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Your Chipotle guacamole may soon be prepared by a robot. Meet "Autocado," a Chipotle robot designed to perform the more tedious tasks of creating the chain's guacamole, including cutting, coring, and peeling avocados.

Vice President Kamala Harris has been left somewhat red-faced after a clip of her attempting to explain artificial intelligence was viewed more than 800,000 times. Ms Harris describing AI as a “fancy thing” during a roundtable with advocacy representatives has been roundly mocked, with many people comparing the answer to some of the gaffes that President Joe Biden has become known for. “I think the first part of this issue that should be articulated is AI is kind of a fancy thing, first of all, it’s two letters, it means artificial intelligence but ultimately ... it’s about machine learning,” Ms Harris said. “And so the machine is taught and part of the issue here is what information is going into the machine that will then determine, and we can predict then if we think about what information is going in, what then will be produced in terms of decisions and opinions that may be made through that process.” One Twitter user referred to Ms Harris’ description as being like “the introduction to a 6th-grade essay on AI”, while another suggested the vice president “always speaks as if she is talking to a room of 3rd graders”. “It’s nearly impossible to tell the difference between Kamala Harris speaking about AI and Bart Simpson’s book report on Treasure Island,” another user added. Ms Harris has previously been mocked for past comments, in particular after she told Today in January 2022 on the topic of the coronavirus pandemic: “It is time for us to do what we have been doing, and that time is every day. Every day, it is time for us to agree that there are things and tools that are available to us to slow this thing down.” The vice president currently has an approval rating of 39.2 per cent, according to polling averages from FiveThirtyEight, while President Biden has a slightly higher approval rating of 40.6 per cent. Read More Vice President Kamala Harris makes history with tiebreaking votes in Senate Kamala Harris arrives in Ghana to ‘deepen ties’ with country amid competition from China Ron DeSantis rules out being Trump’s running mate: ‘I’m not a number two guy’

Senator Ted Cruz of Texas is attempting to rally support for a bill that would reveal to Americans if their household devices are spying on them. Mr Cruz took to the Senate floor on Tuesday to rally support for the Informing Consumers about the Smart Devices Act — warning that as more and more Americans bring smart devices into their homes, the result could be a loss of privacy. “In Texas, we’ve become very aware of that cost,” Mr Cruz said. “The past few years, smart thermostats have allowed electric companies to control the temperature in your own home from afar in the name of conserving energy. Furthermore, a lot of Americans don’t realize or expect that the growing number of smart household devices and appliances, have cameras on them, and microphones that can surreptitiously record families and transmit data.” Mr Cruz says his bill would require technology manufacturers to clearly disclose whether their appliances have listening devices, cameras, or any other spying technologies. The bill would not apply to cell phones, laptops, or other devices “that a consumer would reasonably expect to include a camera or microphone.” Mr Cruz first introduced the proposal back in January with Sen Maria Cantwell of Washington, a Democrat. Sen Raphael Warnock of Georgia also joined the bill as a co-sponsor in late March, shortly after it was marked up by the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation committee. According to Mr Cruz’s testimony, the bill passed the Commerce Committee by a voice vote but has not yet been taken up by the full Senate. At its core, Mr Cruz said, the bill is designed as a consumer protection measure to let Americans know what they’re bringing into their home — a right that he feels takes precedent over concerns about government overreach. “Now, I’m sympathetic to the argument that there are too many mandates from government and that many of the mandates are unnecessary, burdensome, and costly,” Mr Cruz said. “But requiring a manufacturer to tell you if they’re spying on you does not fall into that category. And I have to say in assessing the minimal burden, the disclosure burden, against the harm, I fall down on the side of individual liberty. I fall down on the side of privacy.” Privacy is, in many ways, one of the defining issues of the internet age — particularly at a time when the buying and selling of people’s personal data is a multi-billion dollar industry that is expected to grow exponentially in the coming years. “I don’t think the American people want their air fryer spying on them,” Mr Cruz said. “And at a minimum, they have a right to know if their air fryer is spying on them.” Read More Ted Cruz accuses new Barbie movie of ‘pushing Chinese propaganda’

Republicans are escalating their legal threats against Target, pressuring the company to remove merchandise for transgender customers and backtrack on its initiatives to hire minorities and diversify vendors.

The US Federal Trade Commission urged an appeals court to delay Microsoft Corp.’s $69 billion takeover of Activision

“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

AMSTERDAM--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jul 13, 2023--

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The United States will not pay reparations to developing countries hit by climate-fueled disasters, John Kerry, the U.S.

OpenAI has lost another board member with the departure of former Texas representative Will Hurd, who announced at

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A U.S. appeals court on the West Coast opened a docket on Thursday on the U.S. Federal Trade

By Chibuike Oguh NEW YORK Shares in Viasat plunged by as much as 36% to about a one-year

The world just had its hottest June ever for land and sea, with ocean temperatures setting new highs