I created an AI app in 10 minutes and I might never think about artificial intelligence in the same way again

Pretty much anything we can do with AI today might have seemed like magic just a year ago, but MindStudio's platform for creating custom AI apps in a matter of minutes feels like a new level of alchemy.

The six-month-old free platform, which you can find right now under youai.ai, is a visual studio for building AI workflows, assistants, and AI chatbots. In its short lifespan it's already been used, according to CEO Dimitry Shapiro, to build more than 18,000 apps.

Yes, he called them “apps”, and if you're struggling to understand how or why anyone might want to build AI applications, just look at OpenAI's relatively new GPT apps (aka GPTs). These let you lock the powerful GPT-3.5 into topic-based thinking that you can package up, share, and sell. Shapiro, however, noted the limits of OpenAI's approach. 

He likened GPTs to “bookmarking a prompt” within the GPT sphere. MindStudio, on  the other hand, is generative model-agnostic. The system lets you use multiple models within one app.

If adding more model options sounds complicated, I can assure you it's not. MindStudio is the AI development platform for non-developers. 

Watch and learn

MindStudio

Choose your template. (Image credit: MindStudio)

To get you started, the company provides an easy-to-follow 18-minute video tutorial. The system also helps by offering a healthy collection of templates (many of them business-focused), or you can choose a blank template. I followed the guide to recreate the demo AI app (a blog post generator), and my only criticism is that the video is slightly out of date, with some interface elements having been moved or renamed. There are some prompts to note the changes, but the video could still do with a refresh.

Still, I had no trouble creating that first AI blog generator. The key here is that you can get a lot of the work done through a visual interface that lets you add blocks along a workflow and then click on them to customize, add details, and choose which AI model you want to use (the list includes GPT- 3.5 turbo, PaLM 2, Llama 2, and Gemini Pro). While you don't necessarily have to use a particular model for each task in your app, it might be that, for example, you should be using GPT-3.5 for fast chatbots or that PaLM would be better for math; however, MindStudio cannot, at least yet, recommend which model to use and when.

Image 1 of 2

MindStudio

Connect the boxes (Image credit: MindStudio)
Image 2 of 2

MindStudio

And then edit their contents (Image credit: MindStudio)

The act of adding training data is also simple. I was able to find web pages of information, download the HTML, and upload it to MindStudio (you can upload up to 150 files on a single app). MindStudio uses the information to inform the AI, but will not be cutting and pasting information from any of those pages into your app responses.

Most of MindStudio's clients are in business, and it does hide some more powerful features (embedding on third-party websites) and models (like GPT 4 Turbo) behind a paywall, but anyone can try their hand at building and sharing AI apps (you get a URL for sharing).

Confident in my newly acquired, if limited, knowledge, I set about building an AI app revolving around mobile photography advice. Granted, I used the framework I'd just learned in the AI blog post generator tutorial, but it still went far better than I expected.

One of the nice things about MindStudio is that it allows for as much or as little coding as you're prepared to do. In my case, I had to reference exactly one variable that the model would use to pull the right response.

MindStudio

Options include setting your model’s ‘temperature’ (Image credit: MindStudio)

There are a lot of smart and dead-simple controls that can even teach you something about how models work. MindStudio lets you set, for instance, the 'Temperature' of your model to control the randomness of its responses. The higher the 'temp', the more unique and creative each response. If you like your model verbose, you can drag another slider to set a response size of up to 3,000 characters.

The free service includes unlimited consumer usage and messages, some basic metrics, and the ability to share your AI via a link (as I've done here). Pro users can pay $ 23 a month for the more powerful models like GPT-4, less MindStudio branding, and, among other things, site embedding. The $ 99 a-month tier includes all you get with Pro, but adds the ability to charge for access to your AI app, better analytics, API access, full chat transcripts, and enterprise support.

Image 1 of 2

MindStudio

Look, may, I made an AI app. (Image credit: MindStudio)
Image 2 of 2

MindStudio

It’s smarter than I am. (Image credit: MindStudio)

I can imagine small and medium-sized businesses using MindStudio to build customer engagement and content capture on their sites, and even as a tool for guiding users through their services.

Even at the free level, though, I was surprised at the level of customization MindStorm offers. I could add my own custom icons and art, and even build a landing page.

I wouldn't call my little AI app anything special, but the fact that I could take the germ of an idea and turn it into a bespoke chatbot in 10 minutes is surprising even to me. That I get to choose the right model for each job within an AI app is even better; and that this level of fun and utility is free is the icing on the cake.

You might also like

TechRadar – All the latest technology news

Read More

ChatGPT is broken again and it’s being even creepier than usual – but OpenAI says there’s nothing to worry about

OpenAI has been enjoying the limelight this week with its incredibly impressive Sora text-to-video tool, but it looks like the allure of AI-generated video might’ve led to its popular chatbot getting sidelined, and now the bot is acting out.

Yes, ChatGPT has gone insane–- or, more accurately, briefly went insane for a short period sometime in the past 48 hours. Users have reported a wild array of confusing and even threatening responses from the bot; some saw it get stuck in a loop of repeating nonsensical text, while others were subjected to invented words and weird monologues in broken Spanish. One user even stated that when asked about a coding problem, ChatGPT replied with an enigmatic statement that ended with a claim that it was ‘in the room’ with them.

Naturally, I checked the free version of ChatGPT straight away, and it seems to be behaving itself again now. It’s unclear at this point whether the problem was only with the paid GPT-4 model or also the free version, but OpenAI has acknowledged the problem, saying that the “issue has been identified” and that its team is “continuing to monitor the situation”. It did not, however, provide an explanation for ChatGPT’s latest tantrum.

This isn’t the first time – and it won’t be the last

ChatGPT has had plenty of blips in the past – when I set out to break it last year, it said some fairly hilarious things – but this one seems to have been a bit more widespread and problematic than past chatbot tomfoolery.

It’s a pertinent reminder that AI tools in general aren’t infallible. We recently saw Air Canada forced to honor a refund after its AI-powered chatbot invented its own policies, and it seems likely that we’re only going to see more of these odd glitches as AI continues to be implemented across the different facets of our society. While these current ChatGPT troubles are relatively harmless, there’s potential for real problems to arise – that Air Canada case feels worryingly like an omen of things to come, and may set a real precedent for human moderation requirements when AI is deployed in business settings.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman speaking during Microsoft's February 7, 2023 event

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman doesn’t want you (or his shareholders) to worry about ChatGPT. (Image credit: JASON REDMOND/AFP via Getty Images)

As for exactly why ChatGPT had this little episode, speculation is currently rife. This is a wholly different issue to user complaints of a ‘dumber’ chatbot late last year, and some paying users of GPT-4 have suggested it might be related to the bot’s ‘temperature’.

That’s not a literal term, to be clear: when discussing chatbots, temperature refers to the degree of focus and creative control the AI exerts over the text it produces. A low temperature gives you direct, factual answers with little to no character behind them; a high temperature lets the bot out of the box and can result in more creative – and potentially weirder – responses.

Whatever the cause, it’s good to see that OpenAI appears to have a handle on ChatGPT again. This sort of ‘chatbot hallucination’ is a bad look for the company, considering its status as the spearpoint of AI research, and threatens to undermine users’ trust in the product. After all, who would want to use a chatbot that claims to be living in your walls?

TechRadar – All the latest technology news

Read More

Microsoft wants people to love Windows 11’s Outlook app again – even if they have an iPhone

Microsoft has given Windows 11’s desktop email app, Outlook, a major revamp with the addition of Apple iCloud functionality for people who use iPhones or other Apple devices, plus other features. This upgrade is available to all Windows 11 users and you can add your iCloud account to your Outlook app by doing the following: 

1. Click the cog icon in your Outlook menu, which should open your Email accounts setting. This is where you can see all of the accounts that are connected to your Outlook and manage them. 

2. Select Add account and sign into your Apple iCloud account. This should connect your iCloud account. 

The Outlook app had supported Apple’s email service in the past before Windows 11’s launch, but according to Windows Latest, Microsoft is in the process of deploying a new Outlook app in place of the old one. Apparently reception has been lukewarm from users, but Microsoft is adding lots of new features with every new version.

One of the biggest complaints users have with the renewed Outlook app has been that it launches in a web wrapper. The old app was a fully functional UWP app, with both online and offline support. However, the new app only got offline support very recently. User complaints about the new app persist, and Microsoft is continuing to develop the app to hopefully improve users’ experiences and improve their opinion of the new app.

The latest in a string of new developments

This development follows shortly after Microsoft also added compatibility with Gmail, Google Calendar, and contacts to Outlook. iCloud support is also now available to all Windows 11 users, and Microsoft is reportedly working on extending offline support for more parts of the Outlook app, including events and Calendar. 

One feature that users have to look forward to as part of Microsoft’s new Outlook is being able to RSVP to meetings. Windows Latest spotted this as an upcoming update in the Microsoft 365 roadmap, which details what Microsoft has in store for various Microsoft 365 apps. This will help users receive information about the nature of any specific meeting and better decide if they would like to attend. This development is expected to debut in March 2024.

Another feature that has been added will help users understand their meetings and schedules. Microsoft explained on its Tech Community blog that users will be able to track declined meetings better in the Outlook calendar. This will be useful  for many users, especially those who have overlapping or densely-packed meetings, and want to better understand what they are and aren’t attending.

meeting

(Image credit: Bild von Free Photos auf Pixabay)

How to turn on visibility for declined meetings

The above is now available within the most up to date version of Outlook, but is disabled by default. You can enable it through the following steps: 

1. Open the Outlook app. 

2. Go to: Settings > Calendar > Events & Invitations > Save declined events

3. Tick (Click) the Show declined events in your calendar box. 

This should turn on the feature and declined meetings should begin to be displayed in your Calendar. 

In order for a meeting to be classified as declined, you will have to have declined the meeting in all Outlook clients and Teams, with the exception of the original Windows Outlook client. 

It’s going to take a little more to win over Windows users it seems, but these seem like some solid steps. These are available to all Windows 11 users with a valid copy of Outlook as far as we know and if you don’t have these features yet, you may need to update your Outlook app. It is to be confirmed if this extends to free users who use Outlook online.

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE

TechRadar – All the latest technology news

Read More

Windows 11 update install failures are reportedly happening again – and it’s breaking the built-in antivirus

Windows 11 has reportedly run into problems with its latest cumulative update, with the upgrade failing to install for some folks, and breaking Microsoft Defender in other cases.

Windows Latest has rounded up the latest batch of complaints regarding a cumulative update for Windows 11, in this case KB5029263, which is the mandatory upgrade for August.

As mentioned, some users are reporting installation failures with KB5029263, and the other annoyance here is that the failed update keeps offering itself over and over, constantly lurking as a red dot (update pending warning) on the taskbar (system tray).

Readers of Windows Latest have complained directly to the tech site about this, and there are affected Windows 11 users venting on Microsoft’s Feedback Hub.

On the Feedback Hub there are also scattered complaints of some more serious gremlins in the works with this August update. That includes the update getting stuck before it completes (and getting stuck again on subsequent installation attempts), and also File Explorer failing to work (meaning you can’t explore folders on the desktop).

KB5029263 is apparently also messing with Microsoft Defender, Windows 11’s built-in security app – which now ranks pretty highly among the best free antivirus – in some cases. Some users are seeing the following error when opening the app: ‘Unable to log into Microsoft Defender.’


Analysis: Defender fix is inbound, apparently

On the last point, Windows Latest reckons that this error could be the result of a clash between the security fixes in the August update, and a separate new update for Microsoft Defender.

While Microsoft hasn’t officially acknowledged any of the above problems, including the apparent cases of Defender coming off the rails, Windows Latest claims it talked to a support engineer at the company. That Microsoft employee confirmed the issue and said it will be fixed by an update soon. (An update to either Defender, or one applied to the OS via Windows Update, but one way or another, a cure is seemingly in the pipeline).

The mentioned installation failures are nothing new, and it seems to be depressingly commonplace these days that some Windows 11 PCs will fail to successfully run the update process. This may be a small minority affected, but it’s a frustrating situation to be caught in – as you are, of course, left without all the latest security fixes. Those are important to say the least.

The other vital element provided by KB5029263, at least for those who have been affected by the issue, is the fix for a bug causing huge slowdowns with some SSDs (or at least this cures the majority of cases, it seems). You might own one of the fastest, best SSDs out there, but with its performance levels cut in half (potentially), it won’t look so clever. And if you can’t install the August patch to (hopefully) smooth over the issue, that’s going to be pretty irritating.

TechRadar – All the latest technology news

Read More

Twitter down: social media website and app aren’t working – again

It feels like every other week that the internet breaks – you've guessed it (from the headline), Twitter is down.

The social media giant is unavailable to loads of users – trying to access the web page brings up the message “Something went wrong. Try reloading.”, and the app won't refresh with newer tweets.

Reports on downdetector.co.uk jumped up into the thousands within minutes of the outage – it's worth pointing out that, while the reports also rose on downdetector.com (in the US), they didn't rise by nearly as much.

It sounds like a limited issue, as lots of TechRadar team members haven't had an issue. Saying that the sheer number of Downdetector reports shows that something is up.

Not only is the main Twitter feed down, but other Twitter sites are down too, like its Help site.

We just wanted to post a funny joke, and now we've discovered that Twitter isn't working. We're investigating.

Judging by reports from Downdetector and TechRadar's US team, the outage is affecting far fewer people in the US than in the UK – it seems mainly a British problem. Well, we can add that to the list after Freddos costing more, Magnums getting smaller and the whole cost of living thing.

In the UK, DownDetector reports more than 4,000 reports in the last few minutes. That's a huge number given how many we normally see – even for the major outages that affect multiple websites, we usually see one or two thousand reports.

This outage has come less than six weeks after the last Twitter outage.

That was a smaller one, as the main Twitter feed would load, but Tweets wouldn't – so you could see them, but not click on them or interact with them. 

Now, you can't see anything – it's radio silence.

Usually when there's an internet outage, people turn to Twitter to look for answers. That's… a little harder now.

We looked at Facebook, but Twitter itself hasn't posted there for several months. Last time it did, it was a screenshot of a Tweet about cats. What is this, 2007?

Facebook is a bit more community-focused though, so it's harder to see what people in the wider world are saying.

Reddit to the rescue though:

is_twitter_down_for_anyone_else_in_uk from r/Twitter

There's no official comment, but there are people from around the world commenting to say that Reddit isn't working for them.

Unfortunately, because Reddit's support and news room sites are all hosted by the media giant itself, they're not working either.

We're seeing a growing number of reports of outages from the US, but TechRadar's team based there hasn't seen anything.

It's likely that a server in Europe is at fault, which is why it's so much more of an issue for our UK readers than our US ones.

But we're waiting to find out from Twitter to see what's going on.

Oppo Find X5 Pro

(Image credit: Future)

Reports are well over 4,000 at the moment.

For context, the baseline is 3. That's a big difference.

Oh wait – Twitter is back! (for me at least)

This suggests the end of the outage could be here – just in time for you to return to work after your lunch break. What bad luck.

DownDetector reports for Twitter problems are finally going down – it looks like the outage could really be over.

It's not a steep plummet of reports, which suggests some people are still finding problems with their desktop site or phone app, but this at least tells us that the initial problem is being solved.

We've been looking to see if Twitter itself has commented on the outage – so far we can't see anything from any of its official accounts.

Saying that, it's got about a billion of its own accounts for different regions, aspects of the site and more, so it's very possible that one of them has posted, and we just haven't found it yet.

TechRadar – All the latest technology news

Read More

Microsoft delays Office 365 price rise once again

Microsoft has once again delayed its planned price increase of both its Office 365 and Microsoft 365 office software suites.

The price increase was first announced by corporate VP for Microsoft 365, Jared Spataro last August in a blog post and was set to come into effect at the beginning of this month. Now though, the software giant has pushed back the change until March 15.

Right when the price increase was set to go into effect, Microsoft announced a set of temporary discounts for cloud service providers (CSPs) that sell Office 365 and Microsoft 365 subscriptions. CSPs currently have until 5pm PDT on March 14 or 12am UTC on March 15 to submit transactions and have them invoiced at the company's February 2022 pricing. 

These temporary discounts are designed to allow CSPs “to clear the backlog of orders for these SKUs due to high demand in advance of the March 1 price increases” according to a Microsoft support document.

First substantive price increase

For those unfamiliar with Microsoft's pricing changes for both Office 365 and Microsoft 365, Microsoft 365 Business Basic will increase from $ 5 to $ 6 per user per year, Microsoft 365 Business Premium will go from $ 20 to $ 22, Office 365 E1 will go from $ 8 to $ 10, Office 365 E3 will go from $ 20 to $ 23, Office 365 E5 will go from $ 35 to $ 38 and Microsoft 365 E3 will go from $ 32 to $ 36.  

Thankfully though, these pricing changes do not apply to the company's consumer or education products.

Back in August of last year, Spataro pointed to the fact that these pricing changes were the “first substantive pricing update” to Office 365 since its launch just over a decade ago. He also highlighted how the company has added 24 apps including Microsoft Teams, Power Apps, Power BI, Power Automate, Stream, Planner, Visio, OneDrive, Yammer, and Whiteboard to the software suite and released 1,400 new features and capabilities across three key areas: communication and collaboration, security and compliance and AI and automation.

According to The Register, Microsoft's revenues grew by a fifth to $ 51.7bn during the second fiscal quarter of this year while operating income increased by 24 percent from $ 17.89bn to $ 22.2bn. However, the company's Microsoft Azure cloud services and its server products have been the main drivers of its higher revenue recently. As such, Microsoft's Productivity and Business Processes segment, which includes Office 365, will need to bring in additional revenue to keep up with the company's other divisions.

Via The Register

TechRadar – All the latest technology news

Read More

Millions of people will celebrate Christmas over Zoom again this year

With or without Omicron, a significant portion of Brits were already planning celebrate the holidays over video conference, new research suggests.

Surveying 2,023 UK adults for the report, networking firm Global Wireless Solutions (GWS) found that 11% expect to use live-streaming apps to connect with their friends and family during Christmas and the New Year, as compared with 12% last year.

While keeping in touch with friends and family over digital platforms is a necessary evil for more than a third (37%), almost the same proportion (34%) say the technology helped them feel included when they were unable to participate in-person last time round. A further 28% said it helped them feel connected, which is particularly important during the holiday season.

A digital Christmas

As a result of the pandemic, the use of live-streaming and video conferencing services is on the rise, with Facebook Messenger, FaceTime and Zoom all attracting more users than before.

However, connectivity issues are hampering their experience, the report suggests, with a quarter of people encountering fuzzy or low-quality pictures, or video freezes.

Part of the problem, GWS hints, lies with the telecoms sector. Of all the users that have suitable devices (e.g. a decent mobile device, webcam and headset), a third (33%) do not have adequate speeds to watch or broadcast an HD live-stream effectively. According to the report, a mobile device would need at least 5 Mbps download speeds and 4.5 Mbps upload. 

The report singles out O2 as attracting the fewest complaints from customers in this context. Roughly half of O2 customers (51%) did not report any issues when live-streaming, and 02 customers also had fewer issues with audio and picture quality.

For those suffering from connectivity issues, 5G could roll out just in time to save the day. More than a quarter (28%) of Brits are excited about the launch of 5G, with a fifth (22%) seeing it as important for keeping in touch with their loved ones.  

  • Check out our list of the best VoIP services around

TechRadar – All the latest technology news

Read More