Apple has unveiled its new Watch, with a new, faster processor and hands-free features. The Apple Watch Series 9 brings an updated chip that makes the phone up to 30 per cent faster, Apple said. That should make animations and effects smoother, it said, as well as allowing for new features. In addition to those new tools, the Watch Series 9 is Apple’s first carbon neutral product. That has been achieved by a range of changes, including dropping leather from its bands and all new products. Those include a new feature called “Double Tap”, which lets people control their Watch without actually touching it. By clicking their two fingers together – the same gesture as on the upcoming Vision Pro headset – users can click buttons on the screen. :: Follow our live coverage of the Apple event here. Apple said the feature would be useful when the other hand is occupied, such as when carrying a coffee or walking the dog, for instance. It may also be helpful for accessibility, and Apple has already rolled out similar features as part of those tools. The new feature relies on the machine learning smarts within the new chip, Apple said, which are able to analyse data from the sensors “in a completely new way”. It watches for the changes in movement and “blood flow” that happen when people bring their fingers together, and then uses that to click. The new processor will also allow Siri requests to be processed on the Apple Watch itself, which should make them faster and more secure. The most common requests no longer have to go to the cloud, Apple said, so that they should not be impeded by slow WiFi or data connections. Apple will also let people ask Siri for health data, which it said was powered by the new hardware, though did not explain exactly why. Users can ask how much they slept, for instance. Dictation will also be improved by that chip. It can run a more smart machine learning model, which should make dictation up to 25 per cent more accurate. The chip will also make the Watch better at finding its paired iPhone. Apple has always offered the option to ping the phone, but the Watch will now offer the distance and direction to the iPhone. A similar feature will work with the HomePod. When the Apple Watch comes close to that smart speaker, it will offer media suggestions for what to listen to. The Series 9 also brings a new display. It now goes up to 2,000 nits – making it easier to see outside – as well as going all the way down to one nit, for dark situations. Read More Apple Watch 7 pre-order: How to buy the new smartwatch in the UK Apple introduces new version of Watch with complete redesign iPhone 13 - live: UK contract deals and prices for Apple, EE and O2 Apple to stop using leather in all new products Apple is about to reveal the new iPhone – and a lot more Here’s when you will actually be able to get the new iPhone

President Joe Biden visited Hawaii and spoke to the victims for the first time since the disaster struck

Artificial intelligence has unrealistic and often dangerous ideas of what the “perfect” man and woman look like, according to a new study. Chiselled features, olive skin and eight-pack abs are among the features that kept cropping up when three leading AI image generators were tasked with creating “ideal” male and female bodies. The challenge was put to the popular programmes Dall-E 2, Stable Diffusion, and Midjourney by eating disorder awareness group the Bulimia Project, which separated its request into two parts. First up, it asked the generators to come up with pictures of men and women based specifically on beauty standards set by social media. Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Although it churned out quite a few different options, it showed a number of noticeable biases. Nearly all of the images featured petite women – with Midjourney named as the worst culprit – and all of the men looked like photoshopped versions of bodybuilders. The three AI favoured women with blonde hair and men with brown hair, and nearly half of the male images had facial hair. After analysing their findings based on social media, the Bulimia Project team broadened the scope of the task. This time, they asked the programmes to base their creations on images from across the internet. The main difference between the two categories was that the social media set was “far more sexually charged”, according to the study’s authors. The social media images also featured “largely disproportionate body parts”, which the Bulimia Project described as “unsettling”. “We can only assume that the reason AI came up with so many oddly shaped versions of the physiques it found on social media is that these platforms promote unrealistic body types, to begin with,” it said. “In the age of Instagram and Snapchat filters, no one can reasonably achieve the physical standards set by social media. So, why try to meet unrealistic ideals? It’s both mentally and physically healthier to keep body image expectations squarely in the realm of reality.” 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.

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