

Consumer & Gadgets

Apertus: A fully open, transparent, multilingual language model

In July, EPFL, ETH Zurich, and CSCS announced their joint initiative to build a large language model (LLM). Now, this model is available and serves as a building block for developers and organizations for future applications ...

Consumer & Gadgets

When AI blurs reality: The rise of hyperreal digital culture

From Bigfoot vlogs to algorithmically created personas, hyperrealistic AI content is redefining the boundaries of digital creators. These influencers are entirely virtual personas created using generative AI tools that simulate ...

Consumer & Gadgets

What skin temperature reveals about human comfort

New research has shown that the skin temperature on specific areas of the body is a strong indicator for how hot, cold or comfortable people feel. These findings could inform the design of wearable technology and smarter, ...

Consumer & Gadgets

AI tech breathes life into virtual companion animals

Researchers at UNIST have developed an innovative AI technology capable of reconstructing highly detailed three-dimensional (3D) models of companion animals from a single photograph, enabling realistic animations. This breakthrough ...