Meta is introducing a virtual assistant today to compete with OpenAI's ChatGPT that can serve up answers to questions from Microsoft's Bing search engine and generate images from text commands. Meta AI, as the assistant is called, is powered by the company's large language model Llama 2. As well as chatting it can generate images, using a new image generator named Emu that Meta trained on 1.1 billion pairs of photos and text, including photos and captions shared on Facebook or Instagram. The new assistant will be available today for a limited group of US users on Facebook Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp. It can be added to group chats and help out with tasks such as making travel plans. The assistant will also be available via voice using new smart glasses Meta will release next month for US users.

Amazon's virtual assistant Alexa has been accused of sexism after being unable to respond to a question about the Lionesses' World Cup semi-final. British academic Dr Joanne Rodda asked Alexa for the result of Wednesday's match against Australia, which England won 3-1. But the supposedly'smart' technology didn't even know the match had taken place as it was only familiar with the men's game, the BBC reports. Astonishingly, when Dr Rodda asked'for the result of the England-Australia football match', Alexa said there was no such match. Amazon admitted the mistake was due to an'error' – although it didn't specify the cause – and that Alexa will get better at learning over time.

Samsung's virtual assistant Bixby generated untold levels of hype before the Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus launched, but the version we actually got to use still feels half-baked. While the company still hasn't locked down when Bixby's voice search and control features will go live, it just confirmed that brave users in the US can enroll in an "early preview test" to get a taste of what's coming down the pipeline. There's no word on how many people will be able to sign up, but Samsung says it's only looking for a "limited" number of beta testers. If you happen to make the cut, Samsung will collect information about Bixby's performance on your device, and may ask you for direct feedback. Samsung originally said that Bixby's voice features would launch sometime in Spring 2017, which is basically already over -- considering the amount of time it'll take to collect Bixby feedback and performance data from all these tester devices, it seems likely that the wait for a more complete Samsung assistant will be even longer than we expected.

Facebook is making it easier for users to split a dinner bill or chip in on a group gift. The social media giant is expanding its peer-to-peer payments on Messenger, letting its US users send or receive money between groups of people. Starting with Android and desktop, the new feature will be free to use, but just like the original version, it will only support Visa or Mastercard debit cards for now. Facebook is expanding its peer-to-peer payments on Messenger, letting users send or receive money between groups of people.Users choose who they want included in the group payment and enter the amount per person or the total sum to divide evenly Tap on the plus sign in the bottom left hand corner of a group conversation to find more features, and tap the payments icon ($). Then choose anyone in the group you would like to send or request funds from and enter the amount per person or the total sum to divide evenly.

Cellular phones can be used as mobile sensors, continuously logging users’ behavior including movement, communication and proximity to others. While it is well understood that data generated from mobile phones includes a record of phone calls, there are also more sophisticated data types, such as Bluetooth or cell tower proximity logging, which reveal movement patterns and day-to-day human interactions. We explore the possibility of using mobile phone data to compare movement and communication patterns across cultures. The goal of this proof-of-concept study is to quantify behavior in order to compare different populations. We compare our ability to predict future calling behavior and movement patterns from the cellular phone data of subjects in two distinct groups: a set of university students at MIT in the United States and the University of Nairobi in Kenya. In addition, we show how Bluetooth data may be used to estimate the diffusion of an airborne pathogen outbreak in the different populations.