A visual ChatGPT, an AI media check and a Fed hike signal

Google launched synthid.com, where anyone can upload an image, video or audio clip and see whether it carries Google's SynthID watermark. Google says its own image, video and music models mark their output this way, and OpenAI, Nvidia and Kakao also support it. Google says people make 1 million verification requests a day. TechCrunch notes that watermark checkers from different makers often miss content made by other companies' models.

At an event in San Francisco on October 7, Microsoft showed the Surface Laptop Ultra, starting at $2,600, and a $6,000 Surface RTX Spark Dev Box, both made to run AI models on the device itself. They ship with a revamped Windows 11 that adds "Execution Containers," a way to sandbox AI agents, which Microsoft says will reach all Windows 11 users. Microsoft says the top model is already out of stock.

Nous Research announced Hermes for Businesses on October 7, which lets companies deploy customized agents for multi-step work while keeping company data private. The startup says its open source Hermes Agent has been cloned more than 24 million times. TechCrunch did not report pricing or a release date for the business product.

Minutes of the Federal Reserve's September meeting, released October 7, say most participants judged another increase in the target range would likely be appropriate by year end. Persistently higher prices and a stable labor market were the reasons given. The minutes do not say when the next hike would come.

The New York Fed's September Survey of Consumer Expectations put the median one-year inflation expectation at 3.9%, up 0.3 percentage point from August and the highest since May 2023, when it was 4.1%. Expected household spending growth also rose 0.3 point, to 5.5%.