List of All Articles with Tag 'tech'

The Canadian government on Monday announced new licence conditions requiring mobile carriers to provide all of Toronto's subway

MGM Resorts has shut down some of its systems as a result of a "cybersecurity issue," according to a company social media post on Monday.

Researchers have invented a new battery that they claim could have profound implications for the future of energy storage and renewable technologies. The lithium-based redox-flow battery, developed by a team at the University of Cincinnati, could prove crucial for wind and solar operations, where large-scale batteries are needed to store energy during times of overproduction and release it when production drops off. “Energy generation and energy consumption is always mismatched,” said Jimmy Jiang, who led the research at the University of Cincinnati. “That’s why it’s important to have a device that can store that energy temporarily and release it when it’s needed.” The novel design removes the membrane that separates the positive and negative sides of the battery, which is one of the most expensive parts of this type of battery and has previously hindered development. The membrane-free battery exhibited high voltage and energy density that could potentially meet the demands of large-scale green energy operations at an economically viable cost for the first time. “This design significantly decreases material costs,” said Soumalya Sinha, a visiting professor at the University of Cincinnati who was involved in the research. “We’re trying to achieve the same performance at a cheaper cost.” The team has submitted patent applications for the design, which Dr Jiang said will herald a “battery revolution” within the next 20 years. “I am confident about that,” he said. “There is a lot of intense research going into pushing the boundaries of battery performance.” The research was detailed in a paper, titled ‘Development of high-voltage and high-energy membrane-free nonaqueous lithium-based organic redox flow batteries’, published in the journal Nature Communications. Read More Volcano discovery could power electric cars for decades, scientists say

Google and the US Justice Department are beginning what might be the most decisive tech trial in a generation. The lawsuit could have substantial consequences – not only for the search giant, but for its rivals such as Apple and Meta, and the technology industry more broadly. The antitrust trial will examine claims from critics that Google has unfairly used its power to become dominant in a variety of parts of technology, in particular its search engine. The United States will argue Google didn’t play by the rules in its efforts to dominate online search in a trial seen as a battle for the soul of the Internet. The US Justice Department is expected to detail how Google paid billions of dollars annually to device makers like Apple, wireless companies like AT&T and browser makers like Mozilla to keep Google‘s search engine atop the leader board. DuckDuckGo has also complained, for example, that removing Google as the default search engine on a device and replacing it with DuckDuckGo takes too many steps, helping keep them to a measly 2.3% market share. DuckDuckGo, Microsoft and Yahoo are among a long list of Google competitors who will be watching the trial closely. “Google makes it unduly difficult to use DuckDuckGo by default. We’re glad this issue is finally going to have its day in court,” said DuckDuckGo spokesman Kamyl Bazbaz who said thatGoogle had a “stranglehold on major distribution points for more than a decade.” Google has denied wrongdoing and is prepared to vigorously defend itself. The legal fight has huge implications for Big Tech, which has been accused of buying or strangling small competitors but has insulated itself against many accusations of breaking antitrust law because the services the companies provide to users are free, as in the case of Alphabet’s Google and Facebook, or low price, as in the case of Amazon.com. “It would be difficult to overstate the importance of this case, particularly for monopolies and companies with significant market share,” antitrust lawyer Luke Hasskamp told Reuters. “This will be a major case, particularly for the major tech companies of the world (Google, Apple, Twitter, and others), which have grown to have an outsized role in nearly all our lives,” he added. Previous antitrust trials of similar importance include Microsoft, filed in 1998, and AT&T, filed in 1974. The AT&T breakup in 1982 is credited with paving the way for the modern cell phone industry while the fight with Microsoft is credited with opening space for Google and others on the internet. Congress tried to rein in Big Tech last year but largely missed. It considered bills to check the market power of the companies, like legislation to prevent them from preferencing their own products, but failed to pass the most aggressive of them. Big Tech’s rivals now pin their hope on Judge Amit Mehta, who was nominated by former President Barack Obama to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The lawsuit that goes to trial was brought by former President Donald Trump’s Justice Department. In a rare show of bipartisan agreement, President Joe Biden’s Justice Department has pressed on with the lawsuit and filed a second one against Google in January focused on advertising technology. Judge Mehta will decide if Google has broken antitrust law in this first trial, and, if so, what should be done. The government has asked the judge to order Google to stop any illegal activity but also urged “structural relief as needed,” raising the possibility that the tech giant could be ordered broken up. The government’s strongest arguments are those against Google‘s revenue sharing agreements with Android makers, which requires Google to be the only search on the smartphone in exchange for a percentage of search advertising revenue, said Daniel McCuaig, a partner at Cohen Milstein who was formerly with the U.S. Justice Department’s Antitrust Division. Additional reporting by Reuters Read More AI can help generate synthetic viruses and spark pandemics, warns ex-Google executive Google boss says he wants to make people ‘shrug’ How Google reshaped the world – and is about to do it all over again AI is using vast amounts of water Elon Musk says monkeys implanted with Neuralink brain chips were ‘close to death’ Volcano discovery could power electric cars for decades, scientists say

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

BRUSSELS EU antitrust regulators have delayed their investigation into Amazon's $1.7 billion acquisition of robot vacuum cleaner maker

Tesla's Dojo supercomputer could fuel a $500 billion jump in the electric vehicle maker's market value, analysts at Morgan Stanley said in a note Monday.

Storm chasers filmed the inside of a hurricane and it looks just as terrifying as you might imagine it would. The footage taken from inside the eye of Hurricane Lee was captured on Friday (8 September) as the storm moved over the Atlantic Ocean. The video taken shows lightning striking inside the Category 4 hurricane, illuminating the cloud wall around it and with the black eye overhead. The stunning clip was captured by the U.S. Air Force Reserve's 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron in Biloxi, Mississippi. They are affectionately known as the “Hurricane Hunters”. As a Category 4 storm, Hurricane Lee has sustained winds of between 130 to 156 mph. The storm was located off the coast of Puerto Rico and was forecast to move northwards. The footage was able to be captured thanks to the squadron’s WC-130J Hercules aircraft. These planes are specifically designed for flying weather reconnaissance and have equipment onboard including sensors and instruments to measure the profile of a hurricane’s wind, temperature and pressure. The Hercules aircraft can stay airborne for up to 18 hours ensuring the crew onboard can record the weather data over a long time period. In a statement released by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) National Hurricane Center, they were unable to determine what the impact of the storm might be on the country’s eastern coast yet. The statement read: “It remains too soon to know what level of impacts, if any, Lee might have along the U.S. East Coast and Atlantic Canada late this week.” Hurricane Lee is the fourth hurricane to be recorded during the 2023 Atlantic hurricane season, along with nine other named storms. 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.

Elon Musk has denied reports that his brain implant startup Neuralink killed monkeys during research experiments, claiming instead that tests were only done on “terminal” primates. Neuralink admitted to euthanizing eight animals during trials of its brain-computer interface technology last year, however denied accusations from the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) that it subjected monkeys to “extreme suffering”. The animal rights group accused Neuralink of “inadequate animal care” at the company’s lab at the University of California’s Davis Primate Centre, alleging that nine violations of the Animal Welfare Act were committed. Neuralink defended its animal testing record in a blog post last year, claiming that it is “absolutely committed to working with animals in the most humane and ethical way possible”. The firm also noted that “all novel medical devices and treatments” must be tested on animals before they can be trialled on humans. “The use of every animal was extensively planned and considered to balance scientific discovery with the ethical use of animals,” the blog post stated. Neuralink CEO Elon Musk has now added more details about the startup’s animal testing practices, after the issue was brought up by one of his followers on X, formerly known as Twitter. “No monkey has died as a result of a Neuralink implant,” Mr Elon Musk posted to X. “First our early implants, to minimise risk to healthy monkeys, we chose terminal monkeys (close to death already).” Mr Musk founded Neuralink in 2016 with the ultimate aim of merging artificial intelligence with the human brain. An implanted chip could improve hearing and vision, while also delivering “enhanced abilities” like greater reasoning and anxiety relief, according to the tech billionaire. Early applications of the technology will be for treating brain disorders and neurological conditions, though the company is yet to set a date for when its chips will be ready to use. In May, Neuralink revealed that it had received approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to begin testing its technology on humans. Neuralink said that FDA approval “represents an important first step that will one day allow our technology to help many people”. Read More 10 ways AI will change the world – from curing cancer to wiping out humanity SpaceX launch of Starship rocket on hold amid ‘mishap investigation’ Famed tech journalist deletes X account with epic rant at Elon Musk First photo emerges of Elon Musk and his baby twins with Neuralink director

Bill Gates went to see Elon Musk in 2022, hoping to convince the fellow billionaire to give away more of his money -- the way the Microsoft founder had.

A new study has revealed that black holes could be lurking much closer to Earth than anticipated. A black hole in space is when "gravity pulls so much that even light can not get out," NASA explains. "The gravity is so strong because matter has been squeezed into a tiny space. This can happen when a star is dying." Due to no light being present, they are invisible. Only special tools can pick up on them. There are said to be around 10 million to 1 billion mass black holes in the Milky Way, according to Science Alert. However, astrologers only know of about 20 of them. Now, a recent study has revealed that they could be a lot closer to Earth than previously thought after investigating the Hyades cluster, "a group of stars located 150 light-years away". In a statement, astrophysicist Stefano Torniamenti of the University of Padua explained: "Our simulations can only simultaneously match the mass and size of the Hyades if some black holes are present at the centre of the cluster today (or until recently). The Hyades with hundreds of stars is said to be approximately 625 million years old. Due to its packed environment, "higher rates of collisions and mergers" are expected. At 153 light-years away, it is considered the closest star cluster to Earth. Researchers were able to observe two or three black holes in the Hyades, which are either still present or ejected less than 150 million years ago and hovering around the outskirts. "This observation helps us understand how the presence of black holes affects the evolution of star clusters and how star clusters in turn contribute to gravitational wave sources," Professor Mark Gieles of the University of Barcelona said. 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.

The iPhone is a device that redefined the term "cell phone." With about 1.2 billion active devices out in the world, Apple's trademark product created a revolution in the mobile phone industry, marking a shift away from the flip phones and keyboards of the past toward a future full of larger touch screens and powerful cameras.