This little project that uses a Raspberry Pi W and a circular display is fairly simple in construction, but the result is a truly fantastic conversation starter. It pulls images of the entire planet from a feed provided by NASA and does all kinds of magic to display it on that fancy screen. Go to his channel to get all the deets on how you can build one yourself.
Personally, I’d find myself hunting for newsworthy weather events that are crashing around the US right now. The images he displays are a couple days old but that is still sufficient enough to see if you can spot these events.
CNET reporter Jackson Ryan published an article last month describing how ChatGPT, an AI that can generate human-sounding text, would affect journalists and the news industry: “ChatGPT Is a Stunning AI, but Human Jobs Are Safe (for Now).”
“It definitely can’t do the job of a journalist,” Ryan wrote of ChatGPT. “To say so diminishes the act of journalism itself.”
The article said AI isn’t coming for journalists’ jobs just yet, but the very publication that ran Ryan’s article has been quietly publishing articles written by AI since November, according to Futurism and online marketer Gael Breton. The AI-written CNET articles bear the byline CNET Money Staff which is identified on the outlet’s website as “AI Content published under this author byline is generated using automation technology.”
CNET did not immediately respond to Gizmodo’s request for comment.
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The first article written by CNET Money Staff was published on November 11 with the headline, “What is a credit card charge-off?” Since then, the news site has published 73 AI-generated articles, but the outlet says on its website that a team of editors is involved in the content “from ideation to publication. Ensuring that the information we publish and the recommendations we make are accurate, credible, and helpful to you is a defining responsibility for what we do.”
The outlet says they will continue to publish each article with “editorial integrity” and says, “Accuracy, independence, and authority remain key principles of our editorial guidelines.”
The most recent versions of consumer-facing artificial intelligence have taken the tech community by storm with their ability to write passable essays, articles, and computer code in seconds, though the quality varies, and ChatGPT has been banned from several high-profile forums. CNET is not the first news outlet to utilize AI technology, as the Associated Press has boasted of being “one of the first news organizations to leverage artificial intelligence,” since 2015, according to its website. “Today, we use machine learning along key points in our value chain, including gathering, producing, and distributing the news,” the site reads. It’s not clear whether the AP uses AI to write the stories themselves.
Other major news outlets have incorporated AI technology into their work,with the Washington Post announcing it was using AI to provide live updates for the 2020 Presidential election on its podcasts. The goal, the outlet said, was to keep listeners up-to-date during the steady stream of election-based news that would be coming out.
The question of whether AI is supplanting jobs is yet to be answered. Ryan wrote that ChatGPT’s inability to understand or read emotion makes it useless in the context of journalism. ChatGPT, he says, doesn’t have the ability to describe the feelings seen on a player’s face when they win the World Cup, or talk to Ukrainians about how the Russian Invasion has changed their lives, and would definitely have “no hope of covering Musk’s takeover of Twitter.”
Although CNET is now using an AI-generated tool to write its explainers, as Ryan puts it, “it’s no arbiter of truth, and it just can’t read the room.”
The Galaxy Buds 2 Pro in matte graphite. Photo: Florence Ion / Gizmodo
Samsung has announced a slew of software updates coming to the Galaxy Buds 2 Pro and Galaxy Watch. The audio update brings a new type of recording feature to Samsung’s earbuds, while the Galaxy Watch update lets you do more with the wearable when using it as a smartphone camera remote.
360 Audio Recording
The 360 Audio Recording in the Galaxy Buds 2 Pro can capture “realistic” audio through each bud while shooting video without needing a complicated microphone setup. Samsung claims it can distinguish between varying situations, like whether you’re in a crowded arena or the forest. When you go to play back the audio, you’ll be able to hear it in surround sound, similar to how it might have sounded to your actual ears when you recorded it.
Samsung says the 360 Audio Recording is made possible through “leveraging” LE audio. If you look a little closer (link opens PDF) at the specification, there are individual microphone control capabilities baked into Bluetooth LE that let software makers finetune which ones pick up on sounds. But that’s also why this ability is currently proprietary to Samsung-made devices and only the latest batch.
The 360 Audio Recording works exclusively with the Galaxy Z Flip 4, Z Fold 4, and upcoming Galaxy smartphones. It also requires One UI 5.0 or above, so update your phone if you’re on the list to take advantage of it. The feature is officially available for download today.
Reserve the next gen Samsung device All you need to do is sign up with your email and boom: credit for your preorder on a new Samsung device.
Enhanced watch controls
I’m already a big fan of the ability to remotely take a selfie with my Wear OS-based Galaxy Watch 4. I use it a ton with the Google Pixel 7, my current Android daily driver, but I wish there were more controls available besides switching between front- and rear-facing cameras.
The next update from Samsung adds zoom capabilities to the camera controller for Galaxy Watch 4/Watch 5 users. Now you can pinch out to zoom in on your smartphone via the watch screen or use the rotating bezel if your watch has it available. This camera controller feature will be available for Galaxy Watch 5, Watch 5 Pro, Watch 4, and Watch 4 Classic users starting next month.
