Share
Over the past couple of weeks, users on the r/alexa subreddit have reported getting automatically upgraded to Alexa Plus as a perk for their Prime memberships. The update doesn’t appear to be opt-in, but there’s an option to roll it back. Screenshots of a message from Amazon sent to users state that, “After your device updates, you can still revert to the original Alexa by saying, ‘Alexa, exit Alexa+.’” Alexa Plus is an LLM-powered overhaul of Alexa that’s intended to help Amazon’s voice assistant compete with rivals like Google Gemini. The Verge
One day the mighty data centre could be toppled into obsolescence by the humble smartphone, said Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas on a recent podcast. Speaking to host Prakhar Gupta, the AI chief argued that people will eventually use powerful, personalised AI tools that will be able to run on the hardware already inside their devices. This will be instead of the AI relying on transmitting data to and from enormous data centres, and using remote computers to function, as is generally the case now. BBC
Wes Streeting has asked Jonathan Haidt, a bestselling author and high-profile advocate of banning social media for under-16s, to speak to his officials in his push for the UK to consider following a landmark ban in Australia. The health secretary has invited Haidt to address an event with staff, charities and MPs after the prime minister, Keir Starmer, said he was open to stricter limits for young people. Haidt came to prominence after writing Anxious Generation, in which he argued that widespread use of smartphones had caused a mental health crisis for young people. Guardian
Some filling stations in London will stop selling diesel within the next four years as demand dwindles, according to a new report. The analysis by electric vehicle (EV) think tank New AutoMotive also predicted that many of the roughly 8,400 filling stations across the UK will have stopped selling the fuel by 2035. It predicted this will encourage more motorists to switch to EVs. Independent
Britain is “firmly on track” to meet its clean power targets for 2030, according to the government following a record offshore wind auction. It has awarded contracts to supply 8.4 gigawatts (GW) of new offshore wind power – enough to power 12 million homes. The auction is part of efforts to ease the country away from volatile and polluting natural gas, but the strike price of £90.91 represents an increase of 11% on contracts agreed last year. Sky News
Pete Hegseth announced on Monday that the US military will begin integrating Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence tool, Grok, into Pentagon networks. Speaking at the SpaceX headquarters in Texas on Monday evening, the US defense secretary said that the integration of Grok into military systems would go live later this month. “Very soon we will have the world’s leading AI models on every unclassified and classified network throughout our department,” Hegseth said. Guardian
Geely is going after the Land Rover Defender and Mercedes-Benz G-Class with the Galaxy Cruiser – and it will be coming to the UK, the Chinese firm has told Autocar. The SUV – which first appeared at the Shanghai motor show last year – is currently in concept form but is very close to production, said design studio director Flavien Dachet, with sales due to start in China by the end of the year. While no concrete date for exports have been set, Yan Tianxiao, Geely Auto UK’s marketing boss confirmed that “we will definitely launch that car in the UK”.
Related Posts
Discover more from Tech Digest
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.