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Learn how integrating purpose into your B2B strategy builds trust, strengthens client partnerships, and drives business growth. Read more now. Read the full article at MarketingProfs
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The US presidential election is in its final stretch. Before election day on November 5, Engadget is looking at where the candidates, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, stand on the most consequential tech issues of our day. While it might not garner the headlines that immigration, abortion or inflation do, AI is quietly one of the more consequential issues this election season. What regulations are put in place and how forcefully those rules are enforced will have wide ranging impacts on consumer privacy, intellectual property, the media industry and national security. Normally, politicians lack clear or coherent policies on emerging technologies. But somewhat shockingly, both former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris have at least some track record handling artificial intelligence. VP Harris, in particular, has been very hands-on in shaping the current administrations approach. And Donald Trump was the first president to sign an executive order regarding AI. That being said, neither has made AI a central component of their campaign, and were making some educated guesses here about how either would approach it once in the White House. Kamala Harris With Harris considerable involvement in the Biden administrations AI efforts, its safe to assume she would move forward with many of those policies. While the White House started laying the groundwork for its AI initiatives in early 2021, it wasnt until late 2023 that they kicked into high gear, and Harris has often been the public face of those efforts, including holding numerous press calls on the issue and appearing at the Global Summit on AI Safety in London. She has used these venues to draw attention to the potential pitfalls, both large and small, of AI ranging from cyberattacks at a scale beyond anything we have seen before to seniors being kicked off [their] healthcare plan because of a faulty AI algorithm. October 2023 saw the issuance of an executive order on the Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence. This order noted the potential for AI to solve broad societal issues as well as its ability to exacerbate societal harms, such as fraud, discrimination, bias and disinformation; displace and disempower workers; stifle competition and pose risks to national security. It laid out eight guiding principles focused on creating standardized evaluations for AI systems, protecting workers, consumer privacy and combating inherent bias. It also called for agencies to name a chief AI officer (CAIO) and directed the federal government to develop policies and strategies using and regulating AI. This included developing technologies for identifying and labeling AI-generated content and building guardrails to prevent the creation of images depicting sexual abuse and deepfake pornography. Harris helped secure commitments from Apple, Amazon, Anthropic, Google, Inflection, Meta, Microsoft, Adobe, Cohere, IBM, NVIDIA, Palantir, Salesforce, Scale AI, Stability and OpenAI to work towards the administrations goals. She also worked to obtain endorsements from 31 nations of a declaration regarding the responsible creation and use of military AI. At this stage, the latter is merely a commitment to work together to establish rules and guidelines. But there are many absences on that list, most notably Russia, China and Israel. Because the technology is so new, however, there are still a lot of questions about the specifics of how a Harris administration would handle AI. Besides, without an act of Congress, the White House would be limited in how it could regulate the industry or punish those that run afoul of its policies. On the campaign trail, Harris hasnt said much new about the issue, outside of a brief mention at a Wall Street fundraiser, during which she said, We will encourage innovative technologies, like AI and digital assets, while protecting our consumers and investors. Harris does have strong ties to Silicon Valley, so it remains to be seen just how much she would try to rein in the industry. But as of now, most of her statements have focused on protecting consumers and workers. Donald Trump Donald Trump holds the distinction of being the first president to sign an executive order regarding AI, but his actual public statements on the matter have been limited. In February 2019, he established the American AI Initiative, which created the first national AI research institutes, called for doubling the funding of AI research and set forth broad regulatory guidance. It also called for the creation of the National Artificial Intelligence Initiative Office, which would serve as a central hub for coordinating research and policy across the government. Unsurprisingly, the executive order signed by former President Trump and the policies set forth by his allies have focused more on encouraging private sector growth and limited government oversight. The official Republican party platform adopted at the RNC in July called for repealing Bidens October 2023 executive order claiming it hinders AI Innovation and imposes Radical Leftwing ideas on the development of this technology. It goes on to call for the development of AI rooted in Free Speech and Human Flourishing. Unfortunately the RNC platform and Trump dont get much more specific than that. So well have to look at what the former presidents allies at the America First Policy Institute and Heritage Foundation have put forth to get a better idea of how a second Trump presidency might handle AI. America First began drafting a document earlier this year that called for launching Manhattan Projects for military AI and for reducing regulations. (Currently, there are limited regulations in place regarding AI, as the government is largely in the information-gathering stage of policy development. Congress has yet to pass any meaningful AI legislation.) It also called for the creation of industry-led agencies tasked with evaluating and securing American artificial intelligence technologies. This is in contrast with the Biden administrations executive order, which put responsibility for those efforts firmly in the hands of the federal government. The Heritage Foundations Project 2025 (PDF) gets into more specifics, though it is worth noting Trump has tried to distance himself somewhat from that document. Much of the discourse around AI in the 922-page tome is dedicated to China: countering its technological advancements, limiting its access to American technology and preventing it from backing joint research projects with American interests, especially on college campuses. It calls for increasing the use of AI and machine learning in intelligence gathering and analysis, while simultaneously calling for a heavier reliance on the private sector to develop and manage the technology. The document also spends significant time discussing AIs potential to reduce waste, fraud and abuse, particularly with regards to Medicare and Medicaid. However, it makes almost no mention of protecting consumer privacy, ensuring the accuracy and fairness of algorithms, or identifying abusive or misleading uses of AI, beyond combating Chinese propaganda. Predictable broad strokes While both candidates platforms lack specifics regarding the regulation of artificial intelligence, they do lay out two clearly different approaches. Kamala Harris has made consumer protections and building guardrails against abuse a cornerstone of her AI policy proposals; Donald Trump has predictably focused on reducing regulation. Neither has suggested they would try to put the proverbial AI genie back in the bottle, not that such a thing would be feasible. The big question marks are just how much of the America First Policy Institute or Project 2025 proposals a Trump administration would adopt. His own official platform mirrors many policy positions of Project 2025. While it may not reflect any of its AI proposals specifically, theres little reason to believe his approach would differ dramatically on this specific issue.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/election-2024-how-will-the-candidates-regulate-ai-133045610.html?src=rss
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Well, it finally happened. After years of waiting and requests, Amazon debuted the $280 Kindle Colorsoft, its first ereader with a color display. The companys ereaders have dominated this space since the original Kindle came out 17 years ago, but in this case, it feels like Amazon is playing catch-up. Color E Ink displays arent novel: weve tested and reviewed a number of color ereaders and E Ink tablets from Kobo, Boox and reMarkable in recent years. But Amazon is essentially trying to pull an Apple with the Colorsoft: with claims that color E Ink technology just wasnt good enough to put into a Kindle until now, Amazons promising the Colorsoft gets this implementation right thanks in part to the custom tweaks it made to the display. And, unsurprisingly, Amazons ready to charge you a premium for it. So is it all its cracked up to be? As you might suspect, the answer isnt as simple as yes or no. Screen technology and comparisons Lets get the tech details squared away first. The Kindle Colorsofts seven-inch screen is based on E Ink Kaleido 3 technology, but a representative from the Kindle team explained to me that they developed a custom display stack for this device. That means they made quite a few changes to the tech in order to achieve things like higher-contrast pigments and improved speeds overall. The Colorsofts custom oxide backplane uses 24 driving volts to move pigments around more quickly and it helps those pigments appear with better contrast. Nitride LEDs enhance colors and brightness, and a custom coating in between the displays layers helps focus light through each pigment so theres less color mixing. Some of the same tech helps make page-turns quicker and supposedly reduces excessively noticeable screen refreshing when you go from one color page to another, or pinch-and-zoom on an image. Thats all to say that Amazon would like you to believe that this E Ink Kaleido 3 screen is not like the other girls in this space, and while I do not doubt the Kindle teams efforts, the differences are not as dramatic as the story would suggest. Until Kobo updates the Sage with color, the closest competitor to the $280 Kindle Colorsoft is the $220 Kobo Libra Colour (in size, platform and overall experience), so I did a lot of side-by-side comparisons of the two. The biggest difference I saw was that the Kobos screen skews warmer than the Kindles; I kicked the brightness up to the maximum and turned all warm/natural light settings down to zero on both devices and the difference was noticeable, regardless of if the displays were showing color images, black-and-white text or a mix of the two. This would suggest that the Kindle will show more accurate colors more often since theres less of a warm lean to its display. But on the flip side, the Kindle screens blue tint was just as noticeable, particularly in low-light situations (like a dark office or a dimly lit living room). At max brightness with warmth down to zero, the Kindles screen was borderline uncomfortable to read in those environments but all it took was a slight adjustment to warmth level four (out of 24) to get it to match the Kobos display in warmth almost exactly (at least to my eyes). That made it more comfortable to stare at in dark spaces. I also compared the Colorsofts screen to my personal Kindle Paperwhite (previous generation) and the blue skew was noticeable there too. Ultimately, how much warm or cool light you prefer while reading is up to personal taste. My preferences would lead me to adjust the warmth on the Kindle to be a bit higher than zero, mimicking that of the Kobo. In an unscientific poll of the Engadget staff, both in person and with device photos, everybody preferred the screen on the Kobo. I think the slight added warmth in Kobos screen makes colors appear a bit more saturated and more inviting overall. It also gets close to mimicking the look of actual physical pages (as much as one of these devices could, at least), and thats the experience Im going for when I read pretty much anything. But I could understand why some hardcore comic fans would want to start off with the most color-accurate baseline as possible, and then adjust from there to fit their preferences. In addition to adjusting the warm light, the Kindle Colorsoft has vivid mode, which enhances color in less saturated images. For the sake of efficacy, most of my time was spent in standard mode when testing the Colorsoft. But in trying out vivid mode, I noticed that its enhanced saturation was most noticeable in warm-toned images: reds appeared ever-so-slightly more striking, while oranges and yellows had a more bronze effect and the like. But I had to turn vivid mode on and off a few times to clock the effect because its quite subtle. Then theres the question of actually reading words on the Colorsoft. Even the Kindle team representative I spoke with acknowledged that, due to the extra physical layer in the screen that enables color, one might notice a bit less sharpness and contrast in black-and-white text on the Colorsofts screen. Thats not unique to this particular Kindle every color ereader will have this issue to some degree. When comparing the text-only experience of the Kindle Colorsoft to that of the Kobo Libra Colour, I found both to be quite good and comparable to one another. Where theres a bigger possibility for discrepancies is in a comparison of the Colorsoft to, say, the new Kindle Paperwhite. I did not have the latter device to compare to, but I did have my personal, previous-generation Paperwhite, and the difference was ever so slight, with the standard Paperwhite having the (small) upper hand in the contrast and sharpness departments. Reading experience Photo by Valentina Palladino / Engadget The color screen is the most consequential thing about the Kindle Colorsoft, and chances are if youve had a Kindle in the past, te reading experience on this new device will feel quite familiar. The Kindle UI hasnt changed much, still dividing the main screen into Home and Library options. The former is basically a space for Amazon to serve you personalized book recommendations and promote new Kindle releases, while the latter shows your entire digital library including books, documents, Audible audiobooks and library loans. The Library page is striking in color and there is something undeniably satisfying about seeing all of your title covers in full-color glory. While reading a book, you can still customize and save different themes with fonts, font sizes and page layouts that best suit your preferences. You still have the option to quickly navigate within a title by page, location, chapter and even popular highlights. Page turns are speedy and will likely be an improvement for anyone coming from an older Kindle or other ereader. Annotations and your own highlights are collected in the same place for easy reference, and with the latter, you can filter by highlight color as well. You have four colors to choose from on the Colorsoft orange, yellow, blue and pink so if you use the yellow highlighter to mark favorite quotes, you can then filter by just that color. Note that all highlighting and note-taking must be done with your fingers because, unlike the Kindle Scribe, the Colorsoft has no stylus support. The pinch-to-zoom feature on the Colorsoft is good for those who read a lot of graphic novels and comics. Amazon developed a custom algorithm to make this motion as smooth as possible, and its a pretty good experience, albeit not a unique one. You can also pinch to zoom on the Kobo Libra Colour, which mostly helps get in closer to comic panels to read small text or better see minute details. On both devices, there are full-screen refreshes when you pinch to zoom on color images and the speed of completion is roughly the same. I also found image quality to be quite similar as well, and its worth noting that art style can skew your impression of an images quality. A comic that employs clean, distinct lines compared to one thats more grungy and watercolor-like will always come off more crisp. The Colorsoft, like the regular Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition, also has an auto-adjusting front light that promises to illuminate the display just right depending on if youre reading outside on a sunny day, in the dark cabin of an airplane or anywhere else. Its a nice hardware perk to have and, with the feature turned on, removes much of manual fiddling that some might find annoying to do when they take their Kindle into different environments. The competition Photo by Valentina Palladino / Engadget While we already went through the screen comparisons for the $280 Kindle Colorsoft and the $220 Kobo Libra Colour, there are plenty of other differences between the two that you should consider when picking your next ereader. Ive added a spec list below to break down the basics, and the most consequential to me are the fact that the Kobo has page-turn buttons and stylus support. The former is really a matter of preference you either love physical buttons or you find no use for them but the latter is pure added value even if you do have to purchase the $70 Kobo stylus separately. It essentially allows you to turn the Libra Colour into a makeshift Kobo Sage or Kindle Scribe, which could be useful for anyone in academia (students and educators alike) or anyone who just loves the feeling of putting pen to paper. Meanwhile, the Kindle has the upper hand in its wireless charging capabilities and its slightly cleaner flush-front design. When it comes to actual content available on Kindle and Kobo devices, the libraries you can purchase from on both are vast: both have ebooks and audiobooks available, and both the Colorsoft and Libra Colour support Bluetooth, so you can listen to audiobooks directly from the device with your wireless headphones. At the time of writing this review, all of the top five New York Times bestseller titles were available on both platforms at the same prices, with the only discrepancies being one that was on sale as a Kindle ebook and one that was available to read for free for Kindle Unlimited and Kobo Plus subscribers. Both of those monthly subscriptions give you unlimited reading access to thousands of titles, but I would give the advantage to Amazon on this one since Kindle Unlimited has been around for much longer. mazon also has Prime Reading and Kids+ subscriptions that work with Kindle devices and provide even more content to paying subscribers. As far as borrowing ebooks from your local library goes, it might be a draw. Kobo integrates elegantly with Overdrive, making it nearly seamless to get borrowed books on your ereader. Simply connect your Overdrive account and library card in the settings menu and you can then either browse your librarys offerings directly on device, or use the Libby mobile app to borrow titles and those will appear automatically on your Kobo. My only gripe with this system is that it works best if you have just one library card, since you can only connect one at a time. Im a unique case where I have at least three library cards and I switch among them in Libby depending on which has the title Im looking for. Those like me might prefer the send to Kindle option in Libby, which just takes a couple more clicks to get any book from any library network to your Kindle device. The biggest downside here is that my Colorsoft review unit did not show all of my library book covers in full-color glory on the lock screen. After troubleshooting with a representative from Amazon, it was determined to be a title-specific issue. According to Amazon: "For library books, the lock screen is taken from the designated marketing cover for the book used by the library, which may not be the same as the actual book cover." So just know that if you get most of your reading material from your local library, there's a chance some of the covers may not display properly on the Colorsoft. Id be remiss if I didnt mention the $250 Boox Go Color 7, which earned a spot in our best ereaders guide after my colleague Amy Skorheim tested it. First, its imperative to know that Boox devices require a bit more tech-savvy than a Kindle or a Kobo, as well as a willingness to experiment. They are full-blown Android tablets after all, and that might be exactly what youre looking for if you get your reading material from many different sources, since it offers access to the Google Play Store and all of its apps. As for specs, the Go Color 7 has a seven-inch Kaleido 3 display with 300 ppi in black and white and 150 ppi in color (similar to the Colorsoft), along with a warm light, page-turn buttons, a splash-resistant design and 64GB of storage (and a microSD card slot for more space!). Its even more similar to the Kobo Libra Colour in feature set and price, so its another option for anyone willing to think a bit outside the standard ereader box. The decision between Kindle, Kobo and Boox is infinitely more complicated than choosing between the Colorsoft or the standard Kindle Paperwhite and thats precisely because of the stark price difference. The Colorsoft is $120 more than the regular Kindle Paperwhite ($100 more if you pay to remove the lock screen ads from the Paperwhite, and $80 more than the Signature Edition) and aside from the color panel, it only adds wireless charging, the auto-adjusting front light sensor and doubles the storage. Remove color from the equation, and arguably the most useful of all of those is the extra storage but, make no mistake, 16GB of space on the Kindle Paperwhite is nothing to scoff at and will be just fine for most people. Unless youre 100-percent certain that color will make a huge difference in your day-to-day reading experience, the standard Paperwhite is the better value. Wrap-up Photo by Valentina Palladino / Engadget While its very late to the color E Ink party, the Kindle Colorsoft is a solid premium ereader that provides an excellent experience both in color and black and white. I focused a lot on comparisons in this review because most people will not have the opportunity to have the Colorsoft and any of its contemporaries side by side (unless youre my dad, who buys almost every ereader and small tablet under the sun). But to be clear, the Colorsoft is a good Kindle, and in many ways, Amazon did pull an Apple here. If youre already heavily entrenched in the Kindle ecosystem and have been holding out for a color ereader, this is the device to get just be prepared to pay a premium for it. Also, like Apple and its various operating systems, theres something to be said about the convenience and ubiquity of the Kindle ecosystem. The library is seemingly endless (with discounts galore), supplemented by Prime Reading and Kindle Unlimited, so its easy to get sucked in when youre already shopping on Amazon for household goods and holiday gifts. But when it comes to value for your money (and a pure spec breakdown), you can get more from Koboand Boox devices. Kindle isnt the only name in town anymore for ereaders, and it hasnt been for a long time, and that seems to be a more pronounced fact now with the introduction of the Colorsoft. If nothing else, Amazon has finally filled a glaring hole in its ereader lineup with this device. Amazon Kindle Colorsoft vs. the competition Amazon Kindle Colorsoft Kobo Libra Colour Boox Go Color 7 Price $280 $220 $250 Display size 7-inch color E Ink Kalaido 3 (with custom display stack) 7-inch color E Ink Kalaido 3 7-inch color E Ink Kalaido 3 Pixel density 300 ppi (black-and-white), 150 ppi (color content) 300 ppi (black-and-white), 150 ppi (color content) 300 ppi (black-and-white), 150 ppi (color content) Storage 32GB 32GB 64GB Battery life Up to 8 weeks Up to 6 weeks 2,300 mAh capacity; "long-lasting" battery life Page-turn buttons No Yes Yes Adjustable warm light Yes Yes Yes Auto brightness adjustments Yes No No Auto warm light adjustments No Yes No Waterproof rating IPX8 IPX8 Not provided Pinch-to-zoom support Yes Yes Not provided Stylus support No Yes No Audiobook support Yes, Audible audiobooks Yes, Kobo audiobooks Yes, via Android apps Library support Yes, via Overdrive's "Send to Kindle" option Yes, via built-in Overdrive integration Yes, via Android apps Wireless charging Yes No No USB-C charging Yes Yes Yes Wi-Fi Yes Yes Yes Bluetooth Yes Yes Yes This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/tablets/kindle-colorsoft-review-the-missing-link-in-amazons-ereader-lineup-131529685.html?src=rss
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