UK broadband providers have reported record levels of broadband network traffic sparked by the release of the latest Call of Duty video game. BT and EE, as well as Virgin Media O2, confirmed they saw major spikes on their networks after the game became available to download on Wednesday, ahead of its release on Friday. Virgin Media O2 said that Wednesday saw a new record for traffic on its broadband network, 22% higher than the previous record, which was set only a week ago with the return of the original map to popular battle royale game Fortnite. The internet provider said the large size of the new Call of Duty’s game file played a part of driving the traffic spike. Paul Kells, the provider’s network strategy and engineering director, said: “It has been an exciting couple of weeks for gamers, with the return of Fortnite’s original map and the much-anticipated arrival of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III. “Both of these events have seen gamers getting online in their droves, with our customers setting two network records in less than a week. We are proud to make these moments possible with our gigabit network, backed up by our market leading wifi guarantee.” EE and BT also reported a similar spike, saying the video game launch led to the second highest overall peak in EE and BT home broadband history – behind only a night in February this year when multiple high-profile football matches were being streamed online and an update to Call of Duty’s popular battle royale spin-off Warzone was also being rolled out. The firm said the spike was the biggest single game contribution to a broadband peak it had ever seen. Sam Kemp, EE’s director of gaming, said: “As part of our mission to be the UK’s number one destination for gaming, we offer a full fibre network experience that features in-home wifi management services including Game Mode, that are built for gamers and which come into their own during AAA gaming calendar moments. “They don’t come much bigger than the latest Call of Duty drop, and as the official partner of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III, we’ve seen unprecedented traffic across our network, however EE customers can be rest assured that they will be supported by the fastest speeds and most reliable network to get the best possible COD experience.” Read More 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

The world’s biggest iceberg is drifting away from the Antarctic after having been grounded there for more than 30 years. The iceberg, which has the catchy name A23a, split from the Antarctic’s giant Filchner Ice Shelf in 1986, but has been stuck to the ocean floor since shortly after that time. Now, according to the British Antarctic Survey, it is on the move. Satellite images show the iceberg drifting past the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. A23a is truly massive. It weighs nearly a trillion metric tonnes and is about three times the size of New York City. It is more than twice the size of Greater London. Scientists say the massive chunk of ice is drifting at a rate of three miles each day. “Over time, it’s probably just thinned slightly and got that little bit of extra buoyancy that’s allowed it to lift off the ocean floor and get pushed by ocean currents,” said Oliver Marsh, a glaciologist at the British Antarctic Survey. Andrew Fleming, a remote sensing expert from the British Antarctic Survey, told the BBC the iceberg had been drifting for the last year, but now appeared to be picking up speed. “I asked a couple of colleagues about this, wondering if there was any possible change in shelf water temperatures that might have provoked it, but the consensus is the time had just come,” he said. Still, some scientists are concerned about how the movement could affect wildlife. The iceberg could end up at the island of South Georgia, which is about 1,000 miles east of the southern tip of South America, which is home to seals, penguins and other seabirds. Chad Greene, a glaciologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, told the New Scientist large icebergs tend to break off from Antarctica around once per decade. They then get stuck in the Antarctic’s nearly freezing waters, which staves off the melting process, but only for a while. “Icebergs this big can hang around for decades in one place, then one day decide to go for a jolly,” Greene said. “That’s when things get interesting.” 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.

BURLINGTON, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sep 12, 2023--

Apple is in the processing of shutting down its “Photo Stream” offering – and could be removing people’s important memories with it. As such, users of any Apple devices such as iPhones that are still using the old system have been urged to check they have saved all of their latest images to ensure that they are not lost. Apple announced recently that it would stop taking new photo uploads on 26 June. But any of the images that were uploaded before then would stick around for a further month, meaning that the images will finish on 26 July, when the system will be shut down. The images will not be removed from the original devices that took the image, and so should be safe as long as that is the case. But various people use the Photo Stream tool to move pictures between devices, meaning that they could potentially get lost. Photo Stream was launched as an early way to synchronise photos across devices. It was launched in 2011, and has been operated as part of iCloud since. It allowed iPhone users to upload their most recent 1,000 photos, taken in the last 30 days, for free. Users on Mac or Windows could have those photos then automatically download to their device, meaning that those libraries would be easily kept up to date, even with photos that were taken on another device. In the time since, however, Apple has moved towards a new offering called iCloud Photos, which uploads all pictures automatically and then keeps them in sync across any devices that are logged in. While that means there are not the same kind of limits as with the Photo Stream, it also means that users are likely to need to pay for storage and need to set up the service. As such, many people may still be using that old Photo Stream service, even as it comes to be shut down. Anyone who is might in turn lose access to those photos that are still stored in Photo Stream and are yet to be saved. Thankfully, saving them is relatively easy. Users can head into the Photos app, click on “My Photo Stream” and then choose the images that need saving and add them into the library. If users already have iCloud Photos switched on, this will be unnecessary, and photos are already being kept in sync. If not, then the feature can be turned on from within the Photos settings on recent Apple devices, which will then ensure that those photos are kept in sync across any device with the setting switched on. Read More Apple finally lets people decide how they appear in Maps listings Apple sounds alarm over new government plans Google kills its rival smart glasses to Apple Vision

CHELMSFORD, England--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun 6, 2023--

By Tom Balmforth and James Pearson KYIV/LONDON Russian spies are using hackers to target computer systems at law

You can’t spell ‘hearty’ without ‘heart,’ or ‘hardy’ without ‘hard.’

Ludwig makes most of his money on Twitch, where he is the most subscribed streamer in the platform's history

OpenAI researchers warned about a potentially dangerous artificial intelligence discovery ahead of CEO Sam Altman being ousted from the company, according to reports. Several staff members of the AI firm wrote a letter to the board of directors detailing the algorithm, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters. The disclosure was reportedly a key development in the build up to Mr Altman’s dismissal. Prior to his return late Tuesday, more than 700 employees had threatened to quit and join backer Microsoft in solidarity with their fired leader. The sources cited the letter as one factor among a longer list of grievances by the board leading to Altman’s firing, among which were concerns over commercialising advances before understanding the consequences. The staff who wrote the letter did not respond to requests for comment and Reuters was unable to review a copy of the letter. OpenAI declined to comment on the letter but acknowledged in an internal message to staffers a project called Q* and a letter to the board before the weekend’s events, one of the people said. An OpenAI spokesperson said that the message, sent by long-time executive Mira Murati, alerted staff to certain media stories without commenting on their accuracy. Some at OpenAI believe Q* (pronounced Q-Star) could be a breakthrough in the startup’s search for what’s known as artificial general intelligence (AGI), one of the people told Reuters. OpenAI defines AGI as autonomous systems that surpass humans in most economically valuable tasks. Given vast computing resources, the new model was able to solve certain mathematical problems, the person said on condition of anonymity because the individual was not authorised to speak on behalf of the company. Though only performing maths on the level of grade-school students, acing such tests made researchers very optimistic about Q*’s future success, the source said. Reuters could not independently verify the capabilities of Q* claimed by the researchers. Researchers consider maths to be a frontier of generative AI development. Currently, generative AI is good at writing and language translation by statistically predicting the next word, and answers to the same question can vary widely. But conquering the ability to do mathematics where there is only one right answer implies AI would have greater reasoning capabilities resembling human intelligence. This could be applied to novel scientific research, for instance, AI researchers believe. Unlike a calculator that can solve a limited number of operations, AGI can generalize, learn and comprehend. In their letter to the board, researchers flagged AI’s prowess and potential danger, the sources said without specifying the exact safety concerns noted in the letter. There has long been discussion among computer scientists about the danger posed by highly intelligent machines, for instance if they might decide that the destruction of humanity was in their interest. Researchers have also flagged work by an “AI scientist” team, the existence of which multiple sources confirmed. The group, formed by combining earlier “Code Gen” and “Math Gen” teams, was exploring how to optimise existing AI models to improve their reasoning and eventually perform scientific work, one of the people said. Altman led efforts to make ChatGPT one of the fastest growing software applications in history and drew investment – and computing resources – necessary from Microsoft to get closer to AGI. In addition to announcing a slew of new tools in a demonstration this month, Altman last week teased at a summit of world leaders in San Francisco that he believed major advances were in sight. “Four times now in the history of OpenAI, the most recent time was just in the last couple weeks, I’ve gotten to be in the room, when we sort of push the veil of ignorance back and the frontier of discovery forward, and getting to do that is the professional honor of a lifetime,” he said at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, a day before he was fired by OpenAI’s board. Additional reporting from agencies. Read More 10 ways AI will change the world – from curing cancer to wiping out humanity YouTube reveals bizarre AI music experiments AI-generated faces are starting to look more real than actual ones One of the world’s most hyped tech products just launched – and made a big mistake

Artificial intelligence startup Cohere, backed by investors including Oracle Corp. and Nvidia Corp., is working with banks to

Twitter boss Elon Musk, who has often touted himself as a champion of free speech, said he had no "actual choice" when accused of caving in to censorship demands made by authoritarian governments. Since the billionaire's takeover in October last year, Twitter has approved 83 per cent more censorship requests from governments such as Turkey and India, El Pais reported. The company reportedly received 971 requests from governments, fully acceding to 808 of them and partially acceding to 154. The year prior to Mr Musk taking control, Twitter agreed to 50 per cent of such requests, which was in line with the compliance rate indicated in the company’s last transparency report. The report, shared by Bloomberg columnist Matthew Yglesias, evoked an angry reaction from Mr Musk. Mr Yglesias tweeted the report with the caption "I’m a free speech absolutist", quoting the Twitter boss. The world's second-richest person shot back, writing: "You're such a numbskull. Please point out where we had an actual choice and we will reverse it." The columnist responded: "Look, I’m not the one who bought Twitter amidst a blaze of proclamations about free speech principles. "Obviously you’re within your rights to run your business however you want." Mr Musk has repeatedly reiterated his backing for free speech both before and since the $44bn acquisition of Twitter. The “absolutist” quote refers to a tweet in March 2022 in the wake of Vladimir Putin’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. "Starlink has been told by some governments (not Ukraine) to block Russian news sources. We will not do so unless at gunpoint," Mr Musk tweeted. "Sorry to be a free speech absolutist." Yet Twitter has been accused of helping incumbent Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan stifle criticism by blocking several accounts in the two days before the country’s hotly contested general election. “In response to legal process and to ensure Twitter remains available to the people of Turkey, we have taken action to restrict access to some content in Turkey today,” Twitter’s global government affairs announced, without explaining which tweets would be blocked. Following severe criticism, Mr Musk alleged Twitter has “pushed harder for free speech than any other internet company, including Wokipedia”. Earlier this year in India, Twitter complied after Narendra Modi’s government used emergency powers to ban content related to a BBC documentary on social media. The two-part documentary included a previously unpublished report from the UK Foreign Office that held Mr Modi “directly responsible” for the “climate of impunity” that enabled communal violence in Gujarat state. The riots in February 2002 killed over 1,000 people – most of them Muslims – while Mr Modi was chief minister of the state. Justifying the consent Mr Musk said: "The rules in India for what can appear on social media are quite strict, and we can’t go beyond the laws of a country." He said doing so would put his staff at risk. “If we have a choice of either our people going to prison or us complying with the laws, we will comply with the laws.” Read More Elon Musk tweets quote by neo-Nazi wrongly attributed to Voltaire Erdogan declared winner of Turkey presidential run-off – extending his 20 years in power India uses emergency powers to ban anyone from sharing clips of BBC Modi documentary Elon Musk tweets quote by neo-Nazi wrongly attributed to Voltaire Elon Musk’s Neuralink brain chip company gets FDA approval for human testing AOC jokes more people watched her gaming online than listened to DeSantis launch

An AI version of Kendall Jenner is going viral after it was launched by Meta as part of Instagram introducing the future of technology on the app. Known as 'Billie' (@yoursisbillie), it's thought the Keeping Up With The Kardashians star was paid 'millions' to lend her face and voice to the account, which offers advice to fans - and it's near-impossible to tell it's not real. "I don't like this, I don't like where the world is heading, I'm not gonna support this," one terrified user wrote in the comments. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter