Getty Images sues the maker of AI art generator Stable Diffusion over data scraping allegations

Last September Getty Images banned the inclusion of AI-generated works in its commercial database over copyright concerns. On Tuesday, Getty Images announced that it is suing Stability AI, maker of the popular AI art tool Stable Diffusion, in a London court over alleged copyright violations. 

“It is Getty Images’ position that Stability AI unlawfully copied and processed millions of images protected by copyright and the associated metadata owned or represented by Getty Images absent a license to benefit Stability AI’s commercial interests and to the detriment of the content creators,” Getty Images wrote in a press statement released Tuesday. “Getty Images believes artificial intelligence has the potential to stimulate creative endeavors.”

“Getty Images provided licenses to leading technology innovators for purposes related to training artificial intelligence systems in a manner that respects personal and intellectual property rights,” the company continued. “Stability AI did not seek any such license from Getty Images and instead, we believe, chose to ignore viable licensing options and long‑standing legal protections in pursuit of their stand‑alone commercial interests.” 

The details of the lawsuit have not been made public, though Getty Images CEO Craig Peters told The Verge, that charges would include copyright and site TOS violations like web scraping. Furthermore, Peters explained that the company is not seeking monetary damages in this case so as much as it is hoping to establish a favorable precedent for future litigation.

Text-to-image generation tools like Stable Diffusion, Dall-E and Midjourney don’t create the artwork that they produce in the same way people do — there is no imagination from which these ideas can spring forth. Like other generative AI, these tools are trained to do what they do using massive databases of annotated images — think, hundreds of thousands of frog pictures labelled “frog” used to teach a computer algorithm what a frog looks like. 

And why go through the trouble of assembling and annotating a database of your own when there’s an entire internet’s worth of content there for the taking? AI firms like Clearview and Voyager Labs have already tried and been massively, repeatedly fined for scraping image data from the public web and social media sites. An independent study conducted last August concluded that a notable portion of Stable Diffusion’s data was likely pulled directly from the Getty Images site, in part as evidenced by the art tool’s habit of recreating the Getty watermark.  

Hitting the Books: How to build a music recommendation ‘information-space-beast’

As of October, singers, songwriters and music makers are uploading 100,000 new songs every day to streaming services like Spotify. That is too much music. There’s no reality, alternate or otherwise, wherein someone could conceivably listen to all that …

Virgin Orbit clarifies the cause behind its ‘Start Me Up’ mission’s failure to reach orbit

Everything was going great until it wasn’t in the skies over Cornwall, UK on Monday. Virgin Orbit, the space launch division of Sir Richard Branson’s sprawling commercial empire, was in the midst of setting a major milestone for the country and the nation: to be the first orbital launch from European soil. The carrier aircraft, Cosmic Girl, had successfully taken off from Spaceport Cornwall, LauncherOne had cleanly separated from the modified 747 and properly ignited its first stage rocket, blasting it and its payload of satellites into space. But before they could be pushed into their proper orbit by the rocket’s second stage, something went wrong. On Thursday, Virgin Orbit leaders provided a preliminary explanation as to just what happened.

“At an altitude of approximately 180 km, the upper stage experienced an anomaly. This anomaly prematurely ended the first burn of the upper stage,” the company told Engadget via email. “This event ended the mission, with the rocket components and payload falling back to Earth within the approved safety corridor without ever achieving orbit.”

Virgin Orbit has also announced a “formal” investigation into the root causes of the anomaly which will be led by Jim Sponnick, who developed the Atlas and Delta launch systems, and Chad Foerster, Virgin Orbit’s Chief Engineer. Despite the setback, the company is already in contact with UK officials to reschedule the launch for as soon as late 2023.    

The Webb Telescope’s first confirmed exoplanet is 99 percent the diameter of Earth

Having already returned visually stunning and scientifically spectacular results from its first six months in operation, the James Webb Space Telescope has recorded another inaugural milestone: its first exoplanet discovery confirmation. It peered 41 light years into the cosmos and found a planet in the Octans constellation with a diameter 99 percent that of Earth itself — say hello to LHS 475 b.

Specifically a team of astronomers from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, led by Kevin Stevenson and Jacob Lustig-Yaeger, first spotted evidence of the candidate exoplanet while digging through data generated from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). However it was Webb’s Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) that confirmed the planets existence by observing two transits in front of its parent star. “There is no question that the planet is there. Webb’s pristine data validate it,” Lustig-Yaeger declared in a NASA press release. 

As the space agency notes, among telescopes in operation today (both terrestrial and orbital), only the JWST possesses the resolving capabilities to accurately characterize the atmospheres of Earth-sized exoplanets. The research team is still working to determine what, if any, sort of atmosphere is sitting atop the rocky mass using by analyzing its transmission spectrum. 

There is a chance that the planet will be devoid of its critical gaseous insulation but at these distances, it could simply be hiding a very small atmo close to the surface. “Counterintuitively, a 100% carbon dioxide atmosphere is so much more compact that it becomes very challenging to detect,” said Lustig-Yaeger. 

They are confident that it does not possess an oppressive atmosphere similar to that of Saturn’s moon Titan, however. “There are some terrestrial-type atmospheres that we can rule out,” he said. “It can’t have a thick methane-dominated atmosphere.” 

That said, the surface of the planet does appear to be around 300 Celsius, several hundred degrees warmer than here on Earth. If cloud cover is discovered in subsequent studies, it could suggest a greenhouse world climate closer to Venus. The researchers have also confirmed that LHS 475 b maintains a tidal-locked orbit with its star of just two days — far too close to attempt with Sol but, because LHS circles a red dwarf that’s producing less than half of our sun’s energy, can theoretically maintain an atmosphere.

What an ‘oddball’ star in the Cygnus cluster can teach us about how masers are made

Like going to the store to buy dog food and coming back with a duck, researchers with the National Radio Astronomy Observatory may have uncovered a significant insight into how masers (nature’s lasers) are formed while conducting a routine study of the…

The Verge TS Ultra electric motorcycle is entirely too fast

Howlin’ Wolf would have hated this motorcycle. It is not built for comfort. It is built to accelerate the human body from a standstill to freeways speeds in less time than it has taken you to read this lede.

This is the $44,900 TS Ultra, the new flagship motorcycle, from venerated electric bike maker Verge. It joins the existing entry level 4.5-second TS (MSRP $26,900) and 3.5 second, $29,000 TS Pro in Verge’s lineup. The TS Ultra features a hubless rear wheel housing a 1200 nm (~885 ft-lb torque) e-motor — larger than both the 1000 nm Pro and 700 nm TS — which delivers 201 horsepower, a 124 MPH top speed and a range 233 miles. 

Not only does the hubless drive wheel look cool, the space and weight savings coming from that design decision allowed Verge to increase the size of its battery and reposition it to lower the bike’s center of gravity. That’s handy when you’re on a single-seater crotch rocket attempting to extract the fillings in your teeth exclusively via acceleration force. Riders will have their choice of five color choices (in both matte and glossy alternates), three seat materials (basic leather, perforated leather and alcantara), and either a Wilbers or Ohlins suspension. 

Preorders are open on the Verge product page and $1000 will reserve you a bike for delivery in Q4, 2023. Availability in the US is currently limited to a dozen or so states, depending on the local regulations regarding EV sales and imports.         

The U-Safe self-propelled buoy saves drowning swimmers so you don’t have to

The most dangerous aspect of a water rescue for first responders isn’t the treacherous environmental conditions, it’s the terrified and panicked victim capable of pulling their rescuer under the waves along with them. Rather than risk national treasures like David Hasselhoff, the U-Safe self-propelled buoy from Portugal’s Noras Performance will brave the waves in their stead.

it's a u-shaped aquatic drone designed to sail out to and retrieve flagging swimmers.
Andrew Tarantola / Engadget

The U-Safe is an aquatic robot designed to drive out to a swimmer in distress using a pair of turbines mounted in its “legs.” The turbines are omnidirectional and operate regardless of the U-Safe’s orientation in the water. It can reach a top speed of 15km/h and range out to 3.2 nautical miles so long as the first responders can maintain a line of sight. The entire unit weighs just over 30 pounds with induction-charged lithium-ion battery providing power. 

it's a u-shaped aquatic drone designed to sail out to and retrieve flagging swimmers.
Andrew Tarantola / Engadget

It’s controlled using a one-handed bluetooth remote, itself both buyant and waterproof so there’s little risk of a rescue going sideways because you’ve dropped the control unit overboard. First introduced in 2017, and since adopted by both the Italian and Portuguese coast guards, the U-Safe is being readied for US release later this year.

Stellantis officially reveals its Ram 1500 EV concept truck

There’s finally an electric Ram truck — or at least a concept of one. Stellantis is the world’s fifth largest automaker with a stable of more than a dozen North American and European brands including Jeep, Ram, Dodge, Maserati and Fiat. The company has set extremely ambitious goals to drastically reduce its carbon footprint by the end of the decade, as part of Dare Forward 2030, with 100 percent of its European sales and half of its US sales to be of the fully-electric variety. As part of that effort, Stellantis has already teased us with an EV concept from Chrysler, came right out and showed us next year’s electric Jeep and, on Thursday, unveiled the Ram 1500 Revolution BEV Concept.

The Ram 1500 BEV will be available in the 2024 model year alongside the as-of-yet-unnamed Jeep (with which it also shares a STLA EV frame). The Concept shown off Thursday will serve as a design template for the upcoming production vehicle.

Ram 1500 Revolution BEV Concept
Stellantis

Stellantis describes the Ram BEV’s exterior as “brutiful,” a portmanteau of “brutal yet beautiful.” I think that prominent split between the cabin and quarter panels just makes it look like an Autobot who hasn’t quite fully finished transforming yet.

Ram 1500 Revolution BEV Concept
Stellantis

Of course as a concept vehicle, Ram has affixed every bell and whistle it can to the vehicle’s exterior, from “grand saloon style” doors to an animated RAM grille logo and fully animated LED tail lamps and badging. The sideview mirrors are 3D-printed to reduce weight and drag.

Ram 1500 Revolution BEV Concept
Stellantis

You’re goddamn right it has a frunk. And a powered tailgate, flush-mounted door handles, power side and rear steps and why does your truck have to be so big it requires built-in step ladders. Hey so how much gravel are you planning on hauling in your luxury electric pickup truck, exactly. The one with a self-leveling suspension, 24-inch rims and little light up center caps.

Ram 1500 Revolution BEV Concept
Stellantis

Under the hood, the Ram will offer dual-motor AWD and four wheel steering with up to 15 degrees of articulation. The company hasn’t revealed the battery size yet but did confirm that the system will use an 800V architecture enabling it to add up to 100 miles of range in about 10 minutes on a 350 kW DC fast charger.

Ram 1500 Revolution BEV Concept
Stellantis

The Ram BEV Concept’s interior benefits greatly from its flat cabin floor. Ram’s “one space environment” theme centers on flexibility with a rail attachment/floor track system that allows the seats and consoles to shift and even be removed entirely. The concept vehicle also has space for a set of third-row jump seats — like a minivan but with lower utility. With the passthrough window open, the Ram concept can fit 18-foot items without needing the rear liftgate lowered. Yeah, all the bells and whistles.

The Ram concept’s center console consists of two 14-inch screens. The upper screen can be shifted between three positions as the driving situation calls for — or even be pulled off entirely and reaffixed elsewhere in the vehicle. The lower screen also slides around. An augmented reality heads-up display projects relevant driving details onto the front windscreen. It’s got an exterior projector that doubles as an outdoor movie theater. I feel bad for whoever breaks the rearview mirror in this truck because it houses “a smart backup camera with 360-degree views, speakers, and receivers compatible with voice assistants such as Alexa and Siri.” That’s not going to be cheap to replace.

Ram 1500 Revolution BEV Concept
Stellantis

The steering wheel is collapsible (a la Demolition Man) for when it engages its supposed Level 3+ ADAS. Remember, this is a concept vehicle, they can just make capabilities up. The wheel also incorporates capacitive controls while, “tactile swiping technology enables occupants to configure the sun visors or the entire electro-chromatic roof with the ability to adjust the opaqueness.” Why do some people have to sleep outside?

Ram 1500 Revolution BEV Concept
Stellantis

The BEV features an AI assistant because this is hell, we are in hell and we deserve our incoming highway HALs. It responds to voice commands. With a 3D RAM avatar which serves, per the release, “as the vehicle’s face.”

The driver doesn’t even have to be in the vehicle to issue verbal commands. The BEV concept has a dedicated subset of exterior controls like “close the windows, play music, take a picture” and “follow me,” which is literally ghost whipping that has somehow gotten past Stellantis’ legal department. It “allows the vehicle to automatically follow the driver walking ahead of the vehicle,” using a mix of voice commands, onboard sensors and cameras. The feature, RAM argues, “can be useful in situations where the driver needs to move a short distance and doesn’t want to get back in the truck.” So c’mon you lazy blockheads, show us your best Jeremy Renner impression.

Mercedes and Chargepoint team up to build 400 North American charging hubs

In July, GM announced that it was partnering with EVGo to establish a “coast-to-coast” charging network for its electric vehicles. On Thursday, Mercedes Benz announced that it will be building a network of its own — at least, in partnership with Chargepoint — that will be accessible no matter what make or model of EV you drive. 

Mercedes and Chargepoint plan to establish 400 new charging hubs throughout the US and Canada — that’s 2,500 new DC fast chargers in all — “in key cities and urban population centers, along major highway corridors and close to convenient retail and service destinations,” according to Thursday’s announcement. The automaker and MN8 Energy will finance the scheme while Chargepoint will supply the hardware and infrastructure. Chargepoint in 2020 partnered with NATSO for a billion-dollar project to install its chargers along rural highways. Those effort continue. 

The hubs and DC fast chargers will all be accessible by EV drivers of all stripes, regardless of their vehicle type — the inverse of Tesla’s proprietary network. But since Mercedes is pulling the purse strings, its customers can look forward to a few extra perks when they pull into a hub. That includes being able to reserve a space ahead of time and automatic vehicle-station handshake authentication. 

Each charger can deliver up to 500V of power, allowing 400V-architecture vehicles like the Rivian R1T to take full advantage of the increased power transmission while 800V vehicles like the Audi A6 e-tron, the Porsche Taycan, Hyundai’s Ioniq 5 and Kia’s EV6 will see improved charge times though not the upper limit of what their electrical systems can handle. The company notes that these chargers are, “designed to easily scale to meet future demand as EV adoption and vehicle capability grows.”