Author: Olsi
Announced on Thursday, the PaliGemma 2 family of models can analyze images, enabling the AI to generate captions and answer questions about people it “sees” in photos. “PaliGemma 2 generates detailed, contextually relevant captions for images,” Google wrote in a blog post shared with The Tech Spot, “going beyond simple object identification to describe actions, emotions, and the overall narrative of the scene.” Emotion recognition doesn’t work out of the box, and PaliGemma 2 has to be fine-tuned for the purpose. Nonetheless, experts The Tech Spot spoke with were alarmed at the prospect of an openly available emotion detector. “This…
Recycling today kind of sucks. People are generally confused about what can be recycled and where. As a result, only about 32% of eligible waste actually gets recycled. It would be a lot easier if people could dump everything into one bin and let the waste management companies deal with it, but that’s proven to be too expensive with humans in the loop. Enter robots. Myriad companies, from small startups like Glacier to large multinationals like Apple, have been working to automate recycling. Most of that work has centered on the robots themselves, placing them in existing facilities to help…
xAI, Elon Musk’s AI company, has raised $6 billion, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday. Investors gave a minimum of $77,593, per the filing. 97 participated, but the document doesn’t reveal their identities. The Wall Street Journal previously reported that Valor Equity Partners, Sequoia Capital, and Andreessen Horowitz were expected to contribute to the round, along with Qatar Investment Authority, Qatar’s sovereign-wealth fund. The new cash brings xAI’s total raised to $12 billion, adding to the $6 billion tranche xAI raised this spring. CNBC reported in November that xAI was aiming for a…
Yellowstone might be ending, but the spinoffs are going strong. Paramount+ announced that 1923 season 2 will premiere on Sunday, February 23. Accompanying the announcement are two teasers and a series of photos that preview what’s to come in 1923. In the first teaser, Spencer Dutton (Brandon Sklenar) begins his journey home to Montana, stressing that he must hurry because his family is in danger. The second teaser features Jacob (Harrison Ford) and Cara (Helen Mirren) Dutton fighting to protect their ranch. “Our way of life is under attack. I’m asking you to protect them,” Jacob says as he readies for…
This year may be over, but 2024 has one more major video game sequel left in the tank. On December 10, Ustwo Games will release Monument Valley 3 on mobile devices. It’s the third installment of a series that helped define mobile gaming a decade ago. To make matters even sweeter? It’s being distributed by Netflix Games, which means that anyone with a subscription to the service will have access to it at launch without spending an extra penny. So where’s the fanfare? Monument Valley 3, another mesmerizing puzzler that’s custom-made for small touchscreens, is the latest high-quality mobile release…
The upcoming Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is releasing on December 9, and Bethesda has just shared the hardware requirements for the game. What are we dealing with? Well, to say that you’ll need one of the best graphics cards would be an understatement. If you want to play the new Indiana Jones at maximum settings, you’ll need an RTX 4090—AMD cards aren’t even listed as an option. The latest Indiana Jones game is a real step up in terms of hardware requirements across the board. For starters, you need to have a hardware ray tracing GPU as a minimum…
EA adds more tech patents to its accessibility program,The patents being opened up include a range of speech generation and recognition technologies. Electronic Arts is expanding its accessibility program with 23 additional tech patents that other companies and developers can freely use without being slapped with an infringement lawsuit. The expansion more than doubles the total number of patents that EA has opened up since launching the pledge in 2021, and includes generation and recognition tools for speech and audio. “We believe that games should be accessible to everyone and our industry-leading teams are always looking for new ways to…
Netflix shares new photo of Jenna Ortega as Wednesday season 2 wraps production Created by Beetlejuice Beetlejuice scribes Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, Wednesday stars Ortega as the angsty teenager who inherits her mother’s psychic powers. In season 1, Wednesday transfers to Nevermore Academy, her parents’ alma mater. Wednesday’s rebelliousness and off-putting nature make it difficult to meet friends. When a murder shocks the community, Wednesday uses her newfound skills to investigate and find the killer. The adventures of Wednesday Addams will return to Netflix next year.The streamer announced that production has wrapped on Wednesday season 2. Netflix also released a new photo…
