Data centers get ready — the Senate wants to see your power bills
Sens. Josh Hawley and Elizabeth Warren want the Energy Information Administration to gather more details about how data centers use power — and how that affects the grid.
AI
Google is launching Search Live globally
Search Live allows users to point their phone camera at objects to get real-time assistance, enabling back-and-forth conversations that draw on the visual context from the camera feed.
Meta gets ready to launch two new Ray-Ban AI glasses
This is Lowpass by Janko Roettgers, a newsletter on the ever-evolving intersection of tech and entertainment, syndicated just for The Verge subscribers once a week. Meta and its AI glasses hardware partner EssilorLuxottica are getting ready to launch the next generation of their Ray-Ban AI glasses. That’s according to a series of FCC filings for […]
ByteDance’s new AI video generation model, Dreamina Seedance 2.0, comes to CapCut
The new model in CapCut will have built-in protections for making video from real faces or unauthorized intellectual property.
Wikipedia bans AI-generated articles
Wikipedia will no longer allow editors to write or rewrite articles using AI. The update, which was added to Wikipedia’s guidelines late last week, cites the tendency for AI-written articles to violate “several of Wikipedia’s core content policies” as the reason for the ban. The change applies to the English version of Wikipedia and will […]
Senators are pushing to find out how much electricity data centers actually use
On Thursday, senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Josh Hawley (R-MO) sent a letter to the Energy Information Administration (EIA) urging it to begin collecting “comprehensive, annual energy-use disclosures” on data centers, as reported by Wired. According to the letter, data on how much electricity data centers are consuming is “essential for accurate grid planning and […]
Conntour raises $7M from General Catalyst, YC to build an AI search engine for security video systems
Conntour uses AI models to let security teams query camera feeds using natural language to find any object, person, or situation.
Cohere launches an open-source voice model specifically for transcription
Relatively light at just 2 billion parameters, the model is meant for use with consumer-grade GPUs for those who want to self-host it. It currently supports 14 languages.
WhatsApp can now draft AI-generated responses based on your conversations
The Meta-owned messaging platform is also launching a way to free up space, the ability to touch up photos with Meta AI, and more.
Webtoon is adding AI localization tools to its comics platform
Canvas, Webtoon’s platform for user-uploaded comics, is about to get a major overhaul that’s designed to help creators make more money and share their art with a wider audience. Today, Webtoon announced its plans to roll out a number of new features for Canvas that will make it easier for artists to build global followings […]