“It’s core to our mission to make tools like ChatGPT broadly available so that people can experience the benefits of AI. More than 100 million people across 185 countries use ChatGPT weekly to learn something new, find creative inspiration, and get answers to their questions. Starting today, you can use ChatGPT instantly, without needing to sign-up,” OpenAI wrote in a blog post.

According to the company, this capability will be introduced gradually, so some users may still need to create an account to use the service until the rollout is complete.

However, some drawbacks of not having an account include the inability to save chat history, share chats, or use certain features like voice and personalized instructions.

In addition to this change, OpenAI introduces new content protections.

Samsung Mobile Executive Vice President Won Choi announced how the company will focus on improving the voice assistant’s features.

The executive vice president did not reveal details on how Samsung will integrate genAI to the voice assistant. He emphasizes that by adding AI, conversations will be more natural, and the company will work diligently on realizing the mission to build AI into the voice assistant.

There is information that the company is focusing on building features into Bixby that are similar to ChatGPT. According to Samsung, this will improve the voice assistant’s ability to respond naturally.

The voice assistant will also be able to summarize articles, documents as well as make suggestions for different places.

The president of the mobile division at the company says that Samsung will allow AI features on its devices to be free by 2025.

That egg can then be fertilized by a sperm to create a viable embryo that contains the combined genetic data of the skin donor and sperm donor.

The innovative technology will not only help same-sex couples have a child of their own, but also women who are unable to create viable eggs due to advanced age, ill health or other reasons.

“The goal is to produce eggs for patients who don’t have their own eggs,” said senior author Shoukhrat Mitalipov, director of the Oregon Health & Science University Center for Embryonic Cell and Gene Therapy.

The scientists add that this is the same technique that researchers in Scotland used to clone a sheep named Dolly in 1996.

In that case, researchers created a clone of one parent, while the OHSU researchers focused on creating embryos with genetics drawn from both parents.

The OHSU team followed a three-step process to do this in mouse experiments.

They first stripped a mouse egg of its nucleus, then transplanted the nucleus of a mouse skin cell into the mouse egg.

Next, they prompted the implanted skin cell nucleus to discard half its chromosomes, in a process similar to that which occurs in cells dividing to produce mature sperm or egg cells.

Finally, the researchers fertilize the new egg with sperm using in vitro fertilization, resulting in a healthy embryo with two sets of chromosomes equally donated by two parents.

This process could prove a simpler option to a competing technique that other labs around the world are testing, in which skin cells are fully reprogrammed to become either egg or sperm cells.

“We’re skipping that whole step of cell reprogramming. The advantage of our technique is that it avoids the long culture time it takes to reprogram the cell. Over several months, a lot of deleterious genetic and epigenetic changes can happen. This gives us a lot of insight. But there is still a lot of work that needs to be done to understand how these chromosomes pair and how they faithfully divide to actually reproduce what happens in nature”, researcher Dr. Paula Amato, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology in the OHSU School of Medicine, said in a school news release.

However, researchers warn that it will be years before this technique could be available for humans.

“Android 15 continues our work to build a platform that helps improve your productivity while giving you new capabilities to produce superior media experiences, minimize battery impact, maximize smooth app performance, and protect user privacy and security all on the most diverse lineup of devices out there,” Dave Burke, VP of engineering for Android, wrote in a blog post.

In Android 15, partial screen sharing support has been added, allowing users to share or save a specific app window instead of using the entire screen.

Also, the fitness and health tracking service Health Connect by Android is being updated with new data types.

The camera has also been updated with improvements for photos taken in low light and with improved flash intensity settings.

Enhancements in the Android Dynamic Performance Framework (ADPF) encompass a power-efficient mode tailored for hint sessions, dynamic adjustments of GPU and CPU frequencies to align with workload demands, and implementation of thermal headroom thresholds.

Developers have the option to test Android 15 on Pixel 6, 7, or 8 devices, as well as Pixel Fold or Pixel Tablet. Alternatively, developers can utilize the Android Emulator within Android Studio for testing on other devices.

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The organizer of CodeIT is Musala Soft and every year a team of former competitors and computer science Olympians in the company is responsible for preparing the tasks in the competition.

Meet the CodeIT team for 2024 – Deniz, Peter and Stefan. Talents who prove that the passion and love we feel for our favorite hobby since we were children or teenagers can turn into the beginning of something beautiful. The beginning of a career in technology crowned with success. Because there are no impossible things for the one who believes. And does everything with love and dedication. Even in the challenging world of programming. And it’s not a cliché. But a reality that Deniz, Peter and Stefan prove.

Meet them

Deniz Poturliev is a 12th grade student of “Geo Milev” Mathematics School in Pleven. He is a laureate of the National Olympiad in Informatics in 2023. Deniz has won medals and awards from national and international competitions in informatics such as: silver medal from Romanian Master of Informatics 2023 and two bronze medals from the International Zhautikovo Olympiad in Informatics (IZhO) – 2023. and 2024. In his free time, he practices swimming and tennis.

Petar Mihov is an 11th grade student at Sofia Highschool of Mathematics “Paisii Hilendarski”. Since 2018 he has competed in Informatics competitions at National and International level. He is part of the Technical Team of the 24th season of CodeIT. In his spare time, he likes to play sports, read, and play games.

Stefan Zhelyazkov is an Associate Software Architect at Musala Soft. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in Computer Science in 2013. In the United States he worked at companies of various sizes and industries, such as Goldman Sachs, Honest Buildings and WeWork. In 2019 he returned to Bulgaria and in the following year he started working at Musala Soft. He leads the technical team behind CodeIT since 2021. Stefan is proficient at various programming languages and tools, and his concentration is web programming.

Deniz, Peter and Stefan and their journey through the world of programming

How and when did you realize that the world of programming is your passion?

Deniz: I started attending the School of Informatics in Pleven in the 4th grade. Over time, with the acquisition of knowledge, meeting new friends who share the same interests, and achieving success in competitions, computer science became my passion.

Peter: In 2nd or 3rd grade, my father installed Scratch on the computer so that I could engage in something productive. Since I loved playing games, creating them in Scratch also became very interesting to me. That’s when I first got hooked on creating something with code.

Stefan: At some point in the 10th grade, I got passionate about creating websites. I had bought a book on PHP language, and I found it very interesting that with this language, I could make a website interactive. That’s when I started working on various projects – a class website, forums, and websites for astronomy competitions. I also decided to create the first electronic magazine for my high school in Stara Zagora – Secondary School for Foreign Languages “Romain Rolland”. After that, at university, I studied computer science, where my knowledge significantly advanced, and to this day, I continue to engage in it.

When did you realize you wanted programming to be part of your professional future?

Deniz: Since every free moment in my daily life is dedicated to informatics, I unconsciously realized that this would be my future professional development.

Peter: In the 5th grade, I studied computer science at school for the first time. When I saw that I was good at it, I already knew that I would be involved in it in the future. Of course, the idea existed for me even before that, but after getting a closer look, my choice was confirmed.

Stefan: Programming is a complex engineering profession that requires a lot of thinking. Perhaps around my second year in university, I began to understand the subject matter in much more depth and to move away from the mechanical “writing of code.” I started to see the artistic element in programming – to write less code, make the program faster, and use some interesting logical tricks. This was very interesting to me, and I wanted to continue doing it.

From what age have you been participating in competitions related to technology and programming?

Deniz: I have been participating in all national competitions and Olympiads in Informatics since the 5th grade, and from the 10th grade onwards – in some international ones as well.

Peter: The first competition I took part in was the first round of the National Olympiad in Informatics when I was in the 5th grade. Since then, I have been participating in every competition in the Ministry of Education’s program for 7 years, as well as in some other national and international competitions.

Stefan: I was in the 6th grade when I first participated in an international competition – it was for a website, in Turkey. We won 3rd place there. After that, in high school, I participated in competitions for websites on astronomical themes, where we worked on several projects related to the planet Mars, distant objects in the Kuiper Belt, etc.

What has been the happiest moment so far in your journey into the world of Programming?

Deniz: The happiest moments in the world of programming for me have come from computer science competitions. One such memory is from October 2023, during the Romanian Master of Informatics international competition in Bucharest, where I managed to solve a maximum score problem in the last hour of the competition day, earning me a silver medal.

Peter: An extremely happy moment for me was the Summer Informatics Tournament in 2022 when I won first place. However, some of my happiest memories are also connected with trips I took with my friends in computer science from all over Bulgaria, which were made possible precisely because of the competitions we participated in together.

Stefan: All moments where I (we) produce something that works are happy for me. I especially enjoy it when a project is done in a minimal, elegant way, with clear logic. On a personal level, I’ve created several such projects – from websites for favorite TV shows to an Android application for watching television. I am also proud of our successes in CodeIT, where we have several significant and small achievements that make the platform better.

And what has been the most challenging moment? How did you overcome it, and what did it teach you?

Deniz: At the end of the 2021/2022 academic year, I realized that I wasn’t preparing effectively for informatics competitions. In the summer of 2022, I set a goal to solve more problems and improve, which helped me rediscover the beauty of computer science and the satisfaction of intense training.

Peter: The most challenging moment for me was during the National Autumn Tournament in 2022 when I exited the competition with only 5 out of a possible 300 points. The competition also served as the second day of the International Autumn Tournament (IATI), so not only did I have a very bad position nationally, but I also gained a similar one internationally. I learned my lesson, and with a little more effort, by the end of the academic year, I managed to join the extended national team and became 5th in one of the competitions, even though I was a tenth-grader in the 11-12 grade group.

Stefan: The most challenging moment for me was when I realized that software work, built over the years, can be very easily erased and deleted. This happened after working in a very promising company that eventually went bankrupt. The project, which was great, came to an end. This is one of the significant downsides of this profession – that erasing software can become very easy compared to other things in the material world. I pondered on this situation for some time and ultimately realized that it’s not an abnormal phenomenon but a part of life. Such situations should not discourage us because software can help people, and we, as programmers, should always strive for that.

How does it feel to be part of the CodeIT team this season and part of the 24-year history of the competition?

Deniz: I feel grown up, already working and making my dream of professionally engaging in computer science come true.

Peter: CodeIT is a competition that changes both its design and the style of its tasks for the participants every year. The fact that this year I am contributing significantly to the second part makes me very happy, because it means that I am leaving a mark in the world of competitive informatics.

Stefan: It is a great honor. This is a long-standing tradition that continues to this day. My desire is to make CodeIT a better tournament with each season. We are actively working on various improvements and already have achievements to be proud of. I am also glad that the participants in CodeIT develop important skills in this competition – dealing with unprecedented problems, finding a way out of tense situations, working under time and resource constraints. These are universal skills that will make them more prepared for life.

Is organizing a large-scale competition like CodeIT difficult? What is the most important element in such an organization?

Deniz: The team is everything. The key to our success is good task distribution, as well as being organized.

Peter: There are certainly some challenges. For each round we carefully choose the dates, considering the calendar of other informatics competitions. On the other hand, creating tasks requires good coordination within the team. The relationships between our team members, as well as our quick reactions, contribute to our success even in difficult moments.

Stefan: It’s both difficult and easy. The hard part is that there are many components that have to work in sync – tasks, technical infrastructure, sponsors and patrons, rewards, PR, marketing. The fact that everyone involved loves CodeIT makes things a little easier. The most important thing is the rapport within the team, both among us and among the participants.

What would you say to all CodeIT competitors, including those lacking the courage or still hesitant to participate?

Denise: Challenge yourselves and join this extraordinary competition.

Peter: To those who are already competing, I want to express my gratitude for dedicating their time to our competition. And to those who are wondering, I would say that when I first found out about CodeIT, the format of the competition sparked my interest. It is very different from other competitions, so I encourage everyone to give it a try, even just out of curiosity.

Stefan: Perhaps the most challenging part for participants is overcoming the fear of not performing well enough or embarrassing themselves. In the team we have seen participants joining only for two of the last rounds and accumulating enough points to qualify for the final, or even win it! I don’t think having a win-or-lose mindset is a good idea. CodeIT will mainly help you develop yourself and your own skills – dealing with unfamiliar tasks, coming up with interesting solutions, and finding a way out of difficult situations. You might even win a prize from the raffle! Participate in CodeIT and see the competition as an opportunity to have fun! Good luck!

“I know many of you are wondering why this is happening. Over the last year, we’ve been working to build a more sustainable business so that Twitch will be here for the long run and throughout the year we have cut costs and made many decisions to be more efficient,” Clancy wrote.

“Unfortunately, despite these efforts, it has become clear that our organization is still meaningfully larger than it needs to be given the size of our business. Last year we paid out over $1 billion to streamers. So while the Twitch business remains strong, for some time now the organization has been sized based upon where we optimistically expect our business to be in 3 or more years, not where we’re at today”, he continued.

In 2014, Amazon acquired Twitch for nearly $1 billion. Following Amazon’s purchase of Twitch, the unit was largely not a priority for the tech giant, despite offering Prime subscribers perks on the live streaming platform, such as free games.

In March last year, Twitch laid off about 400 employees, and last October it laid off several employees in its customer-facing division.

The organization has experienced leadership changes, with Emmett Shear, the longstanding CEO, stepping down in March and passing the reins to Clancy, who had served as Twitch’s president. Additionally, the company witnessed departures from its Chief Customer Officer, Doug Scott, announced late last year, and Chief Content Officer, Laura Lee, who recently announced her exit.

Furthermore, Amazon has recently implemented its most extensive workforce reduction in history, with a staggering 27,000 employees laid off since 2022. These layoffs have been consistent, with the latest announcements affecting the Prime Video and MGM Studios units made on Wednesday.

According to the company, these advanced systems will “be capable of complex and creative behaviors that humans cannot fully understand.”

“This leads to the fundamental challenge: how can humans steer and trust AI systems much smarter than them? This is one of the most important unsolved technical problems in the world. But we think it is solvable with a concerted effort. There are many promising approaches and exciting directions, with lots of low-hanging fruit. We think there is an enormous opportunity for the ML research community and individual researchers to make major progress on this problem today,” OpenAI wrote in a blog post.

The existing method to guarantee the safety of AI systems, known as alignment, employs reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF). However, its dependence on human supervision may pose challenges in addressing the intricate scenarios enabled by superintelligent AI. For instance, when confronted with the generation of millions of lines of intricate code, human evaluation may prove impractical.

The company will grant $100,000 to $2 million to academic labs, nonprofits and researchers. OpenAI is also launching one-year fellowships worth $150,000 for graduate students (half of which will go to fund research and the other half will be a stipend).

OpenAI asserts that prior experience in alignment is not a prerequisite, and they are prepared to assist researchers who have yet to delve into this domain.

One of the most important updates is early access to Unity Muse, an AI-powered suite designed to simplify content creation for game developers.

Muse offers features like Muse Chat, which allows developers to get answers and resources in Unity and receive usable code. Additionally, Muse Sprite generates 2D sprites and multiple variations, and Muse Texture creates high-quality 2D and 3D ready textures. These features are powered by a purpose-built deep learning model that ensures data integrity.

Unity Muse is in the early access phase, while Unity Sentis, designed for seamlessly integrating intricate AI data models into Unity Runtime, is currently in open beta. The official release for Unity Sentis is anticipated to coincide with the launch of Unity 6 in 2024.

Scheduled for 2024, Unity 6 represents the next significant software release, pledging notable improvements in visual quality coupled with substantial performance boosts. Additionally, it promises an expedited process for creating multiplayer games and heightened support for artificial intelligence. Unity’s overarching goal is to empower developers to explore new frontiers by leveraging enhanced mobile functionalities and cutting-edge support for virtual reality devices.

Unity has underscored its backing for Apple Vision Pro through the unveiling of PolySpatial. Unity is initiating the beta program for its visionOS, which encompasses access to Unity PolySpatial. This program is available for Unity Pro, Enterprise, and Industry subscribers, facilitating the development of spatial applications tailored for Apple Vision Pro.

Despite the leadership transition, Unity is resolute in its commitment to ongoing projects and initiatives. As Unity hopes to put a tumultuous period behind it, the announcements this week signify the start of a new chapter and rebuilding of relations with game developers.

During Microsoft Ignite, the company also announced some interesting results from a study it conducted on the use of the Copilot tool it released earlier this year. 70% of respondents said Copilot helped them improve their productivity. 64% said it helped save time when working with emails, 87% said it was useful when creating a draft, and 75% said it was useful when finding information in files.

“What everyone wants to know now is: Will Copilot really change work, and how? Our research, using a combination of surveys and experiments, shows the productivity gains are real,” Frank X. Shaw, chief communications officer at Microsoft, wrote in a blog post.

Copilot updates across Microsoft’s portfolio
For Microsoft 365 users, Copilot now offers added features such as personalization options, a comprehensive whiteboarding and note-taking experience for meetings, and the option to utilize Copilot’s transcription services during meetings without the transcript being saved.

Microsoft is introducing a new tool called Microsoft Copilot Studio, a low-code solution that empowers users to customize Microsoft Copilot. This tool enables the integration of business data and the creation of custom copilots tailored for specific purposes.

Moreover, Microsoft is extending Copilot into mixed reality on the HoloLens 2, ensuring seamless integration into workers’ workflows. This mixed reality version utilizes natural language and human gestures to provide interactive guidance.

In addition, Microsoft is introducing specialized versions such as Microsoft Copilot for Service to assist contact centers and Microsoft Copilot for Azure to support IT teams.

As part of this update, the rebranding of Bing Chat and Bing Chat Enterprise to Copilot has also been announced. This move aims to streamline and unify the experience across Microsoft’s services.

Azure AI receives several enhancements
The new Model-as-a-Service feature allows developers to seamlessly integrate and customize AI models using their own data without the need to manage the underlying GPU infrastructure.

The Vector Search feature, facilitating the storage, indexing, querying, filtering, and retrieval of AI data, is now generally available.

In the upcoming public preview in Azure OpenAI Service, the GPT-4 Turbo model will be introduced by the end of this month. Furthermore, GPT-4 Turbo with Vision is set to be in preview soon, while DALL·E 3 is already available in preview.

The company has also announced the general availability of Azure AI Content Safety, aiding organizations in detecting harmful content in AI experiences. Additionally, new documentation has been released, offering guidance on how to avoid potential content infringement.

New chips optimized for AI
The company has unveiled two new chips, namely Microsoft Azure Maia and Cobalt. Microsoft Azure Maia serves as an AI accelerator designed for executing cloud-based training and inferencing for AI workloads. On the other hand, Microsoft Azure Cobalt is an Arm architecture chip tailored for general-purpose workloads, emphasizing performance, power efficiency, and cost-effectiveness.

Furthermore, the company has made Azure Boost generally available. This system optimizes performance by offloading storage and networking processes from host servers to hardware and software specifically optimized for these tasks.

Microsoft has also emphasized collaborations with AMD and NVIDIA. Azure will soon incorporate AMD MI300X accelerated virtual machines, and Microsoft’s NC H100 v5 Virtual Machine Series is configured to leverage NVIDIA H100 Tensor Core GPUs.

Deep learning is a type of machine learning based on artificial neural networks inspired by the human brain. The method is used to teach machines how to learn from large amounts of data through multi-layered structures of algorithms.

Deepfakes typically use a computer learning network called a variational autoencoder, a type of artificial neural network that is commonly used for face recognition.

 

Deepfake technology resembles the 21st century version of Photoshop,but is far more dangerous. It carries many negative implications as it continues to advance the field of artificial intelligence. Deepfake is often controlled by a group of cybercriminals who have the ability to convincingly mimic other humans. Additionally, this platform is used to create numerous manipulated videos that look very real.

In a recent incident, a group of cyber criminals created a fake video with the face of Rashmika Mandan, a South Indian actress, and the body of Zara Patel, a British-Indian girl. This video caused a wave of reactions in the Bollywood community.

When was it first discovered, and what did it do?

Deepfake technology first surfaced in 2017 on the online platform Reddit. Initially, it gained notoriety for swapping the faces of celebrities such as Gal Gadot, Scarlett Johansson, Taylor Swift, and others, primarily for creating explicit content. This face-swapping was accomplished through the use of a machine employing deep learning algorithms. One key element in this process was an AI algorithm known as an “encoder.”

What is an encoder?

An “encoder” serves as a crucial component in the deepfake process. It enables machines to discern commonalities between two faces, reducing them to their shared features by compressing the facial images.

With the aid of an encoder, erroneous images are superimposed to manipulate the source content, while another algorithm, called the “decoder,” reconstructs the face with the desired orientation and expressions.

What does Deepfake technology do to original videos and photos?

Deepfake technology adeptly alters and manipulates the voices and faces of characters within various videos, frequently with explicit content.

Deepfake usage?

Primarily, deepfake technology finds application in unsavory edits, notably within pornographic video content. However, there have been instances, especially during elections, where politicians’ video clips were digitally altered and disseminated with falsely attributed statements.

Prominently, even well-known individuals with significant public profiles have fallen victim to deepfake videos. An example includes former US President Barack Obama, who was featured in a deepfake video where he appeared to refer to Donald Trump as a derogatory term. This video garnered widespread attention.

Furthermore, even Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s chief, was depicted in various deepfake videos making claims about having “total control of billions of people’s stolen data.”

An AI firm named Deeptrace was also identified, which had cataloged 15,000 deepfake videos by September 2019.

What do experts have to say about deepfake creators?

Experts, including Danielle Citron, a professor of law at Boston University, have voiced serious concerns about the detrimental uses of deepfake technology. Citron highlighted the fact that deepfake technology has been weaponized against women, and recent incidents like the one involving actress Rashmika raise further safety concerns.

What else can deepfake do besides creating videos?

Deepfake technology extends beyond crafting AI-driven videos. It can also generate entirely fabricated images from scratch. Additionally, it has the capacity to create fictitious profiles and characters, complete with fictional names and accompanying videos.

Who is creating deepfake videos presently?

According to a report from The Guardian, a wide range of individuals, from industrial and academic researchers to amateur enthusiasts, can create deepfake videos. Visual effects studios and even porn producers also harness this technology for the manipulation and creation of content.