Technology News: Tech Innovations: Musk's Threat, Meta's Communities, Nokia's 3D Call, ISS Superbug, Fern's Genome, ChatGPT's Multi-tasking

Elon Musk has threatened to ban Apple products in his companies, Tesla and SpaceX, if Apple proceeds with integrating OpenAI technology at the OS level due to security concerns. Musk said he wouldn't budge on his stance on OpenAI and the possibility of data misuse. He added that if people wanted to visit his companies, their Apple devices would have to stay outside, in a security Faraday cage. This response follows directly after Apple has just signed a deal to get ChatGPT-4 onto its devices, where Musk slammed the deal and supported the idea that Apple needs its own AI model.

Meta has launched Messenger Communities globally, a feature that was first initiated on WhatsApp in 2022— Communities on Messenger groups, organizational, and other private communities will allow up to 5,000 members to communicate better and enable the group to expand its reach to Facebook friends and friends of friends. Unlike on Facebook groups, Messenger Communities is designed to guide public conversations with different privacy guidelines. They could manage pending member requests, remove dead chats, harassment, and other inappropriate content. They have now introduced Meta AI chatbot on all WhatsApp business accounts to serve better customer interaction and product discovery.

The chief executive officer of Nokia, Pekka Lundmark, on Tuesday introduced a new "immersive audio and video" technology designed to improve the quality of calls with 3D sound so interactions can be more realistic. He dubbed it the largest change in how the voice calls are going to sound since the introduction of monophonic telephony, and it was demonstrated through a regular smartphone over 5G, whereby callers will experience sounds as if they were physically present. This innovation is part of the 5G Advanced standard. There is a hope that it will be implemented and licensed globally within a few years, featuring improved personal and conference calls.

Tmesipteris oblanceolata, a tiny forest-floor-dwelling fern on the island of Grande Terre, can brag to be the world's largest known genome. Inside its cells are over 50 times more DNA than in a human's. Last fall, Jaume Pellicer and colleagues from the Botanical Institute of Barcelona entered the forest in search of this plant. With the naked eye, this fern doesn't particularly stand out, but in their newly published study, the scientists note how great the genetic distinction is.

Researchers from IIT-Madras and NASA's JPL are working on ways to fight the multi-drug resistant superbug Enterobacter bugandensis that was recently found on the ISS. This pathogen is of high health risk to astronauts, including the Indian-origin astronaut, Sunita Williams. However, the cross contamination earlier and the persistence of Enterobacter bugandensis on the surfaces of ISS raise great concern about the health of on-board astronauts and probable insights for management of such threats on Earth. In general, the purpose of this study is to address the challenges outlined and to ensure that the safety of astronauts is protected.

OpenAI's chat app, ChatGPT, now has a new feature: "Background Conversations." This way, a user can carry on a conversation with his or her chatbot without having to keep looking at the screen, even if the screen of his or her device is off. This is an enhancement feature to allow for seamless conversations across other applications. By default, this feature will be turned off, but the user will only go to the setting menu of the ChatGPT app and switch on that option. With the on-off switch for Background Conversations, a user can interact with ChatGPT even beyond the idle screen.