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Historic Triple Hurricane Threat Hits Atlantic Basin In Unprecedented October Event

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The Atlantic Ocean is simultaneously hosting three active hurricanes in October, a phenomenon that has never occurred before in recorded history. Hurricanes Milton, Kirk, and Leslie are currently swirling in the Atlantic, marking a rare and potentially hazardous situation for people living near the coastal regions.

The National Hurricane Center (NHC) has confirmed the exceptional event, noting the unusual intensity and frequency of storms so late in the season. Typically, hurricane activity in the Atlantic declines as autumn progresses, but this year has defied traditional patterns.

The Hurricane season in the Atlantic basin, which includes the Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea, and Gulf of Mexico, began on June 1 and will continue till November 30.

The most powerful of the three is Hurricane Milton in the Gulf of Mexico. It intensified into a Category 5 storm on the night of October 7 and brought winds with speeds up to 290 kilometers per hour. The NHC has warned of ‘devastating hurricane-force winds’ in Florida’s west coast.

It also said that ‘life-threatening’ winds are expected to spread across entire Florida peninsula and has advised residents to evacuate the areas if needed.

ALSO SEE: NASA Shares Frightening Video Of Hurricane Helene Shot From Space Station

The second one – Hurricane Leslie, formed near the Bahamas and is raising concerns for residents in Florida and the southeastern U.S. Forecasters have warned that Leslie could gain strength and possibly make landfall later in the week, prompting officials to issue early warnings for preparedness.

Meanwhile, Hurricane Kirk, a Category 2 storm, is currently churning in the eastern Atlantic west of Europe. Experts have predicted that the Kirk will no longer will be a hurricane when it reaches Europe but it could bring strong winds and rain to parts of Spain, Portugal, France, Belgium and the UK in a few days.

ALSO SEE: NASA Postpones October 10 Launch Of Europa Clipper Mission Due To Hurricane Milton

(Image: NOAA)





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The other election night winner: Perplexity

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On Tuesday, two AI startups tried convincing the world their AI chatbots were good enough to be an accurate, real-time source of information during a high-stakes presidential election: xAI and Perplexity.

Elon Musk’s Grok failed almost instantly, offering wrong answers about races’ outcomes before the polls had even closed.

On the other hand, Perplexity offered helpful, real-time election insights and maps throughout the night, linking to reliable resources and offering historical context where appropriate.

Perplexity took a risky bet, and it paid off.

Late last week, the startup announced the launch of its election information hub, featuring real-time maps populated with voting data from Democracy Works and the Associated Press, the same information sources that power Google’s election map. This approach was different from most other AI chatbots, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini, which simply refused to answer questions related to the election.

It’s understandable why most AI labs sat this election out. It was the safe and responsible choice for many of them, as they’ve been plagued by embarrassing hallucinations at some point or another in the last year.

In particular, OpenAI recently released its Google competitor, ChatGPT Search. But the Sam Altman-led startup didn’t trust the feature to answer questions about this election, directing users to Vote.org instead. ChatGPT Search is still an early product, which is too unreliable for people to use in everyday scenarios, and OpenAI seems to have recognized that.

In contrast, Perplexity has been testing its Google competitor out in the real world since December 2022 and clearly felt it had enough data to give this election a shot.

Perplexity’s election night success could set it back in its ongoing fight with media companies; specifically, Dow Jones’ recent lawsuit claiming the startup competes with media companies for the same audiences. Despite the many outbound links within the AI chatbot’s answers, Perplexity’s election hub was itself a destination on election night, and it didn’t require users to venture off the app to get all their information. It certainly seems like Perplexity was competing with media companies, who were also vying for eyeballs on election night, even though Perplexity collects its information from those outlets. Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas even claimed “record traffic” the day before and clearly hoped to maintain that momentum.

While Perplexity had deals with Democracy Works, the AP, and a few other media companies to power election features, the startup also indiscriminately used live election coverage from other media outlets such as CBS, CNN, and the BBC. Sure, Perplexity offered attribution, but the company hasn’t announced any revenue-sharing partnerships with these outlets and it’s unclear if any money changed hands.

How Perplexity fared on Election Night

First, let’s start with Perplexity’s election features that had nothing to do with generative AI: the charts.

People typically love visual election charts, clicking into them and seeing granular data on a state-by-state level. It was a smart move for Perplexity to build these out and ensured their AI systems were not the sole source of information in the app.

screenshot of Perplexity’s election hub at 9:14 pm PT on Nov. 5. Image Credits:Maxwell zeff/perplexity

When visiting Perplexity’s election hub, users were met with a familiar-looking electoral map of the United States, with some states blue for Kamala Harris and others red for Donald Trump. Obviously, Perplexity didn’t reinvent the wheel with this feature — copying the display Google and every TV network shows — but they didn’t need to. Throughout the night, this map appeared to update every minute or so, reflecting the information on the Associated Press’ website. It was a good way to follow the election.

There were bugs in Perplexity’s map periodically throughout the night. Srinivas responded to users on X that were reporting flaws, such as Perplexity not reporting the percentage of votes that had been counted, and quickly addressed them.

swing state tracker in Perplexity’s election hub. Image Credits:Maxwell Zeff/Perplexity

Perplexity offered another familiar feature, a state-by-state tracker, giving real-time information about swing states.

Now for the AI part. When asked questions about the current state of the presidential race, Perplexity answered with hedged responses that still gave mostly accurate information. These answers weren’t as insightful as a commentator on CNN, nor as entertaining as The New York Times’ election needle (which made a comeback this year). However, Perplexity only showed a few small hallucinations and largely produced relevant facts in a timely manner. That’s more than I can say for any other AI chatbot on the market.

Prompt on election night.Image Credits:Maxwell Zeff/Perplexity
Perplexity’s answer around 9:15 pm PT on Nov. 5. Image Credits:Maxwell Zeff/Perplexity

When trying to answer follow-up questions about Harris’ lead in “Blue Wall” states, Perplexity did hallucinate slightly. It was referencing polling data, when it should have been referencing real-time votes at this point in the night. However, the general information here was in the right ballpark, and other AI chatbots just wouldn’t answer this question.

Follow-up Prompt on election night. Image Credits:Maxwell Zeff/Perplexity
Image Credits:Maxwell Zeff/Perplexity

Here’s another follow-up question we tried: What ballots have yet to be counted in swing states? It was hard to find an answer to this question elsewhere. Granted, the only useful answers here were for Pennsylvania and North Carolina, but at least Perplexity didn’t hallucinate for the other states.

Follow-up Prompt on election night.Image Credits:Maxwell Zeff/Perplexity
Perplexity’s answer around 9:20 pm PT on Nov. 5. Image Credits:Maxwell Zeff/Perplexity

This election was the first to feature AI chatbots as a source of information around our democratic processes. However, this will not be the last election where that’s the case. Well-funded AI startups are fighting to deliver information to people in new, faster, more concise ways. Accuracy will be key to success here moving forward. So far, Perplexity has the early lead.



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Apple iOS 18.2 public beta arrives with new AI features, but some remain waitlisted

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Apple has released the AI-powered version of its latest mobile operating system, iOS 18.2, to its public beta users. The update includes new features like an AI emoji generator app called Genmoji, an Image Playground AI image app, ChatGPT integration with Siri, and visual search using the iPhone 16 cameras, among other things. Previously, these features were only available to developers.

Though consumers can now get in line to try out the new AI features, there is a caveat to be aware of: some of them will require joining a waitlist for access.

Collectively, the AI features and tools coming to the new iPhone 16 and other supported devices are known as Apple Intelligence, which can be cleverly abbreviated as “AI” for short. The large language model-driven technologies promise users a smarter Siri, writing and proofreading assistance across apps, and image generation capabilities, among other things. Third-party developers will also be able to take advantage of Apple Intelligence features in their own apps — something that could ultimately prove to be Apple Intelligence’s most useful offering, if widely adopted.

For instance, users could ask Siri to show them information from inside their apps, or take action on something that appears on their screen. At Apple’s developer conference in June, the company said its AI technology would first be made available to specific categories of apps, including Books, Browsers, Cameras, Document readers, File management, Journals, Mail, Photos, Presentations, Spreadsheets, Whiteboards, and Word processors.

In the meantime, users will most likely want to try the features involving ChatGPT and image creation.

Image Playground introduces a standalone image-generation app where you can create new images via prompts. Genmoji offers a similar system for creating custom emojis. And Image Wand will be able to transform your rough sketches in your notes into AI-generated images.

With Siri, users can enable a new ChatGPT extension that gives Apple’s virtual assistant an expanded set of capabilities. For instance, you’ll be able to ask ChatGPT to help you write text, answer questions, create images, and more. If signed in, it can keep a history of your requests, too. Paid subscribers will also be able to use ChatGPT’s advanced capabilities their membership provides — a mutually beneficial deal for the companies where ChatGPT gets massive exposure via the iPhone installed base, while Apple gets a smarter Siri.

iPhone 16 users can also press the new Camera Control button to launch Visual Intelligence, a way to search and identify real-world objects and places through the camera lens.

Unfortunately for those who were itching to try Apple Intelligence, a waitlist for some features is still required. Apple Intelligence has to first be enabled (as it’s not turned on by default), then users will have to sign up for other image-creation features before access is granted. Apple has not said how long users will have to wait before gaining access, but it could be days or even weeks during this beta period.

In part, that’s due to AI safety concerns — already, users are designing NSFW emoji with Genmoji, for example — but it also gives Apple time to safely scale the features to its users.

Ahead of the iOS 18.2 release, Apple launched AI features including Writing Tools and notification summaries powered by Apple Intelligence in iOS 18.1, as well as debuted the new look for Siri, where the edges of the screen glow.

Alongside the iOS 18.2 beta, Apple also released the first public betas of iPadOS 18.2, macOS Sequoia 15.2, and tvOS 18.2.



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OpenAI acquired Chat.com | TechCrunch

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OpenAI bought Chat.com, adding to its collection of high-profile domain names.

As of this morning, Chat.com now redirects to OpenAI’s AI-powered chatbot, ChatGPT. An OpenAI spokesperson confirmed the acquisition via email.

Chat.com is one of the older domains on the web, having been registered in September 1996. Last year, it was reported that Hubspot co-founder and CTO Dharmesh Shah acquired Chat.com for $15.5 million, making it one of the top two all-time publicly reported domain sales.

The domain name doesn’t appear to have changed hands since it sold last year, indicating that OpenAI isn’t hosting ChatGPT on Chat.com — so this probably doesn’t represent a brand change.



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