Microsoft Kills Cortana 😔

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Here’s what we got for you today:

• 🔌 Microsoft pulls the plug on Cortana

• 🐴 Pony.ai and Toyota collab in China

• 🔨 A.I. can now read keystrokes

• 🖥️ Stability AI introduces StableCode

• 🔗 Other tech news

• 🖼 AI Generated Image of the Day

Microsoft Pulls the Cord on Cortana

Microsoft is discontinuing its digital assistant app Cortana this month, redirecting its focus towards advanced AI developments like Bing Chat and AI-driven productivity features across Windows and Edge. Cortana's standalone app support in Windows will end in August 2023, as Microsoft considers it a stepping stone towards a future where a smarter GPT-4-powered chatbot will play a pivotal role, thanks to its partnership with OpenAI. This transition will occur as part of the integration of Bing Chat into Windows 11.

Although Cortana will persist in some capacity within Outlook mobile, Teams mobile, and Microsoft Teams display, Microsoft plans to further integrate Bing Chat into enterprise settings, including Microsoft 365 Copilot for enhanced AI assistance. Users are encouraged to explore alternatives such as Windows 11 voice access, AI-powered Bing, Microsoft 365 Copilot, and Windows Copilot. The decision to phase out Cortana aligns with other tech giants potentially following suit, reflecting a shift towards more advanced AI-driven solutions.

Pony.ai and Toyota Collab in China

Toyota and partner Pony.ai are teaming up to establish a joint venture in China. The automobile giant has been a significant investor in Pony.ai since their collaboration began in 2019.

The move aligns with Toyota's efforts to develop "smart cockpits" for the Chinese market and embrace electric vehicles, while Pony.ai's CEO sees this as a crucial step in advancing the connected car industry. Despite regulatory challenges, China has been a forefront player in self-driving car development, with Pony.ai already launching self-driving services in several major Chinese cities as well as having a presence in the United States.

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A.I. Can Now Read Keystrokes

Researchers from Cornell have developed an AI system capable of interpreting keyboard input solely from audio recordings of keystrokes. By training the model using keystroke audio data, they achieved a 95% accuracy rate in predicting typed characters, which only slightly reduced to 93% accuracy when using Zoom for training.

However, the system requires specific keyboard training data with corresponding character references and works best with audible keystrokes, even those from membrane keyboards. While this potential cyber attack has some vulnerabilities, such as reduced accuracy with touch typing and potential noise interference, the researchers suggest software-side solutions to counter such attacks, rather than simply changing keyboards.

Stability AI Introduces StabilityCode

Stability AI has expanded its focus into code generation with the introduction of StableCode.

StableCode aims to assist users in generating programming language code and is available in three tiers: a general-use base model, an instruction model, and a long-context-window model capable of supporting up to 16,000 tokens. Drawing from the open-source BigCode project, StableCode has undergone additional filtering and fine-tuning by Stability AI, initially supporting programming in Python, Go, Java, JavaScript, C, markdown, and C++.

The model's ambition aligns with its predecessor, Stable Diffusion, which made artistic creation accessible to everyone. Stability AI's head of research, Christian Laforte, envisions StableCode as a tool to empower individuals with innovative ideas to create solutions through programming. StableCode's training involved meticulous filtering and enhancement of the BigCode data, with steps that included language-specific training akin to natural language domain models.

One standout feature of StableCode is its long-context-window version, boasting a 16,000-token context window, surpassing other models, enabling complex code generation prompts and offering a deeper understanding of code bases. Notably, StableCode distinguishes itself from competitors by employing a rotary position embedding approach over the conventional Attention with Linear Biases method in transformer models, acknowledging the unique narrative structure of code. Stability AI is eager to collaborate with the developer community to explore the potential applications and directions for this innovative generative developer tool.

In case you’re interested — we’ve got a bunch of cool AI tools listed over at Daily Zaps AI hub. If you have any cool tools to share, feel free to submit them or get in touch with us by replying to this email.

Other Links We Thought Were Cool 🔗

100% A.I. Generated Image of the Day

To celebrate National Lazy Day — here is a ClipDrop image of the laziest cat in history, Garfield the cat 🐱

ClipDrop Prompt - Cartoon Garfield the cat being lazy by sleeping on a couch.

It’s not perfect — but I thought cartoonists would be safe from this whole AI art wave… looks like I could be wrong one day.

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