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The Google Pixel Tablet with charging speaker dock is $130 off right now via Woot. This is a discount of 26 percent and a record low for the tablet. That’s a pretty good deal for a device that’s still under a year old.

It’s worth re-emphasizing that this sale is for the tablet and the charging speaker dock. It’s the latter accessory that was largely responsible for the positive review we gave the tablet last year. The dock lets the tablet double as a smart display. It charges the tablet quickly and provides a sturdy base for touch gestures. The speakers are also much louder than one would expect, given the size. The combination of a useful dashboard, an easy-to-read interface and impressive audio make it one heck of a smart display.

We were a bit cooler on the tablet itself, though it’s perfectly serviceable. The nano-ceramic coating and glass-like backing makes it feel more expensive than it actually is and the low weight, at just over one pound, ensures you won’t cramp up while streaming the latest hit TV show. It is, however, slightly heavier than the iPad Air.

There’s also a neat little kickstand-hanger combo that lets you place the tablet just about anywhere. This is useful, for instance, when following a recipe in the kitchen. You can just hang it right on a cabinet knob. The 2,560 x 1,600 LCD panel isn’t as vibrant as a modern OLED, but it gets the job done.

The Pixel Tablet is the first of Google’s tablets to be a Chromecast receiver, so you can control it from your phone. This comes in especially handy when watching streaming apps, though it only works when docked.

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This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-google-pixel-tablet-with-charging-speaker-dock-is-130-off-right-now-165101833.html?src=rss 

Getty has partnered up with Picsart, a popular photo-editing platform, to build an AI image generator that’s entirely trained on licensed stock images. The companies are calling it a “responsible, commercially-safe” alternative to current platforms. Images created by the model will have full commercial rights, which should address concerns about AI-generated images violating copyright laws.

The service will only be available to paid Picsart subscribers and the whole thing recalls Adobe’s Firefly AI model. That generator is also trained on stock images, though not exclusively. Adobe recently outraged users by updating its terms of service to indicate that it could access and use people’s work to train AI models. The company quickly amended the terms of service once the backlash started spreading.

Picsart and Getty hope to avoid any backlash by sticking to fully licensed stock images, so regular Picsart users won’t be at risk of having their creations snatched up by the model for training and generation purposes. “It allows creators to bring their visions to life while maintaining the highest standards of commercial safety,” Grant Farhall, CPO at Getty Images, wrote in a blog post.

It also looks like Getty is playing fair with this one, for those worrying about the work of professional photographers being co-opted. We reached out to the company and a rep said that it is “compensating creators included in the dataset on an annual basis.” That’s something at least!

The Picsart x Getty Images model releases later this year, though there’s no concrete launch date. It’ll be accessible via Picsart’s API services.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/picsart-and-getty-are-making-an-ai-image-generator-entirely-trained-on-licensed-content-154058696.html?src=rss 

It might be too late to get a big tech gift to ship in time for Father’s Day, but if you’re looking to upgrade your own setup, you can still take advantage of a few sales that are still kicking ahead of the weekend. The 13- and 15-inch versions of Apple’s latest MacBook Air are each down to all-time lows, for instance, as are both versions of the newest MacBook Pro. Beats’ new Solo 4 headphones are $70 off, too, while Solo Stove has a sale on some of our favorite smokeless fire pits. Several other gadgets we recommend are also on sale, including Amazon’s Echo Buds, the Backbone One mobile game controller and Lenovo’s IdeaPad Flex 5i Chromebook Plus. Here are the best tech deals from this week that you can still get today.

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This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apples-macbook-air-m3-hits-a-new-low-plus-the-rest-of-the-weeks-best-tech-deals-160638174.html?src=rss 

Controversial facial recognition company Clearview AI has agreed to an unusual settlement to a class action lawsuit, The New York Times reports. Rather than paying cash, the company would provide a 23 percent stake in its company to any Americans in its database. Without the settlement, Clearview could go bankrupt, according to court documents. 

If you live in the US and have ever posted a photo of yourself publicly online, you may be part of the class action. The settlement could amount to at least $50 million according to court documents, It still must be approved by a federal judge. 

Clearview AI, which counts billionaire Peter Thiel as a backer, says it has over 30 billion images in its database. Those can be accessed and cross-referenced by thousands of law enforcement departments including the US FBI and Department of Homeland Security. 

Shortly after its identity was outed, Clearview was hit with lawsuits in Illinois, California, Virginia, New York and elsewhere, which were all brought together as a class action suit in a federal Chicago court. The cost of the litigation was said to be draining the company’s reserves, forcing it to seek a creative way to settle the suit.

The relatively small sum divided by the large number of users likely to be in the database means you won’t be receiving a windfall. In any case, it would only happen if the company goes public or is acquired, according to the report. Once that occurs, lawyers would take up to 39 percent of the settlement, meaning the final amount could be reduced to about 30 million. If a third of Americans were in the database (about 110 million), each would get about 27 cents. 

That does beg the question of whether it would be worth just over a quarter to see one of the creepiest companies of all time to go bankrupt. To cite a small litany of the actions taken against it (on top of the US class action):

It was sued by the ACLU in 2020 (Clearview agreed to permanently halt sales of its biometric database to private companies in the US as part of the settlement.

Italy slapped a €20 million fine on the company in 2022 and banned it from using images of Italians in its database

Privacy groups in Europe filed complaints against it for allegedly breaking privacy laws (2021)

UK’s privacy watchdog slapped it with a £7.55 million fine and ordered it to delete data from any UK resident

The LAPD banned the use of its software in 2020

Earlier this year the EU barred untargeted scraping of faces from the web, effectively blocking Clearview’s business model in Europe

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/if-clearview-ai-scanned-your-face-you-may-get-equity-in-the-company-120018460.html?src=rss