OpenAI releases tool to detect machine-written text, Paypal lays off 2000 employees, Canadian team discovers power draining laptop and phone batteries.
This is all the tech news that is trending right now. Welcome to trending hashtags. Today is Wednesday, February 1st and I am your host, Aashi Pamma.
OpenAI, the force behind the popular AI chatbot, ChatGPT, releases a free web-based tool designed for machine-written text detection. The technology emerged after several educational institutions banned the use of chatbots following the risk of AI plagiarism and impact on student learning. The AI system offers a five-point scale of outcomes: very unlikely to be AI-generated, unlikely, unclear, possible or probable. It works best on text samples of more than 1,000 words and in English, with poor performance in other languages. However, OpenAI told news site Axios that the tool is imperfect and that performance varies depending on how similar the text being analyzed is to the types of writing OpenAI’s tool does.
source: axios
PayPal announced plans to lay off 2,000 employees, or about 7 percent of its workforce. President and CEO Dan Schulman wrote in the release that PayPal is working to address a “challenging macroeconomic environment.” He said the company has made progress in focusing resources on core priorities and correcting its cost structure, but there is more work to be done. Following the announcement, Paypal’s stock jumped more than 2 percent. The company’s announcement of layoffs marks the latest round of job cuts in the tech industry, after Google, Microsoft and Salesforce announced layoff plans last month.
source: cnbc news
Researchers at Dalhousie University, Halifax, discovered a massive manufacturing defect that causes phone, tablet or laptop devices to slowly drain power. The problem lies in the tiny pieces of tape that hold battery components together, according to the researchers, made from the wrong kind of plastic. When cables are connected to each end of the battery, electrons flow through the cables to provide power to the devices. The problem occurs when the electrons don’t adhere to the cables, causing the battery to deplete internally without sending an electric current and your device to lose charge even when it’s turned off. To find the perfect battery, the researchers tested different types of batteries. One had a substance with a plastic-like structure that locked electrons within the battery instead of flowing out through the cable and generating electricity. By giving off electrons, the battery’s charge is reduced internally, even when it is not connected to a circuit or electrical device. Realizing that the tape made of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) was not inert was of great interest to the researchers because many companies use PET plastic.
source: cbc news
Instagram co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger are back with a new venture to explore ideas for the next generation of social apps. Their first product is Artifact, a personalized news feed that uses machine learning to understand your interests and will soon let you discuss those articles with friends. The app opens up to a feed of popular articles selected from a curated list of publishers, from large publishers like the New York Times to small-scale blogs about niche topics. When you tap on articles that interest you, Artifact suggests similar posts and stories to you in the future, just like watching videos on TikTok. Tap on articles that interest you and Artifact will provide you with similar posts and stories in the future, just like the videos you see on TikTok. The app opened its waiting list to the public yesterday.
source: ledge
The Internet Archive announces The Calculator Drawer, a collection of 14 exemplary old-school calculators. Most are from Texas Instruments, while there are a few options from HP as well. The oldest known calculator is the 1989 VTech Electronic Number Muncher toy. The calculators support keyboard input, and let you click on-screen buttons for input, which makes for an even more realistic experience when using the simulation on a touchscreen. Some calculators also have a power button and sound effects. Math buffs can relive some memorable gadgets with a calculator drawer and use highly capable calculators, which can cost around $100 or more.
source: Ars Technica
This is all the tech news that is trending right now. Hashtag Trending is a part of the ITWC Podcast Network. Add us to your Alexa Flash Briefing or your Google Home Daily Briefing. Be sure to sign up for our Daily IT Wire Newsletter to get important news straight to your inbox every day. Plus, check out the next episode of Hashtag Tendence, our weekly hashtag trending episode in French, which drops every Thursday morning. If you have any suggestion or tip, drop us a line in the comments or via email. Thanks for listening, I’m Aashi Pamma.
