• The EU wants to know just how Xs recommendation algorithm works
    www.engadget.com
    As part of an ongoing investigation into X, the European Commission has requested documents from the company related to how its recommendation systems work. The European Union's regulatory arm is particularly interested in any recent changes to the algorithm. The EC said it asked X to provide the information by February 15 as it steps up the Digital Services Act (DSA) probe.On top of that, regulators asked for access to certain APIs that X provides so it can conduct direct fact-finding on content moderation and virality of accounts. The Commission has also slapped X with a retention order. This requires the company to retain internal documents related to future changes to the algorithm through the rest of 2025 (or earlier if the investigation wraps up before then).Today, we are taking further steps to shed light on the compliance of X's recommender systems with the obligations under the DSA, Henna Virkkunen the Commissions executive vice-president for sovereignty, security and democracy said in a statement on Friday. We are committed to ensuring that every platform operating in the EU respects our legislation, which aims to make the online environment fair, safe, and democratic for all European citizens.The EC opened the investigation in December 2023 to look into potential violations of the DSA. Companies that are deemed to have breached the law face fines of up to six percent of their global annual revenue.Thierry Breton, the former European commissioner for internal market, said the bloc was looking into whether X failed to live up to its obligations regarding transparency and tackling illegal content. Possible deceptive design practices are also under the Commission's microscope.Regulators stepped up their investigation after X owner Elon Musk publicly backed the Reform party in the UK, as well as the far-right Alternative for Germany party ahead of an election in February. As Reutersnotes, some European politicians have claimed that Musk is meddling in elections. He decried the criticism as an attack on free speech and democracy.To that end, the Commission is looking into whether X's algorithms shadowban certain perspectives while amplifying a single narrative. However, it said that Musk is free to speak as he wishes.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/the-eu-wants-to-know-just-how-xs-recommendation-algorithm-works-161000963.html?src=rss
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  • Heres who is planning to skip Trumps inauguration next week
    www.fastcompany.com
    The inauguration of president-elect Donald Trump will take place on Monday, January 20 at 12 p.m. EST. But the number of public servants who say theyre staying home is growing as the event nears.Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will not be present, ABC News reported. Pelosis office confirmed the democrat will skip the event, but did not offer a precise reason for her planned absence. Pelosi underwent a hip replacement surgery a little more than a month ago. Of course, Pelosi has frequently voiced disapproval of the president-elect and his past policies. As one of the most outspoken critics of Trump during his first term, Pelosi was also a target during the January 6, 2021 insurrection.Pelosi is far from alone in her perceived protest. According to a statement from her office, per Today, former first lady Michelle Obama will not attend the event, either. Obama also did not attend the funeral of former President Jimmy Carter last week, while her husband, former President Barack Obama, was seated next to the incoming president and could be seen chatting and smiling with the president-elect.According to Axios, Tennessee representative Steve Cohen wont attend the swearing in due to the president-elects dangerous rhetoric which prompted the January 6, 2021 insurrection, as well as statements hes since made on the fate of the insurrectionists.[Trump] has said he is going to pardon some of the January 6 prisoners at his inauguration, Cohen told the outlet. And as one who was in the gallery and then locked in my office in the early morning as the insurrectionists tried to overthrow our government and beat police, some to the point of death, I cannot be a part of that spectacle.California congresswoman Judy Chu wont be there, either. But Chu says, per Newsweek, its because the inauguration falls on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Im not attending the upcoming inauguration. I will be in my district with my constituents for important events marking Martin Luther King Jr. Day and the second anniversary of a mass shooting in my hometown of Monterey Park.The outlet also reported that Rep. Kweisi Mfume, Rep. Jasmine Crockett, Rep. Sean Casten, Rep. Delia Ramirez, and Rep. Ilhan Omar, and a number of others, will all skip the inauguration, while Elizabeth Warren, Tammy Duckworth, and Raphael Warnock, are still undecided.Top politicians skipping the presidential inauguration is rare, though its happened before. Trump declined to attend President Bidens 2021 inauguration after refusing to acknowledge that Biden had won the election. Former first lady Melania Trump also skipped the event, as did Trumps daughter and advisor, Ivanka Trump.Other notable republicans, like Former Vice President Dick Cheney, didnt attend either, though Cheney said it was over COVID concerns. Republican North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis missed Bidens inauguration, too, but said his absence was due to a recent foot surgery. And GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene didnt go either. A spokesperson told USAToday at the time it was primarily due to security concerns.Congressman Matt Gaetz attended virtually and echoed Taylor Greenes reasoning in a post on X (formerly Twitter). Gaetz wrote, I will proudly attend the inauguration virtually to avoid any additional security strain on those protecting the transition of power. Of course, while a number of politicians wont be at Mondays event, that doesnt mean the crowd will be sparse. Filling out the seats will be some of the worlds richest people, like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg, along with TikTok CEO Shou Chew.And while all the living former presidents will attend Trumps inauguration, they wont stick around to socialize. Former Presidents Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush will not attend the inaugural lunch, which always follows the swearing-in ceremony.
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  • Clever Uber ads poke fun at holiday tropes
    www.creativebloq.com
    Uber and London Gatwick celebrate their partnership with a witty yet sentimental series of ads.
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  • How to Get Around the US TikTok Ban
    www.wired.com
    TikTok is now unavailable in the United Statesand getting around the ban isnt as simple as using a VPN. Heres what you need to know.
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  • Bye, bye, iWorkswitch your apps to Microsoft Office for less than $40
    www.macworld.com
    MacworldTired of trying to make iWork, well, work? It might supposedly be a good alternative to Microsoft Office, but lets be honest: it really cant compare! Its time toupgrade your Macs productivity apps in 2025 to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and more, and now might be the best time to grab a license.Rather than pay a recurring fee for Microsoft 365, you could get a lifetime Microsoft Office license for your Mac for only$39.99 (reg. $229). Thats over $30 less thanwhat youd normally pay for a yearly subscription to Office 365.ImagineWord, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, and Teams Classic right on your Macthats exactly what this Office 2019 license gives you. You can immediately access and install your apps after purchasing since youll get a download link and activation key via email ASAP. iWork, who?While this isnt the latest version of Office, keep in mind that youre getting more apps for less. Plus, if youre not super into the complete AI integration of Office 2024, this might be the suite for you!Start the new year on the right foot and own thislifetime Microsoft Office download for Mac for just $39.99. No coupon needed.Microsoft Office Home & Business 2019 for MacOnly $39.99 at MacworldStackSocial prices subject to change.
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  • Apple says its following the law by removing TikTok from the App Store
    www.theverge.com
    With TikTok, CapCut, and Marvel Snap shut down in the US, Apple has taken the unusual step of articulating why its following the law banning ByteDance apps and removing them from the App Stores for the Mac, iPhone, and other devices. Before the ban went into effect, the Biden administration released a statement saying enforcement of the law must fall to the next Administration. Still, it didnt stop the law from taking effect this weekend after TikToks appeal to the Supreme Court failed.The support page from Apple says:Apple is obligated to follow the laws in the jurisdictions where it operates. Pursuant to the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, apps developed by ByteDance Ltd. and its subsidiaries including TikTok, CapCut, Lemon8, and others will no longer be available for download or updates on the App Store for users in the United States starting January 19, 2025.It goes on to say that people who already have the apps installed wont have them removed, but at least for the time being, redownloading or restoring them on a new device will not be possible, along with making any in-app purchases or subscriptions, but subscriptions can be canceled. Meanwhile, people who visit the US from other countries where theyre still available wont be able to download or update apps while inside US borders.Apple also provided a list of some of the apps linked to ByteDance that are affected:TikTokTikTok StudioTikTok Shop Seller CenterCapCutLemon8HypicLark - Team CollaborationLark - Rooms DisplayLark Rooms ControllerGauth: AI Study CompanionMarvel SnapNow, more than an entire day is left before the Trump administration is sworn in. TikTok pushed for a more definitive statement about the legal risks providers like Apple and Google might face for defying the law in the meantime, but it never came as the White House called TikToks response a stunt. Now Apple is making clear that until something changes, its following the law as written, and it appears Google is doing the same thing. Google, Apple, and TikTok have not responded to requests for comment from The Verge.
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  • Meet OmAgent: A New Python Library for Building Multimodal Language Agents
    www.marktechpost.com
    Understanding long videos, such as 24-hour CCTV footage or full-length films, is a major challenge in video processing. Large Language Models (LLMs) have shown great potential in handling multimodal data, including videos, but they struggle with the massive data and high processing demands of lengthy content. Most existing methods for managing long videos lose critical details, as simplifying the visual content often removes subtle yet essential information. This limits the ability to effectively interpret and analyze complex or dynamic video data.Techniques currently used to understand long videos include extracting key frames or converting video frames into text. These techniques simplify processing but result in a massive loss of information since subtle details and visual nuances are omitted. Advanced video LLMs, such as Video-LLaMA and Video-LLaVA, attempt to improve comprehension using multimodal representations and specialized modules. However, these models require extensive computational resources, are task-specific, and struggle with long or unfamiliar videos. Multimodal RAG systems, like iRAG and LlamaIndex, enhance data retrieval and processing but lose valuable information when transforming video data into text. These limitations prevent current methods from fully capturing and utilizing the depth and complexity of video content.To address the challenges of video understanding, researchers from Om AI Research and Binjiang Institute of Zhejiang University introduced OmAgent, a two-step approach: Video2RAG for preprocessing and DnC Loop for task execution. In Video2RAG, raw video data undergoes scene detection, visual prompting, and audio transcription to create summarized scene captions. These captions are vectorized and stored in a knowledge database enriched with further specifics about time, location, and event details. In this way, the process avoids large context inputs to language models and, hence, problems such as token overload and inference complexity. For task execution, queries are encoded, and these video segments are retrieved for further analysis. This ensures efficient video understanding by balancing detailed data representation and computational feasibility.The DNC Loop employs a divide-and-conquer strategy, recursively decomposing tasks into manageable subtasks. The Conqueror module evaluates tasks, directing them for division, tool invocation, or direct resolution. The Divider module breaks up complex tasks, and the Rescuer deals with execution errors. The recursive task tree structure helps in the effective management and resolution of tasks. The integration of structured preprocessing by Video2RAG and the robust framework of DnC Loop makes OmAgent deliver a comprehensive video understanding system that can handle intricate queries and produce accurate results.Researchers conducted experiments to validate OmAgents ability to solve complex problems and comprehend long-form videos. They used two benchmarks, MBPP (976 Python tasks) and FreshQA (dynamic real-world Q&A), to test general problem-solving, focusing on planning, task execution, and tool usage. They designed a benchmark with over 2000 Q&A pairs for video understanding based on diverse long videos, evaluating reasoning, event localization, information summarization, and external knowledge. OmAgent consistently outperformed baselines across all metrics. In MBPP and FreshQA, OmAgent achieved 88.3% and 79.7%, respectively, surpassing GPT-4 and XAgent. OmAgent scored 45.45% overall for video tasks compared to Video2RAG (27.27%), Frames with STT (28.57%), and other baselines. It excelled in reasoning (81.82%) and information summary (72.74%) but struggled with event localization (19.05%). OmAgents Divide-and-Conquer (DnC) Loop and rewinder capabilities significantly improved performance in tasks requiring detailed analysis, but precision in event localization remained challenging.In summary, the proposed OmAgent integrates multimodal RAG with a generalist AI framework, enabling advanced video comprehension with near-infinite understanding capacity, a secondary recall mechanism, and autonomous tool invocation. It achieved strong performance on multiple benchmarks. While challenges like event positioning, character alignment, and audio-visual asynchrony remain, this method can serve as a baseline for future research to improve character disambiguation, audio-visual synchronization, and comprehension of nonverbal audio cues, advancing long-form video understanding.Check out the Paper and GitHub Page. All credit for this research goes to the researchers of this project. Also,dont forget to follow us onTwitter and join ourTelegram Channel andLinkedIn Group. Dont Forget to join our65k+ ML SubReddit.(Promoted) Divyesh Vitthal Jawkhede+ postsDivyesh is a consulting intern at Marktechpost. He is pursuing a BTech in Agricultural and Food Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. He is a Data Science and Machine learning enthusiast who wants to integrate these leading technologies into the agricultural domain and solve challenges. Meet 'Height':The only autonomous project management tool (Sponsored)
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