China scythed nearly $600 billion off Tencent Holdings Ltd.’s market value in its crackdown on tech and gaming.

Pokimane, who has 4.2 million followers on Twitter, tweeted about the platform's recent changes and the troubles that she is facing on her account

Elon Musk has questioned reality after speaking with a man with a voice that sounds “exactly like him”. The tech billionaire took part in a Spaces event on X, the company formerly known as Twitter than he purchased last year. Also taking part in the discussion was Adrian Dittmann, whose voice and laugh sounds remarkably similar to Mr Musk’s. “That was next-level,” Mr Musk posted on X following the encounter. During the eight minute interaction, the X owner frequently questioned whether Mr Dittmann was a real person or an artificial intelligence voice clone. “My mind is literally melting out from my ears right now,” Mr Dittmann said. “This is a fully recursive psy-op, that’s what this is. We are the simulation. I literally put out a tweet saying, ‘hey, we are the matrix, like we make our own things real... I don’t want to break the matrix, I want to reshape it such that it agrees with us’. That’s my mission, personally, I don’t want to break, I want to shape.” Mr Musk responded: “At some point there’s just going to be like 100 AI clones of me that sound exactly the same.” Mr Dittmann pushed back by saying he was not an AI, adding: “This is what I unironically sound like all the time. This is natural me.” Another member of the X Spaces, Borovik.eth, defended Mr Dittmann, posting: “Adrian isn’t really an impersonator. He’s just a guy who sounds exactly like him. I’ve been on a lot of spaces with him over the last few months.” In an effort to prove that he was human, Mr Dittmann made a chomping noise into his microphone. “You can hear my meat flaps,” he said, to which Mr Musk burst out laughing. “I’ve got Elon dying right now, that’s great,” Mr Dittmann said. Another member of the Spaces event said: “I can’t tell if the real one is talking or...” Mr Musk questioned Mr Dittmann about his background, though they did not share much in common. Mr Musk grew up in South Africa before moving to Canada and eventually settling in the United States, whereas his voice doppelganger claimed to have grown up in Gibraltar and Morocco before moving to somewhere in Oceania – he did not reveal where for privacy reasons. Read More What is Elon Musk’s ‘everything app’ X? Elon Musk’s Twitter bans ad showing Republican interrupting couple in bedroom Kanye West allowed back on Twitter following his ban over antisemitic conspiracies As Twitter becomes X - Seven disastrous rebrands from Royal Mail to New Coke

A first ever study of wartime “deepfake” videos has found the fake content undermined viewers’ trust in conflict footage to the point they became critical of all footage coming from warzones. The study, from researchers at University College Cork (UCC), is also the first of its kind to find evidence of online conspiracy theories which incorporate deepfakes. Deepfakes are artificially manipulated audio-visual material. Most deepfake videos involve the production of a fake “face” constructed by Artificial Intelligence, that is merged with an authentic video, in order to create a video of an event that never really took place. Although fake, they can look convincing and are often produced to imitate or mimic an individual. The study, titled A new type of weapon in the propaganda war, analysed close to 5,000 tweets on X (formerly Twitter) in the first seven months of 2022 to explore how people react to deepfake content online. The Russia-Ukraine war presented as the first real-life example of deepfakes being used in warfare. The researchers highlight examples of deepfake videos during this war including the use of video game footage as evidence of the urban myth fighter pilot “The Ghost of Kyiv”, and a deepfake of Russian president Vladimir Putin, showing the Russian president announcing peace with Ukraine. The study found deepfakes often undermined users’ trust in the footage they were receiving from the conflict to the point where they lost trust in any footage viewed. As well as the threat coming from the fake content itself, researchers found genuine media contact was being labelled as deepfakes. The study showed that the lack of social media literacy led to significant misunderstandings of what constitutes a deepfake, however, the study also demonstrated that efforts to raise awareness around deepfakes may undermine trust in legitimate videos. Therefore, the study asserts, news media and governmental agencies need to weigh the benefits of educational deepfakes and pre-bunking against the risks of undermining truth. John Twomey, UCC researcher, said much of the misinformation analysed in the study “surprisingly came from the labelling of real media as deepfakes”. “Novel findings about deepfake scepticism also emerged, including a connection between deepfakes fuelling conspiratorial beliefs and unhealthy scepticism,” he said. “The evidence in this study shows that efforts to raise awareness around deepfakes may undermine our trust in legitimate videos. “With the prevalence of deepfakes online, this will cause increasing challenges for news media companies who should be careful in how they label suspected deepfakes in case they cause suspicion around real media.” Mr Twomey added: “News coverage of deepfakes needs to focus on educating people on what deepfakes are, what their potential is, and both what their current capabilities are and how they will evolve in the coming years”. Dr Conor Linehan, from UCC’s School of Applied Psychology, said researchers “have long feared that deepfakes have the potential to undermine truth”. “Deepfake videos could undermine what we know to be true when fake videos are believed to be authentic and vice versa,” he said. This study is part of broader work by UCC’s School of Applied Psychology examining the psychological impact of deepfakes. Read More More than 500 potential cyber attacks logged every second, BT says AI being used to create child abuse imagery, watchdog warns ChatGPT and other chatbots ‘can be tricked into making code for cyber attacks’ Tinder adds Matchmaker feature to let friends recommend potential dates Google and Meta withdraw from upcoming Web Summit ‘Game-changing’ facial recognition technology catches prolific shoplifters

Masayoshi Son is due to make his first public appearance in seven months at SoftBank Group Corp.’s annual

Editors' Note: This is the most recent version of the Amazon Kindle Kids. Read our

Ebay is facing a fine of nearly $2 billion for allegedly enabling the sale of ‘rolling coal’ devices and other deliberately polluting equipment that violates environmental laws. The US Department of Justice alleges that the online retailer sold more than 343,000 so-called defeat devices in violation of the Clean Air Act, with each sale the subject of a $5,580 fine. Rolling coal has become a form of anti-environmentalism protest in the United States, involving the modification of a diesel engine in order to emit black clouds of sooty exhaust fumes. Online video compilations show drivers of pickup trucks deliberately rolling coal as they pass cyclists and electric vehicles. Until recently, the devices required to perform it were relatively easy to find through online retailers, costing between $200-500. The Justice Department wrote in its complaint, which was filed on behalf of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in a federal court in New York, that the rolling coal devices “defeat motor vehicle emission controls” set out in the Clean Air Act. “Aftermarket defeat devices significantly increase pollution emissions – including carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, particulate matter and nonmethane hydrocarbons – that harm public health,” the complaint stated. The EPA criminalised the practice, which appears to be mainly confined to the US, in 2014, with some states warning of fines of up to $5,000 for anyone caught doing it. Several companies who sell coal rolling equipment have already been forced to pay fines of up to $1 million for breaking the law. “Our nation’s environmental laws protect public health and the environment by prohibiting the unlawful sales of defeat devices; unregistered, misbranded and restricted use pesticides; and unsafe products containing toxic chemicals,” David Uhlmann from the EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance said following the Justice Department’s latest action against eBay. “The complaint filed demonstrates that EPA will hold online retailers responsible for the unlawful sale of products on their websites that can harm consumers and the environment.” Ebay described the lawsuit as “entirely unprecedented”, claiming that sales of such devices were banned and that it was actively policing its site against their sale. “Maintaining a safe and trusted marketplace for our global community of sellers and buyers is a fundamental principle of our business,” the company said. “Indeed, eBay is blocking and removing more than 99.9 per cent of the listings for the products cited by the DOJ, including millions of listings each year.” Read More World’s first solar powered hybrid truck tested on public roads Why is Elon Musk obsessed with the letter X? How Elon Musk’s Twitter became a haven for fake news and misinformation Viral WhatsApp warning of cyberattack targeting Jewish people is fake

A Chinese maker of long-range electric vehicle batteries — including one capable of going 1,000 kilometers (620 miles)

STOCKHOLM Finnish telecom gear group Nokia reported on Friday second-quarter sales of 5.7 billion euros ($6.4 billion), a

SAN JOSE, Calif. & TEL AVIV, Israel--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug 21, 2023--

Google Bard is getting a little more internet-savvy and a little less inaccurately confident. Today,

How much does Tiktok pay for a creator? Does it pay for views? Scroll down for more details