A top university in northwest China has scrapped English tests as a prerequisite for graduation, rekindling a heated debate about the role of the world's lingua franca in the country's education system after years of rising nationalist sentiment under leader Xi Jinping.

ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun 15, 2023--

GOTHENBURG, Sweden--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun 26, 2023--

FOUNTAIN VALLEY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug 2, 2023--

Joe Rogan and Elon Musk criticized MSNBC's tweet with an article that discredits the far-right movement's interest in health and fitness

Getting locked out of your iPhone is frustrating. But it’s possible to solve the problem of a forgotten passcode without hiring a hypnotist.

AUSTIN, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jul 20, 2023--

We were especially looking forward to seeing Corsair’s suite at Computex 2023 because during CES

The expanding artificial intelligence (AI) market, including chatbots such as ChatGPT, can help boost productivity and economic growth across the UK if developed responsibly, the competition watchdog has said. In a new report, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has set out a list of guiding principles for the AI market to ensure consumers are protected. They include ensuring the AI developers are accountable for their output, while access to services, diversity within the market, choice and flexibility are also key focuses alongside a push for fair dealing and transparency. The CMA’s report comes amid growing concerns over the rapid development of generative AI – accessible technology that can create text, images and video barely distinguishable from humans’ output. Regulators worldwide are stepping up their scrutiny of AI, given its explosion into general use worldwide and fears over its impact on jobs, industry, copyright, the education sector and privacy – among many other areas. The speed at which AI is becoming part of everyday life for people and businesses is dramatic. There is real potential for this technology to turbo charge productivity and make millions of everyday tasks easier – but we can’t take a positive future for granted Sarah Cardell, CMA chief executive In its report, the CMA said competitive, responsible AI markets could see the creation of new and better products and services, as well as easier access to information, scientific and health breakthroughs and lower prices. But the watchdog warned that if competition is weak or developers fail to adhere to consumer protection law, people and businesses could be harmed through exposure to significant levels of misinformation and AI-enabled fraud. It also said that without proper principles, a handful of companies could use AI to gain or entrench positions of market power. Sarah Cardell, CMA chief executive, said: “The speed at which AI is becoming part of everyday life for people and businesses is dramatic. There is real potential for this technology to turbo charge productivity and make millions of everyday tasks easier – but we can’t take a positive future for granted. “There remains a real risk that the use of AI develops in a way that undermines consumer trust or is dominated by a few players who exert market power that prevents the full benefits being felt across the economy. While I hope that our collaborative approach will help realise the maximum potential of this new technology, we are ready to intervene where necessary Sarah Cardell, CMA chief executive “The CMA’s role is to help shape these markets in ways that foster strong competition and effective consumer protection, delivering the best outcomes for people and businesses across the UK. “In rapidly developing markets like these, it’s critical we put ourselves at the forefront of that thinking, rather than waiting for problems to emerge and only then stepping in with corrective measures. “That’s why we have today proposed these new principles and launched a broad programme of engagement to help ensure the development and use of foundation models evolves in a way that promotes competition and protects consumers. “While I hope that our collaborative approach will help realise the maximum potential of this new technology, we are ready to intervene where necessary.” As part of its engagement programme, the CMA said it will begin discussions with AI stakeholders in the UK and globally around developing its principles further and working with those groups on developing AI markets further. Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live ‘Shocking’ rise in number of children falling victim to sextortion, charity says BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 announce smart TV platform Father of Molly Russell calls on Ofcom to ‘boldly’ enforce new online safety law

Male characters in role-playing video games have 50% more dialogue than females, highlighting a “stark gender imbalance” in the gaming genre, scientists have said. In role-playing games (RPGs), the gamer controls one or more characters undertaking quests or missions in an imaginary world. Researchers from the Universities of Glasgow and Cardiff analysed the dialogue of 50 RPGs from 1986 to 2020, including Final Fantasy, Skyrim and Mass Effect. This encompassed 6.2 million spoken words from 13,000 characters. The results, published in the journal Royal Society Open Science, suggest 94% of the games studied had more male dialogue than female dialogue, including ones with multiple female protagonists such as Final Fantasy X-2 or King’s Quest VII. They also found that the proportion of female dialogue is slowly increasing in RPGs at a rate of 6.3 percentage points per decade – from a mean of about 18% in the 1980s to about 40% by 2020. While we expected to find a larger proportion of male dialogue overall, we were surprised to discover how few games - just three of 50 - had more than 50% female dialogue Dr Stephanie Rennick, University of Glasgow However, the researchers said that if this rate were to continue, gender balance would not be reached until 2036. Dr Stephanie Rennick, research associate in philosophy, school of humanities at the University of Glasgow, said: “While we expected to find a larger proportion of male dialogue overall, we were surprised to discover how few games – just three of 50 – had more than 50% female dialogue. “I was also surprised that the lack of female characters compared to their male counterparts persisted at every level, from main player characters through to background NPCs (non-player characters).” For the study, the researchers obtained the transcripts of dialogue used in the games and identified which character said what. Dr Sean Roberts, lecturer at the school of English, communication and philosophy at Cardiff University, said: “We categorised the gender of each character, not assuming binary gender. “This allowed us to count how many words were available for each gender in each game. “For example, we can compare the number of words spoken by female characters to the number of words spoken by male characters.” The researchers found only 35% of words were spoken by female characters and they were more likely to apologise, hesitate or be polite, compared with their male counterparts. They said the proportion of female dialogue ranged from 6% (King’s Quest VI) to 80% (King’s Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella). They discovered one game, Monkey Island, did not pass the Bechdel test, which requires two named female characters to talk to each other about something besides a man. Around half of gamers are female, but they experience a lot of abuse and exclusion. More diverse representation is being called for by players and developers Dr Sean Roberts, Cardiff University The team also found examples of stereotyped gendered behaviour. The researchers said that in Stardew Valley, characters respond differently depending on the player character’s gender. For example, they said, female players are offered a salad, wine, repeatedly described as beautiful and assumed to have little experience of video games, while male players are offered pasta, ale, described as “full of energy” and are assumed to be good video game players. Analysis also showed only 30 out of 13,000 characters belong to the non-binary gender categories, which is about half as much as in real life, the researchers said. Dr Roberts said: “Around half of gamers are female, but they experience a lot of abuse and exclusion. “More diverse representation is being called for by players and developers. “So we hope that developers will consider addressing the imbalances we found in order to create more inclusive games.”

EA Sports FC 24 ratings leaks for the top 50 detailing players ranked 30-21 including Vinicius Junior, Mohamed Salah, Bruno Fernandes, Antoine Griezmann and more.

NASHVILLE, Tenn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sep 20, 2023--