Australia on Monday issued a fine of $610,500 Australian dollars ($386,000) against the company formerly known as Twitter for "falling short" in disclosing information on how it tackles child sex abuse content, in yet another setback for the Elon Musk-owned social media platform.

REDONDO BEACH, Calif. & LAFAYETTE, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 25, 2023--

TL;DR: As of September 23, you can get two beginner-friendly 4K camera drones for just

DENVER--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sep 13, 2023--

Artificial intelligence (AI) can generate Caucasian faces that seem more realistic than actual human faces, according to a new study. As per the research, published in Psychological Science and led by experts at the Australian National University (ANU), more people thought the AI-generated white faces were human than the faces of real people. The study found, however, that the same did not apply to faces generated of people of colour. If white AI faces are consistently perceived as more realistic, this technology could have profound implications for people of colour by ultimately reinforcing racial biases online Dr Amy Dawel According to senior author of the paper, Dr Amy Dawel, the reason for the notable difference between generated Caucasian faces and people of colour comes down to the fact that AI algorithms are trained disproportionately on white faces. Dr Dawel said: “If white AI faces are consistently perceived as more realistic, this technology could have profound implications for people of colour by ultimately reinforcing racial biases online. “This problem is already apparent in current AI technologies used to create professional-looking headshots. “When used for people of colour, the AI is altering their skin and eye colour to those of white people.” Researchers found when it comes to AI “hyper-realism”, most people did not realise they were being fooled. Study co-author and ANU PhD candidate Elizabeth Miller said researchers found that most of the study participants who were most confident that their answers were correct paradoxically thought that the AI faces were real. She said: “This means people who are mistaking AI imposters for real people don’t know they are being tricked.” The researchers were also able to discover why AI faces are fooling people. Although there were still physical differences between the AI and human faces, study participants still managed to misinterpret them. Dr Dawel revealed more in-proportion faces were typical signs that AI had generated a face. However, people mistook it as a sign of humanness. She added: “We can’t rely on these physical cues for long. AI technology is advancing so quickly that the differences between AI and human faces will probably disappear soon.” She said this could have profound implications regarding online misinformation and identity theft. Dr Dawel urged public transparency around AI so society can identify issues with the technology before they become more significant problems. “Given that humans can no longer detect AI faces, society needs tools that can accurately identify AI imposters,” she said. “Educating people about the perceived realism of AI faces could help make the public appropriately sceptical about the images they’re seeing online.” Read More AI among the biggest threats to the UK, cyber security agency warns Meta faces renewed criticism over end-to-end encryption amid child safety fears Call of Duty launch sparks record traffic on broadband networks Crypto investment fraud warning issued by major bank Council investigating extent of cyber attack that affected website and systems Setback for Ireland as EU legal adviser recommends revisit of Apple tax case

Metropolitan Police chiefs should carry out a thorough investigation of the force’s cyber security practices following an IT breach, industry experts have said. Scotland Yard said on Saturday that it had been made aware of “unauthorised access to the IT system of one of its suppliers”. The company in question had access to names, ranks, photos, vetting levels and pay numbers for officers and staff. The force is now working with the company to understand if there has been any security breach relating to its data, and was unable to confirm how many personnel might be affected. Cyber security experts said the possible data breach is “extremely worrying” but unsurprising as cyber attackers frequently target third-party companies. The Met Police are extremely good at keeping their own data secure, but they do use third parties. As they have to use these parties, if they aren’t up to date with their own security then that becomes a weakness that could be targeted Jake Moore, ESET Jake Moore, global cyber security adviser for software firm ESET, told the PA news agency: “This is another extremely worrying episode of what we seem to be seeing quite a lot of this year. “It’s just worrying to think these police forces are coming under attack in what I would suggest are relatively simple ways.” Mr Moore said the current suspected breach appears to have been “a targeted attack to test the security within the supply chain” where criminals were “looking for the weakest link”. He added: “The Met Police are extremely good at keeping their own data secure, but they do use third parties. “As they have to use these parties, if they aren’t up to date with their own security then that becomes a weakness that could be targeted.” Mr Moore suggested that current cyber security systems used by police forces, coupled with a lack of resources, may have led to flaws opening up. He said: “It’s not impossible to stop this. It’s to do with understanding where all your data is. “When you amalgamate systems, particularly when police forces join together, they tend not to understand completely where all their data is or who has access to it, and that can cause problems down the line. “They need to do a complete analysis on who has access, why they have access to their data, and to reduce all of those weak points as best they can. “It will take time – not necessarily too much money – but it will take resources and people power to mitigate this in the future, and hopefully something like this will shake the boots of all the chiefs around the country to wake up and act faster.” We do have best practices and guidelines in the industry on how to protect the systems, so maybe it comes down to someone conducting an external audit in the aftermath to see whether or not they are following these practices Professor Kevin Curran, Ulster University Kevin Curran, professor of cyber security at Ulster University, agreed that the breach is likely to be down to “a third-party supplier issue”. He said: “I’m not surprised really – data breaches are such a common occurrence and police are no exception. “They have the same resources as a lot of other companies, where any data systems which have external access to the internet are a risk.” Mr Curran said questions need to be asked about why third parties have access to such information, and if the Met has the right data classification methods in place. He added: “It boils down to resources. Every organisation has to allocate a percentage of their IT budget to cyber security. “It’s a publicly-funded organisation so there’s only a finite amount of resources you have, but we do have best practices and guidelines in the industry on how to protect the systems, so maybe it comes down to someone conducting an external audit in the aftermath to see whether or not they are following these practices.” Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live Social media firms should reimburse online purchase scam victims – Barclays Hozier would consider striking over AI threat to music industry Snapchat experiences ‘temporary outage’ as My AI chatbot posts own Story

By David Shepardson WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The Biden administration said Tuesday it has formed an interagency team to develop a national

Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk's brain-chip startup Neuralink said on Tuesday that it has received approval from an independent

A group of amateur radio enthusiasts have set up a beacon in the UK that allows anyone to observe meteors as they burn through the Earth’s atmosphere. The UK Meteor Beacon project uses radio signals to identify meteorites as they pass through a 400 km-wide section of sky over England and Wales. The data is then displayed on a live online feed, with meteors appearing as blue streaks that emit a ping followed by a trailing pitch. The system captures more than 100 meteors every hour, even during times of relatively low activity. For the upcoming Perseid meteor shower, which peaks on 12 August, the frequency could be in the region of thousands per hour as Earth passes through the tail of the Swift-Tuttle comet. Unlike optical astronomy, the use of radio signals mean that meteors can be observed in nearly any weather conditions at all hours of the day and night. It also means that the system can pick up smaller meteors that may not appear as ‘shooting stars’ to the naked eye. This method of observation could potentially lead to the discovery of new meteor showers, which could then be tracked to uncover previously unknown comets. The radio transmitter is based at the Sherwood Observatory near Mansfield in Nottinghamshire, however receivers can be placed anywhere in the country. “The transmitter is illuminating the sky above Mansfield with radio signals that can be reflected by meteors and their trails,” Brian Coleman, who designed the system’s hardware and has a receiver in his back garden, told The Independent. “Even outside the Perseids and other meteor showers we’re seeing them at a rate of two a minute – and we can observe them day and night no matter what the weather. Only thunderstorms and lightning can interfere with it.” It is the first meteor beacon system run by amateur radio and astronomy volunteers in the UK, and has already received funding from the Radio Society of Great Britain and the British Astronomical Association. It has also gained the attention of academic and citizen scientists keen on studying meteors. Setting up the beacon transmitter is only the first part of the project, with the four-person team now planning to design and deploy echo receivers that can be distributed throughout the country at distances of up to 1,200 km from the Sherwood Observatory. The receivers can be built for as little as £10, according to Mr Coleman, using plastic pipes and other materials found in DIY stores. His hope is that the low cost will encourage schools to set up their own receivers to develop STEM-related projects that will encourage students to explore radio engineering and astronomy. Observations of the meteors from different directions can also be used to calculate the location and trajectory of meteors, with the team currently trying to establish whether it is possible to triangulate the meteors by studying the horizontal lines and blue smudges that appear on the waterfall display. Such measurements are currently possible with military-grade pulse radar systems, but it has never been done before on this scale. If it is possible, then knowing the speed and direction of the meteors will allow them to calculate the landing spot of any meteors that make it through the Earth’s ionosphere without burning up completely. These samples can then be studied to offer a better understanding of the universe. “The ultimate ambition is to have a system like Blitzortung, which uses a network of ground-based detectors to track live lightning strikes around the planet,” Mr Coleman said. “If successful, we could observe meteors entering Earth’s atmosphere in real-time throughout the world – but there’s still a lot of work to do before we achieve that.” Read More Amateur astronomers make ‘major breakthrough’ in saving Earth from asteroids ‘It’s becoming like an airport’: How SpaceX normalised rocket launches Perseid meteor shower offers best chance to see a ‘shooting star’ in 2023 Watch live: Russian cosmonauts step out of ISS to perform spacewalk Earth hit by powerful ‘X-1’ solar flare, after fears of ‘cannibal’ blast

TikTok has launched a new text-based feature to rival other social media platforms like Meta’s Threads and Elon Musk’s X app. The Chinese-owned app unveiled the new feature on the same day that Mr Musk rebranded Twitter to X, which the tech billionaire plans to transform into an “everything app” like China’s WeChat. TikTok claimed in a blog post published on Monday that the latest format would “empower” its users. “Text is the latest addition to options for content creation, allowing creators to share their stories, poems, recipes, and other written content on TikTok – giving creators another way to express themselves and making it even easier to create,” the blog post stated. “With text posts, we’re expanding the boundaries of content creation for everyone on TikTok, giving the written creativity we’ve seen in comments, captions, and videos a dedicated space to shine.” TikTok gained huge popularity through short-form video content – briefly overtaking Google to become the most popular destination on the internet in 2021 – and has since expanded to support images in an effort to take on Instagram. Earlier this month, TikTok also launched a music streaming service that offers an alternative to giants like Spotify and Apple Music, however it is currently only available in Brazil and Indonesia. TikTok said in a press release at the time that it “plans for further growth in other markets”. The new text feature looks more similar to Instagram Stories in appearance, offering colourful backgrounds and the ability to add stickers to a post. Unlike Threads or X, TikTok’s text posts will also support sounds that play in the background, similar to its video- and image-sharing features. “Sounds are core to the TikTok experience, which is why we’ve incorporated them into text posts,” the company explained in a note to users. “You’ll be able to add tunes that readers can groove to as they peruse your writing.” Posts have a 1,000-character limit – shorter than the 10,000 limit offered to paying X users but more than the 500-character limit on Threads. Read More What is Elon Musk’s ‘everything app’ X? Schoolboy almost dies from swallowing magnets for TikTok challenge Woman shares honest review of New York City apartment TikTok mom slammed after making 5-year-old son run in 104 degree heat

Swimming pool manufacturers in the US are slashing their profit outlooks for the year even as July was

Germany’s Economy Ministry is prepared to support Siemens Energy AG because it sees the company as a strategic