Antivirus Newsletter | The Verge

Stability AI tries to stay ahead of the pack with a new image-generating AI model

2024-02-14T18:13:48-05:00

Collage of Stabie Cascade art | Stability AI

Stability AI's newest model for image generation is Stable Cascade promises to be faster and more powerful than its industry-leading predecessor, Stable Diffusion, which is the basis of many other text-to-image generation AI tools.

Stable Cascade can generate photos and give variations of the exact image it created, or try to increase an existing picture's resolution. Other text-to-image editing features include inpainting and outpainting, where the model will fill edit only a specific part of the image, as well as canny edge, where users can make a new photo just by using the edges of an existing picture.

The new model is available on Git …

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Cable service cancellation fees might be on the way out

2023-12-14T11:34:48-05:00

The Federal Communications Commission could soon stop cable companies from fining customers who cancel their subscriptions early. In a release on Wednesday, the FCC voted to move forward with a rule that eliminates "junk fees" from cable and satellite providers.

The rule, which FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel first proposed last month, tackles the fees cable and satellite providers sometimes charge when customers cancel their subscriptions before the end of a contract. In addition to doing away with early termination fees, the proposed rule would also require providers to give subscribers a prorated credit or rebate for the number of days lef …

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You can finally buy the Ring Car Cam

2023-01-05T09:00:00-05:00

The Ring Car Cam can be preordered starting today for $199.99. | Image: Ring

More than two years after announcing it, the Ring Car Cam is now available for preorder. Starting today, January 5th, you can order the company's first dashboard security camera at Amazon.com or Ring.com for $199.99, a savings of $50 over the regular price. It will ship to US customers beginning February 15th.

The Ring Car Cam is the video doorbell company's first foray into security away from the home. Featuring dual-facing cameras that can record inside and outside of the car, both when it's in motion and parked, the Ring Car Cam also has a microphone and speaker as well as sensors to detect events and motion in and around the car.

The Ring Car Cam has a front- and rear-facing camera. | Image: Ring" data-portal-copyright="Image: Ring">

Vid …

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US COVID-19 data has never been good enough

2021-08-20T08:00:00-04:00

When American experts first started to worry that COVID-19 vaccines weren't working quite as well against delta as they did against earlier coronavirus strains, they didn't have much domestic data to go on. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was only collecting data on post-vaccination COVID-19 cases if they led to hospitalization or death - the agency wasn't doing big-picture tracking of COVID-19 in vaccinated people. Only a few states and counties were collecting and publicizing that information.

The CDC was doing some analysis, but it wasn't sharing the information quickly, frustrating experts who hoped for a more dynamic pi …

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The unsettling uncertainty of a breakthrough case

2021-08-13T08:00:00-04:00

Last weekend, a close friend texted me with the jarring news that her COVID-19 test had come back positive. She was vaccinated and had been since April. She got her first shot just a few days before I got mine.

Before I got that text, I'd been reminding my friends and family that some people who get vaccinated are going to get COVID-19 anyway. Vaccines aren't perfect. I cautioned that when cases are surging, like they are right now in New York City, the raw number of vaccinated people who get sick is going to go up. Unvaccinated people still face even higher risks of catching the disease.

I know all of that. I think about those facts and …

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Vaccine carrots only got us so far — now, it’s time for sticks

2021-07-30T08:00:00-04:00

This week, the dam broke. With COVID-19 surging around the United States and vaccination rates stagnating, federal agencies and state governments started announcing vaccine mandates for their workers. The Department of Veterans Affairs was the first federal agency to introduce a mandate, and Thursday, President Joe Biden announced that all federal employees would have to be vaccinated or face testing and other protocols. New York City and Los Angeles will also require city workers to get vaccinated.

Private companies are doing the same. Google said Wednesday that employees would have to be vaccinated to come to the office, and Facebook and …

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Communication around masks is still terrible

2021-07-23T08:00:00-04:00

When the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced long-awaited guidelines in May for when vaccinated people could stop wearing masks, some experts cautioned that the changes were coming too soon. We were still learning more about the vaccine's protection, and epidemiologists were worried about coronavirus variants. If mask rules were lifted and cases spiked again, reinstating them would be difficult.

Well, cases are now rising again across the country in a Delta variant-fueled surge, and that's making mask recommendations just as difficult to handle as people feared. The surge is most devastating in places with low vaccination …

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The stakes for fighting misinformation are life and death

2021-07-16T08:00:00-04:00

The United States surgeon general published a report this week calling for a whole-of-society response to health misinformation, calling it a "serious threat to public health." It took a sweeping look at a wide range of misinformation, on everything from masks to unproven drugs.

But the focus of Surgeon General Vivek Murthy's remarks circled back to vaccines. Daily vaccination rates have stalled out at around 500,000 shots per day, and in many pockets of the country, a majority of people aren't getting immunized. The US is struggling to bump those numbers up.

Misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccines spreads fast, and so do the accompany …

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The Olympics are still stuck in 2020

2021-07-09T08:00:00-04:00

In two weeks, it'll be 2020 again: an Olympic year, and a pandemic year, too. This year's Olympic Games will start in July 2021, but the official logo still reads "Tokyo 2020." The games were canceled in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic last year, but through the funhouse mirror of pandemic time, the competition is stuck back in 2020 - and COVID-19 is still threatening the games.

Tokyo declared a state of emergency this week following a surge in COVID-19 cases, and Olympic organizers announced Thursday that no fans would be allowed at competitions in the city. The decisions were made as experts warned (again) that the games could lead to …

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Rimac takes over Bugatti from VW in powerhouse electric supercar deal

2021-07-05T12:17:35-04:00

Croatian electric supercar startup Rimac announced that it was taking over Bugatti from Volkswagen to form a new company called Bugatti Rimac. The news was first reported by the Financial Times.

Bugatti Rimac will be led by Mate Rimac, who founded the company in 2009 in a garage as a one-man operation. Over that period, Rimac has become a highly desirable brand, with many legacy automakers calling upon the startup to help build their own electric supercars.

It's not much of a question why that is. Earlier this year, Rimac released the Nevera, a quad-motor, 1,914 horsepower demonstration of electric absurdity, with a top speed of 258mph and …

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