ChatGPT Advanced Voice Mode impresses testers with sound effects, catching its breath

ChatGPT Advanced Voice Mode impresses testers with sound effects, catching its breath

Enlarge / A stock photo of a robot whispering to a man. (credit: AndreyPopov via Getty Images) On Tuesday, OpenAI began rolling out an alpha version of its new Advanced Voice Mode to a small group of ChatGPT Plus subscribers. This feature, which OpenAI previewed in May with the launch of GPT-4o, aims to make…

Mysterious family of malware hid in Google Play for years

Mysterious family of malware hid in Google Play for years

Enlarge A mysterious family of Android malware with a demonstrated history of effectively concealing its myriad spying activities has once again been found in Google Play after more than two years of hiding in plain sight. The apps, disguised as file-sharing, astronomy, and cryptocurrency apps, hosted Mandrake, a family of highly intrusive malware that security…

AI search engine accused of plagiarism announces publisher revenue-sharing plan

AI search engine accused of plagiarism announces publisher revenue-sharing plan

Enlarge (credit: Moor Studio via Getty Images) On Tuesday, AI-powered search engine Perplexity unveiled a new revenue-sharing program for publishers, marking a significant shift in its approach to third-party content use, reports CNBC. The move comes after plagiarism allegations from major media outlets, including Forbes, Wired, and Ars parent company Condé Nast. Perplexity, valued at…

Hackers exploit VMware vulnerability that gives them hypervisor admin

Hackers exploit VMware vulnerability that gives them hypervisor admin

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images) Microsoft is urging users of VMware’s ESXi hypervisor to take immediate action to ward off ongoing attacks by ransomware groups that give them full administrative control of the servers the product runs on. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2024-37085, allows attackers who have already gained limited system rights on a targeted server…

From sci-fi to state law: California’s plan to prevent AI catastrophe

From sci-fi to state law: California’s plan to prevent AI catastrophe

Enlarge / The California State Capitol Building in Sacramento. (credit: Getty Images) California’s “Safe and Secure Innovation for Frontier Artificial Intelligence Models Act” (a.k.a. SB-1047) has led to a flurry of headlines and debate concerning the overall “safety” of large artificial intelligence models. But critics are concerned that the bill’s overblown focus on existential threats…

97% of CrowdStrike systems are back online; Microsoft suggests Windows changes

97% of CrowdStrike systems are back online; Microsoft suggests Windows changes

Enlarge / A bad update to CrowdStrike’s Falcon security software crashed millions of Windows PCs last week. (credit: CrowdStrike) CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz said Thursday that 97 percent of all Windows systems running its Falcon sensor software were back online, a week after an update-related outage to the corporate security software delayed flights and took…

Hang out with Ars in San Jose and DC this fall for two infrastructure events

Hang out with Ars in San Jose and DC this fall for two infrastructure events

Enlarge / Infrastructure! Howdy, Arsians! Last year, we partnered with IBM to host an in-person event in the Houston area where we all gathered together, had some cocktails, and talked about resiliency and the future of IT. Location always matters for things like this, and so we hosted it at Space Center Houston and had…

Google claims math breakthrough with proof-solving AI models

Google claims math breakthrough with proof-solving AI models

Enlarge / An illustration provided by Google. (credit: Google) On Thursday, Google DeepMind announced that AI systems called AlphaProof and AlphaGeometry 2 reportedly solved four out of six problems from this year’s International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO), achieving a score equivalent to a silver medal. The tech giant claims this marks the first time an AI…

OpenAI hits Google where it hurts with new SearchGPT prototype

OpenAI hits Google where it hurts with new SearchGPT prototype

Enlarge (credit: Benj Edwards / OpenAI) Arguably, few companies have unintentionally contributed more to the increase of AI-generated noise online than OpenAI. Despite its best intentions—and against its terms of service—its AI language models are often used to compose spam, and its pioneering research has inspired others to build AI models that can potentially do…