Cloudflare Rolls Out New Set of AI Tools That Stops Unauthorized Scraping By AI Crawlers

Cloudflare just rolled out a new array of AI tools that provides websites the chance to prevent unauthorized scraping via AI crawlers. Another option is to force these crawlers to pay a fee to get access to data.

The issues of crawling have wreaked havoc on website owners to such an extent that they were forced to pay out of their pocket for the damages done. The issue has been on the rise since the uprising of Generative AI.

The websites will finally get a chance to get the desired value for their content instead of bots stealing material without paying any form of compensation and without taking any consent.

The company confirmed today how it will be launching new tools that make it super easy for website owners, publishers, and creators to take control back over how content is generated by these bots. Similarly, it enables these platforms to block the crawling activity and get compensation wherever they agree to pay for more access. This way, revenue on these platforms is set to increase instead of the age-old tactic of feasting for free on material.

Such AI audit tools also provide users with the chance to witness how content is accessed by others. Remember, it’s a great way to gain insights into how malicious bots used to crash land pages to get access for free. Meanwhile, AI crawlers don’t usually mean harm. They just want a lot of content for free so they can be used to train AI models in bulk quantities.

Cloudflare is a huge name in the industry. It gives rise to more security and better performance regarding optimization for pages. It confirmed that there is no single platform that is dominating in terms of website scraping activities.

It all varies by the kind of content getting scraped at any moment in time.

Meanwhile, generative AI models need huge amounts of data to work and to provide quick and accurate replies to produce images, videos, and music. Today, this AI crawling industry is huge, and big names are involved in terms of giving AI developers what they want and whenever they want. This could be in the form of voice, text, or images.

As per one research company, the web scraping industry is said to hit the 2.45 billion mark by the year 2036.

So many tech giants are making billions by training AI models using work that does not belong to them. This can be used to generate more material in cases where they compete with original material.

In a world like that, this is unacceptable and has gone on for far too long. This is why creators are expressing outrage over the matter. Hence, Cloudflare going one step further to help others in this regard is certainly a positive step welcomed for obvious reasons.

Image: DIW-Aigen

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by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

TikTok Redesigns Subscription Monetization To Eligible Creators In Selected Regions

TikTok just confirmed the launch of its new and improved subscription monetization feature for creators. The company says only those creators who come under its eligibility criteria can benefit.

However, only a selected number of regions were outlined including Brazil, Spain, the UK, Indonesia, Germany, South Korea, the US, and then Japan. The company spoke about how it hopes to expand this to several markets in the next few weeks.

The official launch comes after the company spoke about the renaming of LIVE Subscription monetization instead of the old monetization feature. The great part is that it will include non-live creators.

The subscription is the company’s reply to Patreon that allows sharing exclusive content to those paying users. The platform is also competing with other arch-rivals in the industry giving creators more benefits. This includes Instagram and YouTube. Both apps are favorites among the creator ecosystem as they provide growth in earnings through more access and perks.

The expansion will provide more paying users with exclusive benefits that entail better content and perks. What’s interesting is how three separate tiers are up for grabs at different pricing plans. Every single one of them will give exclusive perks for a fee charged every month.

Subscribers can attain exclusive content in the form of more live streaming, videos, and notes that regular users cannot access. They will also get communication channels such as the popular Sub-Space. The latter is the name reserved for a location where creators interact with subscribers.

Subscribers will similarly get special stickers that they can use for LIVE sessions and amongst those include badges. Such things pop up against their names on profiles and inside the comments section.

Creators will also be giving out custom perks that are designed for the community space. One spokesperson for the platform says in an email that customized benefits will be up for grabs and creators can choose what they want from a long list. Common examples provided are Discord roles, BTS videos, shoutouts, and requests for performance.

To access this new Subscription offering, the eligibility criteria must be met. Creators need to be 18 in age and have 10k followers with 100k views on videos. Meanwhile, their creator accounts should have a good standing tag to benefit.

Image: TikTok

Read next: New Survey Shows What Companies Think of AI Adoption and the Challenges They Are Facing
by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

New Survey Shows What Companies Think of AI Adoption and the Challenges They Are Facing

Generative AI has become much more than what it was two years ago and is now an important part of many enterprises and businesses. Writer collaborated with Dimensional Research to conduct a survey amongst business enterprises to find out what business leaders think of adoption of AI and what they think of its impact. The survey was done among 501 respondents from five continents who are all related to AI fields in their jobs. The companies these employees belonged to were enterprise organizations having 1000 to 10,000 employees. 65% of the employees surveyed were from IT operations in tech industries.

The results of the survey found that 96% of the companies think that AI is a key enabler, with 82% of the companies expecting rapid growth in their industries because of adoption of AI. Companies say that AI is a key enabler for them because it drives efficiency (72%), saves their time (68%), reduces costs (58%) and improves quality (44%). The top business areas for generative AI are IT operational (65%), customer support (64%), security (54%), marketing (50%) and training (46%).

68% of the companies say that they have more than three teams who are using generative AI. 97% of the companies said in the survey that they expect their new teams to begin using generative AI in the next two years. 31% said that they want their training teams to start using generative AI, 29% said customer support and HR, 27% said marketing and 25% said sales teams should start using generative AI.

95% of the companies said that AI needs enhanced security measures with 94% concerned about data protection with AI applications. Data control and access were the most needed controls for generative AI. Due to security concerns, 78% companies are using in-house or home grown generative AI. 52% of the companies said that their teams are using third-party AI solutions to make in-house AI. 43% are using commercial and 38% are using open-source AI solutions. 88% of the companies say that it takes 6 months or longer to have an in-house AI application operating perfectly.

Only 17% of companies rate AI accuracy as high while 61% claim that they have faced accuracy issues with their in-house AI models. Most companies say that their in-house AI projects are mediocre and sometimes the worst. There's also a shortage in AI experts, with only 10% of the respondents claiming to have high confidence in their AI skills. 63% have moderate confidence while 4% have absolutely no confidence in their AI skills.

The survey also asked the companies which capabilities in AI solutions they highly prefer in commercial settings. The top answers were security controls (69%), followed by data governance (65%) and high quality (57%). This survey shows all the challenges businesses are facing when it comes to AI. There are some factors that need to be crossed when it comes to AI adoption and if a company succeeds to implement all those factors, the generative AI use in the company becomes easy.

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by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

Data Center Surge: USA Tops Global List with 5,388 Centers, AI Adoption Fuels Growth

In a world fueled by technology, data centers are everywhere. They store, process, and move the information that runs our lives. We rely on them, but managing their impact has become a growing challenge for governments worldwide.

According to the estimates by Cloudscene, there are currently 11,800 operational data centers and the USA has most of them. There are 5,388 data centers in the USA alone as of March 2024. This makes the USA the house of 45% of the total data centers in this world. Germany has the second most data centers (512), followed by China (499) and Canada (366).

France comes at sixth position with 316 data centers listed and Australia at seventh with 307 data centers. The Netherlands (297), Russia (251) and Japan (219) are also the top ten countries with most data centers. These rankings about data centers around the world do not cover the size and capacity of data centers. This could mean that some countries have less data centers but have higher storage capacities. Statistics show that data centers are going to increase with the adoption of AI around the world.

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by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

Meta CEO Says His Future Goal Is The Commitment To Creating Everything Open Source

Tech giant Meta’s CEO is sharing his insights about the company and a major future goal.

Mark Zuckerberg shared how he plans to make everything open source and ensure they win in terms of offering the best services. The goal was outlined to be for the next decade but no exact time frame was revealed in this regard.

Many do remember Zuckerberg as an ambitious leader who has similarly made a lot of promises including the metaverse for the future. While that may not have gone exactly as planned, the tech billionaire seems to be more confident in this approach.

The news comes after the owner of Facebook’s parent firm revealed to the world his ideology of push and pull wars between open and closed-source tech apps. We’ve seen tech giant Meta roll out several open-source models including Llama and this got a lot of criticism and accreditation.

The podcast was held recently in the city of San Francisco last week. This is where Zuckerberg mentioned how Meta’s biggest competition was an ideological battle over the models. He added how the company does face so much competition across the board.

So much confusion remains in terms of whether apps will be closed integrated models which tech giant Apple has sworn by. Remember, today’s PC era has Windows being the leader in terms of serving the best in an open ecosystem.

However, experts argue that closed models are more secure than all others. This has to do with the fact that source codes of these modes aren’t easily accessible in public. On the other hand, open-source models can assist tech development at a faster pace and transform into something more democratic in nature due to the source code publicly available. These can be modified and then redistributed.

Zuckerberg also mentioned more details about how his future plans for the next 10 to 15 years will entail a new generation of platforms. These will win in terms of popularity and innovation.

As it is, Zuckerberg has made a lot of headwaves in this direction. We saw the tech giant roll out Llama 2 which is mostly open sourced. It slowly but surely transformed into a hit in the tech sector.

The matter does not come without risks. Remember, open-source models can be hacked by threat actors. Similarly, we can see the Llama 2 provides users with detailed instructions on dangerous tasks that cause harm to the world. This has already been a subject of great debate in the past where Zuckerberg argued that similar data can be found elsewhere as well.

Two months back, Zuckerberg won so many accolades and received a lot of props throughout the tech world. This was when it rolled out its open-sourced Llama 3.1 model. In case you did not know, many experts in the industry call this a huge or incredible gift during the time of its launch.

Image: Acquired

Read next: Do People Still Use Tumblr? New Stats Raise The Curtain On The Social Media App
by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

Do People Still Use Tumblr? New Stats Raise The Curtain On The Social Media App

The term Tumblr has been used time and time again when discussing social media networks.

The age-old platform is one that didn’t seem to get too much success in the past but you’ll be amazed to learn that it’s doing better than before.

Thanks to the ban on X for Brazilians, many turned to Tumblr as their next best alternative. Moreover, the app reported a massive 350% rise in usage and those are some serious statistics worth considering.

Looking at the history, the parent firm of WordPress bought Tumblr and took it under its wings in 2019. The goal was to keep it alive and functioning. Now the question on people’s minds is how great is it doing today. Is it still enough to make the app a functional platform?

As per stats shared by App Intelligence, the platform is still struggling in terms of carving its niche in the market. The struggle is on and very real. Now we can’t help but wonder if the app is making enough revenue or not through the Google Play Store and Apple App Store.

The answer is yes but to a bare minimum. I mean it’s enough to keep it functional but nowhere near to other arch-rivals in the industry. As per estimates, the niche platform earned just over $97,000 last month from the App and Google Play Stores. This is net revenue which is what’s left when Apple and Google take out their shares.

The X app earns so much money that it could cover the revenue that Tumblr makes in just seven hours. Meanwhile, Snapchat earns a similar amount in nearly two hours.

When we look closely at trends, it appears that revenue is not growing too much but instead, it’s slowing down to a massive amount. The estimates showed how the app earned more revenue each month and hit the 152,000 mark in November, which is the peak.

In terms of what the app is selling, it’s a combo of premium offerings. This also includes means to better visibility and also the addition of badges. It’s a great collection and it should be earning more than that. This leaves many experts to believe the app is struggling with engagement. It might be that people are still using the app but not to a great extent like others.

The app just likes to stick to microblogs and that reason why is simple. The app has yet to evolve since the good old days. It’s tough out there when the competition is so fierce and other modern platforms are present with better offerings. Moreover, badges will never fix such things.

If the app does indeed wish to come back and compete with the market, a lot of reinvention is required. This includes redesigning the platform. Moreover, both engagement and revenue will continue. We don’t expect this will take place. That trend has been an age-old tale where abandoned apps cannot compete with other leaders of the tech industry. They will be purchased and squeezed for all sorts of in-app purchases seen in the past few years. The results however will rarely be positive but we do hope the app beats all others in this regard.

For now, we’re hoping for the best and a lot of Tumblr’s success in the past few days does go to Elon Musk and his X app. If it were not for their downfall in Brazil, users wouldn’t be searching for an alternative like they’ve done here.

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by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

YouTube Premium Users Get More Bad News As Prices Significantly Increase For Individual And Family Plans

YouTube Premium users are not going to be happy after the company just decided to raise pricing for both family and individual plans. That too by a huge amount.

This is called out as the most recent rise in prices from the Android maker as many nations saw a similar price jump months back. Amongst those was the US in summer. This time, the price hike seems to be more centered on the EU.

As mentioned in a recent post published on Reddit, some of the prices have gone up by close to 40%. And that is seriously a lot when you come to think of it.

Users were quick to share the news from all over the globe and how the changes would impact every nation differently.

Google’s email to users with alerts regarding price rises made its way out today. The company promised the service would be even better with an enhanced array of features. They also vowed to show greater support to both artists and creators across the app.

Over time, we’ve seen several increases in prices in the US, and it’s said to be greater for those who signed up for Premium subscriptions through Apple. For instance, one Swedish user spoke about a 60% rise in prices.

But this does seem to be a tax for paying via Apple instead of directly via Google. The price rise for users who don’t make use of Apple is still lower. For whatever reason, a tax is added if you make the payment through Apple.

If users do cancel the subscriptions via Apple and then opt to resubscribe via Google, they’ll still be paying a bigger amount. Moreover, as one would assume, most of the threads are full of individuals who no longer wish to keep this subscription. They have chosen to cancel it.

One user went as far as to call out YouTube as the world’s most costly streaming service. They compared it to others like Amazon Prime, HBO, and Netflix as a whole.

For now, we’re going to have to wait a while to see how it all goes for search engine giant Google. This includes what point in time the firm will fix prices at a level that will make it hard for anyone to afford.

Image: DIW-Aigen

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by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World