By Jarrett Renshaw The White House on Friday said electric-vehicle charging stations using Tesla standard plugs would be

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European Union lawmakers allayed market concerns over a possible revenue cap on renewable power producers, an emergency measure

Astronomers believe they might have found the source of the brightest explosion ever in space. The record-breaking explosion recorded in October 2022 was the most powerful ever seen, leaving equipment and instruments struggling to measure it as it pointed directly at planet Earth. The bright gamma-ray burst is officially called GRB 221009A and when it first went off, scientists were left scrabbling to point telescopes in its direction to record it. The explosion has affectionately been nicknamed BOAT, standing for “brightest of all time”, and was caused by the death of a large star located 2.4 billion light-years away – relatively close in terms of space activity. The star collapsed into a black hole after ejecting its outer envelope, causing this huge, bright explosion comprised of gamma rays, producing not only a narrow structured jet but with an additional outflow of gas. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter This “exceptionally rare event” surprised astronomers, who had not predicted the existence of gas, and certainly provides plenty of new information around the question of how black holes form. The study’s lead author and astronomer from George Washington University, Brendan O'Connor, explained: “GRB 221009A represents a massive step forward in our understanding of gamma-ray bursts, and demonstrates that the most extreme explosions do not obey the standard physics assumed for garden variety gamma-ray bursts.” He continued: “GRB 221009A might be the equivalent Rosetta stone of long GRBs, forcing us to revise our standard theories of how relativistic outflows are formed in collapsing massive stars.” The huge and long-lasting blast measured up to 18 teraelectronvolts which is a staggering record for a gamma-ray burst, leaving scientists to hypothesise that it was a supernova. 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.

New generations of PCI Express tech—the interface used across PC parts—are already on the way.

iShowSpeed lived a fever dream in real life recently after accidentally exposing himself to thousands of fans, and it’s safe to say the internet isn’t letting him live it down. The 18-year-old was live streaming to 24,000 fans when the incident took place and he inadvertently flashed the camera, before immediately ending his stream with a look of panic on his face. He escaped being banned by YouTube, but since then, he’s been subjected to trolling by fans – and he recently took issue with people “reposting” the clip and laughing at his expense. It’s clearly getting to iShowSpeed. One stream filmed since the incident shows his frustrations, standing up and screaming at the camera: “Like bro, how the f*** would you f***ing feel motherf***er? How the f*** would you feel?” “How would you feel? Just because you didn’t have any clean f***ing underwear? You had no clean underwear so you put on some goddamn pants! How would you feel?!” Showing how much the constant messages and trolling had impacted him he added: “I’m sick of f***ing chilling! You can’t chill! Don’t tell me to calm down.” It’s been clearly evident in the days since that he’s been suffering. The streamer also spoke about the "embarrassing moment," and how it's impacted him mentally. He begged his viewers to stop trolling him over the incident during his first stream back, but people still constantly calling him "IShowMeat" and flooding the chat with steak emojis and other comments. The impact of something like this is impossible to comprehend – especially for most of us whose life hasn’t been lived out with millions watching. The cruelty of the internet has always been evident in his streams. Even with the outpouring of support from fans in Japan, which saw them show up outside the building in Tokyo to show their support, thousands unsubscribed just at the moment he was due to hit 19 million subscribers, even when he’d “nearly died” just days before and was suffering with horrendous cluster headaches. The idea of having the worst moment of a person’s life at a young age broadcast to millions is the stuff of nightmares. Everyone knows how awful discourse online can be, with millions seemingly unable to respond with any degree of empathy to major events, and it’s no surprise to see social media users respond in such a way. "These past days and hours, I've been suffering very mentally, genuinely," iShowSpeed told viewers recently, honestly discussing his feelings since the incident. "At the end of the day, I'm still a human being." He said it was "one of the worst fears" that has happened and that it's "just depressing." "You guys are joking, you guys can crack your jokes – but you're genuinely not looking at the bigger picture," he said. "Do you all know I have family, little siblings?" "I don't know what to do anymore, bro," Speed added. As another TikToker pointed out, even his dad repeated the words “ishowmeat” in a recent stream, which has been used to refer to the incident. While it’s not clear whether or not Darren Watkins Sr knows of the relevance of his words, the fact others are asking him to say it and perpetuate it on his own stream speaks volumes. @noahglenncarter People are upset with IshowSpeed’s dad for saying this #foryou #ishowspeed #live Due to the permanence of the internet it’ll never go away completely, but we can only hope that things can move on for iShowSpeed soon. Thankfully, many have shown him support in the comments section. “Remember speed always make people laugh don't let him be sad. Stay Strong speed,” one said. Another wrote: “Its okay speed! People wont understand what you feel! I hope you get over this soon!” One more added: "Don't beat yourself up about it bro, we all make mistakes it'll pass and be forgotten, here for chats anytime, I didn't see the live and plan to avoid seeing any reposts. everyone should take a second and have some tact he's only 18 where I'm from thats a teenager." We hope these are the sorts of comments iShowSpeed sees more of over the coming days. Sign up for 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.

After the New Orleans City Council voted to allow the use of facial recognition software to identify criminals more readily and accurately, reports indicate that the technology was ineffective and erroneous. This system went into effect in the summer of 2022, and Politico obtained records of the year’s worth of results. The outlet found that not only was the facial recognition tool vastly incapable of identifying suspects, but it was also disproportionately used on Black people. And from October 2022 to August 2023, almost every facial recognition request regarded a Black suspect. Politico reported that in total, the department made 19 requests. However, two of them were thrown out because police had identified the suspect before the system’s results came back, while two others were rejected because the program’s application didn’t extend to those crimes. So, of the 15 requests made by the New Orleans Police Department, 14 concerned Black suspects, the outlet wrote. On top of this, only six of these requests turned up with matches — and half of those were erroneous — while the remaining nine did not pull up a match. Facial recognition technology has long been controversial. The city of New Orleans previously had banned the use of facial recognition software, which went into effect in 2020 following the death of George Floyd. Then, in 2022, the city reversed course, allowing it to be used. In the wake of the reversal, the ACLU of Louisiana Advocacy Director Chris Kaiser called the new ordinance “deeply flawed.” He not only pointed out research that indicated that “racial and gender bias” affected the program’s accuracy but also highlighted privacy concerns around the data that the program relies on when identifying potential suspects. A previous investigation by The Independent revealed that at least six people around the US have been falsely arrested using facial ID technology; all of them are Black. One such arrest occurred in Louisiana, where the use of facial recognition technology led to the wrongful arrest of a Georgia man for a string of purse thefts. Regardless of the false arrests, at least half of federal law enforcement agencies with officers and a quarter of state and local agencies are using it. At least one council member acknowledged the shortcomings of this technology. “This department hung their hat on this,” New Orleans Councilmember At-Large JP Morrell told Politico. Mr Morrell voted against using facial recognition last year. After seeing the police department’s data and usage, he said the tool is “wholly ineffective and pretty obviously racist.” “The data has pretty much proven that advocates were mostly correct,” Mr Morell continued. “It’s primarily targeted towards African Americans and it doesn’t actually lead to many, if any, arrests.” City councillor Eugene Green, who introduced the measure to lift the ban, holds a different view. He told Politico that he still supports the agency’s use of facial recognition. “If we have it for 10 years and it only solves one crime, but there’s no abuse, then that’s a victory for the citizens of New Orleans.” It is important to note that despite hiccups with the system’s results, the agency’s use has led to any known false arrests. “We needed to have significant accountability on this controversial technology,” council member Helena Moreno, who co-authored the initial ban, told the outlet. New Orleans has a system in place in which the police department is required to provide details of how the tool was used to the City Council on a monthly basis; although Politico disclosed that the department agreed with the council that it could share the data quarterly. When asking about the potential flaws with the facial recognition tool, as outlined by Politico’s reporting, a New Orleans Police Department spokesperson told The Independent that “race and ethnicity are not a determining factor for which images and crimes are suitable for Facial Recognition review. However, a description of the perpetrator, including race, is a logical part of any search for a suspect and is always a criterion in any investigation.” The department spokesperson also emphasised that its investigators do not rely solely on facial recognition, “but it is one of multiple tools that can be used to aid in investigations,” like evidence and/or forensics, adding that officers are trained to conduct “bias-free investigations.” “The lack of arrests in which Facial Recognition Technology was used as a tool, is evidence that NOPD investigators are being thorough in their investigations,” the statement concluded. 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It’s lonely at the top – just ask Elon Musk’s former colleagues. The Twitter owner tells the same jokes and anecdotes “over and over” and “seems quite alone,” according to a former senior executive at the company. Esther Crawford, who went viral last year after being pictured sleeping on the floor of Twitter’s office while trying to meet a tough deadline set by Musk, shared her thoughts in a post on the platform which was recently renamed X. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Crawford joined Twitter when it bought her startup in 2020, well before the billionaire took over the social media platform in a $44bn deal last year. The former head of product development, who was sacked in February as part of a round of 200 layoffs, said: “Elon is oddly charming and he's genuinely funny. He also has personality quirks like telling the same stories and jokes over and over. “The challenge is his personality and demeanour can turn on a dime going from excited to angry. “Since it was hard to read what mood he might be in and what his reaction would be to any given thing, people quickly became afraid of being called into meetings or having to share negative news with him.” She said Twitter employees feared being called into meetings with him or having to deliver bad news. “At times it felt like the inner circle was too zealous and fanatical in their unwavering support of everything he said.” “Product and business decisions were nearly always the result of him following his gut instinct, and he didn't seem compelled to seek out or rely on a lot of data or expertise to inform it. “I saw a person who seemed quite alone because his time and energy was so purely devoted to work.” Meanwhile, Musk appeared to put more faith in random feedback and Twitter polls than in his employees who were working to troubleshoot problems. She said: “His boldness, passion and storytelling is inspiring, but his lack of process and empathy is painful.” However, she didn’t pull any punches about the previous management either, calling it “bloated” and “soft and entitled” where “teams could spend months building a feature and then some last-minute kerfuffle meant it'd get killed for being too risky.” Musk recently killed off the iconic bluebird Twitter logo, replacing it with a white X. He has said he wants to create a super-app inspired by China’s WeChat which would offer messaging and payments as well as social media. That vision may be difficult to make a reality, after the collapse of the platform’s advertising business as marketers soured on Musk’s decision to fire thousands of employees and dial down its content moderation efforts. 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.

Beijing is poised to implement sweeping new regulations for artificial intelligence services this week, trying to balance state

Google has agreed to shell out $8 million to Texas over deceptive ads it made