Information Technology

Screenshot by Lance Whitney/ZDNETThose of you who’d like anonymous access to several generative AI chatbots all in one place may want to check out DuckDuckGo’s new AI chat tool. Announced last Thursday, the service lets you try four different AI models through a dedicated AI website or the DuckDuckGo browser.Included in the mix are GPT-3.5 Turbo, Claude 3 Haiku, Meta Llama 3, and Mistral’s Mixtral 8x7B. All four are freely accessible through DuckDuckGo, though you may bump into an unspecified daily limit on the number of queries you can submit.Also: The best secure browsers for privacy in 2024Being able to access several AI chatbots in the same place is certainly convenient. But the real benefit here is the anonymity. When you use such services at ChatGPT and Meta AI, your chats aren’t necessarily private. Moderators may read your conversations to make sure you’re not abusing the system. Plus, your chats can be used to help train the AI.To protect your privacy, the chats you conduct through DuckDuckGo’s AI chat tool are anonymous and aren’t saved or stored by the company or the AI services, at least not permanently.To anonymize your conversations, DuckDuckGo says that it removes your IP address and replaces it with one of its own. This makes it seem as if the requests are coming from the company and not from you.Also: How to change your IP address, why you’d want to – and when you shouldn’tYour chats may be stored by the AI model providers temporarily, but DuckDuckGo promises that there’s no way to tie the conversations back to you since all the metadata is removed. The company added that agreements with the AI services require that all saved chats are deleted within 30 days and that none of their content can be used to train the models.Looking ahead, DuckDuckGo plans to keep the current access free but is considering a paid option with higher limits and more advanced AI models. Also on the horizon are custom system prompts and general improvements to the chat experience. More

Maria Diaz/ZDNETMost of us remember getting those calls: “Your car’s warranty is about to expire…”, whether we have a car or not. Aside from going to DoNotCall.gov or calling 1-888-382-1222 to be added to a do-not-call list, you can also block specific phone numbers from your phone. Also: How to find out if an AirTag is tracking youBut what about if you need to block someone you know, like a coworker, a neighbor, or an old flame? Can they tell you’ve blocked them? We’ll walk you through the ways that someone may be able to tell if their number has been blocked.Can someone tell if I block their number?First things first, if you block someone’s number, they won’t find out right away, if at all. They won’t get a notification saying they were blocked and won’t be able to see it plainly anywhere, but they can infer it and assume they’ve been blocked. There are ways a person can figure out if they’ve been blocked, like sending you texts and calling you.  More

JASON REDMOND/AFP via Getty Images Last month, with great fanfare, Microsoft announced its new line of Copilot+ PCs, with a signature AI-powered feature called Microsoft Recall. That feature is intended to make life easier for hundreds of millions of customers worldwide. But the company forgot to factor in the privacy risks associated with that product’s […] More

ZDNET/Jack WallenYour passwords are the keys to your various kingdoms. Without them, you’d struggle to log in to sites and services. Although you should be using a password manager to save your credentials securely, some people use the old-school method of allowing their web browsers and apps to save them.For people who still opt to go that route, it’s a good idea to back your passwords up regularly. After all, you never know when disaster could strike. Although MacOS is pretty good about syncing your data to your iCloud account, what happens if that process fails? In that situation, you’ll be glad you exported your passwords.Also: The best VPN services (and how to choose the right one for you)There’s one caveat to this process that you must consider carefully. When you export passwords from MacOS, the result is a plain-text file. Anyone who has access to that file could read it. That risk means you should consider saving the exported file in an encrypted folder (I’ll show you how). But first, we must export those passwords. More

Screenshot by Lance Whitney/ZDNETHow private are your conversations with ChatGPT? That’s a tricky question to answer. OpenAI says that no one can view your chats unless you specifically choose to share them. However, the company does store and maintain a history of your conversations and acknowledges that their content can be used for training.Also: The best AI chatbots of 2024: ChatGPT, Copilot and worthy alternativesIf you’re concerned about your privacy when using ChatGPT, there are a few measures you can take. Both options are available to free and paid users alike — here’s how they work.1. Use a temporary chatFirst, you can start a temporary chat for one-and-done conversations. These chats won’t be saved as part of your history or used for model training. Further, ChatGPT won’t remember anything you discussed. However, OpenAI may still store copies of your temporary chats for up to 30 days to monitor for any abuse. More

JK1991/Getty Images Singapore and the US are widening their collaboration on artificial intelligence (AI) to focus on building up talent among youth and women.  A new AI Talent Bridge initiative expands on the US-Singapore Women in Tech Partnership Program that the two countries introduced in 2022. The latest plan aims to bolster talent in emerging […] More

Kerry Wan/ZDNETIt’s a situation no one should ever be in, but in case of an emergency, Google today announced the availability of texting 911 with Rich Communication Services (RCS) in the US. The new feature, slated to roll out gradually this winter and made in partnership with emergency technology company RapidSOS, will allow Google Messages users (read: on any Android phone) to text their local emergency call centers via RCS. Also: How to record a phone call on Android in 3 easy waysThe communication technology should alleviate some of the pain points of today’s emergency responder call centers, including the inability to support texting and sharing pictures and videos.  More

Microsoft Microsoft has been touting its Windows Recall AI feature as a must-have for anyone who wants to remember an old webpage or message. But a new reveal suggests it may also come with its fair share of security problems. Ethical hacker Alex Hagenah has launched a tool, called TotalRecall, that shows how anyone with […] More