Author: News Room

For months, Grammarly has been using the identities of real people (including us) for its “Expert Review” AI suggestions without getting their permission, and now it’s facing a lawsuit from one of the journalists included, as previously reported by Wired. The class-action complaint filed by journalist Julia Angwin on Wednesday alleges that Superhuman violated the “experts’” privacy and publicity rights by breaking laws against using someone’s identity for commercial purposes without their consent.Angwin says she found out her identity was used by way of Casey Newton, who is also one of the experts that The Verge uncovered being used by…

Meta is adding more scam detection tools to Facebook, Messenger, and WhatsApp that can help users protect their accounts. In its announcement, Meta says the new features aim to alert users about suspicious activities before they engage with them, such as unrecognized friend requests and device linking notifications, because “we know that scammers try to avoid our detection and may not immediately use accounts maliciously.”WhatsApp users will now receive a warning when red flags are detected in the behavioral signals for device linking requests, helping to prevent scammers from linking other WhatsApp accounts to their own device. Meta says these…

AltStore PAL, the alternative iOS app store available in the European Union and Japan, is joining the social web. In a post on Wednesday, AltStore PAL announced that users across Mastodon, Threads, and Bluesky can now interact with apps that developers choose to federate on its explore.alt.store website.Any likes from the social web will appear on AltStore PAL, according to creator Riley Testut, who shared last October that “you’ll be able to comment on an app on Mastodon, like a news update on Threads, then open AltStore and view all these same interactions in-app.” Users can also now sign into…

OpenAI’s Sora video generator could soon become a built-in feature in ChatGPT, as reported by The Information. Sora is currently only available on its website or as a standalone app, which has fallen shy of the popularity of ChatGPT. This update would allow users to access Sora’s video generation capabilities directly within ChatGPT itself, much like the addition of image generation capabilities in the chatbot last year.Sora would be significantly more accessible in ChatGPT, likely leading to more deepfakes and increasing the likelihood that users will find ways around OpenAI’s guardrails for the video generator, like removing the watermark that…

Superhuman CEO Shishir Mehrotra:Back in August, we launched a Grammarly agent called Expert Review. The agent draws on publicly available information from third-party LLMs to surface writing suggestions inspired by the published work of influential voices.Over the past week, we received valid critical feedback from experts who are concerned that the agent misrepresented their voices. This kind of scrutiny improves our products, and we take it seriously. As context, the agent was designed to help users discover influential perspectives and scholarship relevant to their work, while also providing meaningful ways for experts to build deeper relationships with their fans. We…

Microsoft seems more determined than ever to combine Xbox and Windows — to the point that its next-gen Xbox, codenamed Project Helix, will play PC games too. Today, we learned Helix will go alpha in 2027. But the company isn’t waiting for Helix before it points Windows gamers in the Xbox direction. Starting in April, it’s bringing its full-screen Xbox mode to every kind of Windows 11 PC, including laptops, desktops, and tablets. And it’s renamed it “Xbox mode.”But if Microsoft is putting its full weight behind PC as the future of Xbox gaming, perhaps that will change change. It…

We’re here at the GDC Festival of Gaming, where Microsoft “VP of Next Generation” Jason Ronald is talking about a topic near and dear to many gamers’ hearts: the future of Xbox. Ronald says the next Xbox, codenamed Project Helix, will have a custom AMD chip with “an order of magnitude increase in raytracing performance” up to and including path tracing, and a next-gen version of AMD’s FSR upscaling technology that relies on machine learning and includes frame generation for the console.But don’t expect it soon: Microsoft will begin sending out “alpha versions” of Project Helix to developers in 2027,…

Canva introduced a new feature that separates flat image files and AI-generated visuals into layered, fully editable designs. The Magic Layers tool is launching in public beta today in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia, allowing design components like objects, text boxes, and other graphics to be selected individually while preserving the original layout.“After a breakthrough from our AI research team, we’re introducing Magic Layers so anyone can take a flat image and turn it into a fully editable design inside Canva,” Canva’s chief product officer, Cameron Adams, said in the press release. “There’s no need to start over, or…

Recently, Ring ran a Super Bowl ad for its Search Party feature showing how it uses AI to scan footage from Ring cameras and video doorbells to help find lost dogs. It sounds neighborly — until you consider that the same system could theoretically search footage for anything or anyone.Combined with longstanding concerns around Ring’s ties to law enforcement — including a recent proposed integration with law enforcement technology company Flock Safety — the ad has prompted some users to look for alternatives to Ring.If you are uncomfortable continuing to use your Ring cameras and are wondering what to do,…

Tembo looks like a toy, but one of those bougie wooden toys you get on Crate & Kids, not some cheap plastic garbage. Despite its appearance, it is a fully functional drum machine and sampler. Rather than a bunch of buttons and a screen, you build beats on Tembo by placing what are essentially wooden checkers on a board. The point is to be approachable to would-be music makers of any age or skill level.The core of Tembo is a pretty straightforward five-track step sequencer. Wooden tokens are held in place with magnets, and you just put them where you…

I was about to be the coolest dad ever. I’d prepared the magic words: “Do you want to help daddy test the new Lego Smart Bricks? I can pick you up from school early!” It worked. My kids literally jumped for joy.When The Lego Group announced in January that a tiny computer brick would be the company’s “most significant evolution” in nearly 50 years, even Lego fans were skeptical. Why buy bricks that make pew-pew sounds that kids should make with their own mouths? My first reaction was to explain that the Lego Smart Bricks have so much more potential…

Apple Music subscribers will soon be able to listen to full-length music tracks on TikTok without having to leave the TikTok app. The platforms have teamed up to launch two new features — Play Full Song and Listening Party — that allow users to connect their accounts and open an Apple Music player directly within TikTok. The features are rolling out worldwide over the coming weeks, according to Apple.Together, Play Full Song and Listening Party aim to help Apple Music subscribers to discover new music on TikTok without jumping between platforms, and ensure that artists are fairly compensated. Because full-length…