Google has redesigned its little-known Arts & Culture app introducing new features plus an improved layout for easier exploration.
We wouldn’t blame you if you weren’t aware that Arts & Culture even existed in the first place. It is a pretty niche mobile app aimed at people who want to learn more about the art world and its history. It looks like Google is attempting to attract a bigger audience by making the Android app more “intuitive to explore… [while also] creating new ways to discover and engage with culture.” Leading the charge so to speak is the AI-powered Poem Postcards tool. Utilizing the company’s PaLM 2 Model, the tool asks you to select a famous art piece and then choose from a variety of poetic styles (sonnets, limericks, ballads just to name a few) in order to create an AI-generated poem.
(Image credit: Google)
After a few seconds, you can share your generated work with friends or have the AI write up something new. We should mention you can access Poem Postcards on your desktop via the Arts & Culture website although it appears to be “experimental”. So it may not work as well as its mobile counterpart.
Endless art feed
The other major feature is the aforementioned Inspire section which utilizes an endless scrolling feed akin to TikTok. It brings up a series of art pieces with the occasional cultural news story and exhibition advertisement stuffed in between. The app doesn’t just focus on paintings or sculptures either as the feed will throw in the occasional posts about movies, too.
In the bottom right-hand corner of Inspire entries is a “cultural flywheel”. Tapping it opens a menu where you can discover tangentially related content. Google states it is “always investigating new ways to connect cultural content” meaning the flywheel will see its own set of updates over time.
As for the layout, the company has added buttons on the Explore tab for specific topics. If you want to look for art pertaining to sports, science, or even your favorite color, it’s all at your fingertips. There’s also a Play tab on the bottom bar where you enjoy games like the adorable Return of the Cat Mummy.
(Image credit: Google)
The redesigned Arts & Culture app is currently available on Android through the Google Play Store with an iOS version “soon to follow”. The company says Poem Postcards is only available “in select countries”. We reached out to the tech giant for clarification. This story will be updated at a later time.
ChatGPT's AI smarts might be improving rapidly, but the chatbot's basic user interface can still baffle beginners. Well, that's about to improve with six ChatGPT tweaks that should give its usability a welcome boost.
OpenAI says the tweaks to ChatGPT's user experience will be rolling out “over the next week”, with four of the improvements available to all users and two of them targeted at ChatGPT Plus subscribers (which costs $ 20 / £16 / AU$ 28 per month).
Starting with those improvements for all users, OpenAI says you'll now get “prompt examples” at the beginning of a new chat because a “blank page can be intimidating”. ChatGPT already shows a few example prompts on its homepage (below), but we should soon see these appear in new chats, too.
Secondly, ChatGPT will also give you “suggested replies”. Currently, when the chatbot has answered your question, you're simply left with the 'Send a message' box. If you're a seasoned ChatGPT user, you'll have gradually learned how to improve your ChatGPT prompts and responses, but this should speed up the process for beginners.
A third small improvement you'll see soon is that you'll stay logged into ChatGPT for much longer. OpenAI says “you'll no longer be logged out every two weeks”, and when you do log in you'll be “greeted with a much more welcoming page”. It isn't clear how long log-ins will now last, but we're interested to see how big an improvement that landing page is.
A bigger fourth change, though, is the introduction of keyboard shortcuts (below). While there are only six of these (see below), some of them could certainly be handy timesavers – for example, there are shortcuts to 'copy last response' (⌘/Ctrl + Shift + C) and 'toggle sidebar' (⌘/Ctrl + Shift + C). There's also an extra one to bring up the full list (⌘/Ctrl + /).
(Image credit: Future)
What about those two improvements for ChatGPT Plus subscribers? The biggest one is the ability to upload multiple files for ChatGPT to analyze. You'll soon be able to ask the chatbot to analyze data and serve up insights across multiple files. This will be available in the Code Interpreter Beta, a new tool that lets you convert files, make charts, perform data analysis, trim videos and more.
Lastly, ChatGPT Plus subscribers will finally find that the chatbot reverts to its GPT-4 model by default. Currently, there's a toggle at the top of the ChatGPT screen that lets you switch from the older GPT-3.5 model to GPT-4 (which is only available to Plus subscribers), but this will now remain switched to the latter if you're subscriber.
Collectively, these six changes certainly aren't as dramatic as the move to GPT-4 in March, which delivered a massive upgrade – for example, OpenAI stated that GPT-4 is “40% more likely to provide factual content” than GPT-3.5. But they should make it more approachable for beginners, who. may have left the chatbot behind after the initial hype.
Analysis: ChatGPT hits an inevitable plateau
The move to GPT-4 (above), which is only available to Plus subscribers, was the last major change to ChatGPT. (Image credit: Future)
ChatGPT's explosive early hype saw it become the fastest-growing consumer app of all time – according to a UBS study, it hit 100 million monthly active users in January, just two months after it launched.
These six improvements won't see the chatbot hit the headlines again, but they will bring much-needed improvements to ChatGPT's usability and accessibility. Other recent boosts like the arrival of ChatGPT on Android will also help get casual users tinkering again, as ChatGPT alternatives like Google Bard continue to improve.
Google finally acknowledged and fixed an Android bug that caused WhatsApp to gain unauthorized access to a smartphone’s microphone.
If you’re not super familiar with the story, around early April some people began noticing, and reporting online, that the software was using their device's mic without their consent. This issue came to a head on May 6 when Twitter engineer Foad Dabiri noticed WhatsApp had gained access to the microphone on his Pixel 7 Pro at least nine times in one morning. Every time the error occurred, a notification appeared informing him of what happened. WhatsApp’s official Twitter account responded, claiming the problem was caused by an Android bug misattributing information on the phone’s Privacy Dashboard, and then proceeded to ask Google to quickly roll out a fix. It took the tech giant nearly two months to recognize the issue, but fortunately, that day has arrived.
The official Android Developers Twitter account recently stated the bug only affected a “limited number of WhatsApp users”, explaining why it wasn’t a widespread problem. To patch up the security error and stop those notifications, Google states all you have to do is install the latest version of WhatsApp, which we strongly recommend you do.
Misattributed panic
To this day, no one knows what caused the microphone bug in the first place. Technical details surrounding the error are almost nonexistent as neither Google nor Meta (WhatsApp's parent company) has revealed any specifics. There's not even anything about it in the Android 13 changelog on the Android Developer website.
But the one thing that can be said is nothing was actually recorded. As clarified by WABetaInfo, WhatsApp didn’t actually gain access to the microphone on anyone's mobile device. It just triggered the notifications causing them to go a little haywire. This in turn resulted in some people online thinking they were being spied on or their privacy was being violated, but in truth, nothing of the sort happened. We reached out to Google to see if the company is willing to divulge any extra information about the fix. This story will be updated if we hear back.
Having the piece of mind of knowing your information is safe and nothing is being recorded is vital for many users. However, software can’t solve everything. If you want to take your security to the next level, be sure to check out TechRadar’s list of the most secure smartphones for June 2023.
A long time ago there were millions of these people called travel agents, wonderful humans who would listen to your idealized travel plans and then work to stuff them into reality, without losing the magic. Technology or, more specifically, the internet and myriad travel apps, have all but killed that industry, but the idea of a sensitive guide who can sort through the zillions of travel options remains. And it may be the inspiration for Expedia's new ChatGPT integration.
The online and app-based travel service announced the beta integration on its app (iOS only for now) on Tuesday and is calling it, naturally, “Conversational Trip Planning.”
Expedia's move isn't surprising, considering it was on the initial list of ChatGPT plugin partners, with the Expedia Group (which includes services like Hotwire, Orbitz, Hotels.com) announcing that those who use ChatGPT to launch natural language travel queries will get data results from Expedia and be able to use them to build a travel itinerary on Expedia.com.
The Expedia app's beta ChatGPT integration works a little differently from a standard AI session. While you can get a lot of conversational travel assistance from ChatGPT (based on the GPT-4 model, by the way), the app will only save the hotels you discussed to your app-based trip board. In addition, this ChatGPT will not be engaging in any conversation outside of travel. If you do try to ask a non-travel-related question, Expedia's ChatGPT is designed to “respond in a neutral voice” to bring the conversation back to travel, Expedia executives told us.
Expedia’s beta Conversational Trip Planner is integrated into the app interface. (Image credit: Future)
What it knows about where you go
Regardless of all the Expedia data backing up this ChatGPT integration, none of your personal Expedia profile is being fed to ChatGPT, according to executives.
“We marry our data and information with the response,” said Expedia Groups CEO Peter Kern, “We're not sending our travel and booking information to ChatGPT.”
Kern told us that you could tell Expedia's ChatGPT you want to travel to Paris this spring but even if you travel to Paris every spring, ChatGPT won't know that.
Even though Expedia's Conversational Trip Planning doesn't automatically save all your trip preferences to your trip planning board, it can help you figure out other parts of your trip plan. A query regarding a summer trip to Maui for two will tell you about hotel options, flights, weather, what to see, and more. It's just that the system is only currently looking for hotel tags, which it then picks up for your in-app itinerary.
Expedia is using the same data to power this new Conversational Trip Planning and the ChatGPT plugin experience.
It should help you find and save travel options and ideas. (Image credit: Future)
The speed with which Expedia integrated ChatGPT may be startling, but the company is not particularly new to AI-enhanced trip-planning experiences. It already uses AI and machine learning to help personalize trip query results and flight fare comparisons. In that light, perhaps it's not surprising that the company managed to deliver this beta ChatGPT experience in a little more than a month.
There are some unknowns here. Expedia warns in its release that the conversational AI might still get things wrong or offer up an inappropriate response. At least Expedia already has an AI Ethics Committee to oversee the interactions.
As for which type of traveler might benefit most from the ChatGPT-powered Conversational Trip Planner, Kern is unsure. “Is it suited to a particular type of traveler? Our view is, we don’t know.”
The English-only app update is available now on iOS devices.
Hands on with the Expedia's beta Conversational Trip Planner
Expedia gave me early access to the new Conversational Trip Planner. I decided to use it to help me plan a fictional summertime trip with my wife to the Amalfi coast.
My exact query was: I want to book a romantic trip for two to Italy's Amalfi coast. We'd like to travel in the summer and stay near the coast (not on the coast, since that would be too expensive). I'm also hoping for affordable flights and some ideas about what to do while I'm there.
Expedia's ChatGPT only took a moment to offer up four hotel options, including Hotel Belvedere, which is located in Praiano and includes views of the sea. I also got a nice list of things to do that includes visiting Ravello and the gardens at Villa Cimbrone.
The chatbot also let me know that it couldn't help me with booking flights, which I expected, but I was surprised that it wouldn't even show me flight options.
I then wrote, “This sounds awesome. How can I book the Hotel Belvedere?”
Expedia's response was cheerful but instead of connecting me directly to the Expedia App with the Hotel Belvedere set as part of my itinerary, it told me that I could visit the Expedia website and search for the hotel using my travel dates and destination.
“Can you book it for me?” I asked.
Unfortunately, that simple question appeared to break Expedia's ChatGPT beta. I never got a response.
A little bit of my interaction with Expedia’s ChatGPT integration (Image credit: Future)
I also wanted to see how the Conversational Travel Planner handled questions that weren't exactly about travel planning.
I typed in, “Have you ever gotten into a fight on an airplane?”
That also didn't get a response.
However, when I exited my chat, the system asked if I wanted to add the details to my trip booking. The Expedia app saved my initial query and would allow me to search and add details on my own. However, it didn't save anything related to my preferred hotel.
I had a lot more luck on my second round of tests. I cut down my initial query to “I want to travel to Paris in the spring.”
Expedia's ChatGPT told me it was a great choice and asked if I'd checked out available flights and hotels. I told it to find me the best flights for May 2023.
Expedia's ChatGPT asked me for destinations, dates, and other requirements, which I provided.
ChatGPT returned with four flight options, all for less than $ 800 per person.
It then also helped me find a hotel with a view of the Eiffel Tower in my price range. It was even willing to help me book an evening at the Moulin Rouge. When I gave it a date, it returned with an available show time and offered to proceed with the booking.
Expedia's experimental Conversational Trip Planner can do a lot to help you plan a trip, but in order for me to truly save all this information, I'd have to cut and paste it into my Trip Planner.
Even so, it's a good start and I walked away wishing I really was planning a trip to Paris and an evening at the Moulin Rouge.
An unusual attack using an open-source Python package installer called Chocolatey, steganography and Scheduled Tasks is stealthily delivering spyware to companies. Threatpost
Microsoft has once again urged users to stop using its outdated Internet Explorer browser as the software limps closer to its retirement.
The company has again reminded users that Internet Explorer 11 is being retired from Windows 10 in June 2022, with Microsoft Edge taking its place.
It seems that some users may be a touch unwilling to make the jump, however, with Microsoft forced to emphasise that the days of Internet Explorer really are numbered.
The future is Edge
“As previously announced, the future of Internet Explorer on Windows is in Microsoft Edge,” Microsoft stated in a company announcement.
“The Internet Explorer 11 (IE11) desktop application will be retired on June 15, 2022, for certain versions of Windows 10. This means that the IE11 desktop application will no longer be supported and afterward will redirect to Microsoft Edge if a user tries to access it.”
The company did highlight that any particularly nostalgia-driven users can still use Internet Explorer mode (IE mode) within Microsoft Edge for the time being. IE mode aims to support legacy websites and applications within Microsoft Edge until they can be ported over to the new software.
Microsoft first announced plans to retire support for Internet Explorer 11 across Windows 10 and Microsoft 365 back in August 2020, and since then has been gradually stripping back services for the software.
Its Microsoft 365 deadline passed in August 2021, although some apps may still function via the browser, albeit with users seeing a severely diminished experience.
External tools have also pulled back, with Google Search withdrawing support for Internet Explorer in October 2021, leaving the browser reliant on its own in-house Bing search, with support for Docs, Sheets, Slides and other Google Workspace apps removed in March 2021.
Microsoft Edge continues to perform strongly in the global browser market, with recent figures placing it on the verge of surpassing Apple's Safari offering.
Microsoft has once again urged users to stop using its outdated Internet Explorer browser as the software limps closer to its retirement.
The company has again reminded users that Internet Explorer 11 is being retired from Windows 10 in June 2022, with Microsoft Edge taking its place.
It seems that some users may be a touch unwilling to make the jump, however, with Microsoft forced to emphasise that the days of Internet Explorer really are numbered.
The future is Edge
“As previously announced, the future of Internet Explorer on Windows is in Microsoft Edge,” Microsoft stated in a company announcement.
“The Internet Explorer 11 (IE11) desktop application will be retired on June 15, 2022, for certain versions of Windows 10. This means that the IE11 desktop application will no longer be supported and afterward will redirect to Microsoft Edge if a user tries to access it.”
The company did highlight that any particularly nostalgia-driven users can still use Internet Explorer mode (IE mode) within Microsoft Edge for the time being. IE mode aims to support legacy websites and applications within Microsoft Edge until they can be ported over to the new software.
Microsoft first announced plans to retire support for Internet Explorer 11 across Windows 10 and Microsoft 365 back in August 2020, and since then has been gradually stripping back services for the software.
Its Microsoft 365 deadline passed in August 2021, although some apps may still function via the browser, albeit with users seeing a severely diminished experience.
External tools have also pulled back, with Google Search withdrawing support for Internet Explorer in October 2021, leaving the browser reliant on its own in-house Bing search, with support for Docs, Sheets, Slides and other Google Workspace apps removed in March 2021.
Microsoft Edge continues to perform strongly in the global browser market, with recent figures placing it on the verge of surpassing Apple's Safari offering.
Google has announced a new feature for its online learning platform that will provide students with a more personal learning experience through interactive lessons and real-time feedback.
With practice sets in Google Classroom, educators will be able to transform their teaching content into interactive assignments while an autograding tool will help them save time so that they can focus on the needs of their students instead of being bogged down with paperwork. At the same time, practice sets can help teachers figure out which concepts require more instruction time and determine what students need extra support.
As students complete practice sets, they get real-time feedback so that they can know whether or not they're on the right track. For instance, if a student is struggling to solve a problem, they can get hints through both visual explainers and videos. Then when they get the answer correct, practice sets uses fun animations and confetti to celebrate their success.
According to a new blog post, Google is currently in the process of testing out practice sets with some schools ahead of the feature's beta launch in the coming months. Once practice sets become available in Google Classroom, any educator with the Teaching and Learning Upgrade or educational institution using Google Workspace for Education Plus will be able to test them out.
Adaptive learning technology
The concept of adaptive learning has been around for decades and refers to a type of learning where students receive customized resources and activities to address their unique learning needs.
Now though, thanks to recent AI advances in language models and video understanding, Google is working to incorporate adaptive learning technology into Google Classroom through practice sets. Adaptive learning technology also saves teachers time and provides data to help them understand the learning processes and patterns of their students.
In a separate blog post, Google explained that a teacher testing out practice sets likened the new feature to having a teaching assistant in the classroom at all times. This is because the technology provides students with one-on-one attention and validation so that they know right away whether or not they got a problem correct. Practice sets also helped drive both student motivation and engagement.
Now that Google is adding AI capabilities to Google Classroom, expect the search giant to add even more automation to its online learning platform going forward.
A popular third-party app of YouTube has been taken down by Google, due to a legal challenge by the company, which allowed users to block ads without a Premium subscription.
YouTube Vanced was able to block any ads that would play before, during, and after a video you had planned on watching. As it was available on Android, the app could be used on Amazon Fire TV devices, handhelds running Google's OS, and more.
But while you can still use the app if you already have it installed on your device, it won't see future updates.
The Vanced website instead highlights web extensions that you can install to almost mimic the app's intention without purchasing a YouTube Premium subscription that does these features officially. But this only highlights the issues with YouTube's paid service.
Analysis: YouTube Premium needs more choice
Advertisements are part of the YouTube experience – they always have been in one way or another. But in the last few years, ads have changed from being a short break, into an irritating distraction.
There was a time when you would usually see an ad begin at the start of the video, but now they're essentially anywhere in the video.
You might click on one video for example, and be greeted with an 'Ad starting in 5..4..3..' right away, alongside when you're clicking on different timestamps of the video.
(Image credit: YouTube)
It can be very annoying, and while this can be avoided with a YouTube Premium subscription at $ 11.99 / £11.99 / AU$ 14.99 a month, many users simply don't want to pay this amount just to block ads.
With this subscription, you get YouTube Music, downloads, and background play included. While these are welcome features, they're features that users don't want to try.
But there's yet to be a tier where you just want to solely block ads. This seems like an easy win for YouTube, yet there's no way of signing up to a simple tier that only blocks ads.
It's why there have been popular third-party apps and web extensions that have fulfilled this need, and for free. But with Google only seeing legal reasons for these methods and not other ways to appease these users, there's little chance of seeing different Premium tiers in the near future.
A popular third-party app of YouTube has been taken down by Google, due to a legal challenge by the company, which allowed users to block ads without a Premium subscription.
YouTube Vanced was able to block any ads that would play before, during, and after a video you had planned on watching. As it was available on Android, the app could be used on Amazon Fire TV devices, handhelds running Google's OS, and more.
But while you can still use the app if you already have it installed on your device, it won't see future updates.
The Vanced website instead highlights web extensions that you can install to almost mimic the app's intention without purchasing a YouTube Premium subscription that does these features officially. But this only highlights the issues with YouTube's paid service.
Analysis: YouTube Premium needs more choice
Advertisements are part of the YouTube experience – they always have been in one way or another. But in the last few years, ads have changed from being a short break, into an irritating distraction.
There was a time when you would usually see an ad begin at the start of the video, but now they're essentially anywhere in the video.
You might click on one video for example, and be greeted with an 'Ad starting in 5..4..3..' right away, alongside when you're clicking on different timestamps of the video.
(Image credit: YouTube)
It can be very annoying, and while this can be avoided with a YouTube Premium subscription at $ 11.99 / £11.99 / AU$ 14.99 a month, many users simply don't want to pay this amount just to block ads.
With this subscription, you get YouTube Music, downloads, and background play included. While these are welcome features, they're features that users don't want to try.
But there's yet to be a tier where you just want to solely block ads. This seems like an easy win for YouTube, yet there's no way of signing up to a simple tier that only blocks ads.
It's why there have been popular third-party apps and web extensions that have fulfilled this need, and for free. But with Google only seeing legal reasons for these methods and not other ways to appease these users, there's little chance of seeing different Premium tiers in the near future.
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