List of All Articles with Tag 'tech'

A US watchdog has filed a compliant against Elon Musk’s X – previously Twitter – calling for an investigation over the platform’s advertising practices, including the alleged non-disclosure of some posts as ads. The non-profit organisation Check My Ads filed the complaint with the US Federal Trade Commission about the lack of labeling of some posts as ads, arguing that such content on the platform could mislead users. “This misrepresentation tricks users into trusting content as organic and exacerbates the opportunity for scams to occur,” the complaint noted. “Furthermore, by failing to adequately disclose advertisements, X Corp. misrepresents the methods employed to target users or facilitate third-party ad targeting,” it said. After initially spotting instances of adverts on X not being labelled, the watchdog called out users on the microblogging platform in September to flag more such instances they spot. In the following weeks, it gatherd information on “hundreds of unlabelled ads” from several users to build a case to the FTC, demanding X to be investigated. “Not marking ads is no small thing. As the complaint points out, unlabeled ads could trick users into thinking content is organic, increasing the chance for scams,” Check My Ads explained in a blog post. With unlabelled ads on social media platforms, people also have no way to know they are being targetted. While X is set up to explain why any user is seeing a particular ad with a hyperlink, the watchdog found that these links are “frequently broken”. “X Corp.’s lack of disclosures to consumers, misrepresentations to advertisers, and flawed access to explanations about targeted advertising constitute unfair and deceptive practices,“ Check My Ads’ policy director Sarah Kay Wiley said. “We urge the Commission to determine the extent of these violations and address them to the full extent of its authority,” Ms Wiley said. X did not immediately respond to The Independent’s request for comment. The complaint comes as X countinues different approaches, including new paid for services, to shore up more revenue, which is down 60 per cent since Mr Musk took over the company. While once advert posts had the word “promoted” below them, they now are seen with a smaller “ad” label, which do not seem to appear on some posts as the complaint mentions. Users have also complained on the platform that they are sometimes even unable to block or report some unlabeled ads. Read More Elon Musk’s new AI bot will help you make cocaine which proves it’s ‘rebellious’ How Elon Musk’s ‘spicy’ Grok compares to ‘woke’ ChatGPT Elon Musk unveils new sarcasm-loving AI chatbot for premium X subscribers VR tool aims to help rail passengers spot and safely tackle sexual harassment WhatsApp warning over fee to keep old messages ChatGPT Plus stops signups after major update

Train passengers are being shown how to recognise sexual harassment and intervene without putting themselves in harm’s way through an “immersive” virtual reality experience. As part of work by the rail industry and British Transport Police to ensure passengers feel safe, the VR tool will be available at Edinburgh Waverley station on Thursday. It has been designed to empower bystanders to recognise and help combat sexual harassment on the railway and will demonstrate how small actions such as offering to swap seats or distracting the perpetrator with a question, could make a big difference. The Rail Delivery Group said its research found 85% of women said they would feel relieved if someone intervened when experiencing sexual harassment on public transport. People in Edinburgh have been invited to try the immersive VR experience at their local station. Jacqueline Starr, chief executive of Rail Delivery Group, said: “As an industry we are actively tackling all forms of sexual harassment and are committed to making our passengers feel safe when on board. “By showcasing the ground-breaking VR experience in stations across the country, we’re equipping people with tips on how to safely intervene in situations as a bystander without putting themselves in harm’s way. “Whether you see it or experience it, we ask everyone to report anything that makes you uncomfortable to British Transport Police by texting 61016 or using the Railway Guardian app. “Passengers using Britain’s railways have a right to feel safe and confident to call out these behaviours without fear.” Joanne Maguire, ScotRail chief operating officer, said: “Everyone has the right to go about their day in peace without fear of harassment or abuse. “ScotRail works very closely with British Transport Police and Network Rail to ensure that Scotland’s Railway is a safe environment for our customers and our staff. “To assist us in tackling unacceptable behaviour, it’s important for anyone who witnesses it to report those responsible so that they can be brought to justice. “This VR experience plays an important role in helping bystanders identify inappropriate behaviour when it takes place.” Further events will be held across Britain over the coming weeks and months. A spokesperson for British Transport Police said: “Sadly, many sexual offences take place in front of other passengers. “This campaign plays a vital role in educating passengers on what they can safely and sensitively do if they see someone being harassed. Reports from witnesses are crucial in helping us to remove sexual offenders from the railway. “Where necessary, we can dispatch officers to meet a train at the next stop. In other instances, a witness report could support a victim’s account or help us identify a pattern of offending behaviour. “We urge you to report any type of sexual behaviour that makes you uncomfortable by texting 61016 or via the Railway Guardian app.” Read More Ring to preview security features with abuse charity to boost safety TikTok launches feature to save songs to music apps like Spotify Urgent appeals for missing people to appear on Trainline app Data protection watchdog offers tips on buying smart devices on Black Friday Meta to allow users to delete Threads accounts without losing Instagram AI among biggest threats to next UK election, cyber security agency warns

By Joe Cash BEIJING European firms "urgently" need China to give clearer definitions of key terms in its

By Stephen Nellis Microsoft has mostly pitched its "Copilot" as a way to help finish up lines of

By Foo Yun Chee BRUSSELS Photoshop maker Adobe expects to get an EU antitrust warning on its $20

By Patricia Zengerle and Michael Martina WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. lawmakers asked Apple Inc to explain the abrupt end of political

OpenAI has temporarily stopped people from signing up to the premium version of ChatGPT, after it proved so popular the company was unable to operate it. Just over a week ago, OpenAI held a developer conference in which it announced a range of new features, including a faster version of its chatbot and access to the new GPTs feature that lets people make their own versions of ChatGPT. Many of those new tools are limited to subscribers to ChatGPT Plus, the paid-for version that also offers fewer restrictions on how much ChatGPT can be used. Now, however, OpenAI is “pausing” new sign-ups “for a bit”, its chief executive Sam Altman announced. The interest in those tools had proven too much for the company to deal with. “we are pausing new ChatGPT Plus sign-ups for a bit :(,” he wrote on Twitter. “the surge in usage post devday has exceeded our capacity and we want to make sure everyone has a great experience. you can still sign-up to be notified within the app when subs reopen.” Mr Altman’s announcement came after a run of technical issues in the wake of the new announcements. Since the event was held on 6 November, there have been six days of outages, according to OpenAI’s official status tracker, including one major outage that took ChatGPT offline for almost two hours. In the weeks before that, OpenAI had seen no downtime at all, according to the same page. ChatGPT Plus was launched in February, for $20 per month. Since then, OpenAI has added a range of new features to the offering, including those announced at its recent developer conference. The company says that the premium offering supports it work in making ChatGPT available for free. Artificial intelligence work is notoriously expensive because of the complex calculations required to answer a question, and so the free version of ChatGPT operates at a considerable loss. “We love our free users and will continue to offer free access to ChatGPT,” OpenAI’s website says. “By offering this subscription pricing, we will be able to help support free access availability to as many people as possible.” Read More ChatGPT creator mocks Elon Musk in brutal tweet ChatGPT goes offline ChatGPT update allows anyone to make their own personalised AI assistant

LONDON (Reuters) -Britain's Ocado Group has secured its first deal outside grocery retail to provide its robotic warehouse technology to

Researchers have successfully created a robotic hand with bones, ligaments and tendons using 3D printing for the first time. A team from ETH Zurich in Switzerland were able to accomplish the complex construction using a new technology that combines 3D printing with a laser scanner and feedback mechanism. The method opens up the possibility of building far more complex and durable robots in the future, according to the researchers. “We wouldn’t have been able to make this hand with the fast-curing polyacrylates we’ve been using in 3D printing so far,” said Robert Katzschmann, a professor of robotics at ETH Zurich and leader of the research into the next-generation robotic hand. It marks a breakthrough in both 3D printing – with all the hand’s components printed simultaneously rather than assembled separately – as well as the field of soft robotics, which shuns materials like metal that are typically used to construct robots. “Robots made of soft materials, such as the hand we developed, have advantages over conventional robots made of metal,” said Professor Katzschmann. “Because they’re soft, there is less risk of injury when they work with humans, and they are better suited to handling fragile goods.” Despite significant advances in industrial robots over the last decade, they still pose a considerable risk to humans working alongside them. Earlier this month, a South Korean man was crushed to death by a machine that mistook him for a box of vegetables. The latest soft robotic hand was detailed in a paper, titled ‘Vision-controlled jetting for composite systems and robots’, published in the scientific journal Nature on Wednesday. “Recreating complex structures and functions of natural organisms in a synthetic form is a long-standing goal for humanity,” the paper notes. “Our approach provides an automated, scalable, high-throughput process to manufacture high-resolution, functional multi material systems.” Read More MIT invents self-replicating AI robots Nasa spots collection of shocking materials on distant planet Ring to preview security features with abuse charity to boost safety WhatsApp users warned they will soon have to pay to keep old messages and photos

A bipartisan group of U.S. Senators has written to Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg demanding documents about its

Nasa’s James Webb Space Telescope has spotted a “fluffy” planet with an atmosphere made up of a collection of intriguing materials. The planet has a similar water and cloud cycle to that of our own Earth. But the clouds are made of sand and the clouds are made of silicate. Other parts of the atmosphere are more like our own and could be an intriguing hint of the telescope’s ability to investigate planets that might be home to distant alien life. Data gathered using the telescope revealed that WASP-107b - a planet 200 lightyears away that orbits a star in the constellation of Virgo - has a dynamic atmosphere made up of water vapour, sulphur dioxide, and sand clouds. Scientists say this exoplanet - a planet outside the Solar System - has a cloud cycle similar to Earth, except the droplets are made of sand instead of water vapour. While clouds have been inferred on other exoplanets, the researchers said their work, published in the journal Nature, is the first instance where astronomers have been able to identify the chemical composition of clouds in a distant planet. Study author Dr Achrene Dyrek, an astronomer at CEA - a French government-funded research organisation in Paris, said: “JWST enables a deep atmospheric characterisation of an exoplanet that does not have any counterpart in our Solar System, we are unravelling new worlds!” European astronomers used JWST’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) to peer deep into WASP-107b’s atmosphere. WASP-107b is just a little smaller than Jupiter but its mass is less than 10% of the gas giant. This makes it one of the lowest density exoplanets known, thus earning the label “fluffy” - like candyfloss. The fluffiness of this exoplanet allowed astronomers to look much deeper into the atmosphere - roughly 50 times deeper compared to Jupiter - revealing its complex chemical composition. While the team found the presence of water vapour, SO2, and silicate clouds, they said the greenhouse gas methane (CH4) was notably absent, hinting at “a potentially warm interior”. Just like clouds on Earth, the sand clouds high in WASP-107b’s atmosphere undergo a continuous cycle of sublimation and condensation. Study author Dr Michiel Min, a senior scientist at the SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research, said: “The fact that we see these sand clouds high up in the atmosphere must mean that the sand rain droplets evaporate in deeper, very hot layers and the resulting silicate vapour is efficiently moved back up, where they recondense to form silicate clouds once more. “This is very similar to the water vapour and cloud cycle on our own Earth but with droplets made of sand.” The researchers said their work marks “a significant milestone” in understanding more about the climatic conditions of other exotic worlds. Study author Professor Leen Decin, of KU Leuven in Belgium, said: “The discovery of clouds of sand, water, and sulphur dioxide on this fluffy exoplanet by JWST’s MIRI instrument is a pivotal milestone. “It reshapes our understanding of planetary formation and evolution, shedding new light on our own Solar System.” Additional reporting by agencies Read More Ring to preview security features with abuse charity to boost safety WhatsApp users warned they will soon have to pay to keep old messages and photos TikTok launches feature to save songs to music apps like Spotify Ring to preview security features with abuse charity to boost safety WhatsApp users warned they will soon have to pay to keep old messages and photos TikTok launches feature to save songs to music apps like Spotify

Commerzbank AG on Wednesday said it has received a crypto custody licence in Germany, which it said will