Google's Chrome team has built an experimental browser called Disco that takes a query or prompt, opens a cluster of related tabs, and then generates a custom application tailored to whatever task the user is trying to accomplish. The browser launched Thursday as an experiment in Google's Search Labs.

GenTabs, the core feature powering Disco, are information-rich pages created by Google's Gemini AI models -- ask for travel tips and the system builds a planner app; ask for study help and it creates a flashcard system. Disco -- named partly for fun and partly as shorthand for "discovery" -- started as a hackathon project inside Google before catching the team's imagination.

Parisa Tabriz, who leads the Chrome team, said that Disco is not intended as a general-purpose browser and is not an attempt to cannibalize Chrome. The experiment aims to test what happens when users move from simply having tabs to generating personalized, curated applications on demand. The capability relies on features in the recently launched Gemini 3, which can create one-off interactive interfaces and build miniature apps on the fly rather than just returning text or images.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The Wild West of copyrighted characters in AI may be coming to an end. There has been legal wrangling over the role of copyright in the AI era, but the mother of all legal teams may now be gearing up for a fight. Disney has sent a cease and desist to Google, alleging the company's AI tools are infringing Disney's copyrights "on a massive scale." According to the letter, Google is violating the entertainment conglomerate's intellectual property in multiple ways. The legal notice says Google has copied a "large corpus" of Disney's works to train its gen AI models, which is believable, as Google's image and video models will happily produce popular Disney characters -- they couldn't do that without feeding the models lots of Disney data.

The C&D also takes issue with Google for distributing "copies of its protected works" to consumers. So all those memes you've been making with Disney characters? Yeah, Disney doesn't like that, either. The letter calls out a huge number of Disney-owned properties that can be prompted into existence in Google AI, including The Lion King, Deadpool, and Star Wars. The company calls on Google to immediately stop using Disney content in its AI tools and create measures to ensure that future AI outputs don't produce any characters that Disney owns. Disney is famously litigious and has an army of lawyers dedicated to defending its copyrights. The nature of copyright law in the US is a direct result of Disney's legal maneuvering, which has extended its control of iconic characters by decades. While Disney wants its characters out of Google AI generally, the letter specifically cited the AI tools in YouTube. Google has started adding its Veo AI video model to YouTube, allowing creators to more easily create and publish videos. That seems to be a greater concern for Disney than image models like Nano Banana. "We have a longstanding and mutually beneficial relationship with Disney, and will continue to engage with them," Google said in a statement. "More generally, we use public data from the open web to build our AI and have built additional innovative copyright controls like Google-extended and Content ID for YouTube, which give sites and copyright holders control over their content."

The cease and desist letter arrives at the same time the company announced a content deal with OpenAI. Disney said it's investing $1 billion in OpenAI via a three-year licensing deal that will let users generate AI-powered short videos and images featuring more than 200 characters.

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Cisco's stock price touched $80.25 on Wednesday, finally eclipsing its dotcom-era peak of $80.06 set on March 27, 2000 -- when the networking giant briefly surpassed Microsoft to become the world's most valuable company. The journey back took 25 years, eight months and 13 days. The company's fundamentals improved dramatically over that period, of course. Revenues have nearly quintupled since 1999, profits have quadrupled, earnings per share have grown eightfold, and margins have remained healthy throughout. Investors who bought at the peak still lost money to inflation for a generation.

Cisco's trajectory draws obvious comparisons to Nvidia, today's dominant "picks and shovels" supplier for the AI boom. Nvidia trades at a price-to-earnings ratio above 45 and an enterprise value-to-sales ratio near 24. At its 2000 peak, Cisco traded at a P/E above 200 and EV/sales of 31.

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Uber has discontinued its monthly electric vehicle bonuses for drivers in the United States and Canada, marking the latest in a series of rollbacks from a company that once pledged to pour $800 million into helping its drivers transition away from gasoline-powered cars. The ride-hailing giant had previously eliminated its $1-per-ride EV perk last year, replacing it with monthly bonuses that required drivers to complete 200 rides. Those monthly payments are now gone too.

The company is far behind its self-imposed climate targets. Uber had pledged to reach 100% EVs in London by 2025 and across North America and Europe by 2030. Current figures paint a different picture: roughly 40% of miles in London come from EVs, while Europe sits at about 15% and North America at just 9%. The company's emissions have nearly doubled over the past three years and now exceed Denmark's total carbon footprint. Uber executives acknowledged to Bloomberg that they will likely miss their green targets. The company has doled out $539 million of its $800 million pledge through the end of 2024. Meanwhile, Uber's operating profits are set to double this year, and the company recently committed $20 billion to stock buybacks.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul on Thursday signed two bills aimed at regulating the use of AI in entertainment, requiring disclosure when ads feature AI-generated performers and mandating consent from heirs before a deceased person's likeness can be used commercially. Hochul described both measures as "first in the nation" policies during a signing ceremony at SAG-AFTRA's New York City offices.

The first bill compels ad producers to disclose the use of synthetic performers, and the second requires companies to obtain consent from heirs or executors before using a person's name, image, or likeness for commercial purposes after their death. "We will have responsible AI policies in the state of New York," Hochul said. "It's a time where we do want to embrace innovation. But not to the detriment of people."

The signing came the same day Disney announced a partnership allowing users of OpenAI's Sora to create clips featuring Marvel, Pixar, and Star Wars characters.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

BALTIMORE (ANP/RTR) - Kilmar Abrego Garcia is weer op vrije voeten, nadat een rechter in de Amerikaanse staat Maryland eerder op donderdag zijn vrijlating had bevolen. De in El Salvador geboren man zat vast in afwachting van een mogelijke tweede uitzetting. Zijn eerdere, onterechte uitzetting werd het middelpunt van een rel rondom het deportatiebeleid van de regering-Trump.

Abrego Garcia (30) mag in ieder geval tijdelijk naar zijn huis in Maryland terugkeren. Amerikaanse regeringsfunctionarissen hebben herhaaldelijk gezegd dat hij in de VS nooit meer een vrij man zal zijn. Abrego Garcia is getrouwd met een Amerikaanse vrouw, met wie hij een jonge zoon heeft.

Abrego werd in maart uitgezet naar El Salvador, waar hij in een beruchte gevangenis terechtkwam. Een rechter bepaalde dat hij ten onrechte was uitgezet, waarop hij werd teruggebracht naar de VS. Sinds augustus zit hij in immigratiedetentie, kort nadat hij was vrijgelaten uit voorlopige hechtenis in zijn strafzaak. Critici beschuldigen de regering ervan zich niet aan de wet te houden bij het strenge deportatiebeleid.

DEN HAAG (ANP) - De overstap naar één landelijke doorstroomtoets voor alle basisschoolleerlingen in plaats van zes verschillende, kan niet worden gemaakt voor het schooljaar 2029-2030. Dat herhaalde demissionair staatssecretaris Koen Becking (VVD) donderdagavond in een Kamerdebat. Becking zei "bereid" te zijn om te kijken of dit sneller kan, maar gaf aan niet te weten hoe.

Momenteel kunnen basisscholen kiezen uit zes verschillende doorstroomtoetsen voor groep 8. In december vorig jaar nam de Tweede Kamer een motie aan van D66-Kamerlid Ilana Rooderkerk om dit terug te brengen naar één landelijke toets, omdat de verschillen tussen de huidige toetsen de kansenongelijkheid zouden vergroten.

De staatssecretaris is "welwillend" om over te stappen naar één toets, maar denkt dat het vanwege het "wetgevingstraject" niet sneller kan. Naar een suggestie van JA21-Kamerlid Diederik Boomsma om te onderzoeken of het via een spoedadvies sneller door de Raad van State kan, beloofde hij te kijken.

NEW YORK (ANP) - De aandelenbeurzen in New York zijn donderdag met een gemengd beeld gesloten. Een tegenvallend kwartaalbericht van softwareconcern Oracle leidde tot zorgen over hoge kosten en waarderingen in de AI-sector. Beleggers weken uit naar aandelen in andere sectoren, die daardoor aan waarde wonnen.

Oracle is uitgegroeid tot een belangrijke speler met clouddiensten voor toepassingen op het vlak van kunstmatige intelligentie. Maar de melding dat de uitgaven aan AI hoger zullen uitvallen dan eerder verwacht, maakte beleggers nerveus. Het aandeel eindigde 11 procent lager.

Ook de belangrijke AI-chipontwikkelaar Nvidia verloor aan waarde. Het drukte techgraadmeter Nasdaq 0,3 procent in de min tot een stand van 23.593,86 punten.

De Dow-Jonesindex won juist 1,3 procent en bereikte een recordstand van 48.704,01 punten. Hier zijn bedrijven uit andere sectoren sterker vertegenwoordigd. De breed samengestelde S&P 500 steeg 0,2 procent tot 6901 punten, eveneens een record.

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Broadcom told The Register that EMEA customers need to check with their local dealer to see if VVF remains on the menu

Exclusive  Broadcom has recently killed off VMware vSphere Foundation in parts of EMEA, the company told The Register, dealing a blow to smaller customers, one of whom told us they would likely switch to a rival hypervisor as a result.…

Begun, these AI wars have

Amid controversy over its ability to generate content with copyrighted characters, OpenAI has struck a three-year deal with Disney to license more than 200 Disney, Pixar, Marvel, and Star Wars characters for use in Sora videos and ChatGPT Images.…

Operators accidentally left a way for you to get your data back

CyberVolk, a pro-Russian hacktivist crew, is back after months of silence with a new ransomware service. There's some bad news and some good news here.…

Feyenoord is er weer niet in geslaagd om een wedstrijd in de Europa League te winnen. Op bezoek bij het Roemeense FCSB werd er met 4-3 verloren. In de eerste helft poetste de ploeg van Robin van Persie een achterstand weg. De Rotterdammers kwamen op een 3-1 voorsprong, maar deze werd vlak voor tijd volledig weggeven.

MacKenzie Scott announces that she’s donated almost $7.2 billion of her personal fortune to organizations worldwide this year. That brings her total giving up to more than $26 billion.

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A streaming services savings tip from the Nomadico newsletter that I was not aware of:

I’m going to add Apple TV at home after watching only part of Severance on a United flight, but I’ll likely subscribe in Mexico where it’s 28% cheaper than the USA. You can play this arbitrage game with most of the streaming services — I once got HBO on sale for $5 a month. In Mexico you can get the highest tier of Netflix for the price of the middle tier stateside, a 39% monthly savings (with a better studio movie selection too). Shop around if moving around. In Turkey, for example, the highest tier of Netflix with 4K hi-def is less than US$10 per month. Try regional gift cards, signing up while in another country, or using a good VPN for the first transaction.

Anyone else tried this?

Tags: movies · travel · TV

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De actie is volgens FDF-voorman Mark van den Oever onderdeel van een demonstratie, die vrijdag plaatsvindt bij een vergadering van de Provinciale Staten. Tijdens die vergadering wordt gestemd over een nieuwe stikstofaanpak in de provincie.

It’s somehow been more than a year already since we launched Colossal’s new site design, and it’s spectacular to hear your feedback about how you peruse and use the site. Whether you click on things of interest in our newsletters or encourage your students to explore thousands of articles about artists, nature, science, and visual culture, we want you to keep coming back—and learning—again and again. That’s why we’re continuing to build out the Colossal Art Glossary!

This month, we’ve added 10 new entries:

• Activist Art
• Bauhaus
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• Community Art / Social Practice
• Dutch Golden Age painting
• Land Art / Environmental Art
• Magical Realism
• Tondo
• Vanitas
• WPA / Federal Art Project

Teachers frequently cite Colossal as a useful classroom resource from K-12 to university settings, and education is one of our core values. To make art more accessible, our glossary aims to help explain and provide examples of some of the most common art-related terms and techniques.

From Afrofuturism to kintsugi to Vincent van Gogh—and a bunch in-between—the list of terms is a constant work in progress. As it grows, we’re increasingly incorporating links to the definitions—and related articles—so they’re easier than ever to discover.

Browse the Art Glossary.

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article Discover the Growing Colossal Art Glossary appeared first on Colossal.

BB: The roller coaster designed to kill you