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Major sites opt out of Apple’s AI scraping

CompuScoop Staff August 30, 2024 0 3

WIRED can confirm that Facebook, Instagram, Craigslist, Tumblr, The New York Times, The Financial Times, The Atlantic, Vox Media, the USA Today network, and WIRED’s parent company, Condé Nast, are among the many organizations opting to exclude their data from Apple’s AI training. The cold reception reflects a significant shift in both the perception and use of the robotic crawlers that have trawled the web for decades. Now that these bots play a key role in collecting AI training data, they’ve become a conflict zone over intellectual property and the future of the web.

This new tool, Applebot-Extended, is an extension to Apple’s web-crawling bot that specifically lets website owners tell Apple not to use their data for AI training.

The original Applebot, announced in 2015, initially crawled the internet to power Apple’s search products like Siri and Spotlight. Recently, though, Applebot’s purpose has expanded: The data it collects can also be used to train the foundational models Apple created for its AI efforts.

Publishers can block Applebot-Extended by updating a text file on their websites known as the Robots Exclusion Protocol, or robots.txt. This file has governed how bots go about scraping the web for decades—and like the bots themselves, it is now at the center of a larger fight over how AI gets trained. Many publishers have already updated their robots.txt files to block AI bots from OpenAI, Anthropic, and other major AI players.

Via: Wired.com

Apple in talks about investing in OpenAI

CompuScoop Staff August 30, 2024 0 9

Apple is in talks to invest in OpenAI, a move that would cement ties to a partner integral to Apple Intelligence, the Cupertino-based company’s effort to gain ground in the artificial intelligence race.

OpenAI is raising several billion dollars in a new funding round led by Thrive Capital, with Apple and Microsoft expected to participate. Apple plans to integrate OpenAI’s ChatGPT into its AI system, Apple Intelligence, alongside other AI technologies from Google, Meta, Anthropic, and Perplexity.

Via: The Wall Street Journal

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Apple Sports is ready for NFL and college football

Apple Inc August 29, 2024 0 5

Apple Sports is ready for football season

With the free app, fans can follow games, leagues, conferences, and teams, and can soon receive real-time updates on iPhone and Apple Watch Lock Screens with Live Activities

Apple Sports — the free app for iPhone that gives sports fans access to real-time scores, stats, and more — today introduced a new way for fans to stay up to date with the NFL and college football seasons.

New updates for NFL and college football games include enhancements to play-by-play, offering quick access to scoring drives presented alongside the view of every game play. Additionally, a new dynamic drive tracker lets fans visualize where the ball is on the field at any time. As with other leagues in Apple Sports, fans can follow their favorite teams to ensure those games are just a tap away. For college football, fans can now follow the top 25, updated weekly, in addition to any of their favorite teams and conferences. Every game will also feature real-time scores, stats, and live betting odds, similar to all other leagues in the app.¹

With iOS 18 and watchOS 11, the Apple Sports app will offer Live Activities for all teams and leagues available in the app for the first time ever, delivering live scores and play-by-play at a quick glance to a user’s iPhone and Apple Watch Lock Screens.²

Coming in an app update later this year, Apple Sports will also introduce a new drop-down navigation for the main scorecard views, making it even faster to switch between My Leagues, My Teams, and users’ feeds for favorited leagues. A new enhanced search makes it easier to view matches for leagues fans do not currently follow.

Apple Sports delivers scores, updates, betting data, and more all season long for the following leagues:

NFL
NCAAF
MLS
MLB
NBA
WNBA
NCAA basketball (men’s and women’s)
NHL
NWSL
Premier League
Bundesliga
LaLiga
Liga MX
Ligue 1
Serie A

Additional leagues will become available on Apple Sports over time, including Champions League and Europa League, beginning with the league phase in September.

Apple Sports gives fans a simple and fast way to stay up to speed on the teams and leagues they love. Designed for speed and simplicity, the app’s personalized experience puts users’ favorite leagues and teams front and center, featuring an easy-to-use interface designed by Apple. Users can customize their scoreboards on Apple Sports by following their favorite teams, tournaments, and leagues. Fans can easily navigate between scores and upcoming games, explore play-by-play information and lineup details, and tap to go to the Apple TV app to watch live games from Apple and connected streaming apps.³ Apple Sports will also seamlessly sync with favorites selected within the My Sports experience, including in the Apple TV app and Apple News. Apple Sports is available to download in the App Store in the U.S., the U.K., and Canada.

Users have the option to turn off live betting odds in settings at any time.
To get Live Activities, fans must be on iOS 18 and watchOS 11 or later. Live Activities will no longer be available in the Apple TV app with iOS 18.
A subscription is required for some services.