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Mia Sato

Mia Sato

Features Writer, The Verge

Features Writer, The Verge

    More From Mia Sato

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    New York City is testing public e-bike charging stations for delivery workersNew York City is testing public e-bike charging stations for delivery workers
    As Gaza is bombarded, GoFundMe donations are stuck in limboAs Gaza is bombarded, GoFundMe donations are stuck in limbo
    Mia Sato
    Mia Sato
    Google is paying small news outlets to use an AI article writing tool.

    Under the agreement, publishers produce three articles a day, one newsletter a week and one marketing campaign a month using AI. In exchange, outlets get “a five-figure sum” over the course of 12 months.

    First off, that figure seems like a steal for Google. And the service relies on articles from other publishers — who reportedly haven’t consented to their work being used:

    To produce articles, publishers first compile a list of external websites that regularly produce news and reports relevant to their readership. ...

    When any of these indexed websites produce a new article ... the publisher can then apply the gen AI tool to summarize the article, altering the language and style of the report to read like a news story.

    Google Is Paying Publishers Five-Figure Sums to Test an Unreleased Gen AI Platform

    [Adweek]

    Mia Sato
    Mia Sato
    A New Orleans magician says he made the AI Biden robocall telling people not to vote.

    Paul Carpenter told NBC News that he was paid $150 to produce a fake AI-generated voice message from Joe Biden — and that the political operative Steve Kramer hired him to do it. Kramer has worked with Democratic presidential candidate Dean Phillips’ campaign to gather signatures to get on the ballot. NBC didn’t find evidence that the Phillips campaign was involved in the robocalls.

    The parties reportedly involved apparently were not very discreet. Kramer texted the magician, “Have AI voice project” in September. And then there’s this:

    On Jan. 22, when NBC News first broke the news of the fake Biden robocall, Steve Kramer texted Carpenter a link to the story along with the message, “Shhhhhhh,” to which Carpenter replied, “Gtfooh,” an acronym used to express astonishment.

    Mia Sato
    Mia Sato
    Threads and X are looking slightly more alike.

    Two changes spotted by app researchers show how the platforms are testing tweaks — X with carousel-style image galleries instead of grids, and Threads with buttons spaced apart.

    Nima Owji shared the change on X and Alessandro Paluzzi pointed out the Threads update. Meta insisted that Threads isn’t an X clone — but at least in terms of look and feel, the two are getting closer and closer.

    1/2
    Yahoo lays off the leaders of EngadgetYahoo lays off the leaders of Engadget
    The birth of a salesman

    The Flip shopping app is a TikTok knockoff, filled with wannabe influencers making pennies per video view — myself included.

    Mia Sato
    Mia Sato
    Mia Sato
    TikTok music features are expanding.

    Users in more than 160 new countries will be able to add music they find on TikTok to their streaming platform of choice, TikTok announced today. The “add to music app” feature launched in the US in November, integrating platforms like Spotify and Apple Music with the video app.

    Music discovery is huge on TikTok, but the relationship between labels and the tech company are tenuous: earlier this month UMG pulled its entire catalogue from TikTok, including Taylor Swift and Drake, due to disagreements on compensation.

    TikTok’s “Add to music app” button is shown on the top left corner when users click into an audio track from a video.
    Image: TikTok
    Mia Sato
    Mia Sato
    Who reviews the reviewers?

    House Fresh, a blog focused on air quality, is just the kind of source you might want when you’re shopping for an air purifier — but it’s getting harder and harder to find them.

    In a post titled, “How Google is killing independent sites like ours,” managing editor Gisele Navarro explains how bigger publishers like BuzzFeed, Better Homes & Gardens, and Rolling Stone outrank the independent site in Google Search:

    These Digital Goliaths shouldn’t be able to use product recommendations as their personal piggy bank, simply flying through Google updates off the back of ‘the right signals,’ an old domain, or the echo of a reputable brand that is no longer.

    As a team that has dedicated the last few years to testing and reviewing air purifiers, it’s disheartening to see our independent site be outranked by big-name publications that haven’t even bothered to check if a company is bankrupt before telling millions of readers to buy their products.

    How Google is killing independent sites like ours - HouseFresh

    [HouseFresh]

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