Kalakshar US

We knew it was coming but Samsung has confirmed the date of its latest Unpacked. The event will take place on July 26th at 7AM ET, the company announced today. The early start time is due to the fact Samsung plans to host the showcase from its home base of Seoul, South Korea. When Samsung first began teasing Unpacked last month, it promised the event would feature its latest generation of foldable devices. In other words, expect new iterations of the Galaxy Z Fold and Galaxy Z Flip. Thanks to pre-release leaks, we have a pretty good idea of what Samsung has planned for those devices. In the case of the former, all signs point to a refined hinge mechanism that allows the Z Fold 5 to close flat, while the most significant change with the Z Flip 5 looks to be a larger front-facing cover display.

Ahead of the 26th, Samsung is offering a $50 reservation credit for those who decide they want to pre-order the Galaxy Z Fold 5 or Galaxy Z Flip 5 sight unseen. If you want to take advantage of the promotion, all you need to do is visit the company’s website and provide your name and email. If you later change your mind, thankfully it’s a no-commitment offer.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/samsung-will-unveil-its-new-foldables-on-july-26th-230053235.html?src=rss 

OpenAI is forming a dedicated team to manage the risks of superintelligent artificial intelligence. A superintelligence is a hypothetical AI model that is smarter than even the most gifted and intelligent human, and excels at multiple areas of expertise instead of one domain like some previous generation models. OpenAI believes such a model could arrive before the end of the decade. “Superintelligence will be the most impactful technology humanity has ever invented, and could help us solve many of the world’s most important problems,” the non-profit said. “But the vast power of superintelligence could also be very dangerous, and could lead to the disempowerment of humanity or even human extinction.”

The new team will be co-lead by OpenAI Chief Scientist Ilya Sutskever and Jan Leike, the research lab’s head of alignment. Additionally, OpenAI said it would dedicate 20 percent of its currently secured compute power to the initiative, with the goal of developing an automated alignment researcher. Such a system would theoretically assist OpenAI in ensuring a superintelligence is safe to use and aligned with human values. “While this is an incredibly ambitious goal and we’re not guaranteed to succeed, we are optimistic that a focused, concerted effort can solve this problem,” OpenAI said. “There are many ideas that have shown promise in preliminary experiments, we have increasingly useful metrics for progress, and we can use today’s models to study many of these problems empirically.” The lab added it would share a roadmap in the future.

Wednesday’s announcement comes as governments around the world consider how to regulate the nascent AI industry. In the US, Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, has met with at least 100 federal lawmakers in recent months. Publicly, Altman has said AI regulation is “essential,” and that OpenAI is “eager” to work with policymakers. But we should be skeptical of such proclamations, and indeed efforts like OpenAI’s Superalignment team. By focusing the attention of the public on hypothetical risks that may never materialize, organizations like OpenAI shift the burden of regulation to the horizon instead of the here and now. There are much more immediate issues around the interplay between AI and labor, misinformation and copyright policymakers need to tackle today, not tomorrow.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/openai-is-forming-a-team-to-rein-in-superintelligent-ai-214333388.html?src=rss 

Spotify is notifying users who’ve subscribed to its Premium service through Apple’s in-app purchase system that it will no longer be supporting it as a payment method. As a refresher, Spotify hasn’t allowed users to subscribe through Apple’s in-app purchase since 2016. However, those who had already subscribed via that method years ago could keep paying Spotify that way until now.

As reported by Variety, the company is emailing affected subscribers about the upcoming change. The email reads, “We’re contacting you because when you joined Spotify Premium you used Apple’s billing service to subscribe. Unfortunately, we no longer accept that billing method as a form of payment.” Spotify continues to say that those users will automatically be switched to the company’s Free, ad-supported tier at the end of the current billing cycle. “If you wish to keep your Premium subscription, you will need to re-subscribe after your last billing period has ended and your account has been moved on to the Free account.”

But that’s probably for the best. Due to Apple taking 30 percent of in-app purchases, Spotify users who were subscribed through in-app purchases were being charged an extra $3 per month compared to subscribing through Spotify directly. That’s despite the fact that Apple now reduces its commission rate to 15 percent on subscriptions after the first year. Apple said in a regulatory filing from 2019 that it collected that 15 percent fee on roughly 680,000 Spotify customers. Users transitioning from Apple’s payments can subscribe to Premium via a credit card or PayPal.

Both Apple and Google charge a “tax” on their respective app stores, regardless if a user is purchasing apps or subscribing through in-app purchase. Early last year, Google announced that it would be piloting a program that would allow third-party billing systems on Android, beginning with Spotify called User Choice Billing (UCB). Google began rolling out UCB to Spotify users late last year. Though, it’s unclear how many users are subscribing via UCB compared to using Google’s standard in-app purchase system. While there have been rumors about Apple allowing third-party app stores on iOS, there aren’t any official plans for those or for accepting third-party billing.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/spotify-stops-accepting-payments-that-were-set-up-through-apples-app-store-211722624.html?src=rss