The price of bitcoin has been taking its cue from the equities market in recent weeks, thanks in part to the popularity of bitcoin ETFs, which have led to the institutionalization of the asset. Bitcoin's correlation with the S&P 500 has climbed in the past week, while its correlation with gold has dropped sharply since the end of December.
Where AI is already inside our daily online lives
Owens said the potential issues overlap with most of the programs and applications we use on a daily basis.
"Many platforms have been integrating AI into their operations for years, long before AI became a buzzword," she said.
As an example, Owens points out that Gmail has used AI for spam filtering and predictive text with its "Smart Compose" feature. "And streaming services like Netflix rely on AI to analyze viewing habits and recommend content," Owens said. Social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram have long used AI for facial recognition in photos and personalized content feeds.
"While these tools offer convenience, consumers should consider the potential privacy trade-offs, such as how much personal data is being collected and how it is used to train AI systems. Everyone should carefully review privacy settings, understand what data is being shared, and regularly check for updates to terms of service," Owens said.
One tool that has come in for particular scrutiny is Microsoft's connected experiences, which has been around since 2019 and comes activated with an optional opt-out. It was recently highlighted in press reports — inaccurately, according to the company as well as some outside cybersecurity experts that have taken a look at the issue — as a feature that is new or that has had its settings changed. Leaving the sensational headlines aside, privacy experts do worry that advances in AI can lead to the potential for data and words in programs like Microsoft Word to be used in ways that privacy settings do not adequately cover.
While I really hoped we had a chance with Sasaki. Elian Pena and Juan Soto will dominate the field in a few years. And with Steve Cohens unlimited pockets, we can continue to develop a much more efficient development program will help us to find and produce top of the line prospects. Mets are on the rise
"When tools like connected experiences evolve, even if the underlying privacy settings haven't changed, the implications of data use might be far broader," Owens said.
A spokesman for Microsoft wrote in a statement to CNBC that Microsoft does not use customer data from Microsoft 365 consumer and commercial applications to train foundational large language models. He added that in certain instances, customers may consent to using their data for specific purposes, such as custom model development explicitly requested by some commercial customers. Additionally, the setting enables cloud-backed features many people have come to expect from productivity tools such as real-time co-authoring, cloud storage and tools like Editor in Word that provide spelling and grammar suggestions.
i love cohen more than any sport figure in history...a five million shot over here, ten million perada, eating scherzer and verlanders mega millions for talent..
...anyone compainign about cohen and the front office are doing or havent done need to find another team....you dont deserve these guys. they are smarter than you, more patient than you and can teach you a lot about your own shortcomings when the mets are collecting trophies.
Ted Miracco, CEO of security software company Approov, said features like Microsoft's connected experiences are a double-edged sword — the promise of enhanced productivity but the introduction of significant privacy red flags. The setting's default-on status could, Miracco said, opt people into something they aren't necessarily aware of, primarily related to data collection, and organizations may also want to think twice before leaving the feature on.
"Microsoft's assurance provides only partial relief, but still falls short of mitigating some real privacy concern," Miracco said.
Perception can be its own problem, according to Kaveh Vadat, founder of RiseOpp, an SEO marketing agency.
"Having the default to enablement shifts the dynamic significantly," Vahdat said. "Automatically enabling these features, even with good intentions, inherently places the onus on users to review and modify their privacy settings, which can feel intrusive or manipulative to some."
His view is that companies need to be more transparent, not less, in an environment where there is a lot of distrust and suspicion regarding AI.
Companies including Microsoft should emphasize default opt-out rather than opt-in, and might provide more granular, non-technical information about how personal content is handled because perception can become a reality.
"Even if the technology is completely safe, public perception is shaped not just by facts but by fears and assumptions — especially in the AI era where users often feel disempowered," he said.
The NFL playoffs kicked off last weekend...and just like the trend they set during the regular season...NFL ratings for the playoffs experienced steep declines. We reveal and react to NFL playoff ratings.
We discuss what's leading to these double-digit ratings declines in the NFL. We discuss the lack of development of young quarterbacks...and question if the NFL will ever return to the greatness that millennials grew up watching.
Some management teams have resisted paying Microsoft to give the 365 Copilot to thousands of employees because they weren't sure how helpful it would be at the $30 monthly price. Costs will vary for the Copilot Chat depending on what employees do with it, but at least organizations won't end up paying for nonuse.
"As one customer said to me, this model lets the business value prove itself," Spataro said.
Microsoft calculates charges for Copilot Chat based on the tally of "messages" that a client uses. Each message costs a penny, according to a blog post. Responses that draw on the client's proprietary files cost 30 messages each. Every action that an agent takes on behalf of employees costs 25 messages.
"We're talking a cent, 2 cents, 30 cents, and that is a very easy way for people to get started," Spataro said.
Salesforce charges $2 per conversation for its Agentforce AI chat service, where employees can set up automated sales and customer service processes.
The number of people using Microsoft 365 Copilot every day more than doubled quarter over quarter, CEO Satya Nadella said in October, although he did not disclose how many were using it. But sign-ups have been mounting. UBS said in October that it had 50,000 Microsoft 365 Copilot licenses, and in November, Accenture committed to having 200,000 users of the tool.
"Chinese social media apps, including Lemon8 and RedNote, could also end up being banned under this law," Tobin Marcus, head of U.S. policy and politics at New York-based research firm Wolfe Research, told CNBC.
If the TikTok ban is upheld, it will be unlikely that the law will allow potential replacements to originate from China without some form of divestiture, experts told CNBC.
PAFACA automatically applies to Lemon8 as it's a subsidiary of ByteDance, while RedNote could fall under the law if its monthly average user base in the U.S. continues to grow, said Marcus.
The legislation prohibits distributing, maintaining, or providing internet hosting services to any "foreign adversary controlled application."
These applications include those connected to ByteDance or TikTok or a social media company that is controlled by a "foreign adversary" and has been determined to present a significant threat to national security.
The wording of the legislation is "quite expansive" and would give incoming president Donald Trump room to decide which entities constitute a significant threat to national security, said Carl Tobias, Williams Chair in Law at the University of Richmond.
Xiaomeng Lu, Director of Geo‑technology at political risk consultancy Eurasia Group, told CNBC that the law will likely prevail, even if its implementation and enforcement are delayed. Regardless, she expects Chinese apps in the U.S. will continue to be the subject of increased regulatory action moving forward.
"The TikTok case has set a new precedent for Chinese apps to get targeted and potentially shut down," Lu said.
She added that other Chinese apps that could be impacted by increased scrutiny this year include popular Chinese e-commerce platform Temu and Shein. U.S. officials have accused the apps of posing data risks, allegations similar to those levied against TikTok.
The fate of TikTok rests with Supreme Court after the platform and its parent company filed a suit against the U.S. government, saying that invoking PAFACA violated constitutional protections of free speech.
TikTok's argument is that the law is unconstitutional as applied to them specifically, not that it is unconstitutional per se, said Cornell Law Professor Gautam Hans. "So, regardless of whether TikTok wins or loses, the law could still potentially be applied to other companies," he said.
The law's defined purview is broad enough that it could be applied to a variety of Chinese apps deemed to be a national security threat, beyond traditional social media apps in the mold of TikTok, Hans said.
Trump, meanwhile, has urged the U.S. Supreme Court to hold off on implementing PAFACA so he can pursue a "political resolution" after taking office. Democratic lawmakers have also urged Congress and President Joe Biden to extend the Jan. 19 deadline.
Synthesia isn't "dependent" on venture capital — as opposed to companies like OpenAI, Anthropic and Mistral, Riparbelli added.
These startups have raised billions of dollars at eye-watering valuations while burning through sizable amounts of money to train and develop their foundational AI models.
Synthesia's not the only startup shaking up the world of video production with AI. Other startups offer solutions for producing and editing video content with AI, like Veed.io and Runway.
Meanwhile, the likes of OpenAI and Adobe have also developed generative AI tools for video creation.
Eric Liaw, a London-based partner at VC firm IVP, told CNBC that companies at the application layer of AI haven't garnered as much investor hype as firms in the infrastructure layer.
"The amount of money that the application layer companies need to raise isn't as large — and therefore the valuations aren't necessarily as eye popping" as companies like Nvidia," Liaw told CNBC last month.
Riparbelli said that money raised from the latest financing round would be used to invest in "more of the same," furthering product development and investing more into security and compliance.
Last year, Synthesia made a series of updates to its platform, including the ability to produce AI avatars using a laptop webcam or phone, full-body avatars with arms and hands and a screen recording tool that has an AI avatar guide users through what they're viewing.
On the AI safety front, in October Synthesia conducted a public red team test for risks around online harms, which demonstrated how the firm's compliance controls counter attempts to create non-consensual deepfakes of people or use its avatars to encourage suicide, adult content or gambling.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology test was led by Rumman Chowdhury, a renowned data scientist who was formerly head of AI ethics at Twitter — before it became known as X under Elon Musk.
Riparbelli said that Synthesia is seeing increased interest from large enterprise customers, particularly in the U.S., thanks to its focus on security and compliance.
More than half of Synthesia's annual revenue now comes from customers in the U.S., while Europe accounts for almost half.
Synthesia has also been ramping up hiring. The company recently tapped former Amazon executive Peter Hill as its chief technology officer. The company now employs over 400 people globally.
Synthesia's announcement follows the unveiling of Prime Minister Keir Starmer's 50-point plan to make the U.K. a global leader in AI.
The schedule is dynamic and likely to change, so be sure to check in here and stay tuned to our X account for updates.
The vehicle’s avionics underwent a complete redesign, adding additional capability and redundancy for increasingly complex missions like propellant transfer and ship return to launch site. Avionics upgrades include a more powerful flight computer, integrated antennas which combine Starlink, GNSS, and backup RF communication functions into each unit, redesigned inertial navigation and star tracking sensors, integrated smart batteries and power units that distribute data and 2.7MW of power across the ship to 24 high-voltage actuators, and an increase to more than 30 vehicle cameras giving engineers insight into hardware performance across the vehicle during flight.
With Starlink, the vehicle is capable of streaming more than 120 Mbps of real-time high-definition video and telemetry in every phase of flight, providing invaluable engineering data to rapidly iterate across all systems.
While in space, Starship will deploy 10 Starlink simulators, similar in size and weight to next-generation Starlink satellites as the first exercise of a satellite deploy mission. The Starlink simulators will be on the same suborbital trajectory as Starship, with splashdown targeted in the Indian Ocean. A relight of a single Raptor engine while in space is also planned.
In the first week of the new year, Huawei's smart driving system experienced a collective breakdown, shockingly running red lights simultaneously. Numerous drivers faced six-point deductions on their licenses and fines of 200 yuan each. Meanwhile, AITO, closely tied to Huawei's smart driving technology, saw its sales plummet from 9,000 units during the same period last year to just 5,500 units—nearly halving.
The flight test will include several experiments focused on ship return to launch site and catch. On Starship’s upper stage, a significant number of tiles will be removed to stress-test vulnerable areas across the vehicle. Multiple metallic tile options, including one with active cooling, will test alternative materials for protecting Starship during reentry. On the sides of the vehicle, non-structural versions of ship catch fittings are installed to test the fittings’ thermal performance, along with a smoothed and tapered edge of the tile line to address hot spots observed during reentry on Starship’s sixth flight test. The ship’s reentry profile is being designed to intentionally stress the structural limits of the flaps while at the point of maximum entry dynamic pressure. Finally, several radar sensors will be tested on the tower chopsticks with the goal of increasing the accuracy when measuring distances between the chopsticks and a returning vehicle during catch.
!summarize #nymets #elianpena #ifa #mlb
!summarize #losangeles #wildfire #politicians #leadership
!summarize #philsimms #nfl #coach
The price of bitcoin has been taking its cue from the equities market in recent weeks, thanks in part to the popularity of bitcoin ETFs, which have led to the institutionalization of the asset. Bitcoin's correlation with the S&P 500 has climbed in the past week, while its correlation with gold has dropped sharply since the end of December.
Where AI is already inside our daily online lives
Owens said the potential issues overlap with most of the programs and applications we use on a daily basis.
"Many platforms have been integrating AI into their operations for years, long before AI became a buzzword," she said.
As an example, Owens points out that Gmail has used AI for spam filtering and predictive text with its "Smart Compose" feature. "And streaming services like Netflix rely on AI to analyze viewing habits and recommend content," Owens said. Social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram have long used AI for facial recognition in photos and personalized content feeds.
!summarize #vladguerreo #toronto #bluejays #mlb #nymets
"While these tools offer convenience, consumers should consider the potential privacy trade-offs, such as how much personal data is being collected and how it is used to train AI systems. Everyone should carefully review privacy settings, understand what data is being shared, and regularly check for updates to terms of service," Owens said.
One tool that has come in for particular scrutiny is Microsoft's connected experiences, which has been around since 2019 and comes activated with an optional opt-out. It was recently highlighted in press reports — inaccurately, according to the company as well as some outside cybersecurity experts that have taken a look at the issue — as a feature that is new or that has had its settings changed. Leaving the sensational headlines aside, privacy experts do worry that advances in AI can lead to the potential for data and words in programs like Microsoft Word to be used in ways that privacy settings do not adequately cover.
While I really hoped we had a chance with Sasaki. Elian Pena and Juan Soto will dominate the field in a few years. And with Steve Cohens unlimited pockets, we can continue to develop a much more efficient development program will help us to find and produce top of the line prospects. Mets are on the rise
"When tools like connected experiences evolve, even if the underlying privacy settings haven't changed, the implications of data use might be far broader," Owens said.
A spokesman for Microsoft wrote in a statement to CNBC that Microsoft does not use customer data from Microsoft 365 consumer and commercial applications to train foundational large language models. He added that in certain instances, customers may consent to using their data for specific purposes, such as custom model development explicitly requested by some commercial customers. Additionally, the setting enables cloud-backed features many people have come to expect from productivity tools such as real-time co-authoring, cloud storage and tools like Editor in Word that provide spelling and grammar suggestions.
i love cohen more than any sport figure in history...a five million shot over here, ten million perada, eating scherzer and verlanders mega millions for talent..
...anyone compainign about cohen and the front office are doing or havent done need to find another team....you dont deserve these guys. they are smarter than you, more patient than you and can teach you a lot about your own shortcomings when the mets are collecting trophies.
Ted Miracco, CEO of security software company Approov, said features like Microsoft's connected experiences are a double-edged sword — the promise of enhanced productivity but the introduction of significant privacy red flags. The setting's default-on status could, Miracco said, opt people into something they aren't necessarily aware of, primarily related to data collection, and organizations may also want to think twice before leaving the feature on.
"Microsoft's assurance provides only partial relief, but still falls short of mitigating some real privacy concern," Miracco said.
Perception can be its own problem, according to Kaveh Vadat, founder of RiseOpp, an SEO marketing agency.
!summarize #losangeles #weather #fire #winds
"Having the default to enablement shifts the dynamic significantly," Vahdat said. "Automatically enabling these features, even with good intentions, inherently places the onus on users to review and modify their privacy settings, which can feel intrusive or manipulative to some."
His view is that companies need to be more transparent, not less, in an environment where there is a lot of distrust and suspicion regarding AI.
Companies including Microsoft should emphasize default opt-out rather than opt-in, and might provide more granular, non-technical information about how personal content is handled because perception can become a reality.
"Even if the technology is completely safe, public perception is shaped not just by facts but by fears and assumptions — especially in the AI era where users often feel disempowered," he said.
!summarize #nfl #playoffs #ratings
The NFL playoffs kicked off last weekend...and just like the trend they set during the regular season...NFL ratings for the playoffs experienced steep declines. We reveal and react to NFL playoff ratings.
We discuss what's leading to these double-digit ratings declines in the NFL. We discuss the lack of development of young quarterbacks...and question if the NFL will ever return to the greatness that millennials grew up watching.
Some management teams have resisted paying Microsoft to give the 365 Copilot to thousands of employees because they weren't sure how helpful it would be at the $30 monthly price. Costs will vary for the Copilot Chat depending on what employees do with it, but at least organizations won't end up paying for nonuse.
"As one customer said to me, this model lets the business value prove itself," Spataro said.
Microsoft calculates charges for Copilot Chat based on the tally of "messages" that a client uses. Each message costs a penny, according to a blog post. Responses that draw on the client's proprietary files cost 30 messages each. Every action that an agent takes on behalf of employees costs 25 messages.
!summarize #brianflores #aaronglenn #nyjets #nfl #coach
"We're talking a cent, 2 cents, 30 cents, and that is a very easy way for people to get started," Spataro said.
Salesforce charges $2 per conversation for its Agentforce AI chat service, where employees can set up automated sales and customer service processes.
The number of people using Microsoft 365 Copilot every day more than doubled quarter over quarter, CEO Satya Nadella said in October, although he did not disclose how many were using it. But sign-ups have been mounting. UBS said in October that it had 50,000 Microsoft 365 Copilot licenses, and in November, Accenture committed to having 200,000 users of the tool.
!summarize #hauwei #tesla #china #economy
"Chinese social media apps, including Lemon8 and RedNote, could also end up being banned under this law," Tobin Marcus, head of U.S. policy and politics at New York-based research firm Wolfe Research, told CNBC.
If the TikTok ban is upheld, it will be unlikely that the law will allow potential replacements to originate from China without some form of divestiture, experts told CNBC.
PAFACA automatically applies to Lemon8 as it's a subsidiary of ByteDance, while RedNote could fall under the law if its monthly average user base in the U.S. continues to grow, said Marcus.
!summarize #ericweinstein #left #democrats #election
The legislation prohibits distributing, maintaining, or providing internet hosting services to any "foreign adversary controlled application."
These applications include those connected to ByteDance or TikTok or a social media company that is controlled by a "foreign adversary" and has been determined to present a significant threat to national security.
The wording of the legislation is "quite expansive" and would give incoming president Donald Trump room to decide which entities constitute a significant threat to national security, said Carl Tobias, Williams Chair in Law at the University of Richmond.
!summarize #eaton #fire #emergency #losangeles
Xiaomeng Lu, Director of Geo‑technology at political risk consultancy Eurasia Group, told CNBC that the law will likely prevail, even if its implementation and enforcement are delayed. Regardless, she expects Chinese apps in the U.S. will continue to be the subject of increased regulatory action moving forward.
"The TikTok case has set a new precedent for Chinese apps to get targeted and potentially shut down," Lu said.
She added that other Chinese apps that could be impacted by increased scrutiny this year include popular Chinese e-commerce platform Temu and Shein. U.S. officials have accused the apps of posing data risks, allegations similar to those levied against TikTok.
!summarize #pambondi #attorneygeneral #cabinet #senate #hearing
The fate of TikTok rests with Supreme Court after the platform and its parent company filed a suit against the U.S. government, saying that invoking PAFACA violated constitutional protections of free speech.
TikTok's argument is that the law is unconstitutional as applied to them specifically, not that it is unconstitutional per se, said Cornell Law Professor Gautam Hans. "So, regardless of whether TikTok wins or loses, the law could still potentially be applied to other companies," he said.
The law's defined purview is broad enough that it could be applied to a variety of Chinese apps deemed to be a national security threat, beyond traditional social media apps in the mold of TikTok, Hans said.
!summarize #lakemead #water
Trump, meanwhile, has urged the U.S. Supreme Court to hold off on implementing PAFACA so he can pursue a "political resolution" after taking office. Democratic lawmakers have also urged Congress and President Joe Biden to extend the Jan. 19 deadline.
!summarize #tesla #modely #tiktok #elonmusk
Synthesia isn't "dependent" on venture capital — as opposed to companies like OpenAI, Anthropic and Mistral, Riparbelli added.
These startups have raised billions of dollars at eye-watering valuations while burning through sizable amounts of money to train and develop their foundational AI models.
Synthesia's not the only startup shaking up the world of video production with AI. Other startups offer solutions for producing and editing video content with AI, like Veed.io and Runway.
Meanwhile, the likes of OpenAI and Adobe have also developed generative AI tools for video creation.
Eric Liaw, a London-based partner at VC firm IVP, told CNBC that companies at the application layer of AI haven't garnered as much investor hype as firms in the infrastructure layer.
"The amount of money that the application layer companies need to raise isn't as large — and therefore the valuations aren't necessarily as eye popping" as companies like Nvidia," Liaw told CNBC last month.
Riparbelli said that money raised from the latest financing round would be used to invest in "more of the same," furthering product development and investing more into security and compliance.
!summarize #modely #juniper #china #tesla
Last year, Synthesia made a series of updates to its platform, including the ability to produce AI avatars using a laptop webcam or phone, full-body avatars with arms and hands and a screen recording tool that has an AI avatar guide users through what they're viewing.
On the AI safety front, in October Synthesia conducted a public red team test for risks around online harms, which demonstrated how the firm's compliance controls counter attempts to create non-consensual deepfakes of people or use its avatars to encourage suicide, adult content or gambling.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology test was led by Rumman Chowdhury, a renowned data scientist who was formerly head of AI ethics at Twitter — before it became known as X under Elon Musk.
!summarize #petealonso #nymets #freeagency #mlb
Riparbelli said that Synthesia is seeing increased interest from large enterprise customers, particularly in the U.S., thanks to its focus on security and compliance.
More than half of Synthesia's annual revenue now comes from customers in the U.S., while Europe accounts for almost half.
Synthesia has also been ramping up hiring. The company recently tapped former Amazon executive Peter Hill as its chief technology officer. The company now employs over 400 people globally.
Synthesia's announcement follows the unveiling of Prime Minister Keir Starmer's 50-point plan to make the U.K. a global leader in AI.
!summarize #tesla #cpi #inflation
!summarize #crypto #bitcoin #altcoins
!summarize #petehegseth #senate #democrats
!summarize #theview #carrieunderwood
!summarize #battery #gwmotors #charging
!summarize #deionsanders #cowboys #dallas #nfl
!summarize #dating #relationships
The schedule is dynamic and likely to change, so be sure to check in here and stay tuned to our X account for updates.
The vehicle’s avionics underwent a complete redesign, adding additional capability and redundancy for increasingly complex missions like propellant transfer and ship return to launch site. Avionics upgrades include a more powerful flight computer, integrated antennas which combine Starlink, GNSS, and backup RF communication functions into each unit, redesigned inertial navigation and star tracking sensors, integrated smart batteries and power units that distribute data and 2.7MW of power across the ship to 24 high-voltage actuators, and an increase to more than 30 vehicle cameras giving engineers insight into hardware performance across the vehicle during flight.
With Starlink, the vehicle is capable of streaming more than 120 Mbps of real-time high-definition video and telemetry in every phase of flight, providing invaluable engineering data to rapidly iterate across all systems.
While in space, Starship will deploy 10 Starlink simulators, similar in size and weight to next-generation Starlink satellites as the first exercise of a satellite deploy mission. The Starlink simulators will be on the same suborbital trajectory as Starship, with splashdown targeted in the Indian Ocean. A relight of a single Raptor engine while in space is also planned.
In the first week of the new year, Huawei's smart driving system experienced a collective breakdown, shockingly running red lights simultaneously. Numerous drivers faced six-point deductions on their licenses and fines of 200 yuan each. Meanwhile, AITO, closely tied to Huawei's smart driving technology, saw its sales plummet from 9,000 units during the same period last year to just 5,500 units—nearly halving.
!summarize #transgender #bill #house #congress #womens #sports
The flight test will include several experiments focused on ship return to launch site and catch. On Starship’s upper stage, a significant number of tiles will be removed to stress-test vulnerable areas across the vehicle. Multiple metallic tile options, including one with active cooling, will test alternative materials for protecting Starship during reentry. On the sides of the vehicle, non-structural versions of ship catch fittings are installed to test the fittings’ thermal performance, along with a smoothed and tapered edge of the tile line to address hot spots observed during reentry on Starship’s sixth flight test. The ship’s reentry profile is being designed to intentionally stress the structural limits of the flaps while at the point of maximum entry dynamic pressure. Finally, several radar sensors will be tested on the tower chopsticks with the goal of increasing the accuracy when measuring distances between the chopsticks and a returning vehicle during catch.
!summarie #facebook #markzuckerberg #meta #layoffs
!summarize #jerseys #sports