Tech Roundup: Anthropic Claude, OpenAI ChatGPT-4 & More

[A recurring feature on the latest in Science & Technology.]

• The Indian government plans to force smartphone makers to let users remove pre-installed apps and will mandate screening OS updates via new security rules.
• OpenAI ups the ante in tech's ongoing AI race with ChatGPT-4, a "large multimodal model (accepting image and text inputs, emitting text outputs) that, while less capable than humans in many real-world scenarios, exhibits human-level performance on various professional and academic benchmarks"; open sources Evals, its framework for automatically evaluating the performance of its AI models, letting users report shortcomings and guide improvements. (The development comes as Microsoft confirmed that the "new Bing is running on GPT-4, which we've customized for search.")
• Google-backed AI company Anthropic debuts Claude, a ChatGPT rival and a "next-generation AI assistant [...] capable of a wide variety of conversational and text processing tasks while maintaining a high degree of reliability and predictability."
• The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) confirms for the first time it has in the past purchased the location data of U.S. citizens without obtaining a warrant for a "specific national security pilot project," once again highlighting the need for passing a comprehensive privacy law.
• Google continues its shutdown spree; to discontinue Grasshopper, an app to help users learn programming on a mobile device, on June 15, 2023 amid deep cuts to the company's Area 120 incubator division.
• Meta says it is winding down its work on NFT and digital collectibles features "for now" across Facebook and Instagram to focus on other ways of supporting creators, people and businesses.
• India-based Twitter alternative Koo rolls out ChatGPT integration, allowing users to compose and draft posts.
• TikTok is reportedly considering the option of divesting itself from ByteDance as a last resort to help address lingering concerns about national security risks over its Chinese origins; adds a STEM content feed alongside its Following and For You feeds as part of an ongoing topic feeds test.
• Google unveils generative AI features for Docs, Gmail, Sheets, Slides, and other Workspace apps, helping users write text, summarize content and create images; launches early multiview access for YouTube TV, letting U.S. viewers watch up to four, pre-selected streams simultaneously, initially for sports content;
• Apple announces Shop With a Specialist Over Video, a live video session available from 7am to 7pm PT on its website for US customers looking to buy an iPhone.
• Mozilla rolls out Total Cookie Protection (TCP) as the default setting on the Firefox app for Android after initially making it available for Firefox users on Windows, macOS and Linux.
• Microsoft brings its new Bing AI chatbot to the Edge web browser as part of a refresh to the Sidebar.
• Duolingo debuts a new Max subscription for US$ 30 per month or US$ 168 per year, offering GPT-4 features for English speakers taking Spanish and French courses on iOS.