Enlarge / Macs running a preview build of macOS 15 Sequoia. (credit: Apple)

We’ve written before about Apple’s handy virtualization framework in recent versions of macOS, which allows users of Apple Silicon Macs with sufficient RAM to easily set up macOS and Linux virtual machines using a number of lightweight third-party apps. This is useful for anyone who needs to test software in multiple macOS versions but doesn’t own a fleet of Mac hardware or multiple boot partitions. (Intel Macs support the virtualization framework, too, but only for Linux VMs, making it less useful.)

But up until now, you haven’t been able to sign into iCloud using macOS on a VM. This made the feature less useful for developers or users hoping to test iCloud features in macOS, or whose apps rely on some kind of syncing with iCloud, or people who just wanted easy access to their iCloud data from within a VM.

This limitation is going away in macOS 15 Sequoia, according to developer documentation that Apple released yesterday. As long as your host operating system is macOS 15 or newer and your guest operating system is macOS 15 or newer, VMs will now be able to sign into and use iCloud and other Apple ID-related services just as they would when running directly on the hardware.

Enlarge / The Pixel 8. (credit: Google)

Google's June Android update is out, and it's bringing a few notable changes for Pixel phones. The most interesting is that the Pixel 8a, Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro are all getting DisplayPort Alt Mode capabilities via their USB-C ports. This means you can go from USB-C to DisplayPort and plug right into a TV or monitor. This has been rumored forever and landed in some of the Android Betas earlier, but now it's finally shipping out to production.

The Pixel 8's initial display support is just a mirrored mode. You can either get an awkward vertical phone in the middle of your wide-screen display or turn the phone sideways and get a more reasonable layout. You could see it being useful for videos or presentations. It would be nice if it could do more.

Alongside this year-plus of display port rumors has been a steady drum beat (again) for an Android desktop mode. Google has been playing around with this idea since Android 7.0 in 2016. In 2019 , we were told it was just a development testing project, and it never shipped to any real devices. Work around Android's desktop mode has been heating up, though, so maybe a second swing at this idea will result in an actual product.

Enlarge / He isn't using an iPhone, but some people talk to Siri like this.

On Monday, Apple premiered " Apple Intelligence " during a wide-ranging presentation at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference in Cupertino, California. However, the heart of its new tech, an array of Apple-developed AI models , was overshadowed by the announcement of ChatGPT integration into its device operating systems.

Since the announcement , we've seen confusion on social media about why Apple didn't develop a cutting-edge GPT-4-like chatbot internally. Despite Apple's year-long development of its own large language models (LLMs), many perceived the integration of ChatGPT (and opening the door for others, like Google Gemini) as a sign of Apple's lack of innovation.

"This is really strange. Surely Apple could train a very good competing LLM if they wanted? They've had a year," wrote AI developer Benjamin De Kraker on X. Elon Musk has also been grumbling about the OpenAI deal—and spreading misinformation about it— saying things like, "It’s patently absurd that Apple isn’t smart enough to make their own AI, yet is somehow capable of ensuring that OpenAI will protect your security & privacy!"

Enlarge (credit: bennymarty | iStock Editorial / Getty Images Plus )

Adobe has promised to update its terms of service to make it "abundantly clear" that the company will "never" train generative AI on creators' content after days of customer backlash, with some saying they would cancel Adobe subscriptions over its vague terms.

Users got upset last week when an Adobe pop-up informed them of updates to terms of use that seemed to give Adobe broad permissions to access user content, take ownership of that content, or train AI on that content. The pop-up forced users to agree to these terms to access Adobe apps, disrupting access to creatives' projects unless they immediately accepted them.

For any users unwilling to accept, canceling annual plans could trigger fees amounting to 50 percent of their remaining subscription cost. Adobe justifies collecting these fees because a "yearly subscription comes with a significant discount."

Enlarge (credit: LagartoFilm/Dreamstime)

The US and UK have signed a landmark agreement on artificial intelligence, as the allies become the first countries to formally cooperate on how to test and assess risks from emerging AI models.

The agreement, signed on Monday in Washington by UK science minister Michelle Donelan and US commerce secretary Gina Raimondo, lays out how the two governments will pool technical knowledge, information and talent on AI safety.

The deal represents the first bilateral arrangement on AI safety in the world and comes as governments push for greater regulation of the existential risks from new technology, such as its use in damaging cyber attacks or designing bioweapons.

Enlarge / This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows a globular cluster called NGC 1651. (credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, L. Girardi, F. Niederhofer)

Welcome to the Daily Telescope . There is a little too much darkness in this world and not enough light, a little too much pseudoscience and not enough science. We'll let other publications offer you a daily horoscope. At Ars Technica, we're going to take a different route, finding inspiration from very real images of a universe that is filled with stars and wonder.

Good morning. It's April 2, and today's photo comes from the venerable Hubble Space Telescope. It showcases a globular cluster, NGC 1651, in the Large Magellanic Cloud.

This cluster of stars is about 120 light-years across. Like other such globular clusters, it is generally spherical, as the stars are bound to one another by gravity. Thus, there is a higher concentration of stars near the center of the cluster.

Enlarge / This cylindrical object, a few inches in size, fell through the roof of Alejandro Otero's home in Florida last month. (credit: Alejandro Otero on X )

A few weeks ago, something from the heavens came crashing through the roof of Alejandro Otero's home, and NASA is on the case.

In all likelihood, this nearly two-pound object came from the International Space Station. Otero said it tore through the roof and both floors of his two-story house in Naples, Florida.

Otero wasn't home at the time, but his son was there. A Nest home security camera captured the sound of the crash at 2:34 pm local time (19:34 UTC) on March 8. That's an important piece of information because it is a close match for the time—2:29 pm EST (19:29 UTC)—that US Space Command recorded the reentry of a piece of space debris from the space station. At that time, the object was on a path over the Gulf of Mexico, heading toward southwest Florida.

Enlarge (credit: Benj Edwards)

On Monday, OpenAI announced that visitors to the ChatGPT website in some regions can now use the AI assistant without signing in. Previously, the company required that users create an account to use it, even with the free version of ChatGPT that is currently powered by the GPT-3.5 AI language model. But as we have noted in the past , GPT-3.5 is widely known to provide more inaccurate information compared to GPT-4 Turbo , available in paid versions of ChatGPT.

Since its launch in November 2022, ChatGPT has transformed over time from a tech demo to a comprehensive AI assistant, and it's always had a free version available. The cost is free because " you're the product ," as the old saying goes. Using ChatGPT helps OpenAI gather data that will help the company train future AI models, although free users and ChatGPT Plus subscription members can both opt out of allowing the data they input into ChatGPT to be used for AI training. (OpenAI says it never trains on inputs from ChatGPT Team and Enterprise members at all).

Opening ChatGPT to everyone could provide a frictionless on-ramp for people who might use it as a substitute for Google Search or potentially gain new customers by providing an easy way for people to use ChatGPT quickly, then offering an upsell to paid versions of the service.

Enlarge (credit: Discord)

Discord had long been strongly opposed to ads, but starting this week, it's giving video game makers the ability to advertise to its users. The introduction of so-called Sponsored Quests marks a notable change from the startup's previous business model, but, at least for now, it seems much less intrusive than the ads shoved into other social media platforms, especially since Discord users can disable them.

Discord first announced Sponsored Quests on March 7, with Peter Sellis, Discord's SVP of product, writing in a blog post that users would start seeing them in the "coming weeks." Sponsored Quests offer PC gamers in-game rewards for getting friends to watch a stream of them playing through Discord.

Discord shared this image in March as an example of the new type of ads. (credit: Discord )

The goal is for video games to get exposure to more gamers, serving as a form of marketing. On Saturday, The Wall Street Journal ( WSJ ) reported that it viewed a slide from a slideshow Discord shows to game developers regarding the ads that reads: "We’ll get you in front of players. And those players will get you into their friend groups."