Technologies

Mozilla Launches Startup to Home In on ‘Trustworthy AI’

The organization says it wants to «turn the tide» as companies rush to adopt generative artificial intelligence.

Mozilla, the organization behind the Firefox browser, on Wednesday launched an artificial intelligence-focused startup, called Mozilla.ai, intended to work toward building an independent, trustworthy, open-source AI ecosystem.

«The vision for Mozilla.ai is to make it easy to develop trustworthy AI products,» Mark Surman, Mozilla’s executive president and a Mozilla.ai board member, wrote in a blog post.

Surman wrote that he and Mozilla had met with people who want to develop AI that prioritizes transparency, accountability, human agency and the interests of users — in contrast, he said, with the approach being embraced by other tech companies. That was what spurred the launch of the startup.

«Mozilla.ai will be a space outside big tech and academia for like-minded founders, developers, scientists, product managers and builders to gather,» he wrote. «We believe that this group of people, working collectively, can turn the tide to create an independent, decentralized and trustworthy AI ecosystem — a real counterweight to the status quo.»

The launch of Mozilla.ai comes as companies rush to release generative AI tools following the November launch of ChatGPT, a chatbot that can quickly scour the internet to create travel plans, write essays and more. On Tuesday, for instance, Google opened up a waitlist for its AI tool, Bard. Other tech companies, like Microsoft, DuckDuckGo, Grammarly and Adobe, have also released generative AI tools.

One big knock on such AI services, critics say, is that they don’t actually understand the information they’re packaging into authoritative-sounding narratives that could contain errors and misinformation.

The initial focus for Mozilla.ai, Surman wrote, will be on tools that make generative AI services, like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, safer and more transparent, as well as recommendation systems that don’t misinform people, according to Surman.

Mozilla has made a $30 million initial investment in Mozilla.ai. Moez Draief, formerly the chief scientist at Huawei’s Noah’s Ark lab, will be the organization’s managing director, and a three-person board will help lead it.

For more on AI, check out answers to your AI questions and the one thing people are getting wrong about AI.

Editors’ note: CNET is using an AI engine to create some personal finance explainers that are edited and fact-checked by our editors. For more, see this post.

Technologies

Spotify Brings Wrapped Energy Year-Round With Friend-Sharing Stats

The music service introduced new ways for music nerds to share their listening habits with friends.

It can be a long wait for Spotify Wrapped, the end-of-year promotion that allows Spotify users to view and share their listening habits. Now, users can keep an eye on those stats daily, plus share their listening habits with friends.

You can view your Spotify usage statistics every 24 hours and share your updates via social media services, such as Instagram Notes or Spotify Messages. The new share icon gives you access to eight different services where you can post your stats.

Every week, you’ll get updates on your top artists and songs from the past month, and Spotify will recommend new playlists. The app also gives you a «special highlight» based on a specific artist or song.

To access your personal musical data, click on your profile in the top left corner of the app and scroll down to «listening stats.»

Don’t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source.

The new features are somewhat similar to Spotify Wrapped, the service’s annual end-of-year review of users’ listening habits, which is designed to be shared. Every year, Spotify adds extra details to Wrapped, such as assigning users a listening personality or a city that supposedly reflects their music tastes. It’s been the most popular way for Spotify users to view and share their music listening in the past. A number of third-party services do the same thing, including Volt.fm.

Read more: Best Music Streaming Services

Spotify is the world’s largest music streaming service, offering 100 million tracks and serving more than 713 million users. In addition to its $12-per-month subscription service, Spotify also offers a free, ad-supported option.

Technologies

Wordle Gets Personal: You Can Now Make and Share Your Own Puzzles

If you’re a Wordle obsessive, you can now make your own inside joke puzzles to send to friends.

Wordle’s an immensely popular New York Times word game (we post the answers daily), but it’s not the most personal game in the world. Answers such as GUISE and PERIL are tricky, but generic. Now, Wordle fans who have ever dreamed of making their own puzzles can test their friends and family by creating their own Wordle creations up to seven letters in length.

No surprise, you have to be a New York Times Games or All Access Subscriber to use this feature. If you are, you’ll find the Create a Puzzle option available from the top menu above today’s Wordle. While you must be a subscriber to create your own personalized puzzle, you can share it with anyone — they only need the link, not a subscription, to complete your Wordle.

Don’t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source.

Enter a word, and the site will tell you if it is available. Real Wordle limits you to five-letter words, but the puzzle-making feature lets you choose words between 4 and 7 letters.

The usual dictionary rules apply, and so curse words, some pet names, and obscure inside jokes are essentially out. If your cat is named TANGO, that’s there, but RINGO is not an option. You can drop a proposal with a single word like MARRY, but MARRYME will get rejected since that’s two separate words.

Word chosen, you can then fill out your name and add an optional hint, and the feature will generate your puzzle with a link you can send around. Unlike standard puzzles, your puzzle doesn’t appear to reset after a day, so whoever you send it to doesn’t need to rush to solve it.

Looking for the most recent Wordle answer? Click here for today’s Wordle hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for Nov. 8, #411

Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle No. 411 for Saturday, Nov. 8.

Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Connections: Sports Edition is a tricky one. The theme of the purple category is also a word hidden among the answers, but of course, it doesn’t end up in the purple group. If you’re struggling but still want to solve it, read on for hints and the answers.

Connections: Sports Edition is published by The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by the Times. It doesn’t show up in the NYT Games app but appears in The Athletic’s own app. Or you can play it for free online.

Read more: NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta

Hints for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Brawl.

Green group hint: The Steel City.

Blue group hint: They once played in Oakland.

Purple group hint: Not always made of cardboard.