OpenAI’s New Model and Its Advanced Memory/Reasoning Capabilities #1766



OpenAI’s latest AI model, codenamed “Strawberry,” has raised concerns about its ability to remember conversations and reason like humans. A Reddit user reported ChatGPT asking personal questions without prior input, sparking debates over AI memory capabilities. Experts warn this innovation may pose risks, including deception and misuse, with calls for legislation to regulate AI development.

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iOS 18 Is Available Today, Making iPhone More Personal Than Ever



Apple announced iOS 18 is now available, bringing iPhone users around the world new ways to personalize their iPhone with deeper customization to the Home Screen and Control Center; the biggest-ever redesign to Photos, making it even easier to find and relive special moments; and major enhancements to Messages and Mail.

Starting next month, iOS 18 will introduce Apple Intelligence, the personal intelligence system that combines the power of generative models with personal context to deliver intelligence that is incredibly useful and relevant while protecting users’ privacy and security.

More Customization Than Ever

In iOS 18, users can customize their Home Screen in exciting new ways by placing app icons and widgets to frame the wallpaper or create the ideal layout on each page. Users can also choose how the app icons and widgets are presented — light, dark, or with a colored tint — or make app icons appear even larger for a new streamlined look. 

Control Center is redesigned to be even more flexible. Powerful groups of controls, including favorites, media playback, Home controls and connectivity, and the new controls gallery featuring options from third-party-apps — can be organized so that they’re always just a swipe away. Users can also access their favorite controls from the Action button, and for the first time, users can change the controls on the Lock Screen or remove them entirely.

The Biggest Photos Redesign

The biggest-ever update to Photos makes it easier to find and relive special moments. The beautiful, simplified layout puts the library into a unified yet familiar view. New collections like Recent Days, People & Pets, and Trips automatically keep the library organized with on-device intelligence, so users can spend less time searching and more time enjoying their memories. 

Users can personalize their experience with a customizable layout that reflects what is most important to them and pin favorite collections to keep them easily accessible.

Engadget reported Apple’s iOS 18 is available today, but your iPhone may mot be compatible.

Apple just released its new iOS 18 for all eligible iPhones to download free today, which you can find in the Software Update settings. And if you’re planning to buy one of the new iPhone 16 or iPhone 16 Pro models coming available on September 20, they’ll already have iOS 18 installed. But not every iPhone will be able to run iOS 18, and even the once that can won’t have the bells and whistles of the new Apple Intelligence features.

That update stratification is nothing now. Generally, each year, some older iPhone models are removed from Apple’s iOS eligibility list. Last year, for instance, the iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, and iPhone X were left off the compatibility list. That means that those iPhone owners couldn’t update to iOS 17 and missed out on some notable features,

On the flip side, some older hardware will get major new features: Considering the upcoming software update that effectively turns existing AirPods Pro headphones into a hearing aid, complete with a built-in hearing test. (Apple just received FDA authorization to release that feature later this year.)

In my opinion, there are going to be a lot of people lined up at their nearest Apple Store today, hoping to get the brand new iOS 18 model.


Thinking about an EV? Part 1 – How Does an EV Work?



While many countries are encouraging motorists to embrace electric vehicles (EVs), there is a massive amount of FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) regarding the new vehicles. Some of it comes from vested interests, some of it from ignorance, but I’ve had an EV for over 10 years now and I think they’re great. My first two cars were plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) – that’s where there’s a smaller battery backed up by a petrol engine – but my current car of nearly three years is completely battery powered (BEVs).

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that the automotive industry and general society is in a period of change. We’ve been used to mass ownership of cars fuelled by petrol for about 70 years and switching to electricity doesn’t happen overnight. However, I’ve seen the change over the past decade and while EVs might not be for everyone, they can be right for many people.

Today’s discussion will focus on what makes an EV go, Obviously, EVs use electricity to power the vehicle rather than petrol (gas) and diesel. It’s potentially a clean source of power both when generated from renewable sources and when used in the vehicle – there are no nasty noxious fumes or particulates emitted from the exhaust. Simplistically, a large battery stores the electricity which is then used by motors to make the wheels go round. On the whole, it’s all straightforward but let’s answer a few of the common questions about EVs and driving one.

Do I need to pass another driving test or get a special driving licence?

If you are worried about being able to drive an EV, don’t be. If you have a driving licence that covers cars, you can drive an EV. It’s basically the same as driving a petrol or diesel vehicle with an automatic gearbox, only much quieter and cleaner. If anything, it’s a great deal simpler. Turn on the ignition to start the car…put a foot on the brake and put the car into Drive…press the accelerator…the car goes forward. Exactly the same as an automatic.

How is electricity stored in the car?

Electricity is stored in a battery that’s quite similar to the battery in your smartphone or tablet, only much, much bigger. The liquid fuel tank in your petrol or diesel vehicle is normally described in terms of volume – say, 30 gallons or 80 litres. In an EV, the battery is the equivalent of the tank and it’s measured in kWh – kilowatt hours – so you might see cars with 50 kWh batteries or 80 kWh batteries. As with a fuel tank, the bigger the battery, the further the car will go, though bigger batteries are heavier and do cost more, which is a downside.

How do I charge the battery?

Fundamentally there are two options. You charge slowly overnight at home or quickly at a commercial charge point or charging station. If you are able to charge at home, you can usually take advantage of cheap overnight electricity rates for lower cost motoring.

Hold on….I can charge at home?

Yes. While there are some solutions for people who park in the street, it’s best if you have a driveway and you can have a home charger (aka wall box) installed by a professional electrician. Costs will vary depending on the features of the charger and the ease of installation. There are sometimes grants to help cover the costs but expect to pay £500-£1000 for the unit and the installation.

The good news is that the charger will work with many different cars so you are very unlikely to have to change anything when you switch cars. I’m still using the same charger three cars on.

My car gives me 45 miles per gallon. What’s the equivalent with an EV?

With EVs people talk about miles per kWh. My car averages 2.9 miles per kWh though it’s a big SUV. A smaller, lighter car might do 4 miles per kWh.

Does that make an EV cheaper to run?

If you can charge at home, almost certainly. Let’s do the maths and work out the cost per mile based on fuel only.

Using my SUV model as an example as it comes in both petrol and electric versions, the petrol version gets about 37 mpg at best. Petrol is about £1.30 per litre here in the UK, so that’s £1.30 x 4.55 (litres in a UK gallon), giving £5.92 per gallon. Dividing that by the 37 mpg gives a cost of 15.9p per mile.

Taking the electric version, overnight I pay 18.4p per kWh to charge the car. I get 2.9 miles per kWh when I drive, so 18.4 / 2.9 gives 6.3p per mile.

(For the Americans, the calculation is similar, though I suspect you still buy gas per gallon. Yes, I know US and UK gallons are not the same but it doesn’t matter as long as you use US mpg figures.)

Whoa! That’s quite a saving. What if I can’t charge at home?

If you have to use a commercial charge point, it can cost anything from 30p to 70p per kWh, depending on the supplier, the power of the charger, whether you use an app and so on. This is not such good news and part of the extra cost is the VAT or sales tax. At home, the tax on electricity is 5% but at a charge point, it’s 20%. Don’t blame me, blame the Government. And obviously, the charge point operators are wanting to recoup their investment costs and they need to make a profit. If you can’t charge at home, do take this extra cost into consideration. Check the cost at your nearest commercial charge point.

If you don’t have a driveway, there are some options for cutting a groove in the pavement (Charge Gully) but you’ll need to consult with your local council as to what’s permissible.

How long does it take to charge?

It depends….the main factor is the power of the charger. If you are charging at home, it’s likely to be a relatively low power charger, say, 7 kW. This means that if the car has an 80 kWh battery, it will take a little over 11 hours to charge from empty. In reality, you rarely run the battery down to nothing but instead top the battery up every few days, maybe from 50%. I’m charging every third or fourth day based on my daily mileage.

If you go to a commercial high power charger, these can often deliver power in excess of 100 kW, which in theory means an 80 kWh battery charges in under an hour. This is dependent on the capability of the car to receive the power but most recent vehicles will be fine. Charging does slow down as the battery gets closer to 100% so often it’s best to only charge to only 80% or 90% to save time.

Is it easy to use a charger?

Yes. It’s a bit like using a petrol pump but with a big electrical plug on the end of a cable instead of a fuel nozzle. In Europe, most chargers will use the CCS and CCS2 connectors. There’s an older connector type called CHAdeMO but it’s gradually disappearing.

Here’s the socket on my car. The CCS part is on the top, with the CCS2 extension on the bottom. The CCS socket can be used on its own with low power chargers such as when you are charging at home. High power chargers use both connectors.

In terms of paying for the charge, it’s getting easier. There are lots of suppliers on the market so you’ll probably end up with a clatter of apps on your phone, but recent legislation says that all high power chargers have to support swiping a credit or debit card without the need to sign up. Personally, I find that the chargers which use RFID fobs or cards are the easiest and quickest to get started.

Watch out for overstay fees. To stop people hogging chargers, some suppliers will make you pay extra if you stay too long, particularly at the high power chargers.

What about charging when I’m away from home?

Broadly, there are two categories of chargers that you are looking for when you are away from home. The first are the chargers that you need en route to get to where you are going. These are typically high power chargers and are usually found close to major routes. Ideally you want to spend a short amount of time at these, preferably less than an hour.

Destination chargers are chargers often offered by hotels and other facilities where you might be spending more time. These chargers won’t be as powerful but you’ll leave your car connected to these longer, perhaps overnight. Contact the hotel to see what they can offer.

There are several good apps and websites such as Zap Map and PlugShare that show both the location of chargers and if the charger is in use. This is great if you are heading to a charger and you want to be reasonably confident it’s going to be available when you get there. I’ll talk more about travelling away from home in my next article about EVs, “How Far Does an EV Go?”

That concludes the first post in the series and I hope it helps some of the “EV curious” understand EVs a little bit better. If you’ve any further queries, drop them in as questions below.


TikTok Is About To Get Its Day In Court



Next week, a court will hear arguments about whether the US government can ban TikTok, based on evidence it doesn’t want anyone — including the social media company — to see, The Verge reported.

On September 16th, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia will hear oral arguments for TikTok v. Garland, TikTok’s First Amendment challenges to legislation that it claims amounts to a ban. It’s a fight not just about free speech but whether the Department of Justice can make a case using classified material that its opponent can’t review or argue against. The government argues TikTok is a clear national security threat, but says that revealing why would be a threat, too.

According to The Verge, TikTok’s suit stems from a law signed by President Joe Biden back in April. The law requires TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, to divest it within nine months to a non-Chinese company; if it fails, the app would be effectively banned in the US – unless the president grants it a few months to get a deal done.

TikTok has argued the law would unconstitutionally “force a shutdown,” accusing the government of taking “the unprecedented step of expressly angling out and banning TikTok.

The Hill reported bipartisan efforts to ban TikTok nationwide will be scrutinized Monday by a federal appeals court tasked with weighing whether axing the social media giant’s U.S. presence runs afoul of the First Amendment.

The social media platform and a group of content creators have sued over a new law that could ban the app, placing free speech concerns front and center but also raising a handful of other issues.

On Monday morning, the three-judge federal appeals court panel in the nation’s capital will hear their challenges and decide whether to block the law from going into effect as scheduled on Jan. 19.

President Biden signed the legislation in April after quickly passed Congress with bipartisan support, kicking into place the timeline for TikTok’s China-based parent company, ByteDance, to sell the platform or face a ban from U.S. app stores and networks.

ByteDance has contends divestment is practically impossible, meaning that the law effectively amounts to a nationwide ban of the video-sharing platform. 

Voice of America reported attorney’s representing the social media application TikTok and it’s China-based parent company ByteDance, are poised to clash with lawyers from the Department of Justice on Monday in a case that could decide the fate of the service in the United States.

The case, which will be heard at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, consolidate several lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of a law enacted earlier this year. The measure, which had broad bipartisan support in Congress, demands that ByteDance sell TikTok to a non-Chinese owner before January 19, 2025, or be forced to shut down its service within the U.S.

The law’s challengers claim that it represents an unconstitutional suppression of free speech, violating the First Amendment rights of TikTok’s estimated 170 million U.S. users.

In my opinion, the situation with TikTok (and ByteDance) just keeps going around and around. Ideally, TikTok and ByteDance might have to face consequences for collecting data from American citizens.


The AI Bill Driving A Wedge Through Silicon Valley



California’s push to regulate artificial intelligence has riven Silicon Valley, as opponents warn the legal framework could undermine competition and the US’s position as the world leader in technology, Financial Times reported.

Having waged a fierce battle to amend or water down the bill as it passed through California’s legislature, executive at companies including OpenAI and Meta are waiting anxiously to see if Gavin Newsom, the state’s Democratic governor, will sign it into law. He has until September 30 to decide.

California is the heart of the burgeoning AI industry, and with no federal law to regulate the technology across the US — let alone a uniform global standard — the ramifications would extend far beyond the state.

Why does California want to regulate AI?

The rapid development of AI tools that can generate humanlike responses to questions have magnified perceived risks around the technology, ranging from legal disputes such as copyright infringement to misinformation and a proliferation of deepfakes. Some even think it could pose a threat to humanity.

The Verge reported artificial intelligence is moving quickly. It’s now able to mimic humans convincingly enough to fuel massive phone scams or spin up nonconsensual deepfake imagery with celebrities to be used in harassment campaigns. The urgency to regulate this technology has never been more critical — so, that’s what California, home to many of AI’s biggest players, is trying to do with a bill known as SB 1047.

SB 1047, which passed the California State Assembly and Senate in late August, is now on the desk of California Governor Gavin Newsom — who will determine the fate of the bill. While the EU and some other governments have been hammering out AI regulation for years now, SB 1047 would be the strictest framework in the US so far.

CCN reported a California bill that intends to promote the “safe and secure” development of frontier AI models has exposed a major rift in Silicon Valley.

Senior tech executives, prominent investors, and politicians on both sides of the aisle are among the bill’s critics. Meanwhile, supporters of SB-1047 include Elon Musk, Vitalik Buterin, and, most recently, an alliance of current and former employees of AI companies, including OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, Meta, and xAI.

Having made its way through the California legislature, only Governor Gavin Newsom’s approval is needed to sign SB-1047 into law. As the deadline for him to decide on his position approaches, Newsom has come under pressure from both sides.

In my opinion, there are going to be people who are all for Governor Newsom signing SB-1047, and people who don’t want the Governor to do that. Californian’s will have to wait and see what the outcome will be. 


Meta Reignites Plans To Train AI Using UK User’s Public Facebook And Instagram Posts



Meta has confirmed that its restarting efforts to train its AI systems using public Facebook and Instagram posts from its U.K. userbase, TechCrunch reported.

The company claims it has “incorporated regulatory feedback” into a revised “opt-out” approach to ensure that it’s “even more transparent,” as its blog post spins it. It is also seeking to paint the move as enabling its generative A! Models to “reflect British culture, history, and idiom.” But its less clear what exactly is different about its latest data grab.

From next week, Meta said U.K. users will start to see in-app notifications explaining what it’s doing. The company then plans to start using public content to train its AI in the coming months — or at least do training data where a user has not actively objected via the process Meta provides.

Meta posted: Building AI Technology for the UK in a Responsible And Transparent Way

We will begin training for AI at Meta using public content shared by adults on Facebook and Instagram in the UK over the coming months. This means that our generative AI models will reflect British culture, history, and idiom, and that UK companies and institutions will be able to utilize the latest technology. We’re building AI at Meta to reflect the diverse communities around the world and we look forward to launching it in more countries and languages later this year.

Since we paused our generative AI models in the UK to address regulatory feedback, we’ve engaged positively with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) and welcome the constructive approach that the ICO has taken throughout these discussions. This clarity and certainty will help us bring AI at Meta products to the UK much sooner. We welcome the ICO’s guidance supporting Meta’s implementation of the legal basis of ‘Legitimate Interests’, which can be a valid legal basis for using certain first party data to train generative AI models for our AI at Meta features and experiences….

The Information Commissioner’s Office posted the following:

Stephen Almond, Executive Director Regulatory Risk at the ICO, says:

“In June, Meta paused its plans to use Facebook and Instagram user data to train generative AI in response to a request from the ICO. It has since made changes to its approach, including making it simpler for users to object to the processing and providing them with a longer window to do so. Meta has now taken the decision to resume its plans and we will monitor the situation as Meta moves to inform UK users and commerce processing in the coming weeks.

We have been clear that any organization using its users’ information to train generative AI models needs to be transparent about how people’s data is being used. Organizations should put effective safeguards in place before they start using personal data for model training, including providing a clear and simple route for users to object to the processing. The ICO has not provided regulatory approval for the processing and it is for Meta to ensure and demonstrate ongoing compliance.”

In my opinion, it seems clear that Meta is not really giving people in the UK the opportunity to “opt-out” of having their data stolen by Meta. I wonder how many will stop using Facebook and Instagram as a result.


OpenAI Release o1, Its First Model With ‘Reasoning’ Abilities



OpenAI is releasing a new model called o1, the first in a planned series of “reasoning” models that have that have been trained to answer more complex questions, faster than a human can. It’s being released alongside o1-mini, a smaller, cheaper version. And yes, if you’re steeped in AI rumors: this is, in fact, the extremely hyped Strawberry model, The Verge reported.

For OpenAI, o1 represents a step toward its broader goal of human-like artificial intelligence. More practically, it does a better job at writing code and solving multistep problems than previous models. But it’s also more expensive and slower to use than GPT-4o. OpenAI is calling this release of o1 a “preview” to emphasize how nascent it is.

ChatGPT Plus and Team users get access to both o1-preview and o1-mini starting today, while Enterprise and Edu users will get access early next week. OpenAI says it plans to bring o1-mini access to all the free users of ChatGPT but hasn’t set a release date yet.

Developer access to o1 is really expensive: In the API, o1-preview is $15 per 1 million input tokens, or chunks of test parsed by the model, and $60 per 1 million output tokens. For comparison, GPT-4o costs $5 per 1 million input tokens and $15 per 1 million output tokens. 

OpenAI posted the following:  

We’re releasing OpenAI o1-mini, a cost-efficient reasoning model. O1-mini excels at STEM, especially math and coding — nearly matching the performance of OpenAIo1 on evaluation benchmarks such as AIME and Codeforces. We expect o1-mini will be a faster, cost-effective model for applications that require reasoning without broad world knowledge.

Today, we are launching o1-mini to tier 5 API users at a cost that is 80% cheaper than OpenAI o1-preview. ChatGPT Plus, Team, Enterprise, and Edu users can use o1-mini as an alternative to o1-preview, with higher rate limits and lower latency.

Wired reported  OpenAI made the last big breakthrough in artificial intelligence by increasing the size of its models to dizzying proportions, when it introduced GPT-4 last year. The company today announced a new advance that signals a shift in approach — a model that can “reason” logically through many different problems and is significantly smarter than existing AI without a major scale-up.

The new model, dubbed OpenAI o1, can solve problems that stump existing AI models, including OpenAI’s most powerful existing model, GPT-4o. Rather than summon up an answer in one step, as a large language model normally does, it reasons through the problem, effectively thinking out loud as a person might, before arriving at the right result.

The new model was a code-named Strawberry within OpenAI, and is not a successor to GPT-4o but rather a compliment to it, the company says. 

In my opinion, OpenAI o1 could be useful for those who are teaching – or learning – how o1 works. Unfortunately, it appears that accessing it can come at a very high price point.