A new learning AI has been left to its own devices within an instance of Minecraft as the artificial intelligence learns how to play the game through doing, says AI development company SingularityNET and the Artificial Superintelligence Alliance (ASI Alliance). The AI, named AIRIS (Autonomous Intelligent Reinforcement Inferred Symbolism), is essentially starting from nothing inside Minecraft to learn how to play the game using nothing but the game’s feedback loop to teach it.

AI has been set loose to learn a game before, but often in more linear 2D spaces. With Minecraft, AIRIS can enter a more complex 3D world and slowly start navigating and exploring to see what it can do and, more importantly, whether the AI can understand game design goals without necessarily being told them. How does it react to changes in the environment? Can it figure out different paths to the same place? Can it play the game with anything resembling the creativity that human players employ in Minecraft?

VentureBeat reached out to SingularityNET and ASI Alliance to ask why they chose Minecraft specifically.

“Early versions of AIRIS were tested in simple 2D grid world puzzle game environments,” a representative from the company replied. “We needed to test the system in a 3D environment that was more complex and open ended. Minecraft fits that description nicely, is a very popular game, and has all of the technical requirements needed to plug an AI into it. Minecraft is also already used as a Reinforcement Learning benchmark. That will allow us to directly compare the results of AIRIS to existing algorithms.”

They also provided a more in-depth explanation of how it works.

“The agent is given two types of input from the environment and a list of actions that it can perform. The first type of input is a 5 x 5 x 5 3D grid of the block names that surround the agent. That’s how the agent “sees” the world. The second type of input is the current coordinates of the agent in the world. That gives us the option to give the agent a location that we want it to reach. The list of actions in this first version are to move or jump in one 8 directions (the four cardinal directions and diagonally) for a total of 16 actions. Future versions will have many more actions as we expand the agent’s capabilities to include mining, placing blocks, collecting resources, fighting mobs, and crafting.

“The agent begins in ‘Free Roam’”’ mode and seeks to explore the world around it. Building an internal map of where it has been that can be viewed with the included visualization tool. It learns how to navigate the world and as it encounters obstacles like trees, mountains, caves, etc. it learns and adapts to them. For example, if it falls into a deep cave, it will explore its way out. Its goal is to fill in any empty space in its internal map. So it seeks out ways to get to places it hasn’t yet seen.

“If we give the agent a set of coordinates, it will stop freely exploring and navigate its way to wherever we want it to go. Exploring its way through areas that it has never seen. That could be on top of a mountain, deep in a cave, or in the middle of an ocean. Once it reaches its destination, we can give it another set of coordinates or return it to free roam to explore from there.

“The free exploration and ability to navigate through unknown areas is what sets AIRIS apart from traditional Reinforcement Learning. These are tasks that RL is not capable of doing regardless of how many millions of training episodes or how much compute you give it.”

For game development, a successful use-case for AIRIS may include automatic bug and stress tests for software. A hypothetical AIRIS that can run across the entirety of Fallout 4 could create bug reports when interacting with NPCs or enemies, for example. While quality assurance testers would still need to check what the AI has documented, it would speed along a laborious and otherwise frustrating process for development.

Moreover, it is the first step in a virtual world for self-directed learning for AI in complex, omni-directional worlds. That should be exciting for AI enthusiasts as a whole.

Renting in Latin America is restrictive. Most landlords require three months of rent as a deposit and a guarantor that owns property in the same city to co-sign the lease. Santiago Morales, the co-founder and CEO of proptech MoradaUno, said this dynamic makes 40% of prospective renters ineligible. His company wants to get more tenants into rentals by underwriting their risk.

“That’s the largest pain point in the industry today,” Morales told TechCrunch. “People not being able to rent where they want, or they have to, like, rent with roomies, roommates or basically can’t rent. So we said, let’s go fix that. Let’s go solve that problem.”

The result was MoradaUno, a Mexico City-based company that looks to upfront tenant risk for landlords. The company works with real estate brokers by screening and underwriting potential tenants and agreeing to take on their rent payments if the tenants stop paying. Morales said the company’s thorough vetting process, which includes background checks and income verification, weeds out a lot of bad actors from the start. MoradaUno also provides additional optional broker services like legal and home insurance.

The company decided to target brokers, as opposed to landlords themselves, due to the fragmented nature of Mexico’s rental market, Morales said. Unlike in U.S. cities where there is a concentration of large landlords that manage a ton of units, in Mexico, it’s the opposite. Most landlords only own one property.

“It’s all mom and pops, like 97% of the market is mom and pops,” Morales said. “They really depend on this income. So they’re like, ‘Oh, who am I renting to? What happens if they don’t pay?’ There’s a lack of trust there. We say, we can help solve that or bridge that lack of trust with technology.”

The MoradaUno founding team knows the LatAm real estate market well. Morales said he moved to Mexico in early 2020, right before the pandemic, because he was working with proptech Loft, the LatAm marketplace for buying and selling real estate. He was supposed to help them expand into the country but when COVID-19 hit, those plans dried up.

The experience gave him a good foot in the door to LatAm’s real estate challenges and introduced him to Ines Gamboa Sorensen and Diego Llano, his now co-founders. MoradaUno was formed in 2020 and formally launched its product in 2021. MoradaUno has since worked with more than 4,500 brokers and helped close more than 20,000 rentals. Santiago added that the company is processing about 1,000 leases a month and wants to hit 3,000 leases a month by next summer.

The company just raised a $5.6 million Series A round to help with that. The round was co-led by fintech-focused Flourish Ventures and Cometa, a VC firm focused on backing companies building for Spanish-speaking populations. Clocktower Ventures, Picus Capital and Y Combinator also participated. Morales said the capital will be used to help with expansion.

The proptech startup market has been growing in LatAm. There are a few other startups looking to tackle rentals too. Aptuno is one that helps people find and apply for apartments online that is based in Bogota and has raised $7 million in venture funding. Houm is another that looks to bypass the region’s tough rental market by acting as a digital broker. Houm has raised more than $44 million in VC money.

MoradaUno is currently live in four cities in Mexico, but the company wants to boost that by adding six more cities in the near future. Morales added that underwriting tenants is just the beginning and in the future they’d like to be able to offer fintech services like advanced rent payments or even build an AI model for brokers.

“It’s really cool to be able to give access [to] people that otherwise would have not been able to rent,” Morales said. “Now you’re giving them an option. That’s very powerful and exciting. That kind of fuels us every day. And we’re also making the lives of thousands of real estate agents better because they have better tools and more efficient technology.”

DJI has unveiled the new Goggles N3, its cheapest-ever FPV (First Person View) goggles for immersive drone flight. Coming in at under half the price of the Goggles 3, the cut-price N3 version looks like an excellent pairing with the Neo, DJI’s cheapest-ever 4K drone with multiple flight control options, including FPV.

DJI has set the price of the Goggles N3 at $229 / £229 / AU$359, plus the goggles can be purchased in a DJI Neo Motion Fly More Combo for $449 / £449 / AU$839. For context, that Fly More Combo, which includes the Neo selfie drone, RC Motion Controller 3 (rather than the FPV Remote Controller 3), two extra batteries and charging hub plus the Goggles N3, costs less than the Goggles 3 alone.

The iPhone 16 Pro Max and the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra are both big phones with big screens, big power, and big price tags. The cameras are also impressive, but which one of these two archrivals takes better photos?

I’ve been using the Galaxy S24 Ultra again over the past few weeks and have put it against Apple’s latest top iPhone to find out. And the results are pretty shocking.

The cameras

Before we look at the phones, let’s look at the numbers behind the cameras, starting with the iPhone 16 Pro Max. There are three cameras on the back, starting with the main 48-megapixel camera with optical image stabilization, which can also take 2x zoom photos. It’s joined by a 12MP telephoto camera for 5x optical zoom photos and a 48MP ultrawide camera with a 120-degree field of view.

The Galaxy S24 Ultra has four cameras. It’s led by a main 200MP camera, along with a pair of telephoto cameras — a 10MP camera for a 3x optical zoom and a 50MP periscope zoom for 5x optical shots — plus a 12MP ultrawide camera. Unlike previous Galaxy Ultra phones, the S24 Ultra has “optical quality” 10x zoom shots, which have proven to be just as good as optical zoom shots.

For reference, I used the Standard Photographic Style on the iPhone 16 Pro Max for all the photos below, and each phone’s camera was used in auto mode. All the photos were downloaded onto an Apple Mac mini and examined on a color-calibrated monitor. They have all been resized for friendlier online viewing.

Main camera

When using the main camera, the iPhone 16 Pro Max consistently took more visually pleasing photos than the S24 Ultra, apart from its long-time issue with exposure occasionally rearing its head. In the first photo of the leafy lane, you can see where it causes the camera problems and where the S24 Ultra’s colors are punchier and more vibrant.

However, as you can see in the second photo of the Aston Martin Valkyrie car, the S24 Ultra’s eagerness results in noise, which is entirely absent from the iPhone’s pin-sharp, more accurately colored image. Although its exposure can cause issues sometimes, here, it gets it exactly right — to the point where I can easily read the Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) on the windscreen, which is blurred and jumbled in Samsung’s photo.

The Galaxy S24 Ultra often gets a certain type of photo right, such as the example at the top, but everywhere else, the iPhone improves. The photo inside the church shows the wonderful tone and warmth of the iPhone’s camera, rather than the starkness of the S24 Ultra, right down to the color of the padding on the seats and the wooden beams on the ceiling.

Take a look at our final photo to see how the iPhone’s super-sharp focus and depth of field help it take detailed, emotional shots, even of the simplest subjects. The foam and bubbles on top of the coffee are so sharp, and the depth of field is exactly right, making for a more realistic, attractive photo than the S24 Ultra’s photo, which seems less aware of its subject.

Winner: Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max

Ultrawide camera

On paper, the iPhone 16 Pro Max’s ultrawide camera should easily improve on the Galaxy S24 Ultra’s camera, but in reality, it’s the opposite. The S24 Ultra’s ultrawide camera shows up the iPhone’s camera really badly. The first photo of the Ferrari FF was taken indoors in good lighting (the same environment as the Aston Martin Valkyrie photo above), and the iPhone’s photo is full of noise and blur, while the Galaxy S24 Ultra avoids most of the same issues to produce a sharper, less blurred image. It’s not perfect, but it’s far better than the iPhone’s photo.

Outside, things don’t improve much for the iPhone 16 Pro Max, but it can still impress with its warm tones. The photo of the fields and sky shows the S24 Ultra’s vibrant colors but overall coldness. However, it has a less noisy foreground and more detail, such as around the fence post. In the distance, the two cameras introduce some blur and noise.

In the final photo of the church, you can see how much sharper the S24 Ultra’s ultrawide photos are, with the stonework on the spire far clearer and less muddy than in the iPhone’s image. Yes, the S24 Ultra does use quite a lot of software enhancement, but it’s easier to forgive it when the balance and sharpness is right.

Winner: Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra

2x zoom and 3x zoom

The two phones have different “short” zooms, with the iPhone 16 Pro Max offering a 2x optical zoom and the S24 Ultra a 3x optical zoom. You can see examples of them both here, and we’ll be judging this category as one rather than two separate categories. The 2x zoom is fairly consistent across both cameras for balance and focus, but the iPhone can introduce some noise, while the S24 Ultra’s photos have a softer look.

Move on to the 3x zoom across the two cameras, and the iPhone 16 Pro Max can’t match the S24 Ultra’s performance. Shots are far noisier and less sharp, while the Samsung phone’s 3x zoom produces excellent photos with plenty of life and detail. This is to be expected, given Samsung’s dedicated optical 3x mode.

But because the S24 Ultra’s 2x mode isn’t awful compared to the iPhone 16 Pro Max’s 2x shots, it’s going to win this category for being more versatile, as you could realistically use both zooms on it, but would want to stick with the 2x on the iPhone 16 Pro Max.

Winner: Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra

5x zoom

Both cameras have 5x optical zooms, and Samsung continues its run of zoom superiority here too. The iPhone 16 Pro Max has a problem with sharpness and focus, resulting in grainy, blurry, or noisy images that look worse the more you crop them down. These issues are missing from the S24 Ultra’s camera, and its photos look great at 5x zoom.

Take the wooden angel as an example. Not only are the colors and textures far more realistic in the S24 Ultra’s photo, but when you crop it down, there’s detail in the wood that the iPhone struggles to capture. The overall sharpness makes the depth of field pop more, while the iPhone 16 Pro Max’s photo appears flatter.

Photos taken outside have similar issues, but the iPhone does win a few points with generally more realistic colors. Many will like the S24 Ultra’s fairly saturated colors, which stay consistent across all lenses. The donkey’s fur is sharper and more defined in the S24 Ultra’s photo, and there’s clearly less noise on the wooden fence post and the red strap. Samsung wins the 5x zoom category, so will it make it three-for-three as we move to the 10x category?

Winner: Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra

10x zoom

Neither phone has a 10x optical zoom, but Samsung does make a point of highlighting its optical quality photos at 10x and does include a shortcut in its camera app. The iPhone does not, and things do start out quite well.

The horse photo reveals a similar level of detail, but when you get very close, there’s far more evidence of software enhancements in the S24 Ultra’s photo, with some haloing visible along the horse’s back and ears. This glow is not in the iPhone’s photo at all, giving it a more natural appearance.

But the iPhone does not always win here, as seen in the next photo of the wooden pub sign. The S24 Ultra’s photo has less noise than the iPhone’s photo, particularly on the green board, and its more dynamic coloring means the fall leaves glow more attractively.

The Galaxy S24 Ultra is far more consistent when shooting 10x photos, as the final photo of the car proves. The differences are clear — accurate colors, spot-on white balance, and no obvious noise. The iPhone can’t keep up at 10x zoom.

Winner: Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra

Night mode

When it came to shooting photos in low light, the Galaxy S24 Ultra’s preview on the phone made me expect the worst, as it did not show a truly representative image straight after taking it. The iPhone didn’t have any such problem, so when I was collecting photos, I feared for the S24 Ultra’s performance. However, the images looked totally different in the gallery, and at first, the two appeared quite evenly matched.

The outside of the brightly lit pub is a great example. The iPhone overexposes in many places while showing more detail than the S24 Ultra’s photos in others. However, in most other areas — the seating and foliage, for example — both cope with the low light well. The iPhone’s photo does have a little more blur, though, and the overexposure hides details, such as in the pub’s signage.

In the photo of the village shop, the iPhone’s more accurate colors shine through, and it’s also less blurry than the S24 Ultra, where the software smooths out a lot of detail, showing both are very sensitive to lighting conditions when taking photos in the dark. The two trade blows like this in all the lowlight images I took, and while the iPhone’s overexposure often caused problems, the S24 Ultra’s smoothing often did the same.

However, the S24 Ultra was great in difficult, harsh lighting conditions. Shooting into the sunset, the S24 Ultra captured the golden glow in the sky, the blue sky, the green of the grass, and the scene as a whole. The iPhone 16 Pro Max’s photo contains so much shadow that it robs it of emotion and detail. The real-world environment was somewhere in between the two, but the S24 Ultra’s photo is the one I’d keep or share.

Winner: Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra

Samsung’s flagship comes out on top

It may come as a shock to some, but the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra — a phone released at the beginning of the year — has taken a victory in all but one category against the new Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max. It has by far the superior camera when you want to take any zoom or ultrawide photo.

It couldn’t quite match the iPhone 16 Pro Max in the main camera category, though, and I consistently preferred it to the S24 Ultra. Still, it should be noted the iPhone’s exposure and contrast can still upset the balance of some images, especially in challenging light. This has affected iPhone cameras for several generations, so it is not unique to the 16 Pro Max.

What’s very interesting is that the iPhone 16 Pro comprehensively beat the Google Pixel 9 Pro in a recent test, proving its top camera credentials. It also showed several improvements over the iPhone 15 Pro. The Galaxy S24 Ultra has been a winner from the start by improving on its predecessor, beating the Google Pixel 8 Pro, and equaling the performance of our favorite Android camera phone, the Xiaomi 14 Ultra.

It may not be the latest on the market, but the Galaxy S24 Ultra continues to take on the very best camera phones and easily holds its own.