Cotton futures gained for a second day in New York as extreme heat is increasingly risking the health

In the week that it was announced that Rishi Sunak will be granting new oil and gas licences in the North Sea, new commitments to renewable energy are being made elsewhere in the world. The China Three Gorges Corporation just turned on a mega wind turbine with blades twice the size of a football pitch in the Taiwan Strait. The state-owned energy firm has activated the biggest wind turbine on the planet offshore in a move which could produce up to 16 megawatts of energy, and it’s now been connected and hooked up to the energy grid. The MySE 16-260 turbine stands at an incredible 500ft (152m) tall and it could power thousands of homes every year. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter In fact, it’s thought that around 36,000 homes will be served by electricity from the turbine. It’s not surprising given that each blade weighs around 54 tons and covers nearly 540,000 square feet when they rotate. Mingyang Smart Energy is the company that designed the turbine, and they released a message on LinkedIn making clear just how much wind the structure could deal with – stating that it can withstand “extreme wind speeds of 79.8 [meters per second]”. It’s a staggering feat of engineering and it’s thought that the turbine could save around 54,000 tons of carbon dioxide compared to coal power plants. More structures like one are being planned, too. Executive Director Lei Lei Zengjuan told the media: “In the next step, the 16 [megawatt] unit will be applied in batches in the second phase of the Zhangpu Liuao Offshore Wind Farm Project constructed by China Three Gorges Corporation.” It comes a few weeks after work was stopped on one of the UK’s largest offshore wind farms after its developer said that the cost of the project had soared by so much that it no longer made financial sense to push forward. Swedish energy giant Vattenfall, one of Europe’s biggest wind producers, shut down work on the development of the Norfolk Boreas site. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

A controversial cryptocurrency started by the founder of ChatGPT has surged in price in the days following its launch, with market commentators referring to it as both “outlandish” and “revolutionary”. Worldcoin, launched last week by OpenAI boss Sam Altman, offers people a free share of the crypto token WLD in exchange for their biometric data. More than 2 million people have signed up through an iris-scanning orb, which is currently operating in 35 cities across 20 countries. The biometric data collected by Worldcoin is used to verify an individual’s “unique personhood” to ensure noone signs up more than once. It also offers a way to differentiate humans from AI bots, which Worldcoin claims is a core offering of its technology. Regulatory and legal challenges mean people are unable to sign up in certain markets, however Mr Altman claimed shortly after its launch that one person every eight seconds was signing up for the crypto project. A spokesperson for Worldcoin told The Independent that 1,500 orbs were being distributed around the world to meet demand, including to London, New York and Paris. Crypto market commentators have said that a 50 per cent price surge in the day following its launch showed the level of interest and demand in the WLD token despite concerns surrounding its rollout. “OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman’s Worldcoin project might just be one of the most ambitious cryptocurrency projects in recent years,” Louis Schoeman, a managing director at Forex Suggest, told The Independent. “The main aim of this global digital identification is to connect your World ID to websites and apps rather than traditional logins, proving you’re a real person without having to share personal data like names and emails. This sort of digital ID will be necessary in the development of AI, in order to tell the difference between humans and AI bots online. “A global digital ID enabling private identity verifications is undeniably revolutionary, however, it’s certain to stir up controversy, with many already calling the exchange of biometric data for crypto tokens an outlandish bribe.” The Worldcoin cryptocurrency spiked from $1.90 to $3.15 on the day of its launch, before dropping back below $2. It has since surged again and was trading above $2.30 on Tuesday, bucking broader market trends. Read More ChatGPT creator launches bitcoin rival that scans people’s eyeballs Meta is secretly building an AI chatbot with the personality of Abraham Lincoln Google Assistant to be ‘supercharged’ with AI like ChatGPT and Bard ChatGPT will now know who you are and what you want

Bitcoin trading volume tumbled last month amid waning volatility and little notable price swings in a market that

With Honkai: Star Rail, developer Hoyoverse takes a stab at a space opera, and the

SAVE $179.96: As of August 1, Beats Studio3 wireless headphones are on sale at Amazon

Aura is a system of smart devices to help you cycle more safely. The advanced

Wildlife charity WWF Germany is being praised for its inventive use of the Twitter X logo to highlight the threat of extinction facing many of the world’s animals. Recently, Twitter CEO Elon Musk made the bizarre choice to change the recognisable Twitter logo depicting a blue bird to a very forgettable “X” in a move that has baffled industry experts. Since 2006, Twitter has had some variation of a blue bird as its logo and advertising company McCann Germany came up with a concept for WWF’s campaign to highlight extinction by using them. The camping depicted the five different iterations of the Twitter logo throughout the years, from the very first logo in 2006 to the one people came to know and love in 2012 – the simple portrait of a blue bird. Next in line was the new 2023 Twitter logo ‘X’, showing the very stark end of the classic bird Twitter logo. Text on the image read: “Protect our wildlife before it's too late!” Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter The very creative campaign has drawn a huge amount of praise for being simple yet effective. “This is brilliant,” one person wrote. Someone else commented: “Well played.” Another said: “Beautiful (and simple) idea from WWF Germany. Credit to McCann Germany.” “Brilliant real time marketing by WWF, Germany,” praised another. One Twitter user said: “Kudos to WWF for timely and imaginative work. Props to McCann Germany as well.” According to WWF Germany, around a million species are at risk of going extinct in the next few decades if ecosystems continue to be destroyed. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

High-tech gadgets are all about making your life easier, and nothing is easier (or gives

CAMARILLO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug 1, 2023--

Social media giant Meta on Tuesday said it intends to ask EU-based users to give their consent before allowing targeted advertising on its networks including Facebook...

MENLO PARK, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug 1, 2023--