Here is the top trending news from the world of Ai and technology during last 24 hours
1)
Apple’s Mac Mini gets a makeover with M4 chip.
Apple has officially unveiled the redesigned Mac Mini, featuring the new M4 and M4 Pro chips, which greatly enhance performance while plummeting its size. The new Mac Mini measures 5 inches by 5 inches and is notably thinner than previous models, which were 7.7 inches square. This redesign marks the first major update to the Mac Mini in over a decade. It comes with 16GB RAM, which can be configured to 32 GB with the regular M4 chip and 64 GB with M4 Pro chip. The base model starts at $599 while the high-end model with powerful M4 Pro chip starts at $1,399. The pre-order for Mac Mini has already started while its official launch date is set for November 8.
2)
Google begins selling pre-owned Pixel phones
According to the Verge, Google has officially unveiled Certified Refurbished Phone program. This would allow customers to purchase refurbished Pixel phones directly from the Google Store. Under this program, customers can buy only select Pixel models including Pixel 6, Pixel 6A, and Pixel 7. These models will be available at discounts of up to 40% compared to their original retail prices. Google has claimed that each refurbished device undergoes a rigorous inspection process to ensure that the phones are in excellent condition. Similar to new devices, refurbished Pixel phones come with a one-year limited warranty and full customer support. However, the Certified Refurbished Phone program is currently available only for the customers of United States.
3)
Github goes multimodal. It will now also support models from Anthropic and Google’s Gemini
Github developers will no longer have to be overwhelmingly dependent on GPT 4 while working Copilot Chat, its code centric ChaGPT style service. Starting from next week, Github developers will be allowed to switch between multiple models including Anthropic’s Claude 3.5 Sonnet, Google’s Gemini 1.5 Pro and OpenAI’s o1 preview and o1 mini. This will give much needed flexibility to developers and also increase the efficiency of their task. Separately, the company has also launched a new tool called Github Spark, a tool that helps users to create apps using natural language prompts.
4)
Instagram is making low-view videos look worse.
Instagram has announced a major change with regards to the quality of videos that receive less clicks or lower engagements. Going forward, quality of such videos will be downgraded, which means that these videos are likely to appear pixilated and blurry compared to those that are more popular. Instagram will utilize compression algorithms that automatically adjust the video quality based on the performance metrics. However, many content creators have already expressed dissatisfaction over this move. Although they can activate the high-quality upload settings in the Instagram app, it unlikely to stop Instagram from applying compression algorithm on the less popular videos.
5)
Google’s AI overviews is now available in more than 100 countries
Google’s AI overviews is finally coming on its own, after Google announced that it is expanding its new AI powered search feature to over 100 countries. For those who are not aware, the AI overview feature appears at the top of Google’s search result. It help users quickly grasp essential information on complex topics by summarizing content from multiple sources, reducing the time spent on clicking on the URL and searching for information. Google’s move to integrate AI feature directly into its search is in response to the growing challenge to its search dominance, especially following the rise of ChatGPT and potential competition from other AI search engines like Perplexity.