Google Devising Radical Search Changes to Beat Back A.I. Rivals

Been thinking about the interaction of Google and the changing AI world.   I can see how they may lose if basic search is better served by chat oriented methods.   I see myself now going beyond simple search because I can get more up front. 

Google Devising Radical Search Changes to Beat Back A.I. Rivals    By The New York Times, April 17, 2023

Google has been worried about A.I.-powered competitors since OpenAI demonstrated a chatbot called ChatGPT in November.

Modernizing its search engine has become an obsession at Google, and the planned changes could put new AI technology in phones and homes all over the world.

Google's employees were shocked when they learned in March that the South Korean consumer electronics giant Samsung was considering replacing Google with Microsoft's Bing as the default search engine on its devices.

For years, Bing had been a search engine also-ran. But it became a lot more interesting to industry insiders when it recently added new artificial intelligence technology.

Google's reaction to the Samsung threat was "panic," according to internal messages reviewed by The New York Times. An estimated $3 billion in annual revenue was at stake with the Samsung contract. An additional $20 billion is tied to a similar Apple contract that will be up for renewal this year.

A.I. competitors like the new Bing are quickly becoming the most serious threat to Google's search business in 25 years, and in response, Google is racing to build an all-new search engine powered by the technology. It is also upgrading the existing one with A.I. features, according to internal documents reviewed by The Times.

From The New York Times

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Samsung Loses Sensitive Data to ChatGPT

Implications for securing your own workplace data.

Samsung Engineers Feed Sensitive Data to ChatGPT, Sparking Workplace AI Warnings

In three separate incidents, engineers at the Korean electronics giant reportedly shared sensitive corporate data with the AI-powered chatbot.

Jai Vijayan, Contributing Writer, Dark Reading, April 11, 2023

Machine Deep learning algorithms, Artificial intelligence (AI), Automation and modern technology in business as concept.

Recent reports about engineers at Samsung Electronics inadvertently leaking sensitive company information via ChatGPT in three separate incidents highlight why policies governing employee use of AI services in the workplace are quickly becoming a must for enterprise organizations.

The Economist Korea, one of the first to report on the data leaks, described the first incident as involving an engineer who pasted buggy source code from a semiconductor database into ChatGPT, with a prompt to the chatbot to fix the errors. In the second instance, an employee wanting to optimize code for identifying defects in certain Samsung equipment pasted that code into ChatGPT. The third leak resulted when an employee asked ChatGPT to generate the minutes of an internal meeting at Samsung.

The incidents played out exactly the same way that researchers have been warning that they could, since OpenAI made ChatGPT publicly available in November. Security analysts have noted how, in all instances where users share data with ChatGPT, the information ends up as training data for the machine learning/large language model (ML/LLM). They have noted how someone could later retrieve the data using the right prompts. 

ChatGPT creator, OpenAI, itself has warned users on the risk: "We are not able to delete specific prompts from your history. Please don't share any sensitive information in your conversations," OpenAI's user guide notes.

Samsung Enacts Emergency Anti-ChatGPT Measures

The situation has apparently prompted a rethink of ChatGPT use at Samsung after the third incident, just barely three weeks after the South Korean electronics giant allowed employees access to the generative AI tool. The company had initially banned the technology over security and privacy concerns before relenting.   ... '

Serious Errors can be Made with ChatGPT

Care must be taken, security introduced.   Ease of use can mean ease of error.

Samsung workers made a major error by using ChatGPT  in TechRadar   By Lewis Maddison published 3 days ago

Samsung meeting notes and new source code are now in the wild after being leaked in ChatGPT

Samsung workers have unwittingly leaked top secret data whilst using ChatGPT to help them with tasks. 

The company allowed engineers at its semiconductor arm to use the AI writer to help fix problems with their source code. But in doing so, the workers inputted confidential data, such as the source code itself for a new program, internal meeting notes data relating to their hardware. 

The upshot is that in just under a month, there were three recorded incidences of employees leaking sensitive information via ChatGPT. Since ChatGPT retains user input data to further train itself, these trade secrets from Samsung are now effectively in the hands of OpenAI, the company behind the AI service.

Out in the OpenAI

In response, Samsung Semiconductor is now developing its own inhouse AI for internal use by employees, but they can only use prompts that are limited to 1024 bytes in size. 

In one of the aforementioned cases, an employee asked ChatGPT to optimize test sequences for identifying faults in chips, which is confidential - however, making this process as efficient as possible has the potential to save chip firms considerable time in testing and verifying processors, leading to reductions in cost too. 

In another case, an employee used ChatGPT to convert meeting notes into a presentation, the contents of which were obviously not something Samsung would have liked external third parties to have known.

Samsung Electronics sent out a warning to its workers on the potential dangers of leaking confidential information in the wake of the incidences, saying that such data is impossible to retrieve as it is now stored on the servers belonging to OpenAI. In the semiconductor industry, where competition is fierce, any sort of data leak could spell disaster for the company in question.   ... ' 

Need an Artistic Frig?

Too much ART complexity for what needs to be a simple as possible device, would not buy one. 

Samsung is announcing that its Bespoke line of custom appliance decorations will enable a form of generative AI art on its refrigerators and more.

With MyBespoke, the company will tap a combination of a human artist with generative AI art to make a collection of art available for its appliances.

The company’s latest line of refrigerators will have a Bespoke refrigerator that can be personalized with your original designs, artwork or favorite photos. MyBespoke custom panels help inspire you to create a one-of-a-kind fridge so you can personalize your kitchen.

Samsung said MyBespoke embraces home design trends that express personality and style using new materials, colors and artful designs. You can design your one-of-a-kind MyBespoke fridge panels with one or both French Doors and Samsung will deliver them to your home.

You can create your own design when you purchase a Bespoke refrigerator from Samsung.com, and simply change out your existing Bespoke French Door fridge panels with your custom-designed panels. To complement your custom MyBespoke design on the top doors, you can choose from a variety of bold, bright or neutral Bespoke colors in glass or metallic finishes – for the lower doors or drawers of the fridge.

You can upload, edit and print your design on customizable, interchangeable Bespoke fridge door panels on Samsung.com. MyBespoke custom printed panels are available for $300 per panel, with delivery to your home in approximately eight weeks.  ... ' 

Samsung Breach

More insecurity emerges.

Samsung Breach Slams Consumers  By David Geer, Commissioned by CACM Staff

November 3, 2022

Samsung waited a month to disclose the breach, which one industry observer said "shows that they also believe the compromise is widespread."

"Samsung recently discovered a cybersecurity incident that affected some of your information," the breach notification read. Samsung addressed the email to me and other customers involved in the breach.

On Sept. 2, Samsung notified specific U.S. customers that a late July breach affected some of their data inside U.S. systems. According to the breach notification, customers had differing combinations of their names, contact and demographic data, birthdays, and product registration information stolen. The breach only involved Samsung's servers, according to AppleInsider; Samsung consumer devices and in-app control interfaces remained untouched. 

"We want to assure our customers that the issue did not impact Social Security numbers or credit or debit card numbers," the Samsung email continued. We know little about the late July breach, which Samsung confirmed internally by early August, though it didn't disclose it until September.

Litigants in a class action suit against Samsung Electronics of America asserted that the July breach, together with one in March, affected more than half of U.S. Samsung customers, according to Dark Reading.

That's a lot of people to leave in the dark. All my emails to the Samsung address generated automated responses about the breach, with no new information. We can surmise as much from what we don't know about the breach as what we know.

Did the March Breach Leave a Backdoor Open?

There are some clues to who breached Samsung and how they did it. According to Tom's Hardware, the Lapsus$ APT group breached Samsung source code secrets in March.

According to a KPMG advisory, source code secrets include access credentials such as API keys, access tokens, RSA keys, identifying certificates, and database connection strings buried in the software. According to the KPMG advisory, Samsung may not have removed the malware (malicious software) infestations from the March attack, so the July breach may have been an extension of the one in March.

"It is also interesting that Samsung waited a month to disclose the breach, which shows that they also believe the compromise is widespread. There is a fair chance that the most recent breach ties to the one disclosed in March," says Safi Raza, director of cybersecurity at Fusion Risk Management, a risk management consulting services and software solutions provider. ... '

Samsung and Google Work together with Matter

 Interesting direction here for collaborative 'intelligent efforts' efforts

Samsung and Google make it easier to share your smart home with Matter

 The two companies are bringing expanded Matter multi-admin capabilities to their platforms, letting you easily move smart home devices between them. 

By JENNIFER PATTISON TUOHY / @jp2e  Oct 12, 2022, 1:00 PM

Samsung reveals how Matter’s multi-admin feature will work with SmartThings.  

Ahead of its annual developer conference, Samsung has revealed details about how Matter smart home devices will work on its Samsung Galaxy phones and tablets. The company announced you’ll soon be able to use Galaxy devices to onboard Matter-compatible devices to both SmartThings and Google Home ecosystems.

The interoperability with Google Home is building on top of Matter’s multi-admin feature. Multi-admin is a key part of the Matter specification that all devices and platforms are required to support. It allows a device in one ecosystem to be shared with and controlled by another. So, for example, an Amazon smart thermostat could be controlled by the Apple Home app or Apple’s Siri voice assistant if everything is Matter-enabled. .... ' 

China Bid for Chip Supremacy

Nice overview of the current  state of silicon chip development and manufacture worldwide. Emphasizing companies currently involved and current moves likely.   Implications for the delivery of advanced technologies worldwide.  The influence of the complexities of supply chains and the recent pandemic. 

Business Bloomberg Quicktake

Inside China's Accelerating Bid for Chip Supremacy

Right now the world is dependent on Taiwan for silicon semiconductors called chips, which give devices like iPhones their functionality. This reliance has the U.S. and China both racing for technological independence. (Video by Robin Fall) (Source: Bloomberg)

June 3, 2021 

Samsung Looks at an Assistant Again

 We tested Samsung's Bixby assistant offering for product interaction tests.     Now they appear to be replacing it with a new or updated approach.   With hint of an interface in 3D.

Samsung May Replace Bixby With a 3D Virtual Assistant Named Sam  in Voicebot.ai

Samsung may be creating a new virtual assistant named Sam that may accompany, or possibly replace, ith a 3D Virtual Assistant Named Sam

ERIC HAL SCHWARTZ  Bixby. As first discovered on Twitter, Lightfarm Studios and the Samsung-owned Cheil Agency showcased the three-dimensional character in a since-deleted webpage available only through the Wayback Machine.  ..." 

Are Flexibles the Future?

 Samsung seems to think so, but have still not seen the argument made that they are more convenient overall.  

Samsung teases its next generation of flexible displays

It also showed off an under panel camera in a notebook.

In Engadget:  Just Gismos By Saqib Shah 

Samsung's Home AI Offers to Nag and do General Chores

 CES is virtual this year but is putting out some interesting things, with the usual warning that they are concepts rather than imminent realities.  Looks like Samsung is  touching on the fabled general home-chore butler-helper concept.     Which is hard, a little like General AI  (GAI).    General 'nagging' as proposed though is easy. 

Samsung's latest home robots can do chores and nag you to stop working

Bot Handy's extendable arm can load your dishwasher and set the table.

CES wouldn’t quite feel right without Samsung showing off some robots. A year after it unveiled grapefruit-sized spherical bot Ballie, Samsung has revealed some new machines it’s working on to help out around the home.  ... " 

Samsung Does New Bixby Interface in Major Update

 Been a long time since we had an unimpressed look at Bixby.   Some good details here.

Samsung Reveals New Bixby Interface and Features in Major Update By Eric Hal Schwartz   in Voicebot.ai

Samsung has officially announced plans to revamp the Bixby virtual assistant a little over a month after it quietly began releasing the update to some Samsung smartphones. The changes bring a new, simplified interface and several new features to Bixby, with an eye toward making Bixby more accessible and personalize the voice commands it suggests.

BACKGROUND AI

Bixby’s new look is all about discretion and consolidation. Talking to Bixby no longer requires all of the screen’s real estate. Bixby runs from a section at the bottom of the screen, with a horizontal bar and faded background letting the user know the voice assistant is listening. The app on the smartphone is condensed as well, with everything related to Bixby on a single home screen instead of using separate pages for the Bixby Capsules. Bixby is also keen to help people use its features more often, providing suggestions for commands based on popular trends. The AI can even track what a user has done before and provide ideas for things to do with Bixby that they might not realize are available.

“Using Bixby feels more personal in the latest update, as the service now offers customized voice command suggestions based on your usage patterns and other devices you have registered with Bixby, Samsung explained in its announcement. “With recommendations for a variety of apps and services, the new tailored experience helps you discover more ways to use Bixby and improve your Galaxy experience.”

BIXBY’S FUTURE

The updated Bixby certainly confirms Samsung’s faith in the voice assistant. That matters more than it might normally after months of rumors that Samsung was dropping Bixby in favor of Google Assistant. Samsung shutting down Bixby Vision, the augmented reality feature of its voice assistant that can measure objects and simulate objects in a room, and reassigning the Bixby developer marketing team to other areas at the end of September didn’t help. And that news followed stories of other Bixby departures, including Voicebot’s exclusive report from July that Adam Cheyer, Viv Labs co-founder, and Samsung vice president leading Bixby development, had left the company. ... " 

Holographic Video Display for Mobile Phones

 New directions for display on mobile phone, multi dimensional?  Implications for typical phone tasks?  Advanced marketing?Sounds impressive.

Thin Holographic Video Display for Mobile Phones

IEEE Spectrum, Charles Q. Choi

At South Korea's Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology, researchers have invented a method for creating a thin holographic video display that may eventually enable 4K three-dimensional videos on mobile phones. The display has a special backlight with a beam deflector that can tilt the angles of coherent light beams from laser diodes, expanding the viewing angle 30-fold without increasing the number of pixels required. The Samsung researchers also used a slim geometric phase lens to gather scattered light from the pixels, shrinking the optical components' thickness to just 1 centimeter. The display’s single-chip holographic video processor can perform about 140 billion operations per second to generate 4K holographic color images at a speed of 30 frames per second.  ... 

Samsung Shuts Down Bixby AR

Recall we looked at Bixby closely here for assistant capabilities in appliance domains. And in particular noted the blending of AR capabilities, though saw no practical examples.   Notable move here.   Still the integration of AR and assistance  functionality should be worthwhile.

Samsung Shutting Down Bixby Vision AR Features After Staff Cuts  By Eric Hal Schwartz in Voicebot

Samsung is shutting down Bixby Vision, the augmented reality feature of its voice assistant. Pulling up Bixby Vision on the camera prompts a notice about a change in the service saying Samsung will end support for the AR features at the end of October. The end of AR is the latest indicator of Samsung’s shifting plans for Bixby during staff layoffs.

BIXBY AR   The augmented reality aspects of Bixby Vision included the ability to measure objects, simulate wearing makeup or placing furniture in a room, and creating AR versions of emoji and stickers. Those are the capabilities that Bixby Vision will no longer offer at the end of the month. Other aspects of Bixby Vision will still work, like the text reader, translator, and the accessibility feature that describes a room for people with impaired vision. The voice commands related to the remaining Bixby Vision features appear to be staying in place as well.

Though it may not be directly related, it’s hard not to see the AR shutdown in the context of Samsung’s decision to close down the Bixby developer marketing team at the end of September. That team worked to recruit Bixby capsule developers, which could include Bixby Vision features. In turn, that news followed stories of other Bixby departures, including Voicebot’s exclusive report from July that Adam Cheyer, Viv Labs co-founder, and Samsung vice president leading Bixby development, had left the company.

VIV LIVES  At the same time, as Bixby’s focus seems to be narrowing, Viv Labs, the acquisition from which Bixby was born, seems to be surviving. Viv still supports a team of engineers and developer recruiters. Still, Bixby deciding to limit its features adds another layer to the rumors of the voice assistant’s possible demise or absorption by Google Assistant ... ' 

Note also: Samsung  Dropping Bixby in favor of Google Assistant.  

Google Assistant vs Samsung Bixby

We were early testers of Bixby for general appliance assistance.   I see less of it there now.   But have not since experienced it brould on the phone.  Indication of it promoting changes in its broad use?

Google reportedly negotiating with Samsung to push Assistant over Bixby
Google is said to want more prominence for its own services like the Play Store

By Sam Byford@345triangle 

Google and Samsung are in discussions for a deal that would give the US tech giant’s services more prominence on Samsung phones at the expense of those from the Korean manufacturer, according to a report by Bloomberg. The deal would reportedly involve promoting the Google Assistant and the Play Store over Samsung’s own alternatives. ..." 

Samsung Talks Mobile Holograms and Digital Twins

Piece in Venturebeat talks 6G and says it will fundamentally enable tech like holograms and Digital Twins.   Note the date, 2028 is a long way out to predict.    And the two technologies are very different.    Digital Twins, an outgrowth of classic simulation, can be done today.   Holograms too, but perhaps not at the quality of resolution and speed needed for consumers.   Both could be improved, especially by the ability to exchange increasing amounts data with devices and sensors  in the field.    For both machine learning, and for delivering interactions with consumer.   Samsung is driving the unknown 6G market, to be expected.    Both of the technologies, but not 6G, have been covered extensively in this blog.  - FAD

Samsung: Expect 6G in 2028, enabling mobile holograms and digital twins
By Jeremy Horwitz  @horwitz  ....

Samsung Health on Newer TVs

Preloading TV's with software that addresses current conditions, like stay at homework places.
Good way to drive TV sales.  No real mention of 'assistant' functions.   No mention of Samsung's Bixby.  See the ability of having cross function enabled in the system, a possible assistance application.

Samsung Health Now Available as a Comprehensive In-Home Fitness and Wellness Platform on 2020 Samsung Smart TVs

With free access to Samsung Health, 5,000 hours of content on the TV and over 250 instructive videos from barre3, Calm, Fitplan, Jillian Michaels Fitness, obé fitness, and Echelon available
Samsung Electronics announced today that its Samsung Health platform is now available on 2020 Samsung Smart TV models. Designed to revolutionize the concept of at-home workouts, Samsung Health is a user-centric wellness platform that goes beyond fitness. It is a companion that syncs across various digital devices – smartphones, wearables and now Samsung Smart TVs. With Samsung Health, users will be able to enjoy free premium classes, start new wellness routines and even get the whole household moving with family challenges and more – all from the comfort of home.

“The whole intention of Samsung Health is to motivate our consumers to live healthier lives by meeting them wherever they are, across Samsung platforms,” said Won-Jin Lee, Executive Vice President of Service Business at Samsung Electronics. “We knew that to do this, we needed to develop a user-centric and immersive platform that offered a variety of in-home fitness and wellness options. Given the current climate, we hope that the launch of Samsung Health makes it easier for our consumers to prioritize their physical and mental wellbeing on a daily basis.”   ... '

Samsung's Imaginary Keyboard

A long time student of ways to efficiently communicate with machines.    This not being sold yet,

Samsung’s Latest AI Project Is an Imaginary Keyboard for Your Phone  By Ryan Whitwam in ExtremeTech

The typing experience on smartphones has gotten vastly better over the years, but typing with your thumbs will never be as fast as using a real keyboard. Samsung thinks it’s onto something with its latest Android feature, which it calls SelfieType. At CES, the company is demoing this AI-powered system that lets you type on an imaginary keyboard.

SelfieType comes from Samsung’s C-Lab program, a sort of internal incubator that develops quirky technologies that may eventually find their way into real products. Samsung’s decision to announce SelfieType suggests that it’s relatively confident in its capabilities. I say “relatively” because Samsung does have a history of rolling out products and features before they’re ready. The Galaxy Fold is just the latest example.

When you fire up SelfieType (assuming you ever get the opportunity), the phone activates the front-facing camera and begins watching your hands. SelfieType doesn’t rely on depth sensors or IR dot projectors to follow your fingers — it uses AI to map where each finger moves, allowing you to “mime” typing on a keyboard that doesn’t exist. As you tap the tabletop, the phone translates those presses to the on-screen keyboard. And like magic, you get the text on your screen.  ... "

Neon Digital Avatars

Interesting in seeing Samsung involved in this, meaning unclear.

Neon CEO explains the tech behind his overhyped ‘artificial humans’  in TheVerge  Neon Genesis Evangelicalism

The most buzzed-about company at CES 2020 doesn’t make a gadget you can see or touch. It doesn’t even have a product yet. But for reasons I’m still not entirely sure I grasp, the lead-up to this week’s show in Las Vegas was dominated by discussion of a project called Neon, which has emerged from a previously unknown Samsung subsidiary known as STAR Labs.

What Neon has been promising is so ambitious that it’s easy to swing your expectations around full circle and assume the mundane. The project’s Twitter bio simply reads “Artificial Human,” which could mean anything from an AI chatbot to a full-on android. Promotional videos posted in the run-up to CES, however, suggested that Neon would very much be closer to the former.  .... "

Samsung to Announce Smart Speaker

More competition in what I call the assistant world.   Bixby powered from Samsung.  Beyond just in Korea?  Appears include smart home oriented sensors. 

Samsung Galaxy Home Mini Smart Speaker Arriving Feb. 12
  Eric Hal Schwatrz in Voicebot.ai

...   The smart speaker will use Samsung’s Bixby voice assistant as expected, but won’t need to connect to a smartphone to send and receive messages. On the hardware side, the AKG speakers built into the device are supposed to give it a higher quality sound than the standard smart speaker and it comes with sensors designed to detect dangerous problems like fires or burst pipes, alerting the people who live there about the issue.

The description of the Home Mini fits with what has been seen of the smart speaker already at the Samsung Developer Conference with some extra details. One addition that somewhat changes the smart speaker’s place in the market, however, is the price. Entry-level smart speakers from Google and Amazon cost $50 and are frequently discounted below that. An $83 price tag elevates the Galaxy Home Mini into its own category. If Samsung wants to seed the smart speaker into people’s homes, it may have to use a different tactic like bundling it with the Galaxy S20 smartphone pre-orders. There’s precedent for that as Samsung did the same thing with the Galaxy Buds and the Galaxy S10 smartphone.   .... " 

Update on Samsung Bixby

Took early looks at Bixby, was not impressed.  Has huge appliance exposure, IOT connections.  What's new and interesting

Bixby was quiet in 2019, but don't sleep on Samsung's assistant
It's not all bad news for Bixby.

Chris Velazco, @chrisvelazco in Engadget

Decades of science fiction assured us all that, yes, one day we'd be able to control the immensely complex gadgetry around us with just our voices. It was right, mostly. The rise of the virtual assistant, built atop still other developments in cloud computing and machine learning, means we can wonder out loud what the weather is like, or how far away the moon is, or hail a car and expect a response from a carefully crafted voice in moments. And now, those disembodied voices have taken up residence in our homes .... "