Its owner Elon Musk says "competition is fine, cheating is not" a day after the rival app launches.

Warner Music Central Europe has offered its first record deal to a digital character, Noonoouri, releasing her debut single Dominoes featuring German DJ Alle Farben on Friday. Artificial intelligence (AI) technology was used to create the singing voice of Noonoouri, which has been based on a real singer’s voice but altered so she has her own distinct sound. The songwriters and musicians on the track will receive royalties and publishing splits just like any traditional song, the PA news agency understands. The character’s debut track Dominoes features 38-year-old German DJ and music producer Alle Farben, real name Frans Zimmer, and was written by a group of songwriters and musicians. The music video also features the avatar wearing Kim Kardashian’s shapewear brand Skims, which was chosen by Noonoouri creator Joerg Zuber. Commenting on her debut music video on Instagram, Mr Zuber said: “After two years working so hard on this music project, we finally can share this incredible teamwork with world – thank you @warnermusic.de for believing in us #TheBeginning.” A spokesperson for Warner Music Central Europe said: “Noonoouri is a long-standing digital character who we’ve signed to a record deal. “She’s not AI generated, though AI assisted tech was used to help create her singing voice. “Talented songwriters and musicians wrote and recorded her debut track Dominoes, and we can’t wait for fans to discover it.” Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live

The discovery of beautiful, ancient rock engravings has been a bitter-sweet experience for experts in Brazil’s Amazon. On the one hand, the carvings offer an exciting insight into the first people who inhabited the region. On the other, it is a worrying signal that the Negro River, which runs through the region, may soon cease to exist. An extreme drought in parts of the rainforest has led to a dramatic drop in river water levels – with the Negro’s flow reaching its lowest level for 121 years last week. The drop exposed dozens of normally submerged rock formations featuring carvings of human forms that may date back some 2,000 years. Livia Ribeiro, a longtime resident of the Amazon's largest city, Manaus, said she heard about the rock engravings from friends and wanted to check them out. "I thought it was a lie,” she told the AFP news agency. “I had never seen this and I've lived in Manaus for 27 years.” She admitted that whilst scientists and members of the public were delighted at the discovery, they acknowledged that it also raised unsettling questions. "We come, we look at (the engravings) and we think they are beautiful. But at the same time, it is worrying,” she said. “I also think about whether this river will exist in 50 or 100 years.” Drought in Brazil's Amazon has drastically reduced river levels in recent weeks, affecting a region that depends on a labrynth of waterways for transportation and supplies. The Brazilian government has sent emergency aid to the area, where normally bustling riverbanks are dry and littered with stranded boats. According to experts, the dry season has worsened this year due to El Niño, an irregular climate pattern over the Pacific Ocean that disrupts normal weather, adding to the effect of climate change. Jaime Oliveira, of the Brazilian Institute of Historical Heritage (Iphan), said the engravings comprise an archaeological site of "great relevance”. They are located at a site known as Praia das Lajes and were first seen in 2010, during another period of drought (which was not as severe as the current one). Most of the engravings are of human faces, some of them rectangular and others oval, with smiles or grim expressions. "The site expresses emotions, feelings, it is an engraved rock record, but it has something in common with current works of art," Oliveira said. For Beatriz Carneiro, historian and member of Iphan, Praia das Lajes has an "inestimable" value in understanding the first people who inhabited the region, a field still little explored. "Unhappily it is now reappearing with the worsening of the drought," she said. "Having our rivers back (flooded) and keeping the engravings submerged will help preserve them, even more than our work." 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

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Huawei has joined the list of companies that want to be all about artificial intelligence.

Nasa has received a “heartbeat” signal from its Voyager 2 spacecraft – but it is still lost in space. Over the weekend, Nasa announced that it had lost contact with Voyager 2, which was launched in 1977 and is now hovering on the edge of the solar system. The space agency had inadvertently sent a message to the craft that instructed it to turn its antenna two-degrees from Earth. That in turn meant that it lost contact with the Deep Space Network, or DSN, a collection of ground-based antennas that allow for contact with distant spacecraft. Engineers feared that they would not hear from Voyager 2 until October at the earliest. Then, it will automatically adjust itself, resetting its orientation and pointing the spacecraft back towards the Earth, when the space agency hoped it would make contact. But Nasa has now heard a “carrier signal” from Voyager 2, sent back as the Deep Space Network scanned the sky. The space agency compared the signal to a “heartbeat”, in that it confirms that the probe is still safe and sending messages back down to Earth. Engineers will now try and send commands to Voyager 2, instructing it to re-orient itself and point back at Earth. If that happens then it will be able to continue on again as normal, flying out into interstellar space and providing scientists with information as it goes. The instructions might not get through, however. If that happens then engineers will be powerless to correct their mistake. That will mean they will be back to waiting until October, which will bring the point at which the spacecraft’s software will automatically tell it to reset its direction. Read More Giant space ‘umbrella’ tethered to asteroid could protect Earth from climate crisis Songs, books and films inspired by the blue moon ESA’s Euclid space telescope captures glittering galaxies and stars in first images

Artificial intelligence is using gallons upon gallons of water. Microsoft alone used more than 2,500 Olympic-sized swimming pools of water in its data centres last year. The latest numbers are leading to yet more questions about the sustainability and environmental dangers of the growth of artificial intelligence and related technology. Artificial intelligence requires vast computing resources, undertaking deeply complex calculations on behalf of people around the world. AI systems tend to be run in the cloud rather than on individual people’s computers, meaning that companies running them must operate vast server farms to deal with the queries of their users. Those server farms in turn need to pump in water to cool themselves down, because of the heat generated by those computers. That has long been a concern for environmentalists, but the sharp growth in artificial intelligence has led to even more use. Microsoft’s water consumption rose 34 per cent between 2021 and 2022, according to its latest environmental report, highlighted by the Associated Press. It was up to almost 1.7 billion gallons. Not all of that is from artificial intelligence. But Shaolei Ren, a researcher at the University of California, Riverside working to better understand the environmental impact of AI told the AP that the “majority of the growth” is because of the technology. Google also said that its water use had increased by 20 per cent over the same period. That varied across its different data centres, which are based in different parts of the US. For each 5 to 50 prompts, or questions, put to ChatGPT, it uses 500 millilitres of water, according to a paper that will be published by Professor Ren and his team later this year. Many technology companies have expressed concerns about their own water use, and how to minimise any negative effects of their data centres. The environmental concerns can be especially pressing because the use of water can be focused in particular areas around a data centre, meaning that the damage may not be spread. Google said last year for instance that “Wherever we use water, we are committed to doing so responsibly”. That includes analysing where water is being used and how much stress it might put on the surrounding area, for instance. Read More AI can help generate synthetic viruses and spark pandemics, warns ex-Google executive China’s ‘government-approved’ AI chatbot says Taiwan invasion likely Google launches AI to go to meetings for you

With yet another September iPhone event come and gone, we have officially reached the iPhone

By Echo Wang NEW YORK Arm Holdings Ltd is targeting a valuation between $50 billion to $55 billion

Konami has confirmed it is on the hunt for a new in-house ‘Silent Hill’ development squad with “maniacal sensibilities”.