EU agrees law on AI regulation, 11th generation iPad due in 2024
European Union officials have reached a provisional deal on the world’s first comprehensive laws to regulate the use of artificial intelligence. After 36 hours of talks, negotiators agreed rules around AI in systems like ChatGPT and facial recognition. The European Parliament will vote on the AI Act proposals early next year, but any legislation will not take effect until at least 2025. The US, UK and China are all rushing to publish their own guidelines. The proposals include safeguards on the use of AI within the EU as well as limitations on its adoption by law enforcement agencies. BBC
The misuse of copyrighted music by artificial intelligence companies could exploit musicians, a former executive at a leading tech startup has warned. The technology is trained on a huge number of existing songs, which it uses to generate music based on a text prompt. Copyrighted work is already being used to train artificial intelligence models without permission, according to Ed Newton-Rex, who resigned from his role leading Stability AI’s audio team because he didn’t agree with the company’s opinion that training generative AI models on copyrighted works is “fair use” of the material. Sky News
The recently-departed watchdog in charge of monitoring facial recognition technology has joined the private firm he controversially approved, paving the way for the mass roll-out of biometric surveillance cameras in high streets across the country. In a move critics have dubbed an “outrageous conflict of interest”, Professor Fraser Sampson, former biometrics and surveillance camera commissioner, has joined Facewatch as a non-executive director. Sampson left his watchdog role on 31 October, with Companies House records showing he was registered as a company director at Facewatch the following day, 1 November. The Guardian
The next entry-level iPad from Apple – which will be the 11th generation of this particular device – hasn’t appeared in 2023, but we just found out more about when the tablet might be showing up in 2024. According to a report from Nikkei Asia (via MacRumors), which goes into detail about the production processes of Apple’s manufacturing partners in Vietnam, we can expect a launch for the 11th-gen iPad in the second half of next year. Sources speaking to Nikkei Asia say that engineering verification, part of the quality control process, is scheduled for the middle of February 2024. Tech Radar
With the rumored release date of the Galaxy S24 Ultra drawing ever closer, anyone mulling a phone purchase before the end of the year faces a dilemma. Do you pick up the Galaxy S23 Ultra now at a discount? Or do you hope that rumors of a January release for Samsung’s next big flagship are true and try to hold out until then? It’s a trickier question than you might think. While everyone wants the latest and greatest hardware, the Galaxy S23 Ultra is no slouch — it’s the best Samsung phone you can buy right now, as a matter of fact. Tom’s Guide
Hydrogen could replace natural gas in thousands of homes under controversial plans to decarbonise entire towns in Britain’s push towards net zero. Ministers have asked the UK’s main gas network operators to nominate the most suitable towns to be moved from methane to pure hydrogen as part of the pilot over the next decade. It comes as the Government prepares to publish its long-awaited “Hydrogen Roadmap”, which will set out how the UK can build a network of hydrogen production factories, and convert homes, businesses, and transport networks to the green fuel. Telegraph
