List of All Articles with Tag 'tech'

By Max A. Cherney Artificial intelligence chip startup SambaNova Systems announced a new semiconductor on Tuesday, designed to

X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, has stopped working. The site broke hours after Elon Musk said that he is planning to force everyone to pay for access to the site. Some parts of X continued to load, for some people. But users had problems with much of the site, including loading tweets and their timelines. Tracking website Down Detector showed a huge influx of reports of problems on Tuesday afternoon, across the world. That site depends on reports from X, and so may experience problems itself. Mr Musk told Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the subscription fee was necessary to avoid “vast armies of bots” that he claimed have taken over the service. “We’re actually going to come up with a lower tier pricing... we just want it to be a small amount of money,” he said. “This is a longer discussion, but, in my view, this is actually the only defence against vast armies of bots.” Ever since completing his takeover of the platform formerly known as Twitter last year, the Tesla and SpaceX boss has spoken extensively about wanting to boost X’s income through new revenue streams, including subscription models. When launching Twitter Blue - now known as X Premium - a number of features which had previously been free to all users were placed behind the subscription paywall in an effort to spark more sign-ups for the paid version of the site. The need for new, different forms of income has become vital for Mr Musk after X advertising revenue plummeted in the wake of his takeover amid concern over his support for absolute free speech and more relaxed content moderation as a result. A number of advertisers went on to reduce or completely stop their advertising on the site. Mr Musk has previously said several campaign groups have falsely accused him and X of being antisemitic, costing the site millions in lost revenue because of advertising boycotts as a result. In his conversation with Mr Netanyahu, the Israeli leader said he knows Mr Musk is “committed” to stopping antisemitism after the billionaire reiterated he is against hate speech. Additional reporting by agencies Read More How does Russell Brand make money online? Elon Musk wants all Twitter users to pay a monthly fee Elon Musk’s X finally agrees to try and settle Twitter’s mass layoffs lawsuit Twitter rival Bluesky hits new milestone Famed tech journalist deletes X account with epic rant at Elon Musk Why is Elon Musk obsessed with the letter X?

By Stephen Nellis The chair of the U.S. House of Representatives' committee on China on Tuesday planned to

The new iPhone 15 Pro lineup offers a lot to get excited about: They're slimmer and thinner, the new cameras are professional-grade and the switch to USB-C charging will make your life easier. But one new feature easily stands out as the most fun: The Action Button.

YouTube has stopped Russell Brand making money on its platform because of the rape and sexual assault allegations made against him. The Google-owned company said it has suspended the monetisation of the 48-year-old’s channel because he was “violating” its “creator responsibility policy”. The BBC has also announced it was removing some content from its iPlayer and Sounds apps which “now falls below public expectations”. An episode of QI and a Joe Wicks podcast, both featuring Brand as a guest, have been removed, the PA news agency understands. It comes as the Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee chairwoman Dame Caroline Dinenage has written to the BBC, Channel 4 and TikTok to request for further details on what actions they are taking in response to the allegations and to GB News in relation to their coverage of the claims. Brand’s YouTube account, which has 6.6 million subscribers, has been suspended from YouTube’s Partner account “following serious allegations against the creator”, meaning the channel is no longer able to make money from advertising on the platform. In a statement, YouTube said the decision applied to all channels that may be “owned or operated” by Brand, adding: “If a creator’s off-platform behaviour harms our users, employees or ecosystem, we take action to protect the community.” The news comes after the remaining shows of Brand’s Bipolarisation tour were postponed and the Metropolitan Police said they had received a report of an alleged sexual assault in the wake of media allegations about the comedian and actor. A BBC spokesperson said: “The BBC does not ban or remove content when it is a matter of public record, unless we have justification for doing so. “There is limited content featuring Russell Brand on iPlayer and Sounds. We’ve reviewed that content and made a considered decision to remove some of it, having assessed that it now falls below public expectations.” Dame Caroline has said: “This weekend we have seen some very serious and disturbing accusations about Russell Brand’s behaviour and we understand that the police are now looking into some of these allegations. “As a first step, our committee has decided that we will today write to media outlets, including the BBC and Channel 4, to understand the actions they are taking as we consider some of the issues around these allegations.” In separate letters to Channel 4 chief executive Alex Mahon and BBC director-general Tim Davie, the committee chairwoman asked for a timescale and regular updates on their internal investigation. The letters also requested updates on the investigation being conducted by Banijay UK, which bought Endemol, the company commissioned by Channel 4 to produce the Big Brother spin-off shows Brand hosted, into his behaviour while he was working on their programmes. She added: “We urge both the BBC and Channel 4 to do everything possible not only to ensure that employees, contributors and suppliers feel safe at work, but also create an environment whereby people can speak out when procedures are breached.” Meanwhile, TikTok’s director of Government relations, Theo Bertram, was asked whether Brand could monetise his posts on the video sharing platform, where he has 2.3 million followers. Dame Caroline also asked “what the platform is doing to ensure that creators are not able to use the platform to undermine the welfare of victims of inappropriate and potentially illegal behaviour”. Brand still has a presence on video platform Rumble, where his channel has 1.4 million followers and he hosts a weekly live show at 5pm BST, but there was no new episode on Monday. His most recent video on Rumble is the short clip from Friday when he denied the allegations against him, which were published the following day. His Rumble channel description reads: “Everybody knows that the old ideas won’t help us. Religion is dead. Capitalism is dead. Communism is dead. Where will the answers of the next century lie? Particularly, when we’re facing a mental health epidemic and ecological meltdown.” He also has a dedicated subscribers’ area on the online community platform Locals, where members can sign up for a minimum 60 US dollars (£48) a year – or enter a higher amount if they wish to donate more – in order to access special bonus content from Brand, as well as the opportunity to interact with him directly. Brand has been accused of rape, assault and emotional abuse between 2006 and 2013, when he was at the height of his fame and working for the BBC, Channel 4 and starring in Hollywood films, following a joint investigation by The Times, Sunday Times and Channel 4’s Dispatches. He has strongly denied the allegations, which also include claims of controlling, abusive and predatory behaviour. His YouTube channel includes coverage of news stories, including alleged misinformation surrounding the Covid-19 pandemic and being an outspoken sceptic of the vaccine. Last year, one of his videos was taken down on YouTube over the site’s policy on Covid-19 disinformation, which prompted Brand to move his channel to Rumble. On Tuesday, The Times reported that several other women have since come forward with fresh claims about Brand. One woman, using the fake name Lisa, told the paper the comedian had sung about Soham killer Ian Huntley during a consensual sexual encounter in 2008. Another woman, known as Esme, told The Times that Brand had been threatening and verbally abusive towards her when she refused to have sex with him. In a now deleted YouTube video, Brand can be heard joking about raping a woman during a recording of Richard Herring’s Leicester Square Theatre Podcast in 2013. Before the first allegations were published, Brand posted a video on Friday saying he has been “promiscuous” but that all of his relationships have been “consensual”.

LONDON Britain has invited China to its Artificial Intelligence Safety Summit in November, foreign minister James Cleverly said

LONDON (Reuters) -YouTube said on Tuesday it had blocked Russell Brand from making money from his online channel after the

By Hannah Lang Coinbase, the largest U.S. cryptocurrency exchange, is stepping up its grassroots advocacy campaign in a

Conspiracy theorists have been turning their attention to Antarctica more than you’d expect over recent years. First, there was the case of the “bleeding waterfalls”, which remains one of the strangest natural phenomena you're likely to see, and there’s also the mystery of a so-called “pyramid” which has been found on the continent. Only, it’s not a pyramid at all – in fact, it’s a mountain. The Ellsworth Mountains are the highest mountain range in Antarctica and stretch 400km and the mountain in question was discovered by the British Antarctic Expedition of 1910-1913 It was called “The Pyramid” to keep the true nature of the discovery hidden from others at the time. Over the last hundred years, however, people have been speculating about the true nature of the location (even though it’s very much a mountain, poking up out of the ice) and now a second interesting geographical feature has bee discovered and got them talking all over again. The location in question is found at the coordinates 79°58’39.25?S 81°57’32.21?W, which has been a much-searched spot on Google Earth. Speaking to IFL Science, geologist at the German Research Centre for Geosciences in Potsdam, Dr Mitch Darcy, said: “The pyramid-shaped structures are located in the Ellsworth Mountains, which is a range more than 400 km long, so it’s no surprise there are rocky peaks cropping out above the ice. The peaks are clearly composed of rock, and it’s a coincidence that this particular peak has that shape. “It’s not a complicated shape, so it’s not a special coincidence either. By definition, it is a nunatak, which is simply a peak of rock sticking out above a glacier or an ice sheet. This one has the shape of a pyramid, but that doesn’t make it a human construction.” So, the new location is just that – a mountain poking out the top of the ice in Antarctica, and not a mysterious pyramid at all. Antarctica has been the subject of more than its fair share of speculation recently, after conspiracy theorist Eric Hecker described the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station by the south pole as an “air traffic control” hub for aliens earlier this year. Hecker claimed that in 2010 Raytheon, the US aerospace and defence conglomerate chose him to be a contractor on the research centre operated by the United States National Science Foundation. There was “much more” to the station that first met the eye, according to Hecker. Sign up to 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.

Google's Bard artificial intelligence chatbot is evolving.

The human body is a marvel of science and researchers have discovered a strange reoccurring mathematical pattern within its cells. Our bodies are made up of a massive variety of individual cells with countless different functions, from neurons in our nervous system to the oxygen carriers that all work in harmony to keep us alive. Experts from scientific research institutions in Germany, Canada, Spain, and the US have worked together on a study to determine just how many cells of each type there are in the human body and the results are staggering. They found that most adult males possess around 36 trillion cells, while adult females have in the region of 28 trillion cells. For a 10-year-old child, they have around 17 trillion. Interestingly though, scientists discovered that, regardless of the total number of cells, if they are grouped according to their function, the proportions for each individual remain the same. The researchers explained in their findings: “These patterns are suggestive of a whole-organism trade-off between cell size and count and imply the existence of cell-size homeostasis across cell types.” Scientists believe there is a natural balancing act at play between different cell types with new cells being produced to maintain the balance. The body produces fewer larger cells (such as muscle fibres) and more smaller cells (like blood cells). It is hoped that future studies will be able to uncover exactly how this happens and how bodies seem to naturally regulate cells. They explained that all cells are perfectly sized for their roles and any deviation from their scale can indicate the presence of disease. Experts have made their data, analysis and results public in the hopes that future studies into biology will be able to utilise their research. Sign up to 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.

Google Bard, the tech giant’s generative AI platform, can now link with other Google services such as Gmail, Maps and YouTube in order to provide more in-depth responses to prompts from users. Launched earlier this year, Bard is part of the new wave of AI-based chatbots which offer detailed written replies to questions and queries. Google has now announced a major update to the program, called Bard Extensions, which will allow users to link other Google services to collaborate with Bard to provide a response to a prompt – for example, when asking Bard to help plan a holiday, users can ask Bard to get the dates that work for family members from Gmail, use Google Maps to get directions to the airport and find YouTube videos to watch about the best things to do at the destination. It said the update made Bard “the most capable” version of the program so far and would help more people use the app to collaborate. The tech giant said the update would have a strong focus on user privacy, with users required to actively give permission to Bard to access their Google services, and any content lifted would not be reviewable by a human unless the user specifically asked Bard to flag it for review. In a further expansion of the chatbot, Google said it would now also enable users to double-check the responses they receive from Bard using a new “Google it” button, which will check the response against linked Google search results and highlight passages it is confident about the validity of, as well as those where it found differing results. Some experts have raised concerns about the possible spread of misinformation within generative AI platforms, warning some information is being presented to users in an authoritative way when it may be based on inaccurate or outdated information used to train such chatbots. A report by the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) published on Monday which looked into the potential impact of the AI market noted that without proper guiding principles, people and businesses could be harmed through exposure to significant levels of misinformation and AI-enabled fraud. In a blog post on the updates to Bard, Google’s director for product management of Bard, Yury Pinsky, said: “One of the biggest benefits of Bard, an experiment to collaborate with generative AI, is that it can tailor its responses to exactly what you need. “For instance, you could ask Bard to start a trip planning doc for you and your friends, draft up your online marketplace listing, or help explain a science topic to your kids. And now Bard is getting even better at customising its responses so you can easily bring your ideas to life. “Today we’re launching Bard Extensions in English, a completely new way to interact and collaborate with Bard. With Extensions, Bard can find and show you relevant information from the Google tools you use every day — like Gmail, Docs, Drive, Maps, YouTube, and Google Flights and hotels — even when the information you need is across multiple apps and services.” Elsewhere in the update, Google also confirmed that when a link to a Bard conversation is shared online, others will be able to click on that link and continue the same conversation themselves. Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live