If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Costco, which ranks among the three largest retailers in the US (and globally), is joining the club of big corporations with access to massive amounts of customer data, who are launching various schemes to monetize that data. Costco’s plan, still in the testing phase, is to develop a way to target ads at customers both on its website and in stores. The numbers are staggering and draw from the retailer’s loyalty program: the shopping behavior of people in 75.5 million households. And – a membership card is a requirement for anyone shopping at Costco. The promise of access to shopping habits inevitably includes past purchases and the corporation’s Assistant Vice President of Retail Media Mark Williamson also promised future partners that they will be able to not only target ads (“reach”) members of the Costco loyalty program, but also, “reach the right members in the right context based on past behavior.” Costco’s effort to keep up with the trends in both retail and ad industries is evident in the fact that Williamson’s job was only created last September. The race to start using customer data for advertising is rapidly spreading beyond Big Tech and to the likes of Walmart, and Target, but also mega banks, financial institutions, and hotel chains. Some observers believe these new players in the market have realized they can fill some gaps in the lucrative business created by regulatory efforts, which aim to protect personal data in those places where it has traditionally been harvested and monetized until now – on Big Tech platforms and services. Playing up the benefit that creating the ad network will supposedly have for customers, Williamson is quoted as saying that the huge profit the giant looks likely to generate in this way will be “reinvested to keeping prices low.” What is certain to have a low price tag attached to it is the cost of retailers like Costco getting into the advertising business. It’s cheap to run ads, and customers will keep returning whether the ads are there or not, reports note. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post Costco’s Bid to Turn Customer Data into Profits appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

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A Reddit user created a homemade AI camera that can take photos of the world around them. It then creates descriptions of the images and feeds prompts to DALL-E 3, which creates a new AI image in different styles depending on what the user has set up. Reddit user u/theleastevildr showed off the device they’d built in a video on Reddit last week. The device was created using a 3D-printed case and a Raspberry Pi controlling a small display and camera. It also includes two knobs, which the user can use to change the style and prompt before it is sent through. We’ve seen similar approaches to using AI to take photos in the past. In fact, I previously wrote about a crazy AI camera that doesn’t even have a lens, but instead uses location data to create the image that the user is taking. Nuts, right? While this new homemade AI camera doesn’t go that far, it’s still a cool idea, and one that we’ll no doubt see iterated upon by others. https://www.reddit.com/r/OpenAI/comments/1d3t9sy/i_made_a_camera_that_uses_dalle_to_turn_photos_to/ Even now, other Reddit users have taken to the comments to ask the creator how they made it. The creator shared that the trick was to use an API called Astica to create really long descriptions of the photo with several mentions of the style, an attempt to force DALL-E 3 to respect the style that the user wanted. Some have even offered up ideas for how to make the next iteration of the camera even cooler. One Reddit user suggested using an image+text>image model—like Midjourney—as that would allow the AI to use the actual image as part of the prompt input as well. This would definitely create an image that was more true to the original. Still, what the user has done with the homemade AI camera is already pretty impressive and just one way that folks are thinking outside the box for ways to use AI like DALL-E 3. Don't Miss: New glass-like material can clean itself and keep rooms cooler The post This Redditor made a camera that turns photos into AI-generated images appeared first on BGR. Today's Top Deals Today’s deals: $89 AirPods, $19 Roku, $307 Apple Watch S9, $500 off Husqvarna robot lawn mower, more Best Ring Video Doorbell deals in June 2024 Amazon gift card deals, offers & coupons 2024: Get $355+ free Today’s deals: $189 Apple Watch SE, $299 3D printer, $829 M2 MacBook Air, $300 GoPro HERO12 Black, more

Israel said Saturday it rescued four hostages who were kidnapped in a Hamasled attack on Oct. 7. The army said it rescued Noa Argamani, 25, Almog Meir Jan 21, Andrey Kozlov 27, and Shlomi Ziv,40, in a complex special daytime operation in Nuseirat.

Genetic studies of Celtic burial mounds dating back to 500 BCE uncover close kinships and offer fresh perspectives on the social hierarchies of ancient Celtic...

The silver ingot would have been used during the Viking Age in exchange for goods and services.