Shopping for a phone can be an ordeal. That’s why we’ve tested almost every Android phone, from the smartest to the cheapest—even phones that fold—to find those worth your money.
Apple cuts iPhone price in India amid China slowdown
Apple has reduced prices of its iPhone models in India by 3-4% following a cut in import duties in the South Asian market. The price cuts range from 300 rupees ($3.63) for models like the iPhone 13, 14 and 15, and to up to 6,000 rupees ($72.54) for the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max
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Egypt’s MNT-Halan banks $157.5M, gobbles up a fintech in Turkey to expand
MNT-Halan, a fintech unicorn out of Egypt, is on a consolidation march. The microfinance and payments startup has raised $157.5 million in funding and is using the money in part to fund the acquisition of another fintech, Tam Finans, to expand into Turkey. Tam Finans provides financing to micro-enterprises and SMEs. It currently operates 39
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Sonos Admits Its Recent App Update Was a Colossal Mistake
Owners of the company’s wireless speakers will have to endure the pain of broken software for several more months.
X’s Grok chatbot is misleading voters about the presidential election
The US is in the middle of another hotly contested and seemingly close presidential election. This election is also happening in this new age of widespread access to artificial intelligence and easily disseminated misinformation. Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon says his office tracked the source of one key piece of election misinformation back to X’s Grok chatbot.
The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported that X’s premium chatbot service is passing along erroneous information about the deadlines for states’ presidential ballots including Minnesota. When Grok is asked “Which states’ presidential ballot deadlines have passed?”, Grok claims Alabama, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and Washington “have passed their presidential ballots.” Grok then sources its information to an X post published on Sunday by user and conservative pundit @EvanAKilgore, which does not include a correction or warning about election misinformation.
In “Fun Mode,” Grok repeats the incorrect information and source with the comment, “So if you’re planning on running for president in one of these states, you might want to check if there’s a write-in option. Or, you know, travel back to before the deadlines passed.” Another response to the same question said “These states have already passed their deadlines to get on the presidential ballot, which means they’re probably just sitting around, twiddling their thumbs, wondering what to do now that Joe Biden has dropped out. But hey, at least they’ve got their ballots ready to go, right?”
Grok insinuates that President Joe Biden’s name can’t be replaced on these nine states’ ballots because the deadlines have passed. President Biden was the presumptive nominee until he announced he would no longer seek a second term on Sunday. The Democratic Party will choose its nominee through a virtual roll call vote ahead of its convention and states don’t start printing ballots until after both conventions. Also, Minnesota’s ballot deadline isn’t until Aug. 26.
Several fact checks from more reputable news outlets refute the claim that Biden’s name is etched into stone on these states’ ballots. Politifact rated a similar claim with the same list of nine states as “False.”
Simon says members of his staff tried to inform X about the misinformation their chatbot was spreading on its platform but could not reach a media relations representative. The response he says he received was equally concerning.
“[They] got what I can only verbalize as the equivalent of a shoulder shrug,” Simon said to the Star Tribune.
We reached out to X’s press email for comment and only received a reply that read, “Busy now, please check back later.” This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/xs-grok-chatbot-is-misleading-voters-about-the-presidential-election-224839736.html?src=rss
Peacock’s horror thriller Teacup starts streaming in October
Image: Peacock
It looks like Peacock is getting a solid dose of horror very soon. At San Diego Comic-Con, the streamer showed off a very brief teaser for its upcoming thriller series Teacup, while also confirming that it will start streaming in October.
According to Peacock, the show “follows a disparate group of people in rural Georgia who must come together in the face of a mysterious threat in order to survive.” It’s helmed by showrunner Ian McCulloch — best known as a producer on the Western hit Yellowstone — and based on the novel Stinger by Robert McCammon. In a statement about the adaptation, McCulloch had this to say:
During production the series changed and evolved. Just as it should. Even the title’s different. Stinger is now Teacup. The reasons for this are too spoilery to share but watch the first few episodes and all will be revealed. Point being, the series is now very much its own thing: a puzzle-box mystery, an edge-of-your-seat thriller, a can’t-but-must look horror story, a family drama, a science fiction epic — of the keyhole variety, of course.
But as singular, strange, and surprising as I hope Teacup is, all you need to do is peel away the layers, characters, situations, and mythology and look behind the thrills, chills, hairpin turns and make-you gasp reveals. Do all that and you’ll see, at its heart, Teacup is still very much standing on the shoulders of Stinger. Just as it should.
The streamer currently has a pretty slim lineup when it comes to original horror series, but it appears to be steadily growing; in addition to Teacup, a Friday the 13th prequel is also in the works.
Teacup will span eight 30-minute-long episodes, and it starts streaming on October 10th.
San Diego Comic-Con 2024: all the biggest trailers and news
Image: Jay Maidment
Check out all of The Verge’s coverage of San Diego Comic-Con 2024. With massive panels scheduled for both Thursday and Saturday, Marvel Studios seems ready to hype up its latest film as well as potentially share more details about the next handful of projects it has been cooking up to keep viewers plugged into the MCU.
While Warner Bros. has a bunch of DC films in the pipeline, the studio won’t be matching Marvel’s energy at this year’s SDCC in terms of panels, but it’s very likely that it will make a few surprise announcements to tide fans over. We can also expect to hear more news about shows like AMC’s Interview With the Vampire, Apple’s Silo, and Amazon’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. And in a summer that’s already been defined by cinema with exquisitely creepy vibes, the Alien: Romulus panel is likely to give con-goers even more of a reason to get excited.
Until the event’s through, we won’t know just how strong a showcase it will ultimately be, but until then, you can keep checking in here as we cover all of the biggest updates.
OpenAI unveils SearchGPT, an AI-powered search engine
OpenAI on Thursday announced a new AI-powered search engine prototype called SearchGPT. The move marks the company’s entry into a competitive search engine market dominated by Google for decades. On its website, OpenAI described SearchGPT as “a temporary prototype of new AI search features that give you fast and timely answers with clear and relevant sources.” The company plans to test out the product with 10,000 initial users and then roll it into ChatGPT after gathering feedback.
The launch of SearchGPT comes amid growing competition in AI-powered search. Google, the world’s dominant search engine, recently began integrating AI capabilities into its platform. Other startups like the Jeff Bezos-backed Perplexity have also aimed to take on Google and have marketed themselves as “answer engines” that use AI to summarize the internet.
The rise of AI-powered search engines has been controversial. Last month, Perplexity faced criticism for summarizing stories from Forbes and Wired without adequate attribution or backlinks to the publications as well as ignoring robots.txt, a way for websites to tell crawlers that scrape data to back off. Earlier this week, Wired publisher Condé Nast reportedly sent a cease and desist letter to Perplexity and accused it of plagiarism.
Perhaps because of these tensions, OpenAI appears to be taking a more collaborative approach with SearchGPT. The company’s blog post emphasizes that the prototype was developed in partnership with various news organizations and includes quotes from the CEOs of The Atlantic and News Corp, two of many publishers that OpenAI has struck licensing deals with.
“SearchGPT is designed to help users connect with publishers by prominently citing and linking to them in searches,” the company’s blog post says. “Responses have clear, in-line, named attribution and links so users know where information is coming from and can quickly engage with even more results in a sidebar with source links.” OpenAI also noted that publishers will have control over how their content is presented in SearchGPT and can opt out of having their content used for training OpenAI’s models while still appearing in search results.
SearchGPT’s interface features a prominent textbox asking users, “What are you searching for?” Unlike traditional search engines like Google that provide a list of links, SearchGPT categorizes the results with short descriptions and visuals.
OpenAI
For example, when searching for information about music festivals, the engine provides brief descriptions of events along with links for more details. Some users have pointed out, however, that the search engine is already presenting inaccurate information in its results.
In ChatGPT’s recent search engine announcement, they ask for “music festivals in Boone North Carolina in august” There are five results in the example image in the ChatGPT blog post : 1: Festival in Boone … that ends July 27 … ChatGPT’s dates are when the box office is… pic.twitter.com/OBwNgNcLto— kif (@kifleswing) July 25, 2024
We reiterate: Please don’t get your news from AI chatbots. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/openai-unveils-searchgpt-an-ai-powered-search-engine-195235766.html?src=rss
With Google in its sights, OpenAI unveils SearchGPT
OpenAI may have designs to get into the search game — challenging not only upstarts like Perplexity, but Google and Bing, too. The company on Thursday unveiled SearchGPT, a search feature designed to give “timely answers” to questions, drawing from web sources. UI-wise, SearchGPT isn’t too far off from OpenAI’s chatbot platform ChatGPT. You type
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Uber, Lyft, DoorDash can continue to classify drivers as contractors in California
The California Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Proposition 22 – the ballot measure that passed in November 2020 and classified app-based gig workers as independent contractors rather than employees – is here to stay. The decision is a win for app-based companies like Uber, Lyft, DoorDash and Instacart, which have fought hard to maintain their
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