Things To Do In SW Florida

By ANDREW DALTON (AP Entertainment Writer)

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The estate of George Carlin has agreed to a settlement with the media company it sued over a fake hourlong comedy special that purportedly used artificial intelligence to recreate the late standup comic’s style and material.

In the settlement agreement filed with a federal court Monday, and a proposed order from both sides that awaits approval from a judge, the podcast outlet Dudesy agrees to permanently take down the special and to refrain from using Carlin’s image voice or likeness in the future without the express written approval of the estate.

The settlement meets the central demands laid out by the Carlin estate in the lawsuit filed on Jan. 25.

“I am grateful that the defendants acted responsibly by swiftly removing the video they made,” Carlin’s daughter Kelly Carlin said in a statement. “While it is a shame that this happened at all, I hope this case serves as a warning about the dangers posed by AI technologies and the need for appropriate safeguards not just for artists and creatives, but every human on earth.” read more

Visitors to Orlando’s Lake Eola can begin feeding the famous swans again after more than a month of bird flu-related restrictions.

“That’s perfect timing,” said Johanna Rosero of Winter Park on Tuesday. She was there with New Yorker Lis Loboa and her family, who fed the swans from their hands while visiting the park for the first time.

The city had banned direct contact with the more than 60 swans in the lake in February after four were found dead. Two tested positive for Avian Influenza, and dozens of other birds also succumbed to the virus.

But with no new deaths since March 1, Lake Eola Park staff have been advised by local veterinarians and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission that they can begin reducing precautions around the park, city spokesman Ashley Papagni said Tuesday.

The level of caution surrounding human contact with birds that may be infected took on greater significance in the wake of the Texas health department’s announcement on Monday that a human had been infected with the A/H5N1 Avian Flu in the state, just the second-ever person in the United States to have contracted that strain of bird flu. read more

Laurie Baratti | (TNS) TravelPulse

Leading vacation rental company Airbnb is updating its Extenuating Circumstances Policy, including renaming it the Major Disruptive Events Policy “to better reflect its purpose.” This will provide greater flexibility for travelers who may need to cancel their reservations when unforeseen circumstances, such as natural disasters, extreme weather events and government-imposed travel restrictions, affect their ability to complete their stay.

Under this updated cancellation policy, guests can cancel reservations and receive refunds in cases of “foreseeable weather events,” such as hurricanes, that would result in another covered event occurring, such as large-scale utility outages. According to Travel + Leisure, the policy already applies to other “unexpected major events,” such as declared public health emergencies, including epidemics, but excluding COVID-19. This revised policy, which will go into effect on June 6, overrides individual hosts’ own cancellation policies. read more

The “Swifties” are coming! And they’re already booking hotel rooms.

How do we know?

The Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau caught on to the trend recently when it found advance bookings at a sampling of 112 hotels have been spiking for Oct. 18-20 —  a good six months away.

It’s the weekend superstar singer-musician Taylor Swift is scheduled to bring her worldwide Eras tour to Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, attracting some 76,100 nightly at a football stadium that can command capacity crowds of about 65,000 for Miami Dolphins games.

Roughly one in every five hotels surveyed by the Miami-Dade tourism promotion agency is already booked for the concert-filled weekend, the visitors bureau disclosed at a gathering of the Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association International in Fort Lauderdale.

Neither Visit Lauderdale nor Discover the Palm Beaches had any advance booking information available for Broward and Palm Beach counties.

But Peter Ricci, director of the hospitality and tourism management program at Florida Atlantic University, says regional lodging that weekend is unlikely to be cheap, and maybe less available than usual in some spots. read more

By Robin Hartill | Nerdwallet

Your insurance company may know more about you than you realize.

The technology that saturates today’s world — smart-home devices, drone images, fitness trackers, social media posts and telematics programs that monitor your driving habits — can help insurers piece together a detailed picture of your behavior.

Your permission isn’t always required. Many facts about your house, car and neighborhood are public records. Data brokers also gather and sell details about your activity, like which stores you visit, what you click online and the whereabouts of your mobile phone.

For a human, all that data is too much to process. But the ability of artificial intelligence to interpret data could upend the process of buying an insurance policy and filing a claim. As insurers face questions about fairness and privacy, some people may find it’s harder to get coverage. Others will benefit from cheaper rates, quicker applications and easier claims.

Faster insurance applications

Customers could see a shortened application process as insurance companies embrace AI. read more