When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. From Amazon's Echo Look to the Nest Secure security system, these doomed smart home products were destined for the dumpster. Imagine if that refrigerator you bought just five years ago suddenly up and died--and not because of some technical glitch, but because the manufacturer deliberately reached out and deactivated it, permanently. And you'd probably want a refund, too. As wild as that scenario sounds for a major appliance like a refrigerator or a TV, it happens more often than you'd think in the smart home world.

German innovation is not limited to the country's capital. In fact, some of this year's most prolific startups are based hundreds of miles away. The AI startup Alpha Alpha hails from Heidelberg. Helsing, which sells AI to Europe's militaries, was set up in Munich. Yet both companies operate Berlin offices.

If uncontrolled artificial general intelligence--or "God-like" AI--is looming on the horizon, we are now about halfway there. Every day, the clock ticks closer to a potential doomsday scenario. That's why I introduced the AI Safety Clock last month. My goal is simple: I want to make clear that the dangers of uncontrolled AGI are real and present. The Clock's current reading--29 minutes to midnight--is a measure of just how close we are to the critical tipping point where uncontrolled AGI could bring about existential risks.

Alibaba's announcement of its new AI-powered service, Tongyi Qianwen, is a significant development in the increasingly competitive large language model space. The Chinese multinational conglomerate, which specializes in e-commerce, retail, internet, and technology, plans to eventually roll out the new software across all its platforms. Tongyi Qianwen is a large language model that generates compelling responses to user prompts. The technology was trained on vast troves of data and is designed to be integrated into Alibaba's Tmall Genie smart speakers and workplace messaging platform DingTalk initially. However, the company has plans to add the technology to all its applications, including e-commerce and mapping services.

Well, the NBA just rolled out its All-Star weekend all over us, culminating in a splash of hardware for Damian Lillard, a lackluster game I turned off in the third quarter, and a surprise spotlight on Mac McClung, who my friend Jennifer said "looks like his name is Air Bud." I'm from L.A.; I can respect the pageantry. But the weekend obscured what many of us appreciate most about NBA players: Many of them are very hot, and they deserve to be recognized for it. As such, I assembled a select committee to honor the year's biggest smokeshows: the All-Hunk NBA teams. The All-Hunk NBA team is a near-annual honor bestowed on the hunkiest players in the league during the NBA season.

Shutterstock, one of the internet's biggest sources of stock photos and illustrations, is now offering its customers the option to generate their own AI images. In October, the company announced a partnership with OpenAI, the creator of the wildly popular and controversial DALL-E AI tool. Now, the results of that deal are in beta testing and available to all paying Shutterstock users. The new platform is available in "every language the site offers," and comes included with customers' existing licensing packages, according to a press statement from the company. And, according to Gizmodo's own test, every text prompt you feed Shutterstock's machine results in four images, ostensibly tailored to your request.

"Amsterdam is a global city--with a population of less than 1 million," says Ferdinand Goetzen, CEO of Amsterdam-based digital customer-insight business, Reveall. That, in a nutshell, is how Amsterdam has become a tech powerhouse, boasting unicorns such as Booking.com and Adyen, and an impressive crop of sustainability-focused startups. The city has the benefits of being medium sized--efficient public services, bikeability, and a tight-knit business community--but in the same breath, is instinctively outward-looking, dynamic, and business-friendly. Amsterdam's residents speak flawless English, its Schiphol Airport is the third-busiest in the EU, and, starting in 2020, the city gained a direct Eurostar link to London. As part of a business cluster known as the Randstad--which also includes Utrecht, the Hague, and Rotterdam, and is Europe's third region by productivity--it is unsurprising that Amsterdam's startup scene is thriving; it's tech companies are worth a total value of $230 billion as of July 2022, according to Dealroom. Let's get to know Amsterdam's movers and shakers.

Serial entrepreneurs Mila Suharev, Nils Henning, and Mitya Moskalchuk had been involved in the German startup scene for more than 15 years, successfully exiting four companies with valuations above €100 million (around $98.5 million) before deciding to launch their new startup in the Portuguese capital. "Lisbon has several ingredients making it a unique and efficient tech ecosystem," says Suharev, CEO of proptech company CASAFARI, listing factors such as quality of life, governmental programs designed to attract foreign entrepreneurs, and its Silicon Valley-like business mindset. Lisbon is increasingly becoming the tech hub of choice for many European entrepreneurs: Of the 10 CEOs profiled here, half are expats. "A new ecosystem such as the one growing in Lisbon is fascinating to experience firsthand," says Amir Bozorgzadeh, CEO of Virtualeap. "It is a melting pot of foreigners and Portuguese, working hand-in-hand amid a very sunny setting in which work-life balance is always a priority for founders."

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh will launch 75 artificial intelligence-powered Defence products today at the first-ever AI in Defence symposium and exhibition, organized by the Ministry of Defence. The AI products, launched as part of the'Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav' celebrations, fall under various domains. Out of these 75 products, some are already being used by the armed forces while the rest are in the process of deployment. India desired world peace but won't be left behind in the technologies needed to protect the nation. The nature of modern warfare is changing and AI will play a significant role in warfare. These products are tested and soon to be deployed for the safety and security of the nation.

But last week every human face included in ImageNet suddenly disappeared--after the researchers who manage the data set decided to blur them. Russakovsky says the ImageNet team wanted to determine if it would be possible to blur faces in the data set without changing how well it recognizes objects. In a research paper, posted along with the update to ImageNet, the team behind the data set explains that it blurred the faces using Amazon's AI service Rekognition; then, they paid Mechanical Turk workers to confirm selections and adjust them. Blurring the faces did not affect the performance of several object-recognition algorithms trained on ImageNet, the researchers say. In July 2020 Vinay Prabhu, a machine learning scientist at UnifyID and Abeba Birhane, a PhD candidate at University College Dublin in Ireland, published research showing they could identify individuals, including computer science researchers, in the data set. But last week every human face included in ImageNet suddenly disappeared--after the researchers who manage the data set decided to blur them.