AI can’t patent inventions, Sony PlayStation 5 reaches 50 million sales
The UK Supreme Court has upheld earlier decisions in rejecting a bid to allow an artificial intelligence to be named as an inventor in a patent application. Technologist Dr Stephen Thaler had sought to have his AI, called Dabus, recognised as the inventor of a food container and a flashing light beacon. But in 2019, the intellectual property office (IPO) rejected this, saying only a person could be named as an inventor. The decision was then backed by both the High Court and Court of Appeal. The IPO has argued, and courts have supported the view, that only “persons” can have patent rights, not AIs. BBC
Thousands of child abuse images have been discovered in a database for artificial intelligence systems, raising fears that AI tools have been “trained” on the illegal images. Researchers have identified more than 3,000 cases of child sexual abuse material in a vast trove of images designed to create AI photo generation software. The free database, known as “LAION-5b”, has been used to develop AI software – including a version of Stable Diffusion, a popular image generator. Telegraph
Sony‘s PlayStation 5 has reached 50 million sales, according to a Sony executive, three years after its initial release. It mirrors the performance of the Sony PS4, which came out in 2013 and hit 50 million sales in December 2016. This is despite significant supply issues that hampered the PlayStation 5 until 2023. PlayStation 5 figures have been buoyed in recent months by box-shifting sales during the Black Friday period. The console dropped from £469 to £389 in the UK, while the cheapest deals online were around £360. Evening Standard
The police will be able to run facial recognition searches on a database containing images of Britain’s 50 million driving licence holders under a law change being quietly introduced by the government. Should the police wish to put a name to an image collected on CCTV, or shared on social media, the legislation would provide them with the powers to search driving licence records for a match. The move, contained in a single clause in a new criminal justice bill, could put every driver in the country in a permanent police lineup, according to privacy campaigners. The Guardian
Toyota will recall 1.12 million vehicles worldwide due to a fault affecting their airbags. The recall covers 2020 to 2022 model year vehicles, including various Avalon, Camry, Corolla, RAV4, Lexus ES250, ES300H, ES350, RX350 Highlander and Sienna Hybrid vehicles and could result in the Occupant Classification System (OCS) sensors not working. A short circuit in these models’ sensors could cause their airbags not to deploy as designed. Sky News
Remember AirPower? Apple’s advanced charging mat concept never got out of the gate, with the company forced to abandon it amid a plethora of overheating issues. Well, now an unreleased prototype from 2017 has emerged on the internet – and it demonstrates just how bad things were for the device. Apple leaker Kosutami shared a set of images and videos of an AirPower prototype on X (formerly Twitter). According to the poster, the version they tested got so hot that it started to melt their AirPods Pro case, causing the plastic shell to start blistering in places. Tech Radar
