Facebook and Messenger chats to be automatically encrypted, Google unveils Gemini chatbot

Chris Price News
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All Facebook and Messenger chats will be encrypted automatically, parent company Meta has announced. Messages and calls protected by end-to-end-encryption (E2EE) can be read only by the sender and recipient. It has been possible to opt in to encrypted messages for years, but now it will become the default position. Critics, including UK police and government, have claimed the roll-out will make it harder to detect child sexual abuse on the platform. The protection meant nobody, including Meta, can see what is sent or said, “unless you choose to report a message to us”, Loredana Crisan, head of Messenger, wrote in a post announcing the change. BBC 

Google has revealed a major revamp to its artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot as it seeks to rival OpenAI’s ChatGPT. The US tech giant’s Google Deepmind division has unveiled Gemini, an upgrade to the Bard chatbot it launched earlier this year. Sundar Pichai, chief executive of Google’s parent company Alphabet, said the new AI technology represented “one of the biggest science and engineering efforts we’ve undertaken as a company”. He said its Gemini upgrade will add more coding and mathematical abilities to its existing Bard chatbot. Telegraph

Apple is reportedly readying new iPads and MacBook Air models equipped with the recently revealed Apple M3 chip for a spring launch next year.  That’s according to Bloomberg chief correspondent and persistent and accurate Apple tipster, Mark Gurman, who claimed such a launch will come as a move to revitalize iPad sales that have recently slumped. Reportedly thrown into the mix will be a new iPad Air with a 12.9-inch display, alongside revamped Magic Keyboard models and a new Apple Pencil.  Tech Radar

 

Tesla has cleaned up in our Driver Power survey of electric car public chargepoint providers. Its satisfaction scores were miles ahead of its closest rivals for Driver Power glory, namely MFG EV Power and InstaVolt, which finished second and third. The US maker is riding high in the UK sales charts, and part of its popularity clearly rests on a charger network that tops 10 out of 11 of our satisfaction categories. It only drops marks for locations, where it is third behind GeniePoint and Gridserve. But neither of those two scored well enough elsewhere to trouble the top three overall. AutoExpress 

A thermal image of the COP28 complex in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Pic: SatVu

A British-built ‘flying thermometer’ has taken images of the sun-baked venue of the Dubai climate summit to highlight how rising global temperatures will challenge urban areas. HOTSAT-1 was launched by SpaceX over the summer. Unlike satellites that monitor the Earth with cameras that ‘see’ visible light, like our eyes, it monitors infrared radiation to register how much heat is being given off in any given area. The image, released exclusively to Sky News, shows roads and concrete walkways around the COP28 complex in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) glowing bright red because of the heat absorbed from the sun. Sky News 

Apple iPhones should be able to charge much faster wirelessly with an upcoming update. The final version of the iOS 17.2 update was made available to developers this week, suggesting that it will come to the public as soon as next week. It includes a host of updates, including a new Journal app and the ability to capture spatial videos ready for the Apple Vision Pro. The latest version of that software also brings compatibility with the Qi2 standard to the iPhone 13 and 14. The iPhone 15 already had that capability. Independent 

Chris Price
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