Welcome to Social Buzz, a daily column looking at what’s trending on social media platforms. I’m Caitlin Fichtel,

Google has rolled out a major update to its ChatGPT rival Bard, allowing the AI chatbot to respond to queries by talking. The latest features, unveiled on Thursday, also allow the artificial intelligence bot to understand and reply to visual prompts. As part of the update, Google has opened up Bard to more countries – including the whole of Europe – as well as introducing over 40 languages to the artificial intelligence tool. Similar to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Bard is a large language model that uses generative AI to predict which word will come next when producing text. The tools draw on vast amounts of training data in order to come up with human-like responses to a wide range of queries, ranging from summarising texts, to generating computer code to create games or programs. The latest update aims to make the chatbot more customisable and allow users to “get more done” with Bard. The ability to understand visual prompts is a feature that was first demonstrated at Google’s annual I/O conference in May. During the demo, Bard was asked to describe what was in an image, as well as come up with a funny caption for a picture of two dogs. The audio response feature is aimed at users who want to hear how a word is pronounced. “Sometimes hearing something out loud can help you approach your idea in a different way,” Jack Krawczyk, a product lead at Google Bard, wrote in a blog post detailing the upgrade. “This is especially helpful if you want to hear the correct pronunciation of a word or listen to a poem or script.” The release of Bard in Europe had been delayed due to privacy concerns, with some campaigners accusing the tech giant of taking people’s data without their knowledge or consent. Google has called such claims “baseless”. Read More Elon Musk reveals plan to use AI to reveal mysteries of the universe

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jul 11, 2023--

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SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 8, 2023--

Facebook-parent Meta plans to lower the minimum age for its virtual reality headsets from 13 years old to 10 years old, despite pressure from lawmakers not to market its VR services to younger users.

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We’ve all been told the story of what wiped out the dinosaurs – a giant meteor careers down from the sky, crashes into Earth and bang! The rest is history. But what if that wasn’t the whole story? A new study suggests there may have been more to it than just an asteroid – and it involves climate change. A chain of huge volcanic eruptions which eventually cooled the planet an alarming amount may have been partially to blame, according to research. The study, published in Science Advances and co-authored by Don Baker, a professor in McGill University's Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, suggests that this might be the case. The researchers looked into volcanic eruptions at the Deccan Traps, a huge, rugged plateau that formed when molten lava solidified and turned to rock. The plateau dates back to around 66-65m years ago, when magma from deep inside Earth erupted to the surface. That just so happens to be around the time when scientists think the dinosaurs met their demise. Baker’s team suggest that the eruptions produced a staggering 1m cubic kilometres of lava, which then turned into rock, which may have played a key role in cooling the global climate around 65m years ago. The scientists say it’s all to do with how much sulphur and fluorine was pumped into the atmosphere as a result of the eruptions. Incredibly, they found the event could have sparked a drop in temperature all around the world, dubbed a “volcanic winter”. Baker said: “Our research demonstrates that climatic conditions were almost certainly unstable, with repeated volcanic winters that could have lasted decades, prior to the extinction of the dinosaurs. “This instability would have made life difficult for all plants and animals and set the stage for the dinosaur extinction event. “Thus our work helps explain this significant extinction event that led to the rise of mammals and the evolution of our species.” The scientists worked it out using new chemical techniques developed at McGill to measure how much sulphur is in the rock formations which came about at the time, then from that, figuring out how much went into the atmosphere. The paper is titled “Recurring volcanic winters during the latest Cretaceous: Sulfur and fluorine budgets of Deccan Traps lavas.” How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel Sign up to our free indy100 weekly newsletter 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.