Beginners in AI

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Welcome to this week's edition of Beginners in AI, where we explore the latest trends, tools, and news in the world of AI and the tech that surrounds it. Like all editions, this is human curated and published with the intention of making AI news and technology more accessible to everyone. 

Welcome to this week’s edition of Beginners in AI, where we tour a chatty new iPhone assistant, line up five bite-size tech tales—from AI DJs to Windows Recall—and watch a Cornell robot learn chores after one YouTube clip. Buckle up for quick lessons, fresh quotes and a prompt you can test today.

AI TOP STORY
Phone’s New Best Friend: Perplexity Out-Siris Siri

What Happened
Perplexity, the AI search start-up that has been shipping at full speed all year, slipped a hands-free helper into its iOS app that can find you a taco spot, book the table, add it to your calendar and send directions, all in one chat. The voice feature plugs into Apple services, so it sets reminders, writes emails and even plays music on command.

What It Means
Big-tech voice aids feel frozen in 2011. By showing what a nimble AI can do on the same phone, Perplexity heaps pressure on Apple to boost Siri at WWDC in June. It hints that the next race may be about who owns the microphone, not the search box. It's been almost two decades since Siri was first purchased by Apple and revolutionized voice to phone interaction, only to stagnate in recent years.

What to Take Away
If you rely on your phone to juggle life, try this free tool now and judge for yourself—no new hardware required. Either Siri grows up fast, or millions may hand their day-to-day tasks to a fresher name. This is on the heels of their partnership with Motorola. Perplexity is soon to become a household name. The only real question is how much of your life do you want to outsource to AI?

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LAST WEEK IN AI AND TECH

Memory Lane, Windows Edition
Microsoft pushed the once-shelved “Recall” feature to every Copilot+ PC. Recall stores encrypted snapshots of everything you do, then lets you search your past with plain words or click-to-act tools. Privacy advocates still frown, but Microsoft added TPM encryption, Windows Hello unlock and data-retention limits. Early testers say search feels magical yet heavy on storage.

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Sight-Speaking Specs
Meta’s Ray-Ban Smart Glasses gained live, on-device translation in English, French, Italian and Spanish. Ask, “Hey Meta, translate this,” and the shades whisper the other language in your ear and print captions in the View app. No phone signal is needed once you download a language pack. The update lands in every market where the glasses sell, giving travellers a pocket-free phrasebook and nudging wearables closer to Star Trek territory.

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Airwave Impostor
Sydney station CADA ran a four-hour “Workdays with Thy” show for months—hosted by an AI that cloned a real employee’s voice and look. Listeners never knew. Built with ElevenLabs, the DJ curates hip-hop, plugs local talent and chats like a person. Critics argue the stunt hides synthetic content from the public, while the network calls it an “experiment.”

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Surf’s Up for Sale
In US antitrust court, OpenAI’s ChatGPT boss Nick Turley said the firm “would be interested” in buying Google Chrome if regulators break it off. The bold remark shows how hungry model makers are for data-rich gateways. Analysts note Chrome’s 60 % share would hand any buyer a trove of browsing habits—AI gold. Regulators haven’t ruled, but the line drew gasps in the hearing.

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Legal Brief-Bot
California’s February bar exam included 23 multiple-choice questions drafted by an AI contractor—without telling the state supreme court. When the news broke, lawmakers demanded an audit and tighter oversight. Bar officials insist experts vetted every item, yet students and professors worry about fairness and transparency. The flap reopens debate on hidden AI in high-stakes testing.

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TECH TERMS TO KNOW

Diffusion Model is an image generator that starts with pure noise and removes the fuzz step by step until a picture appears.

TOOL SPOTLIGHT (non-sponsored)

Adcreative is an AI-powered marketing platform designed as an all-in-one solution for advertising needs. It focuses on generating high-conversion advertising assets and providing data-driven insights to optimize marketing campaigns.

What It Can Do:

• Boost campaign performance with AI models claiming up to 14x better conversion rates and pre-launch creative scoring for optimization.

• Streamline branding and creative workflows using customizable templates that maintain consistency across campaigns.

• Access an all-in-one toolkit featuring creative generation, text writing, photo editing, scoring, competitor insights, and utility functions.

• Utilize over 100 million free stock images and collaborate efficiently with multiple team members on the platform.

• Leverage artificial intelligence to generate conversion-focused ad creatives, videos, texts, and product photos tailored for various platforms.

ROBOTICS AND AI

Teach Me, Robot
Cornell’s RHyME system lets household robots watch a single how-to clip, pick the key frames and imitate the task—cracking eggs or folding towels—with twice the success of older methods. RHyME turns YouTube into a skill library, saving months of manual training. Researchers say the approach can scale to thousands of chores once paired with small cameras.

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TRY THIS PROMPT (copy and paste into ChatGPT, Grok, Perplexity, Gemini)

Skillmaxing

You are my elite coach for [SKILL]. Break [SKILL] into 3–5 sub-skills that drive about 80 % of results. For each sub-skill, give:

• One-line definition  
• Best-in-class example  
• Daily drill (≤ 30 min)  
• Success benchmark  
• Common mistake to avoid  

Next, outline a 3-hour daily routine:

Hour 1 — Study: pick top performer work, point out what makes it excel.  
Hour 2 — Drill: guide me through the drills, include real-time feedback prompts I can ask.  
Hour 3 — Ship: propose a small project or task, then provide a quick self-review checklist.

Finish with a weekly checkpoint: progress markers, tougher resources, and how to raise the difficulty for the coming week.

DID YOU KNOW?

Your Car Key Fob Uses the Same Encryption Chip as Early Spacecraft: The low-power “KeeLoq” code (invented in the 1980s) was first tested on satellites before protecting garage doors and car locks.

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Thank you for reading. We’re all beginners in something. With that in mind, your questions and feedback are always welcome and I read every single email!

-James

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