- The year 2023 was once again at its peak in terms of technology
- Apple pleased its fans and launched an iPhone with USB-C under EU pressure
- However, the biggest trend was artificial intelligence and everything related to it
Artificial Intelligence. iPhone 15. Old-new social networks. Thin jigsaw puzzles. Even faster fast charging. Sustainability bordering on greenwashing. These and many more are, in my opinion, the technological trends that shaped the slowly ending year 2023. What three technologies have personally interested me the most in the past 12 months?
iPhone 15 s USB-C
I remember well that when I was using the quite revolutionary iPhone X in 2017, I thought how great it would be if it had a USB Type-C port. After all, competing Android phones have been intimately familiar with this connector since 2015. Six years have passed like water and here we are – the iPhone is late but still switching to a unified USB-C connector.
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iPhone 15 and USB-C: everything you wanted to know but were afraid to ask
As cliché as it may sound to many of you, to me this is one of the biggest technological innovations of 2023. Users locked into the Apple ecosystem know USB-C well from iPads and Macs, own and use this cable. The presence of the same connector on the iPhone – quite possibly their main device – opens up entirely new ways for them to use the iPhone.
First of all, it’s about simplicity – you no longer need to pack several different cables in your bag. A single cable is all you need to charge your MacBook, iPhone, headphones or even a business phone with Android. And although you prefer to take more of them, you don’t have to worry about which cable ends. Just USB-C for everything; finally!
We finally got a USB-C connector
For another, it of course greatly expands the iPhone’s connectivity. You can connect various adapters to the iPhone, for example a dongle with an SD and microSD card reader. Connecting to external monitors is also much easier. The possibility of connecting SSD disks and other storage devices deserves a separate mention, while the iPhone 15 can directly record video in the high-quality ProRAW format to some of them.
Your AI doppelgänger HeyGen
The year 2023 was undoubtedly the year of massive development of artificial generative intelligence. And 2024 will be no different. Of all the tools that generate images, texts and the like, however, only one stuck in my memory. Behind it is a Los Angeles start-up, and this service is called HeyGen AI.
In simple terms, it is a tool that can generate videos in which it can insert your avatar. It copies your face and voice, you give explicit consent to the use of this data and thus create your own and completely legal deepfake.
That’s not me, I’m not even saying that text. It was all generated by HeyGen learned on the source video. More here: pic.twitter.com/nohhOOY4cx
— Tomáš Holčík 🇨🇿🇪🇺🇺🇳 (@holcik) November 27, 2023
The creators claim that their service is extremely safe and does not allow users to create deepfake videos of strangers – that’s why you record a video of yourself and your voice, and at the end you have to read a predefined consent wording with the same voice. If you do not insist on cloning your own voice, you can use the already prepared voice in Czech.
If you would like to see how the HeyGen service could ideally look like in practice, my colleague Tomáš Holčík from the Živě.cz editorial team boasted about his feat via HeyGen on the X network. The result is breathtaking.
Artificial nudity, sorry, intelligence
And we will stay with artificial intelligence. In the course of 2023, there was a lot of speculation about which jobs could be replaced by computer-controlled intelligence. Actors and actresses from adult films did not wait for anything and took the situation from the opposite end – they themselves began to use artificial intelligence for themselves.
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The end of porn as we know it? The first actress will send an AI copy in her place
The result is paid profiles on networks like OnlyFans, where curious users pay tens of dollars to enjoy a shameful photo of their favorite porn actress. Instead of a real erotic image, however, they get a generated nudity image with the features and curves of their favorite.
And synthetic nudity certainly does not end here. Some experts believe that pornography as such will experience a huge earthquake in the near future – the whole business is somewhat in danger. There are tools and services coming to the surface that will generate nudity according to your innermost preferences for money.
Pornpen can generate girls in underwear, but also completely without it…
Worth noting is the Pornpen AI neural network. Do you prefer thinner or more corpulent ladies? Lace underwear? Long or short hair? And a cartoon lady, or as realistic as possible? Just choose your preferences, pay and you can have a whole folder of photos of your dream girl.
It’s only a matter of time before this lady of your dreams materializes in a video (wink, wink, HeyGen). However, the big drawback is that Pornpen AI cannot generate shameless masters. The authors of the network thus lose a potentially solid clientele.
Author of the article
Jakub Fischer
Journalist, fan of modern technology, summer months and Asian food. I like Lynch movies, Pollock paintings, french house and Arsenal football club. In my spare time, I play PlayStation and go jogging.
2023-12-25 18:30:00
#Jakub #Fišer #TOP #technological #trends
