Рубрика: AI

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If you've ever browsed reviews for an online product, you've no doubt wondered if you could trust certain ones. Firefox is hoping to give you a little more certainty when you shop, thanks to a built-in review checker.

Back in May, Mozilla acquired Fakespot, a company that specializes in detecting fraudulent online reviews. The Fakespot browser extension presently works on Amazon, Walmart, eBay, Yelp, and TripAdvisor, assigning each product a grade from A to F.

Also: Best October Prime Day deals: Live updates

An A grade means all reviews were reliable, while a B grade means most are. C means there's a good mix of both, and D and F mean the reviews are overall not reliable.

It's worth noting that a low grade doesn't necessarily mean a product or service is bad, just that the reviews aren't to be trusted. Fakespot doesn't point out specific reviews that it believes are fake — it just assigns the product overall a score. The lower the grade, the more likely the reviews aren't authentic.

And now that functionality is being built into Firefox. The new feature is currently in testing and should be widely available by November the company says. Initially, it will work on Amazon, Best Buy, and Walmart, with more sites rolling out over time.

How does Fakespot work? It's all thanks to AI, the company says. A number of data points are used, and multiple tests are run to determine the authenticity of a review. Fakespot doesn't actually divulge specific information about its algorithms to prevent users from review manipulation, but it all depends on whether or not a review is left by an actual customer.

Also: The best October Prime Day deals from Best Buy, Walmart, and more

This is a crucial thing for online shoppers, as Google itself analyzes reviews when recommending a product, pushing what it deems to be better products to the top of search for certain keywords. Naturally, that often leads to manipulation as companies fight for more eyeballs.

Is this really an issue? Absolutely, says Mozilla. According to recent research, over 80% of shoppers have seen a fake review online. If you limit it to just 18 to 34-year-olds, that number shoots to 92%.

Right now, you can download the Fakespot browser extension and get the same functionality. But Fakespot will be a part of Firefox 120 for Android and desktop automatically, making it a little easier to access.

Artificial Intelligence

Character.AI introduces group chats where people and multiple AIs can talk to each other Sarah Perez @sarahintampa / 8 hours

Character.AI, the a16z-backed AI chatbot startup from ex-Google AI researchers, is out today with a new feature for its subscribers. The chatbot platform, which offers customizable AI companions with distinct personalities and tools to make your own, is now offering a group chat experience where users and their friends can chat with multiple AI characters at once.

The Character Group Chat feature, as it’s called, allows users to create a group chat with their favorite AI characters only or it can feature a mix of both humans and AI companions, the company says. The idea is that users will be able to create social connections with friends, or share ideas and collaborate in real-time, as in any other group chat experience, but with their AI companions now in the mix.

The company suggests users could try out having AI scientists and thinkers chat together, like Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, Nikola Tesla, and Stephen Hawking, for example, or create a group chat with mythological gods like Zeus, Hades, and Poseidon.

For more practical use cases, you might start a group chat with friends around a topic or theme — like travel, gaming, book clubs, or role-playing — then invite an AI companion to help facilitate and augment those conversations.

The idea of adding AI chatbots into a group chat is not unique to Character.AI. Snapchat’s My AI chatbot can be added into group chats with the command @myai, while Meta recently introduced the ability to call up a host of new AI-powered bots across its apps, including WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram’s DMs, including those that are based on celebrities like Mr. Beast, Paris Hilton, Tom Brady, Charli D’Amelio, Snoop Dog, and others. The latter announcement, made at Meta’s Connect conference in late September, was a potential threat to Character.AI which raised a whopping $150 million in Series A funding earlier this year for its concepts around AI companions.

However, Character.AI’s new group chat experience won’t be offered for free. Instead, the feature is first being made available to the c.ai+ subscribers in order to gain feedback and make improvements. C.ai+ is the startup’s $9.99 per month subscription plan that offers the ability to skip waiting rooms and access to faster message generation as well as an exclusive community channel for feedback and support, among other things. The company says it will later open up to feature to the general public.

At launch, Character Group Chat is also only available on the Character.AI mobile app on iOS and Android but will later roll out to the web.

The company’s app initially topped half a million installs in its first six days and is said to be catching up with ChatGPT in the U.S. Third-party data from market intelligence provider data.ai indicates the app has close to 30 million monthly active users globally, and around 7 million in the U.S. The firm also estimates its lifetime gross in-app purchase revenue is $1.3 million, but c.ai+ is sold on the web so this is not a comprehensive look at its overall revenue.

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Our lives are busy. When we have limited time available to keep our homes clean and tidy, it isn't long until the clutter builds up and a molehill has turned into a mountain.

This is where modern home appliances shine. Intelligent thermostats can automatically manage our energy consumption and heating requirements; smart lighting can be scheduled, and when it comes to cleaning, robot vacuums can take some of the daily workload off your plate.

Also: Best October Prime Day deals: Live updates

Robot vacuums aren't the holy grail of domestic tasks, of course, but if you purchase the right model, you won't need to worry about keeping your floors swept and mopped. You can schedule them to perform these jobs for you — or to spot clean as and when you need — freeing up a little more time for you to spend how you like. And during Amazon's Prime Big Deal Days sale, which runs today through Wednesday, you can find several discounts on top-rated robot vacuums and mops.

Below are the best robot vacuum deals deals we could find for Prime Big Deal Days.

Best October Prime Day robot vacuum deals

Here are the best deals on ZDNET experts' favorite robot vacuums from Amazon right now. This list is updated frequently.

• iRobot Roomba s9+ self-emptying robot vacuum:
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• iRobot Roomba Combo j7:
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• Roborock Q5+ robot vacuum with self-empty dock:
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• iRobot Roomba i4 EVO robot vacuum:
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• Roborock S8 robot vacuum and mop cleaner:
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• Dreametech D10 Plus robot vacuum and mop:
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October Prime Day robot vacuum and mop combo deals

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• ONSON 2-in-1 robot vacuum and mop combo with Wi-Fi:
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October Prime Day Shark vacuum deals

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More top October Prime Day robot vacuum deals

More Amazon Prime Big Deal Days robot vacuum deals

Our top Prime Day deals

You know that gratifying feeling of coming home to a clean house? With a family of five, that's not a feeling I often get, if at all. Enter the Ecovacs Deebot X2 Omni.

Also: The 35 best October Prime Day robot vacuum deals

I've tested a fair share of robot vacuum and mop combinations, so I quite appreciate the experience of having a robot roaming around my home that picks up crumbs, dust, and everything in between. But the Deebot X2 Omni is easily the best robot vacuum and mop I've tried.

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Ecovacs launched the Deebot X2 Omni this month, a new flagship robot vacuum and mop combo with a clear edge. After testing it out for a couple of weeks, I found room for improvement in some tasks — largely outweighed by its long list of strengths.

The X2 Omni checks all the specs boxes for a high-end robot vacuum and mop. It has 8,000Pa of suction power, higher than the 6,000Pa of the current market leader, the Roborock S8 Pro Ultra. Using artificial intelligence (AI), the robot can detect and avoid objects strewn about the floor, such as socks and charging cables, and has a mopping pad that automatically lifts 15mm when carpets or rugs are detected.

Also: The best robot mops you can buy

The Omni station charges the robot vacuum and mop and also works as a base where it goes to empty its dustbin and self-wash and dry its mop pads. This feature means you only have to worry about keeping the base station's clean water tank filled and its dirty water tank empty, which is a task you need to complete every few cleaning cycles.

Designed to offer a hands-free experience, the base station is also self-cleaning. Running the self-cleaning option in the Ecovacs app will clean the base plate in the station — the spot where your mops are cleaned that typically sees water and dirt accumulation. This feature is a level above competitors like Yeedi and others, which require users to periodically clean dirty water at the bottom of the docking station.

The dust bag holds everything the Deebot X2 sweeps from your floors and only needs emptying about once a month, although your mileage may vary.

One of my only gripes is that the clean water tank feels awkward to hold when filled — it almost feels like it's not built to last, although I won't know for certain until I've used it for several months. It's a four-liter water tank with a handle to carry it on the lid, held shut by a plastic clip. I hold the tank from the bottom because I feel like using the handle to carry the full tank around will result in the closure failing and four liters of water going everywhere.

About the square shape

The Deebot X2 Omni has several superpowers, starting with its compact package. The squared edges stood out to me when I unpacked the device, along with how narrow and short it was. At only 12.6 inches wide, it's about 0.3 inches narrower than the Eufy X9 Pro (also on sale for October Prime Day) robot vacuum mop, which had been my super mop until the X2 Omni arrived.

Although 0.3 inches sounds like a small difference in size, it's proven to be considerable when a robot has to navigate through furniture legs. Case in point: the Eufy X9 Pro uses AI to avoid objects, but whenever I sent it to clean the first floor, it'd get stuck between the kitchen barstools legs. The stools are fairly lightweight, so the robot would drag them around instead of signaling it was stuck. I'd see my kitchen barstools gliding around my floor or randomly find one hanging out by the shoe bench.

Also: The best iRobot vacuums

This isn't a big deal and is highly subjective, so it's not something I included in my Eufy review; it's not the robot's fault that it's the exact size as the width of the distance between my barstool's legs. But the narrower Deebot X2 Omni can clean under the barstools and figure its way back out, which means no more 'guess where the barstools are today' games.

The Deebot X2 is also almost an inch shorter than my Eufy robot vacuum, at 3.7 inches in height. The lower dimensions and narrow build allow the Deebot X2 to clean in places other robots typically can't reach or navigate under.

Some AI-powered features

The Deebot X2 leverages Ecovacs' AIVI 3D 2.0 and combines an AI processor with 3D-structured light sensors with dual-laser LiDAR technology. The result is efficient maps that allow the robot to detect objects during navigation and clean around them intelligently. This feature set means you won't have to ensure your floors are free of charging cables, toys, or shoes before sending out the X2.

The AI-powered navigation and obstacle avoidance, backed by Ecovacs' proprietary AINA Model, uses visual recognition and reinforcement learning based on sensor information.

Also: 6 things to know about robot vacuums before you buy one

The Deebot X2's clever technology also makes for a customized cleaning process if that's your thing. The device's AI-powered visual recognition, ability to detect floor type, and historical cleaning logs let the robot infer which room it's cleaning, such as the kitchen, living room, or bedroom, and adjust its suction power and mopping mode.

A new level of voice control

Voice control makes everything in my home easier. Countless robot vacuums let you use a third-party virtual assistant for voice control, such as Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, or Siri. Saying, "Alexa, clean the floors" in my house dispatches the Eufy X9 Pro to clean my bedroom and hallway. However, these assistants are limited in the functions they can make the robot perform.

Sure, you can dispatch your robot with Alexa or Google, but have you ever been able to tell it to "turn right, move three meters forward, turn left, and clean there"?

Also: This robot vacuum connects to your home's water supply for full automation

Ecovacs robot vacuums have a built-in voice assistant named YIKO that users can talk with to control the robot directly — and it works swimmingly. Saying "OK, YIKO" wakes up the voice assistant. If your robot is out cleaning, you can ask it toreturnk and clean the dining room again, or give it multiple commands in one sentence without pulling up the app.

ZDNET's buying advice

The Ecovacs Deebot X2 Omni is the company's new flagship robot with all the smart features and a price to match, so nabbing $300 off during Amazon's Big Deal Days is such a great deal. Over the past few weeks, it's gained a top-dog position in our home, becoming the main robot to clean the downstairs floor — and that's saying a lot.

The great thing about an all-in-one, self-emptying, and self-cleaning robot vacuum and mop is that it's not best suited for some circumstances — it's suited for all. Some mid-range models might be great at mopping but suffer from not having strong or effective suction, making tbest suitedited for homes with hard floors. Others might boast great suction power, OK mopping, and short battery life, making them best for mostly carpeted apartments or small homes.

The Deebot X2 Omni is great at all of these things. The biggest challenge in our home is downstairs because it's mostly hardwood and tile with some area rugs — it's where the dog comes in and out from the yard, where we cook, and where the toddler drops most of the crumbs.

Also: Skip the Dyson: This $150 stick vacuum is just as powerful (and can mop, too)

As mentioned above, the X2 Omni costs $1,500, but is currently $300 off for a limited time. That's compared to $1,600 for the Roborock S8 Pro Ultra. Suppose I were on the market for a hands-free robot vacuum that is suitable for my home's complex needs. In that case, I'd have to choose the Deebot X2 Omni over the Roborock's flagship because the extra features, like the self-cleaning station and stronger suction, set it apart, and that current price cannot be beaten

Video editing startup Captions launches a dubbing app with support for 28 languages Ivan Mehta 11 hours

Captions, an AI-powered video editing startup, has launched a new app called Lipdub for translating clips into 28 languages.

Lipdub is available in the App Store for free and supports several languages, including French, Hindi, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Japanese and more. The app even lets users translate videos into Texas slang, Gen Z, pirate and baby talk. The demo video shows that the app can also change lip movement according to the selected target language. However, at times there is a certain lag between the audio and the lip movement.

Users can translate a video of a single person talking during up to one minute and then share it on other social media platforms.

On its website, Captions says that more than 3 million creators have used its eponymous video editing app. The startup claims that it has more than 100,000 daily users. The Captions app offers several AI-powered features around video editing, such as removing “ums” and “ahs,” reducing background noise and enhancing speech. The app also has an “AI Lipdub” feature that can change lip movement in post-production editing if you change the transcript.

Captions was founded in 2021 by Gaurav Misra, who was head of design engineering at Snap. In June, the company secured $25 million in a Series B round led by Kleiner Perkins with participation from Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and SV Angel. To date, Captions has raised $40 million in funding.

Using translation and AI-dubbing to reach a wider audience is a growing trend. In June, YouTube announced that it is testing an AI-powered tool to let users automatically dub their videos in other languages. The company said it is even working on better lip-syncing. Last month, the company said that it is integrating AI-powered dubbing directly into YouTube Studio for easier access for people looking to convert videos into other languages.

Earlier this month, AI-powered voice-generating platform ElevenLabs released its dubbing tool with support for 29 languages. Rest of World previously reported that dubbing service provider companies are generating millions of dollars by translating content for popular YouTubers like MrBeast.

AI-powered dubbing startups have generated a lot of investor interest, with startups like U.K.-based Papercup and Isreal-based Deepdub raising millions of dollars.