A radio studio without moderators could become the norm with RadioGPT. (Photo: Shutterstock/Andrei_Diachenko)
Hello and welcome to the daily newspaper of June 27 t3n. Today it is Germany’s first AI radio station and the fight of security experts against scammers over the phone. Also: Debt in Gen Z, Microsoft acquisition plans and new plans at Netflix.
We hope you had a good day and now we want to give you some exciting information to take with you into the evening. t3n Daily is also available as a newsletter. Here are today’s topics.
After ChatGPT comes RadioGPT. This summer, broadcasting group Audiotainment West wants to launch a radio whose programming is almost entirely generated by artificial intelligence. AI takes care of moderation, writes regional and national news and also informs listeners about the weather. Futuri Media provides the software that makes it all possible. The American company has already launched the purely digital radio station RadioGPT in the United States.
According to Valerie Weber, program manager for Audiotainment West, the biggest challenge is creating good emotional voices for moderators. She’s not afraid that the AI might make mistakes when creating the content. Weber announced that for ethical reasons, only human-controlled content would be released.
Australian security experts have found a way to divert phone scammers from their rather lucrative business. To do this, they created an AI-driven system with bots, which, according to the head of Macquarie University’s Cybersecurity Hub, works as follows: “The AI bots we have developed can trick fraudsters into pretending they are talking to real victims of fraud, this time fooling the bots,” said Dali Kafaar.
So that the multilingual robots can also do their job, the scientists launched the numbers of the multilingual fake victims on the Internet. The so-called Apate-Bot talks to scammers so much that a call should last 40 minutes. Since spambots are also becoming increasingly popular among cybercriminals, it is quite conceivable that a spambot will end up trying to take out a fake bot victim.
According to a study by Pair Finance and Fresenius University, Gen Z takes a fairly relaxed approach to debt. While nearly half of young people have already received a reminder, 25% have even dealt with a collection agency.
The hashtag #KlarnaSchulden also shows that Gen Z has no problem talking openly about debt. Particularly dangerous because tempting: The “Now pay later” payment option, which is standard with many online payment providers from Klarna to Paypal. Consumer advocates have long described buying on credit as a debt trap that young people in particular fall into.
During legal proceedings between Microsoft and the Federal Trade Commission, it turned out that the tech company wanted to go on a big shopping spree. In addition to Activision Blizzard, Microsoft would have had several other game studios in its sights. The objective of the hardware and software developer? Increase the attractiveness of the Game Pass service.
According to The Verge, the 2020 emails reveal efforts by Xbox CEO Phil Spencer, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, and CFO Amy Hood to propose an acquisition of Sega. While their reaction is unknown, a 2021 internal review document also lists Zynga, IO Interactive, Niantic, Supergiant Games, and Bungie as attractive acquisition targets. In 2022, however, Bungie was taken over by Xbox competitor Sony.
Netflix customers in Germany may soon be faced with what has already been introduced in Canada: the basic subscription has been abolished and streaming enthusiasts have been forced to make a decision. Either you pay 16.49 dollars instead of 9.99 Canadian dollars for a standard subscription without advertising. Either you pay four dollars less than before for a basic subscription, which has several disadvantages: four to five minutes of advertising per hour, restrictions on the availability of certain films and series and the omission of the download function.
Netflix recently implemented its account sharing ban, which was also tested for the first time in Canada. If Netflix were to change the basic version in Germany as well, the standard ad-free subscription could be eight euros more expensive at 12.99 euros than the advertising subscription at 4.99 euros.
That’s all for today’s daily t3n. You can find out more about all aspects of digital life, working life and the future around the clock on t3n.de.
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