Silicone and TPU Cases for the Google Pixel 7a

 The Pixel 7a is the latest entrant from Google, and despite being an entry-level device, the smartphone is great. Not only does it feature the same Google Tensor G2 processor found in the Pixel 7, it also comes with the same camera setup as its more expensive sibling. That's something! But like any phone, if you want to keep your Pixel 7a in pristine condition, you need to invest in a protective case. With that in mind, here are the best silicone and TPU cases for the Google Pixel 7a that you can buy.

The good thing about silicone and TPU cases is that they are easy to put on and take off. At the same time, the adhesive material ensures that you can easily hold the phone even with sweaty palms. Lest we forget, you can charge your phone wirelessly without removing these cases.

Now that that's out of the way, let's take a look at some quality cases for the Pixel 7a. But first,

While you're at it, you should also pick up USB-C car chargers with PD to charge the Pixel 7a in the car.

Check out the essential Pixel 7a accessories to expand your phone's functionality.

1. OSOPHTER CLEAR CASE

The smartphone usually cracks from the corners if you drop it. As such, the Osophter case's reinforced corners will help protect your phone from drops and accidental bumps into door frames. At the same time, cut-outs at the bottom allow easy access to ports and speakers. It is worth noting that the buttons are also covered.

Despite its beefy corners, the Osophter case is quite thin, and you'll be able to charge your phone wirelessly with ease. The combination of TPU and PC is also reflected in a firm grip in the hand. The only limitation is that such cases tend to turn yellow over time. And when that happens, you may need to get another case for your Pixel 7a.

2. DIMIK CASE FOR GOOGLE PIXEL 7A

Interestingly, the DiMik case does not cost much and is affordable. It hugs the phone and protects it from everyday wear and tear. And the stretchy material means it's easy to take off/on.

As mentioned above, the DiMiK case completely covers the camera module. As an added bonus, the case also covers the phone's buttons. For the price, the DiMik case is one of the best silicone protective cases for the Pixel 7a.

3. FOLU SILICONE CASE FOR GOOGLE PIXEL 7A

Like most phone cases, it has raised lips along the screen and camera module. Needless to say, raised lips protect the display and camera lens from micro-scratches. In addition, the microfiber lining prevents further scratches.

Foluu claims this Pixel 7a case is fingerprint and water resistant. However, we will take these claims with a grain of salt. That said, these cases are rarely fingerprint magnets.

4. GUARISHEL CARTRIDGE

Since the corners of the phone are usually delicate, these corners help protect the phone from damage.

It is worth noting that Guarishel cases are durable and robust, despite their affordable price. Users of Guarishel cases for Google Pixel 6 Pro and Samsung Galaxy A23 have actually praised the easy-to-use and durable nature of these cases.

5. GOOGLE PIXEL 7A CASE

Just like the DiMiK case, you get a neat cutout for the camera module. Interestingly, the Google logo is fully displayed on the back.

Seriously, first party cases have many advantages. For one thing, these are quality cases and will probably last you a long time. Additionally, there are rarely issues with seating or accessing ports and speakers. More to the point, the buttons are more tactile than what you'd get with other cases that also cover the buttons.

In short, if you have a few bucks to spare, then Google's custom silicone case for the Pixel 7a is a great choice.

PROTECT YOUR PHONE

These were some of the best silicone and TPU cases for the Google Pixel 7a. The best thing about silicone and TPU cases is that they are light and thin. This way you won't add any heavy load to your phone. If you don't want to splurge on a case, then you'll find plenty of favorites on the DiMiK case or the Guarishel case.

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Intel and AMD Swap Market Share as CPU Sales Remain Sluggish

 The PC market is experiencing an economic hangover following the COVID-19 pandemic. Sales are down for everyone involved, and both Intel and AMD have been hit particularly hard. Gamers and creators have been putting off upgrading their PCs, and companies have been considering expansion due to various economic concerns. New reports from industry analysts shed light on how the recent downturn has affected the CPU market. Intel continues to take market share away from AMD in the desktop and notebook space, and AMD is taking a bigger slice of Intel's data center pie.

The reports highlight the struggles both companies have faced in the past few quarters, which have been historically brutal. Intel posted its biggest quarterly loss ever in Q1, and it was also reported that AMD is struggling to get its new Zen 4 processors off the ground, as evidenced by recent price cuts despite these being relatively new processors. However, AMD has some built-in resilience with its embedded and data center products that have helped it weather the recent turbulence.

Despite its struggles, Intel remains a dominant force in the client and data center space and owns the lion's share of the markets where AMD competes. All the cries of "RIP Intel" are sorely misguided given its size and market position. Semiconductor industry analyst Sravan Kundojjala (via TechPowerUp ) notes that both Intel and AMD suffered significant year-over-year losses at the end of the first quarter, but that Intel was nonetheless able to regain some of AMD's client market share. Currently, Intel still controls almost 80% of the laptop and desktop market.

In the data center, fortunes are reversed, with AMD reportedly taking 10% of the market from Intel over the past year, according to Counterpoint research. However, Intel still commands over 70% of the data center market, with AMD now holding nearly 20%. AMD famously beat Intel to market with its 4th generation Epyc "Genoa" CPU, which launched in November 2022. Intel repeatedly delayed its 4th generation Scalable Sapphire Rapids CPUs, but finally announced them in January 2023.

The PC market is expected to pick up in the second half of 2023 as existing inventory dries up after several quarters of supply outstripping demand. Companies also hold back inventory to protect their prices. This is expected to moderate as the market begins to show renewed strength, which is expected to extend into 2024 as the upgrade cycle begins again. Analysts believe that by next year, all hardware purchased in 2020, when the pandemic began, will need to be replaced, and a new version of Windows is also expected.

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iPhone 15, iPhone 15 Plus Getting The ‘Pro’ Models Treatment With A Massive Upgrade To Main Camera

 Apple intends to bring more differences between the 'Pro' and non-Pro versions of the iPhone 15 series, but it seems that some upgrades will find their way to the cheaper models, such as the camera. According to the latest research report, the main sensor of both iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max would be found on the regular versions.

Both the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus are treated to a 48MP main sensor

According to analyst Jeff Pu of Haitong International Securities, the 48MP sensor that will arrive on the more premium models will also make its way to the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus. MacRumors, which noted the rumor, also reports that the new 48MP lens on the newer models is expected to use a triple-layer sensor that has the ability to capture more light, resulting in improved image quality.

While we should expect imaging improvements, Pu says there are issues in the stacked sensor supply chain, resulting in low yields, meaning the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus could experience production delays. This may mean longer waiting times for customers. However, if the non-Pro models are said to have the same triple-layer sensor as the more expensive variants, wouldn't that mean Apple would run into production issues with the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max as well?

Unfortunately, the report didn't specify this, so the two iPhone classes likely use a different lens that comes from different suppliers. In addition, it is possible that Apple is keeping the improved video recording features exclusively for the "Pro" versions, and of course we should not forget the omission of telephoto lenses from the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus. Thanks to the special Image Signal Processor (ISP) from the A17 Bionic, we expect the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max to churn out better quality images.

The regular iPhone 15 models are said to come with the A16 Bionic, and while this SoC powerhouse will be a highly capable addition to the overall specs, a closer comparison between all four phones will highlight these differences significantly.

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That wasn’t Google I/O it was Google AI

 If you thought generative AI was a big deal last year, wait until you see what it looks like in products that are already being used by billions.

Things got weird right from the jump at Google I/O yesterday when a duck hit the stage.

The day began with a musical performance described as "a generative AI experiment with Dan Deacon and Google's AI tools MusicLM, Phenaki and Bard". It was not clear exactly how much of it was made by machine and how much by people. There was a long, lyrically rambling treatise on meeting a lipped duck. Deacon informed the audience that we were all in a band called Chiptune and launched into a song with various chiptune riffs layered on top of each other. Later he had a song about oat milk? I believe the lyrics were created entirely by AI. Someone in a duck suit with lipstick came out and danced on stage. It was all very confusing.

Everything about life in the age of artificial intelligence is again a bit confusing and weird. And this was undoubtedly an AI show. It was Google I/O as Google AI. So much so that on Twitter, in the Internet's comments section, one person after another used #GoogleIO to complain about all the AI ​​talk and urge Google to get on with it and get to phones. (There was the eagerly awaited new phone, the Pixel Fold. It folds.)

But when Google CEO Sundar Pichai, who once led the company's Android efforts, took the stage, he made it clear what he wanted to talk about. It wasn't a new phone - it was AI. He started by going straight for the way AI is in everything the company does now. With generative AI, he said, “We're redesigning all of our core products, including Search.

At Google in 2023, it seems pretty clear that the core product is now AI itself. Or at least it is the backbone of this product, a key ingredient that manifests itself in various forms. As my colleague Melissa Heikkilä put it in her report on the company's efforts: Google is throwing generative AI into everything.

The company did this in one demo after another, all morning long. A Gmail demo showed how generative AI can craft a sophisticated airline email to help you get a refund. The new Magic Editor in Google Photos not only removes unwanted elements, but also repositions people and objects in photos, makes the sky brighter and bluer, and then adjusts the lighting in the photo to make everything look natural.

In Docs, AI creates a complete job description from just a few words. Generates tables. It helps you plan your vacation in Search, adjust the tone of your text messages to be more professional (or more pleasant), give you an "immersive view" in Maps, summarize your emails, write computer code, seamlessly translate lip-sync videos. It's so deeply integrated not just into the Android operating system, but into the hardware itself that Google is now making "the only phone with artificial intelligence at its core," as Google's Rick Osterloh said when describing the G2 chip. Yuck.

Google I/O is a highly, highly scripted event. For months, the company has faced criticism that its AI efforts are being surpassed by the likes of ChatGPT OpenAI or Microsoft Bing. Alarm bells were also ringing inside. Today it felt like a long overdue response. All in all, the demos felt like a kind of flex — a way to show what the company has under the hood and how it can deploy the technology in its existing, massively popular products (Pichai noted that the company has five different products with more than 2 billion users). .

And yet, at the same time, he's clearly trying to fall in line and show off what he can do, but in ways that, you know, won't scare anyone.

Three years ago, the company ousted Timnit Gebra, co-head of its AI ethics team, essentially over a paper that raised concerns about the dangers of large language models. Gebru's concerns have since become mainstream. Her departure and its aftermath marked a turning point in the conversation about the dangers of uncontrolled AI. One would hope that Google would learn from this; from her.

And then, just last week, Geoffrey Hinton announced he was leaving Google, in large part to sound the alarm about the dire consequences of rapid advances in AI that he fears could soon allow it to surpass human intelligence. intelligence. (Or, as Hinton put it, "it is quite conceivable that humanity is only a transitional stage in the evolution of intelligence".)

And so yesterday's I/O was a far cry from 2018's event, when the company gleefully showed off Duplex and demonstrated how Google Assistant can make automated calls to small businesses without letting the people on those calls know they're talking to AI. . It was an incredible demo. And one that deeply unsettled a great many people.

We heard time and time again at this year's I/O about accountability. James Manyika, who leads the company's technology and society program, began by talking about the wonders that artificial intelligence has been able to perform, particularly in the area of ​​protein folding, but quickly moved on to the ways in which society thinks about disinformation, noting how images generated by watermarking and alluding to on the railing to prevent their misuse.

It was shown how Google could deploy image provenance to counter misinformation, effectively debunking image searches by showing the first indexing (in an on-stage example, a fake photo to show the moon landing was a hoax). It was a bit of grounding between all the awe and wonder, operating at scale.

And then… to the phones. The new Google Pixel Fold received the biggest applause of the day. People like gadgets.

The phone can fold, but for me it was one of the least impressive things of the day. And I kept going back in my head to one of the first examples we saw: a photo of a woman standing in front of some hills and a waterfall.

The Magic Editor erased her backpack strap. Cold! And it also made the cloudy sky look much bluer. To support this, in another example—this time of a child sitting on a bench with balloons—Magic Editor once again brightened the day and then adjusted all the lighting in the photos to make the sunlight look more natural. More real than real.

How far do we want to go here? What is the ultimate goal we are moving towards? Finally, shall we skip the holidays altogether and create some nice, pretty pictures? Can we replace our memories with sunnier, more idealized versions of the past? Are we making reality better? Is everything more beautiful? Is everything better? Is it all very, very cool? Or something else? Something we haven't realized yet?

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The open-source AI boom is built on Big Tech’s handouts

 Greater access to the code behind generative models encourages innovation. But if the top companies get spooked, they could go out of business.

Last week, a leaked memo purportedly written by Luke Sernau, a senior engineer at Google, said aloud what many in Silicon Valley must have been whispering to themselves for weeks: an open-source free-for-all threatens control of Big Tech. AI.

New big open-source language models—alternatives to Google's Bard or OpenAI's ChatGPT that researchers and app developers can study, build upon, and modify—are falling like candy from a piñata. These are smaller, cheaper versions of best-in-class AI models built by big companies that (almost) match them in performance – and they're shared for free.

Companies like Google — which revealed at its annual product keynote this week that it's throwing generative AI into everything it has, from Gmail to Photos to Maps — have been too busy looking over their shoulders to see the real competition coming, Sernau writes: " While we were arguing, the third faction was quietly eating our lunch.”

In many ways, this is a good thing. Greater access to these models has helped drive innovation – it can also help catch their flaws. Artificial intelligence will not flourish if only a few mega-rich companies care about the technology or decide how it will be used.

But this open-source boom is uncertain. Most open source versions still stand on the shoulders of giant models published by big companies with deep pockets. If OpenAI and Meta decide to close up shop, the boomtown could become a backwater.

For example, many of these models are built on LLaMA, an open-source large language model released by Meta AI. Others use a massive public dataset called the Pile, put together by the open-source nonprofit EleutherAI. But EleutherAI only exists because the openness of OpenAI meant that lots of coders were able to reverse engineer how GPT-3 was made and then build their own at their leisure.

"Meta AI has done a really great job of training and releasing the models to the research community," says Stella Biderman, who splits her time between EleutherAI, where she's executive director and head of research, and consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton. Sernau also highlights the key role of Meta AI in his Google note. (Google confirmed to MIT Technology Review that the memo was written by one of its employees, but notes that it is not an official strategy document.)

that could change. OpenAI is already reversing its previous open policy due to competition concerns. And Meta may start wanting to limit the risk of newcomers doing nasty things to its open-source code. "I honestly feel like it's the right thing to do right now," says Joelle Pineau, CEO of Meta AI, about opening up the code to outsiders. “Is this the same strategy we will adopt for the next five years? I don't know because AI moves so fast."

If the trend of closing access continues, not only will the open source crowd be swept away, but the next generation of AI breakthroughs will be squarely back in the hands of the world's largest and wealthiest AI labs.

The future of how AI is made and used is at a crossroads.

Open source bonanza

Open-source software has been around for decades. That's what the internet runs on. But the cost of creating powerful models meant that open-source AI only took off a year ago. It quickly became a bonanza.

Just look at the last few weeks. On March 25, Hugging Face, a startup that promotes free and open access to AI, introduced the first open-source alternative to ChatGPT, the viral chatbot released by OpenAI in November.

Hugging Face's chatbot, HuggingChat, is built on an open-source large conversational-tuned language model called Open Assistant, which was trained with the help of about 13,000 volunteers and released a month ago. But Open Assistant itself is built on Meta's LLaMA.

And then there's StableLM, an open-source large language model released on March 19 by Stability AI, the company behind the hit Stable Diffusion model for text-to-image conversion. A week later, on March 28th, Stability AI released StableVicuna, a version of StableLM that – like Open Assistant or HuggingChat – is optimized for conversation. (Think of StableLM as Stability's answer to GPT-4 and StableVicuna as ChatGPT's answer.)

These new open-source models join a number of others released in the past few months, including Alpaca (from a team at the University of Stanford), Dolly (from software firm Databricks), and Cerebras-GPT (from artificial intelligence firm Cerebras). Most of these models are built on LLaMA or datasets and models from EleutherAI; Cerebras-GPT follows a template set by DeepMind. You can bet there will be more to come.

For some, open-source is a matter of principle. “This is a global community effort to bring the power of conversational AI to everyone… and take it out of the hands of a few large corporations,” says AI researcher and YouTuber Yannic Kilcher in a video introducing Open Assistant.

"We will never give up the fight for open source AI," Hugging Face co-founder Julien Chaumond tweeted last month.

For others, it's about profit. Stability AI hopes to repeat the same trick with chatbots that it pulled with Images: driving and then benefiting from a flurry of innovation among developers who use its products. The company plans to take the best of this innovation and bring it back into tailor-made products for a wide range of clients. “We add innovation and then we pick and choose,” says Emad Mostaque, CEO of Stability AI. "It's the best business model in the world."

Either way, the huge crop of free and open large language models is putting the technology in the hands of millions of people around the world, inspiring many to build new tools and explore how they work. “This technology has a lot more access than ever before,” says Biderman.

"The incredible number of ways people are using this technology is frankly mind-boggling," says Amir Ghavi, a lawyer at Fried Frank, which represents a number of generative AI companies, including Stability AI. "I think it's a testament to human creativity, which is the whole point of open-source."

GPU melting

But training large language models from scratch—rather than building on or modifying them—is hard. "It's still out of reach for the vast majority of people," says Mostaque. "We melted a lot of GPUs building StableLM."

The first version of Stability AI, the Stable Diffusion text-to-image model, performed as well as—if not better than—closed equivalents such as Google's Imagen and OpenAI's DALL-E. Not only was it free to use, but it also ran on a good home computer. Last year, more than any other model, Stable Diffusion fueled the explosion of open-source development around image AI.

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RTX 4090 Sets World Overclocking Record While Running 3D Benchmark

 Although the RTX 4090 has already earned the title of "World's Most Powerful GPU", it can now add a second title - the highest clocked GPU for running a 3D benchmark. The intrepid overclocker recently set the world record for GPU overclocking in a 3D test, reaching 3.825 GHz on Colorful's RTX 4090. This is the highest clock rate ever recorded for a GPU when running a 3D benchmark, as no previous overclock was able to do. They couldn't withstand the load of the 3D test and instead ran only non-3D applications. Overclocking brings the GPU field closer than ever to reaching the magical 4 GHz limit, which seemed like a dream a generation ago with Ampere.

The 3D GPU overclocking record is now held by Cens, which hails from Germany. They posted their feat on Twitter with all the necessary recipes, including screenshots of all the related hardware clocks. The stunt was performed on an EVGA Z90 Dark Kingpin motherboard that is custom made for overclocking. Liquid nitrogen was used to cool the GPU to arctic levels, and screenshots show it running at -34°C during testing. The GPU was so cold that even the "hot spot" was -40C. The 3D test that was run is Unigine Superposition, which is designed to test GPU stability. The overclocked GPU is the Colorful RTX 4090 iGame LAB, a limited edition GPU built for overclocking. Only 300 were produced, making it one of the rarest GPUs in the world and similar to the now defunct EVGA Kingpin boards.

The 3.825 GHz overclock follows the previous RTX 4090 overclock record set by a person named OGS, according to Tom's Hardware. However, OGS could only get this speed when running a non-3D application because it was not stable in 3D tests. OGS made a test called GPUPI that measures GPU computation instead of 3D rendering, making it less stressful and easier to get higher clocks.

Despite OGS's record clock speed, Superposition's score was only good enough for second place in the benchmark rankings. In first place is the Gigabyte 4090 board, also cooled by LN2 and running at similar temperatures, but with an overclock of only 3.435 GHz. Back in the Ampere days it was remarkable to reach 3GHz on LN2, so it's a tribute to the Ada Lovelace architecture's ability to reach much higher clocks than its predecessors due to its superior efficiency. At this rate, we can only dream of what overclockers will be able to achieve with Blackwell.

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How to Unlock Pixel 7a Bootloader and Prepare it For Rooting

 The Pixel 7a is finally available to everyone, and it's an excellent phone for $499. With how you're getting Android goodies at an affordable price, it's conceivable that many people would want to go ahead and unlock the Pixel 7a's bootloader, and in this guide we'll walk you through how you can do just that. .

The good news about unlocking the Pixel 7a bootloader is that the way to do it is very easy and all you need to do is have ADB setup and you're good to go. If you have basic knowledge of Android, you will be able to unlock the bootloader in no time, so let's not waste time and take a look, shall we?

Easily unlock your Pixel 7a bootloader and customize your phone in any way you want

The best thing about the unlocking process is that Google has become much friendlier to third-party developers. This means you don't have to go through a long and difficult process to go ahead and unlock the bootloader on the Pixel 7a, and we're going to walk you through how to do it.

Note: Unlocking the bootloader of any device will wipe the device completely, so it's better to make a backup before unlocking the bootloader.

Step 1: On your Pixel 7a, go to Settings > About phone and tap the build number 7 to 8 times.

Step 2: Go back to the main Settings page and tap on System.

Step 3: Now scroll down to Developer Options.

Step 4: Once there, locate the OEM unlock switch and turn it on. You may be asked to enter a password or PIN.

Step 5: If you don't have ADB and Fastboot setup, I suggest you set them up by going here.

Step 6: Now turn off your Pixel 7a and hold the Volume Down and Power buttons together. This will turn on the phone and boot into the bootloader menu.

Step 7: Connect your Pixel 7a to your computer using a USB cable.

Step 8: Enter the following command fastboot flashing unlock. This will show you on the screen that the bootloader unlocking process will start. Use volume buttons to scroll and power button to accept it.

Once the process is complete, your phone will reset and you will have to go ahead and set up your phone again, but that's about it.

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AMD Ryzen 7 7700X 8-Core CPU Is Now Cheaper Than Ryzen 7 7700 Non-X

 The AMD Ryzen 7 7700X 8-core processor has received a discount from US retailers, who have reduced its price below the Ryzen 7 7700.

AMD Ryzen 7000 desktops keep getting discounts, now 7700x cheaper than 7700

Both the AMD Ryzen 7000X3D and the standard Ryzen 7000 desktop CPU have been on sale for months at heavily discounted prices. MSRPs have also been reduced on several SKUs, and it looks like consumers are in for an even better deal.

The AMD Ryzen 7 7700X is one of the latest SKUs to get a price cut, and while it's not that significant, it still means consumers will be paying lower prices to get the same chip than before. At major US retailers, the AMD Ryzen 7 7700X can now be found for $294.99, which is $104 less than its MSRP, and also appears to be priced lower than the Non-X variant of the same chip, which costs $329 . .

Both Amazon US and Newegg US are offering the chip for $294.99. The US Newegg deal is listed at $344.99, but the retailer is offering an additional $50 off using the code "MYRSSCS9289," the AMD Ryzen 7 7700X and 7700 again come with a free copy of Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, which is an additional $70 value. You can find the CPU at the retailer of your choice at the link below:

Ryzen 7 7700X 8-Core Desktop Processor - $294.99 (Amazon US)

Ryzen 7 7700X 8-Core Desktop CPU - $294.99 (Newegg US)

The AMD Ryzen 7 7700X and Ryzen 7 7700 8-core processors are still a good choice for gamers looking for a chip under $300. These chips offer Zen 4 cores with fast clocks and great efficiency while maintaining overclocking support. For those looking for something better, you can find the AMD Ryzen 9 7900 for less than $400 with 12 cores, or extreme gaming performance and efficiency with the Ryzen 7 7800X3D, which retails for $449 and has been a top-selling chip ever since. its launch.

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That wasn’t Google I/O ----- it was Google AI

 If you thought generative AI was a big deal last year, wait until you see what it looks like in products that are already being used by billions.

Things got weird right from the jump at Google I/O yesterday when a duck hit the stage.

The day began with a musical performance described as "a generative AI experiment with Dan Deacon and Google's AI tools MusicLM, Phenaki and Bard". It was not clear exactly how much of it was made by machine and how much by people. There was a long, lyrically rambling treatise on meeting a lipped duck. Deacon informed the audience that we were all in a band called Chiptune and launched into a song with various chiptune riffs layered on top of each other. Later he had a song about oat milk? I believe the lyrics were created entirely by AI. Someone in a duck suit with lipstick came out and danced on stage. It was all very confusing.

Everything about life in the age of artificial intelligence is again a bit confusing and weird. And this was undoubtedly an AI show. It was Google I/O as Google AI. So much so that on Twitter, in the Internet's comments section, one person after another used #GoogleIO to complain about all the AI ​​talk and urge Google to get on with it and get to phones. (There was the eagerly awaited new phone, the Pixel Fold. It folds.)

But when Google CEO Sundar Pichai, who once led the company's Android efforts, took the stage, he made it clear what he wanted to talk about. It wasn't a new phone - it was AI. He started by going straight for the way AI is in everything the company does now. With generative AI, he said, “We're redesigning all of our core products, including Search.

I don't think that's quite right.

At Google in 2023, it seems pretty clear that the core product is now AI itself. Or at least it is the backbone of this product, a key ingredient that manifests itself in various forms. As my colleague Melissa Heikkilä put it in her report on the company's efforts: Google is throwing generative AI into everything.

The company did this in one demo after another, all morning long. A Gmail demo showed how generative AI can craft a sophisticated airline email to help you get a refund. The new Magic Editor in Google Photos not only removes unwanted elements, but also repositions people and objects in photos, makes the sky brighter and bluer, and then adjusts the lighting in the photo to make everything look natural.

In Docs, AI creates a complete job description from just a few words. Generates tables. It helps you plan your vacation in Search, adjust the tone of your text messages to be more professional (or more pleasant), give you an "immersive view" in Maps, summarize your emails, write computer code, seamlessly translate lip-sync videos. It's so deeply integrated not just into the Android operating system, but into the hardware itself that Google is now making "the only phone with artificial intelligence at its core," as Google's Rick Osterloh said when describing the G2 chip. Yuck.

Google I/O is a highly, highly scripted event. For months, the company has faced criticism that its AI efforts are being surpassed by the likes of ChatGPT OpenAI or Microsoft Bing. Alarm bells were also ringing inside. Today it felt like a long overdue response. All in all, the demos felt like a kind of flex — a way to show what the company has under the hood and how it can deploy the technology in its existing, massively popular products (Pichai noted that the company has five different products with more than 2 billion users). .

And yet, at the same time, he's clearly trying to fall in line and show off what he can do, but in ways that, you know, won't scare anyone.

Three years ago, the company ousted Timnit Gebra, co-head of its AI ethics team, essentially over a paper that raised concerns about the dangers of large language models. Gebru's concerns have since become mainstream. Her departure and its aftermath marked a turning point in the conversation about the dangers of uncontrolled AI. One would hope that Google would learn from this; from her.

And then, just last week, Geoffrey Hinton announced he was leaving Google, in large part to sound the alarm about the dire consequences of rapid advances in AI that he fears could soon allow it to surpass human intelligence. intelligence. (Or, as Hinton put it, "it is quite conceivable that humanity is only a transitional stage in the evolution of intelligence".)

And so yesterday's I/O was a far cry from 2018's event, when the company gleefully showed off Duplex and demonstrated how Google Assistant can make automated calls to small businesses without letting the people on those calls know they're talking to AI. . It was an incredible demo. And one that deeply unsettled a great many people.

We heard time and time again at this year's I/O about accountability. James Manyika, who leads the company's technology and society program, began by talking about the wonders that artificial intelligence has been able to perform, particularly in the area of ​​protein folding, but quickly moved on to the ways in which society thinks about disinformation, noting how images generated by watermarking and alluding to on the railing to prevent their misuse.

It was shown how Google could deploy image provenance to counter misinformation, effectively debunking image searches by showing the first indexing (in an on-stage example, a fake photo to show the moon landing was a hoax). It was a bit of grounding between all the awe and wonder, operating at scale.

And then… to the phones. The new Google Pixel Fold received the biggest applause of the day. People like gadgets.

The phone can fold, but for me it was one of the least impressive things of the day. And I kept going back in my head to one of the first examples we saw: a photo of a woman standing in front of some hills and a waterfall.

The Magic Editor erased her backpack strap. Cold! And it also made the cloudy sky look much bluer. To support this, in another example—this time of a child sitting on a bench with balloons—Magic Editor once again brightened the day and then adjusted all the lighting in the photos to make the sunlight look more natural. More real than real.

How far do we want to go here? What is the ultimate goal we are moving towards? Finally, shall we skip the holidays altogether and create some nice, pretty pictures? Can we replace our memories with sunnier, more idealized versions of the past? Are we making reality better? Is everything more beautiful? Is everything better? Is it all very, very cool? Or something else? Something we haven't realized yet?

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What to Do if Your Netflix Account Has Been Hacked

 While setting up precautions is a good way to protect yourself, it's always recommended to check your accounts as well to make sure they haven't been compromised. And if your Netflix account is really hacked, you can start by restoring your account. Here is the tutorial.

Someone hacking into your Netflix account and changing your email is a pretty good indicator that something is wrong. However, hackers are not always so straightforward. But can you still tell if your Netflix account is hacked or not? And is it possible to recover a hacked Netflix account? Let's find out.

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HOW TO CHECK IF SOMEONE HACKED YOUR NETFLIX ACCOUNT

Instead of jumping straight into Netflix account recovery, it's worth checking to see if your Netflix account has actually been hacked. If the answer is yes, you can proceed to recover your account, and if not, you can go directly to our tips on how to make your Netflix account more secure.

1. Try logging into your account

While logging into your Netflix account may sound like a very basic thing, it's an important step in checking if your Netflix account has been compromised. As mentioned above, while hacking into your account and changing your password may sound like a no-brainer, you'd be surprised how many times hackers have changed credentials to freeze users' access to accounts.

This way they cut off your way to access or change your account details. It is also effective, especially if hackers want to either quietly collect your information or pass the active account to someone else.

However, a successful login means that you have cleared the first checkpoint. If so, go to the next one. If not, go straight to account recovery.

2. Check the Recently Viewed Titles

While your Netflix viewing history is a good way to keep track of your shows, it's also a great way to see if your account has been hacked. Once you go to your profile, Netflix will show you all the titles you've watched recently in the Continue Watching tab.

You can also check the My List tab to see if anything is out of place. If you're still unsure, use the Your Account page for a detailed view. Here is the tutorial.

Step 1: Open the Netflix Your Account page.

Step 2: Scroll down and click on your profile.

Step 3: Here, go to Activity View and click on View.

Step 4: Browse the page to view your profile view activity.

Tip: You can repeat this process for all other profiles as well.

Step 5: Once you reach the bottom of the page, click Show More to view more titles.

Step 6: Additionally, click Download All to download your entire Netflix viewing history.

Once the file is ready, the download should start automatically. Then open the file and review your previous streaming activity on Netflix.

Tip: Here's how to reset your watched Netflix episodes and shows from your queue and start over.

3. Check tracking activity (and remove unwanted users)

The last but equally effective way to check if your Netflix account has been compromised is to check the Manage Account Access page. Here you will get a list of all devices that have accessed your account, their location, access time and even device specifications.

You also have the option to click Sign Out for any unknown device that appears in this list. It can also give you an idea whether your Netflix account is hacked or not.

However, this recent device is not conclusive as it has certain limitations. Devices that have been inactive for more than 90 days do not appear in this list. Additionally, only the number of devices that match the length of the page will be visible.

Additionally, devices using your Netflix gaming-only account will not appear in this list. But if you feel like there are too many unknown devices, it might be time to take some action.

4. Check your inbox

Although it may take some time, Netflix usually sends email notifications about every new login to the email ID associated with your account. This includes login time details, location and sometimes even device details.

So if you notice any suspicious login emails from Netflix, chances are your account has been compromised and it's time to take some precautions like the ones mentioned below.

HOW TO RECOVER A HACKED NETFLIX ACCOUNT

If you have followed the above methods and concluded that your Netflix account is hacked, it is time to get your Netflix account back. To do this, you can start by changing your Netflix password, move on to removing all non-essential devices, and if that doesn't work, contact the Netflix Help Center. Here is the tutorial.

Note: If you don't have access to your Netflix account, go straight to the last recovery method.

1. Change your Netflix password

If you still have access to your Netflix account, then changing your account password is a simple but effective first step. This way, you will be able to limit the hacker's access to your account while you figure out the next step. Method:

Using a browser

Step 1: Open the Netflix My Account page in any web browser.

Step 2: In the "Membership and Billing" section, click Change Password.

Step 3: Enter your old password here first.

Step 4: Then enter and re-enter your new password.

Tip: Make sure "Sign out of all devices" is checked to automatically sign out of all other devices after you reset your password.

Step 5: Click Save.

This will change your Netflix account password. Make sure your new password is different from your previous password.

Using the Netflix mobile app

Step 1: Open the Netflix app on your Android or iOS device.

Step 2: Tap on your profile.

Step 3: Tap your profile icon in the top right corner.

2. Remove all devices

If unknown devices keep logging into your Netflix account, it might be time to root them all. While password sharing is a good way to share costs when you're all in the same household, it becomes a little questionable when that password somehow ends up on other people's devices.

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