X launches ‘playful’ Grok AI chatbot, reinstates far-right ‘influencers’
Elon Musk has launched an AI chatbot called Grok on his social media site X, formerly Twitter, but so far it is only available to selected users. “In some important respects, it is the best that currently exists,” he posted on X, before its release. Mr Musk boasted that Grok “loves sarcasm” and would answer questions with “a little humour”. However, early signs suggest it suffers from problems common to other artificial intelligence tools. BBC
Elon Musk’s Twitter has reinstated the accounts of far-Right influencers Katie Hopkins and Tommy Robinson, reversing lifetime bans on the pair imposed by the social network’s previous ownership. Ms Hopkins and Mr Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, were reinstated after Mr Musk responded to a tweet which pointed that out they remained banned from the platform. Mr Musk on Sunday said: “Why are their account handles on this platform? Free speech is allowed, provided laws are not broken.” Telegraph
Apple’s “Scary Fast” event offered the community a surprising refresh to the entire MacBook Pro range while taking care of a long-standing problem. Apple has finally killed off its awkward 13-inch MacBook Pro. The always-awkward laptop has finally left the portfolio… to be replaced by a 14-inch MacBook Pro with just 8GB of RAM and the vanilla M3 chipset. Forbes
iOS 17 includes some big improvements to Visual Look Up, Apple’s feature that identifies things in pictures you take and shows you more information about them. As part of iOS 17, this feature has been expanded to recognize some of the most common symbols on your car’s dashboard. This includes icons ranging from warning lights to those perplexing symbols for things like vents, defrosting, and more. 9to5Mac.com
After the release of iOS 17.1 several days ago, Apple is working on a minor version of the update. This has been detected by MacRumors, where they have recorded visitors running iOS version 17.1.1. The main focus of iOS 17.1.1 should be on bug fixes, including Wi-Fi connectivity issues, a critical issue that has already been resolved in the first beta of iOS 17.2 and may now make its way to the official iOS version without having to wait for version 17.2 to be ready. Additionally, this update could resolve an error that can cause some iPhones to unexpectedly shut down overnight. Softonic
If you’re planning to buy a new iPad this Black Friday, make sure you get a good deal: every single one of Apple’s tablets is going to be updated in 2024, so you don’t want to be paying top dollar for Apple’s best tablets right now. The news comes via our old friend Mark Gurman at Bloomberg, who reports that while Apple did consider rushing out some new models before the end of 2023 they just weren’t ready in time. So now, Apple plans to update “its entire iPad lineup” in 2024. T3.com
Android’s in-built security engine Google Play Protect has a new feature that conducts a real-time analysis of an Android app’s code and blocks it from installing the app if it’s considered potentially harmful. Google announced in October the new real-time app scanning feature built into Google Play Protect that the company says can help catch malicious or fake sideloaded apps installed from outside the app store. These apps will morph their appearance or use AI to alter the apps’ code in a way that helps them avoid detection. Tech Crunch
