Toyota Motor Corp.’s annual shareholder meeting is poised to become a referendum of sorts on the Japanese carmaker’s

OSAKA, Japan--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun 7, 2023--

Carbon emissions from wildfires in Canada are at record levels, with a plume of smoke crossing the Atlantic

Kick's TikTok ad trolled Pokimane after she took a dig at other streams

“Ghost” stars are aligned in beautiful structures near the centre of our galaxy, scientists say – and they might finally be getting to know why. Researchers discovered the unusual alignment of these planetary nebulae ten years ago, when Manchester doctoral student Bryan Rees spotted them. But it has remained a mystery how they came to be that way. Now scientists have been able to confirm that unusual alignment. But they have also made a breakthrough in finding out why they are there, after they found that a particular group of stars known as binary stars is responsible. Planetary nebulae are gas clouds that are thrown out from stars when they come to the end of their life. Our own star, the Sun, will do the same in about five billion years. Those ejected clouds are like ghosts of their dying stars, and assemble themselves in beautiful shapes, researchers say, such as an hourglass or butterfly. Researchers studied a range of planetary nebulae that are near the centre of our Milky Way. Though they are not related and come from different stars and different times, many of their shapes are similar, lining up in the same way and on the same plane. In the new study, scientists found that the alignment happens when those ghosts have a close companion star. The companion orbits around the main star, at the centre of the planetary nebulae, at a very close orbit. Without such a companion star, the nebulae do not line up in the mysterious pattern. That suggests that the alignment is linked to the splitting of the binary components when the star is born. “This finding pushes us closer to understanding the cause for this mysterious alignment,” said Albert Zijlstra, co-author and professor in astrophysics at The University of Manchester. “Planetary nebulae offer us a window into the heart of our galaxy and this insight deepens our understanding of the dynamics and evolution of the Milky Way’s bulge region. “The formation of stars in the bulge of our galaxy is a complex process that involves various factors such as gravity, turbulence, and magnetic fields. Until now, we have had a lack of evidence for which of these mechanisms could be causing this process to happen and generating this alignment. “The significance in this research lies in the fact that we now know that the alignment is observed in this very specific subset of planetary nebulae.” Researchers looked at 136 confirmed planetary nebulae in the galactic bulge, or the thickest section of our Milky Way. They used the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope, and then looked at 40 more of them using images from the Hubble Space Telescope. The findings are reported in a new paper, ‘When the Stars Align: A 5 σ Concordance of Planetary Nebulae Major Axes in the Centre of our Galaxy’, in the Astrophysical Journal Letters. Read More Euclid: UK-backed mission ready to uncover mysteries of the dark universe Jeff Bezos’ rocket exploded and he didn’t tell anyone Nasa unveils ‘astrovans’ to carry Artemis moon mission astronauts Jeff Bezos’ rocket exploded and he didn’t tell anyone Nasa unveils ‘astrovans’ to carry Artemis moon mission astronauts Nasa releases James Webb telescope image on one-year anniversary

Google is set to be hit with a formal antitrust complaint from the European Union that could pave

Hitting the campaign trail in Iowa on Wednesday for the first time as a presidential candidate, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis road tested new policy ideas for handling student debt and boosting military morale.

NICHOLASVILLE, Ky. & QUINCY, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sep 18, 2023--

Bots are better and significantly faster than humans at cracking Captcha tests, according to a comprehensive new study that inspected the security system deployed in over 100 popular websites. Automated bots pose a significant threat to the internet because they can masquerade as legitimate human users and perform harmful operations like scraping content, creating accounts and posting fake comments or reviews, as well as consuming scarce resources. “If left unchecked, bots can perform these nefarious actions at scale,” warned scientists, including those from the University of California, Irvine. For over two decades, Captchas have been deployed as security checks by websites to block potentially harmful bots by presenting puzzles that are supposed to be straightforward for people to solve – but very difficult for computers. Earlier forms of Captcha, for instance, asked users to transcribe distorted text from an image, but with advances in computer vision and machine learning, bots soon caught up to recognise the text with near perfect accuracy. Engaged in an arms race with bots, Captchas have since evolved into an annoying presence on the internet, becoming increasingly more and more difficult to solve for both bots and humans. However, the new yet-to-be peer-reviewed research, posted in arXiv, finds bots are able to quickly crack Captcha tests with ease, suggesting global effort users put into cracking these puzzles every day may be more trouble than its worth. In the study, scientists assessed 200 of the most popular websites and found 120 still used Captcha. They took the help of 1,000 participants online from diverse backgrounds – varying in location, age, sex and educational level – to take 10 captcha tests on these sites and gauge their difficulty levels. Researchers found many bots described in scientific journals could beat humans at these tests in both speed and accuracy. Some captcha tests took human participants between nine and 15 seconds to solve, with an accuracy of about 50 to 84 per cent, while it took the bots less than a second to crack them, with up to near perfection. “The bots’ accuracy ranges from 85-100 per cent, with the majority above 96 per cent. This substantially exceeds the human accuracy range we observed (50-85 per cent),” scientists wrote in the study. They also found that the bots’ solving times are “significantly lower” or nearly the same as humans in almost all cases. Since current Captchas do not meet the required security goal of keeping bots away, researchers have called for better and more dynamic approaches to protect websites. Read More Shock for millions of voters as details exposed in hack – which went undetected for a year AI-driven cyberattack can now steal your passwords with near 100 per cent accuracy, study warns More than a million NHS patients’ details compromised after cyberattack Many adults would struggle to understand video-sharing platforms’ rules – Ofcom Now even Zoom tells staff: ‘Come back to the office’ Ozzy Osbourne PlayStation tweet which failed to reveal link to Sony banned

Meta has announced plans to remove all news content from Facebook and Instagram in Canada ahead of a new law coming into effect that would force the platforms to share revenue with publishers. The Online News Act, known as Bill C-18, will force big technology companies to compensate news publishers for content that appears on their platforms, with Google also impacted by the legislation. “Today, we are confirming that news availability will be ended on Facebook and Instagram for all users in Canada prior to the Online News Act (Bill C-18) taking effect,” Facebook said in a blog post. “We have repeatedly shared that in order to comply with Bill C-18, passed today in Parliament, content from news outlets, including news publishers and broadcasters, will no longer be available to people accessing our platforms in Canada.” Ottawa has said the law creates a level playing field between online advertising giants and the shrinking news industry. Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez has promised to push back on what he describes as “threats” from Facebook and Google to remove journalism from their platforms. Meta’s plan to comply with the new law by blocking all news will also likely be harmful for news organisations, who derive web traffic from stories posted to Facebook and Instagram. The tech giant did not offer details about the timeline for the move, with the bill set to come into force six months after it receives royal assent. Meta, which is based in Menlo Park, California, has taken similar steps in the past. In 2021, it briefly blocked news from its platform in Australia after the country passed legislation that would compel tech companies to pay publishers for using their news stories. It later struck deals with Australian publishers. Laura Scaffidi, a spokesperson for the minister, said Mr Rodriguez was set to have a meeting Thursday afternoon with Google, which has hinted that removing news links from its popular search engine is a possibility. The company didn’t provide comment on the matter. Meta is already undergoing a test that blocks news for up to five percent of its Canadian users, and Google ran a similar test earlier this year. The Online News Act requires both companies to enter into agreements with news publishers to pay them for news content that appears on their sites if it helps the tech giants generate money. Ms Scaffidi said: “The tech giants do not have obligations under the act immediately after Bill C-18 passes. As part of this process, all details will be made public before any tech giant is designated under the act.” Additional reporting from agencies Read More Elon Musk confirms cage fight with Mark Zuckerberg Facebook Marketplace is most complained-about online retail platforms Meta reveals new AI that is too powerful to release Mark Zuckerberg reveals what he thinks about Apple’s headset – and it’s not good

The Federal Trade Commission is likely to sue Amazon.com Inc. later this month, capping a four-year antitrust investigation

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sep 7, 2023--