Author: NY TIMES

As Apple and Google transform their voice assistants into chatbots, OpenAI is transforming its chatbot into a voice assistant.On Monday, the San Francisco artificial intelligence start-up unveiled a new version of its ChatGPT chatbot that can receive and respond to voice commands, images and videos.The company said the new app — based on an A.I. system called GPT-4o — juggles audio, images and video significantly faster than previous version of the technology. The app will be available starting on Monday, free of charge, for both smartphones and desktop computers.“We are looking at the future of the interaction between ourselves and…

The four adult children were in agreement.Their father, William Curry, a retired electrical engineer and business executive, was sinking deeper into dementia. They had found a memory care facility about a mile from their parents’ house in Chelmsford, Mass., where they thought Mr. Curry would do better.But their mother, Melissa, who was 83 when her family began urging her to make this change in 2016, remained determined to continue caring for her 81-year-old husband at home, despite the increasing toll on her own health. When her children raised the issue of a move, “she wouldn’t discuss it,” said her daughter,…

During concerts, Carlos Niño may set up a bass drum and a floor tom, but his percussion is far from conventional. Uninterested in maintaining a steady beat, he creates shimmering atmospheres and earthen textures with the many bells, shells, rain sticks or rattles he totes in a big black roller bag. He surrounds himself with cymbals and gongs. He shakes desiccated palm fronds. Wind chimes are involved.A fixture in the Los Angeles music world for nearly 30 years, Niño has become a key practitioner of what he calls “spiritual, improvisational, space collage music.” (The genre it’s probably most related to…

With Israel’s most sacrosanct day of remembrance as a backdrop, peace activists in Israel broadcast their annual Joint Israeli-Palestinian Memorial Day Ceremony on Sunday night, with parallel events in London, New York and Los Angeles.The ceremony, organized by Combatants for Peace and the Parents Circle — Families Forum, two peace-building organizations, is unusual in that it tries to recognize not only Israeli grief, but also the toll of Palestinian suffering over the decades. This year’s event was especially poignant given that it was the first since the deadly Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7 and comes amid the devastation…

Ukraine’s military is confronting a “critical” situation in the country’s northeast, facing troop shortages as it tries to repel a Russian offensive that has been advancing for several days, a top Ukrainian general said on Monday.Russian troops surged across the border last week to open a new line of attack near Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city after Kyiv, capturing at least nine settlements and villages and forcing thousands of civilians to flee.“The situation is on the edge,” Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence agency said in a video call from a bunker in Kharkiv. “Every hour this situation…

Welcome to the Monday Tennis Briefing, Competitor will explain the story behind what happened in court last week. This week sees the first week of the coveted Rome Masters 1000, and the stories on the field are matched by the drama off it. Novak Djokovic was knocked out by a water bottle and Rafael Nadal took the next step in his comeback, with the spectacle replaced by some bizarre officiating.Is everyone hurt now?If you’d like to follow our great tennis coverage, click here.Is all this harm a signal or noise?At lunchtime on a Friday, Rome and Piazza d’Italia briefly felt…

The agility dogs, who jump through a hoop, go through a tunnel, weave through poles and deal with various other obstacles like a pause table, are judged on the time it takes them to complete the course and how many mistakes they make. And the whole thing is done with a handler running alongside them.The dogs in the event, which has typically been dominated by Border collies, are grouped by height rather than breed, creating a more chaotic vibe than the rehearsed perfection of the regular dog show. Source link

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Estimates are still soaring past the $20 million mark and canvases still bear the signatures of dependable ringers like Warhol, Basquiat and Picasso. But there is a shadow looming over the spring auction season that begins Monday.A cyberattack at Christie’s brought down the company’s website on Thursday, and as of Sunday morning, Christie’s had not yet regained control of it. On Sunday evening, in his first public statement since the cyberattack, Guillaume Cerruti, the chief executive of Christie’s, confirmed that eight auctions would proceed as scheduled, with bidding in person and by phone (the rare watches sale has been postponed…

After 30 years as one of England’s top pediatricians, Dr. Hilary Cass was hoping to begin her retirement by learning to play the saxophone.Instead, she took on a project that would throw her into an international fire: reviewing England’s treatment guidelines for the rapidly rising number of children with gender distress, known as dysphoria.At the time, in 2020, England’s sole youth gender clinic was in disarray. The waiting list had swelled, leaving many young patients waiting years for an appointment. Staff members who said they felt pressure to approve children for puberty-blocking drugs had filed whistle-blower complaints that had spilled…