November 6, 2023

IN THIS ISSUE

🤖 Elon Musk unveils AI chatbot with 'rebellious streak'

💦 Huge digital waterfall wows travelers at Singapore airport

📺 The hidden costs of buying a 4K TV are higher than you think

🧍🏻‍♂️ I fixed my bad posture with an annoying pop-up app

UP FIRST

Elon Musk unveils AI chatbot with 'rebellious streak'

Grok is currently available to a small number of select users prior to a broader release

Less than a week after warning that AI poses “one of the biggest threats to humanity,” Elon Musk’s xAI company has announced an AI chatbot called Grok.

According to a message shared on X, formerly Twitter, Grok is modeled on The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

“Grok is designed to answer questions with a bit of wit and has a rebellious streak, so please don’t use it if you hate humor!” the message said.

The chatbot, which will rival the likes of OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard, has real-time knowledge of the world gleaned from content on X and will “answer spicy questions that are rejected by most other AI systems.”

The prototype is in an early beta phase following just two months of training ...

DIGITAL DELIGHTS

Huge digital waterfall wows travelers at Singapore's Changi airport

It's almost worth booking a flight there just to see it

Singapore’s Changi Airport has unveiled a major revamp of its Terminal 2 facility that includes a dramatic digital waterfall spanning all four floors of the new departure lounge.

Nearly 900 individual LED tiles were used to create the video wall, which is seamlessly joined together into three large, flat segments. A neat touch is the way that it frames the entrance to the elevator lobby, with the water bouncing off it as it falls.

Together with another roof-based digital display that depicts changing weather, the all-new terminal features some 20,000 plants from more than 100 species, with special lighting designed to enhance their texture and structures.

The city-state’s main international airport won a prominent Best Airport award earlier this year, and the new terminal building is so lavish that it could help it to pick up the same prize next year ...

TV TECH

The hidden costs of buying a 4K TV are way higher than you think

It's advisable to set aside some extra money to guarantee access to 4K services

There’s never been a better time to buy a 4K TV. Prices have continued to drop even as screen sizes and smart TV features have continued to grow.

But now that 4K TVs are priced within reach of almost anyone who wants one, are you actually going to be able to enjoy all of the extra detail and picture quality that 4K promises? The answer is, sadly, not as often as you expect, and not without some considerable extra investment over and above the cost of the TV.

Modern 4K TVs are packed with a lot of impressive technologies that can make picture quality look amazing, but to truly get the best possible results, you need access to native 4K content, preferably with some flavor of HDR, like Dolby Vision, HDR10, or HDR10+ ...

EXPERIENCE by Jon Martindale

I fixed my bad posture with an annoying pop-up app

Desk-based jobs come with the risk of persistent back pain, but this free app may just help

Did you sit up straighter after reading this sentence? I know I did after I wrote it.

As a work-from-home writer and frequent PC gamer, I’m constantly battling against poor posture and the ailments that come with it. Back pain, for me, is never far away, so I’ve tried lots of different ways to improve it. And they have, but my latest attempt has been more successful than most, purely because of the sheer annoyance of it.

Despite measures such as a sit/stand desk, an ergonomic chair, and a footrest, I decided that I still needed something to browbeat me into standing up straight once and for all: an automatic posture bot in the form of an app that's freely available for Windows and Mac ...

Digital Trends helps readers keep tabs on the fast-paced world of tech with all the latest news, fun product reviews, insightful editorials, and one-of-a-kind sneak peeks.