The executive in charge of the world’s biggest fusion-energy experiment is trying to rehire retired engineers, who possess

A handful of gamers have erupted across social media due to the option to select pronouns for characters in the game Starfield. The role-playing game (RPG) allows players to customise their characters, including deciding which pronouns they have. The feature was discovered after the game went live on Friday 1 September for those who had pre-ordered. Bethesda, who have previously made games such as The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Fallout 4, allowed Starfield players to select they/them pronouns for non-binary characters if they so pleased. But a small number of notable gaming streamers seemed extremely upset over the decision. They accused video game publishes of going “woke”. Streamer Herschel ‘Guy’ Beahm IV, known by his online alias Dr Disrespect, was outraged both at the pronoun option and the head of publishing at Bethesda, Pete Hines, having his pronouns in his Twitter/X bio, saying “it all makes sense now. Beahm also shared with his viewers that he had tried to work with Bethesda prior to the release of Starfield, but was told no due to “past controversies.” Another streamer known online as 'Heel vs Babyface', revealed his sheer lack of imagination when he screamed at his camera for two-and-a-half minutes claiming the choice of pronouns meant he was being “dragged out” of the immersive experience of the game. “Do you want to get immersed in our world? Yeah well guess what, f**king pronouns,” he screamed. “F**king gender ambiguity. F**king current-day California s**t, because that’s all we f**king know.” As expected, many mocked those who were upset over a two-second feature in a video game. One user called Heel vs Babyface “pathetic”: Others told him to “grow up”: Outside of streamers who are unable to comprehend an experience outside of their own, Starfield has received less than favourable reviews from critics for valid reasons such as poor performance and calling the title “disjointed”. 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.

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'If you don't do react content the world will be missing real value,' an xQc fan said, replying to the streamer's post

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Almost everyone knows the backstory of the iPhone, a breakthrough that continues to reshape culture 16 years after late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs introduced the device to the world

MrBeast is known for pushing the boundaries of content on YouTube, but his newest announcement suggests that he plans on expanding his reach beyond the platform

Google is reportedly planning to “supercharge” its virtual personal assistant software with the inclusion of new generative artificial intelligence features similar to those in chatbots like Bard and OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Work on the new version of Google Assistant has begun with the mobile version of the product, Axios first reported, citing an internal e-mail sent to employees. The tech giant is reportedly reorganising its team working on Assistant with an anticipated elimination of “a small number of roles”. However, it remains unclear how many employees in the team will likely be affected by layoffs. “We remain deeply committed to Assistant and we are optimistic about its bright future ahead,” Axios quoted Peeyush Ranjan, the vice president of Google Assistant, and Duke Dukellis, the company’s product director, as saying. Google spokesperson Jennifer Rodstrom told The Verge in a statement that the company is currently exploring ways to use large language models like ChatGPT to “supercharge Assistant and make it even better”. The move comes as Google announced a major update to its own ChatGPT rival Bard last month, which allows the AI chatbot to respond to queries by talking. Bard draws on vast quantities of training data to come up with human-like responses to a wide range of queries. Similar to ChatGPT, Bard has proven capable of producing a range of output, from summarising texts to generating computer code, for creating games or software programmes. The decision to “supercharge” Assistant also comes as the tech giant noted in a report last month that artificial intelligence marks the “most profound” technology shift in our lifetimes with the potential to “turbocharge” the UK economy. Google estimated in the report that the economic boost from AI would be equivalent to an annual growth of 2.6 per cent, creating £200bn in extra revenues for public services and “turning around the recent growth stagnation”. The tech giant’s estimation did not account for the impact of AI on some jobs, however, with many critics expressing fear of the impact that disruptive technology has. For instance, professor Geoffrey Hinton – widely regarded as the “godfather of AI” for his research contributions to the field – resigned from his job at Google, expressing fear that “bad actors” could use new AI technologies to harm others. “It is hard to see how you can prevent the bad actors from using it for bad things... I console myself with the normal excuse: If I hadn’t done it, somebody else would have,” he said. Read More Tired of proving you’re not a robot? Say goodbye to Captcha boxes ChatGPT rival with ‘no ethical boundaries’ sold on dark web Google’s AI chatbot Bard can now talk Geothermal breakthrough uses oil drilling tech to tap renewable energy How to take the perfect picture of tonight's supermoon Twitter takes down giant ‘X’ sign on roof after a week following city investigation

Research Reports on Toll Brothers, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Avery Dennison, Prudential Financial, and Ulta Beauty

(Reuters) -SoftBank Group's Arm is seeking a valuation of more than $52 billion in its initial public offering as the

A new report claims that Strava could be used to track people down – despite the platform’s efforts to make their data anonymous. Strava is a fitness tracking platform that allows people to log their exercises as well as engage with other based on their workouts. But it also includes other tools, such as its heatmap feature, which is intended to anonymously gather together people’s journeys and show them on one map. The tool is intended to allow people to see which parts of the world are particularly active, which can be helpful for finding particularly good areas for workouts or trips. But it can also be used to find out people’s personal information, according to a new report. That heatmap data is anonymised, so that it shows more general trends and cannot be used to track specific people who might mark their routes private. But the new research suggests that it is possible to de-anonymise that data, at least in some cases, to work out who lives where. The paper, published by three computer science researchers at North Carolina State University, says that “the home address of highly active users in remote areas can be identified, violating Strava’s privacy claims and posing as a threat to user privacy”. They detailed a complicated process that they claimed was able to find addresses and then combine that with other data from Strava to find the home address of a certain individual. In short, they were able to use the heat map to identify locations where people lived, and then take other location data to work out who might live at that specific house. The attack will not work on everyone: they need to live in remote areas where people’s houses stand on their own, those users need to have the heat map setting switched on, and might run in patterns that do not identify their home addresses, for instance. But the researchers claimed that a significant number of users could be identified based on publicly available information on Strava. That is a “violation of user privacy”, the researchers said. And it could also pose a threat to those users, by allowing people’s addresses to be made public, and then matched to certain activities, such as when they work out or where they tend to travel. The researchers suggested two ways to avoid the attack. One would be to remove heat map data that is clearly near a home, and another would be to add Strava’s existing “privacy zones” tools that block out data from certain locations to its heat map, which is not currently the case. Strava said that it looks to ensure users’ data stays private, and suggested that people concerned about potential issues turn off the use of aggregated user data on their account. “The safety and privacy of our community is our highest priority. We’ve long had a suite of privacy controls (including Map Visibility Controls) that give users control over what they share and who it’s shared with,” the company said. “Strava does not track users or share data without their permission. When users share their aggregated, de-identified data with the Heatmap and Strava Metro, they contribute to a one-of-a-kind data set that helps urban planners as they develop better infrastructure for people on foot and bikes, and makes it easy to plan routes with the knowledge of the community. “The Global Heatmap displays aggregated data from a subset of Strava activities and will not show ‘heat’ unless multiple people have completed an activity in a given area. Any Strava user who does not wish to contribute to the Heatmap can toggle off the Aggregated Data Usage control to exclude all activities or default their Activity Visibility to be only to themselves (’Only You’) for any given activity. “We are consistently strengthening privacy tools and offering more feature education to give users control over their experience on Strava. This includes simplifying our Privacy Policy with our Privacy Label at the top.” Read More Breakthrough could soon allow us to actually use quantum computers, scientists say Three and Vodafone are merging. Here’s what that means for your phone McDonald’s, Delta among websites down after Amazon Web Services cloud crashes Breakthrough could soon allow us to actually use quantum computers, scientists say Three and Vodafone are merging. Here’s what that means for your phone McDonald’s, Delta among websites down after Amazon Web Services cloud crashes

Microsoft researchers said on Thursday they found what they believe is a network of fake, Chinese-controlled social media