List of All Articles with Tag 'tec'

Pokemon Go maker Niantic Inc. is closing its Los Angeles game studio and canceling NBA and Marvel titles

WASHINGTON U.S. Senator Michael Bennet, a Democrat who is active in artificial-intelligence issues, wrote to leading tech firms

Dolly Parton has spoken of how she is concerned that using artificial intelligence (AI) technology will keep her soul “grounded” on earth. The 77-year-old country music star was at a press conference in London on Thursday to talk about her new album Rockstar. Her first rock and roll record has seen her collaborate with famous faces including Lizzo, Sir Paul McCartney and Sir Elton John. I have to decide how much of that high-tech stuff I want to be involved because I don't want to leave my soul here on this earth Dolly Parton When asked about living on in an artificial form in the future, Parton said: “I think I’ve left a great body of work behind. “I have to decide how much of that high-tech stuff I want to be involved because I don’t want to leave my soul here on this earth. “I think with some of this stuff I’ll be grounded here for ever … I’ll be around, we’ll find ways to keep me here.” Abba last year launched a purpose-built stadium in London featuring four 3D digital versions of the group’s younger selves singing and dancing to 20 or so of their hits. Sir Mick Jagger has said the virtual concert technology offers bands such as The Rolling Stones a “breakthrough” to secure their legacies. Parton also joked that “any intelligence” she had and “everything” about her was artificial. She has made numerous references in the past to cosmetic surgery she has had. Parton also clarified whether the album was inspired by her 2022 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. She initially resisted the honour, saying she would “respectfully bow out” of the process, before later saying she would try to “live up to the honour”. Speaking at the Four Seasons Hotel London on Thursday, Parton said: “I didn’t want to take (the honour) because I didn’t think I had earned it. That’s the main reason I went ahead (with rock music).” Rockstar includes nine original songs and 21 well-known rock anthems. The album is due for release on November 17 2023. Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live Glastonbury festival-goers use data equivalent to 400 HD film downloads an hour The different types of public EV chargers explained Emergency number back in use after nationwide technical fault

A number of previously secret details about the relationship between Xbox and PlayStation have become public in the latest fight over the future of the consoles. Microsoft has been attempting to buy Call of Duty developer Activision Blizzard in a $69 billion merger that would become one of the most valuable corporate deals in history. But regulators across the world have voiced concerns that the merger would give the new company too much power. That includes the US Federal Trade Commission, which has asked a US judge to postpone the deal to allow it to investigate the deal. Court hearings between the US body, and a variety of gaming companies, began this week to decide that question. Already they have led to what appears to be the accidental publication of highly confidential information from Sony. Court documents supplied by PlayStation boss Jim Ryan were made available to the public with some of the information blacked out – but the way the document was scanned meant that information was visible behind the redactions, The Verge reported. Those documents reveal that the game Horizon Forbidden West cost $212 million to make, over the course of five years, and that the Last Of Us Part II cost a similar amount. The document also showed that a million PlayStation players only play Call of Duty, and that millions of them spend the majority of the time playing it. That information was shared in an attempt to convince the court that the purchase of Call of Duty could mean the game being removed from the PlayStation, and that such a move could cause major problems for PlayStation. But it also meant that new details about just how popular the game is. In the same hearings, however, Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella said it would make “no strategic sense” for Call of Duty to be available only on one console. “I grew up in a company that always believed that software should run on as many platforms as possible,” he said. Asked if Microsoft would have any incentive to refuse to allow the games on Sony’s PlayStation in order to sell more of its Xbox consoles, Nadella responded, “It makes no economic sense and no strategic sense.” To address the FTC concerns, Microsoft has agreed to license the blockbuster “Call of Duty” to rivals. It has also argued that it is better off financially by licensing the games to all comers. The FTC has asked Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley in San Francisco to temporarily stop the deal from closing in order to allow the agency’s in-house judge to decide the case. In the past, the side that lost in federal court often conceded and the in-house process was scrapped. The FTC, which enforces antitrust law, has taken a harder line on mergers during the Biden administration to protect consumers from being disadvantaged by powerful corporations. Much of the testimony in the trial has focused on Activision’s “Call of Duty,” one of the best-selling videogames of all time. Activision CEO Bobby Kotick testified earlier on Wednesday that if Microsoft bought his company and blocked other gaming platforms from offering “Call of Duty,” it would alienate many of the 100 million monthly active users and hurt its popularity. “You would have a revolt if you were to remove the game from one platform,” said Kotick, who added that it was vital to offer the game across multiple platforms, including consoles, mobile phones and personal computers. Mr Kotick argued there was no incentive for Microsoft, if it closes the deal for Activision, to restrict who offers the company’s games. For example, he said that removing “Call of Duty” from Sony’s PlayStation would be “very detrimental” to Activision’s business. He also acknowledged that the deal, which he said earlier on Wednesday he wants “very much” to close, would result in his personal shares being valued at over $400 million. The deal has won approval from many jurisdictions but has been opposed by the FTC in the United States and Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority. Additional reporting by Reuters

Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc. sent paying customers to the edge of space for the first time, a milestone

Snap said Thursday that it has garnered more than 4 million paying customers for its subscription service Snapchat+.

A low intergalactic grumbling is emanating from deep space, according to scientists. And no, it’s not the start of the end times. Astronomers say they detected the first-of-their-kind low frequency ripples, described as a “cosmic bass note” of gravitational waves, which is thought to be caused by supermassive black holes merging across the universe. The discovery could unveil new secrets about how the monster black holes, which lie at the centre of galaxies, work. The objects are millions – possibly billions – the times the mass of the sun, but little is known about them because no light can escape. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter “This is huge news,” said Dr Stephen Taylor, chair of the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (Nanograv) consortium, which led the team which made the discovery, and an astrophysicist at Nashville’s Vanderbilt University. Dr Michael Keith, of Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics and a member of the team which helped find the signal, added: “The results presented today mark the beginning of a new journey into the universe to unveil some of its unsolved mysteries. “We are incredibly excited that after decades of work by hundreds of astronomers and physicists around the world, we are finally seeing the signature of gravitational waves from the distant universe.” Before the discovery, scientists have only captured short “chirps” of gravitational waves which are linked to the massive objects merging. But the “bass note” comes after they tuned into a deeper range of frequencies. It is thought to be caused by a single complete gravitational wave travelling at the speed of light. Astronomers think it is produced by the entire population of supermassive black hole binaries from over roughly the last 8bn years of the universe. “We think each pair contributes a little wave, which is added to a little wave of another, and all together that is what we may see right now – a sort of murmur of the entire population,” said Prof Alberto Vecchio of the University of Birmingham and a member of the European Pulsar Timing Array. Prof Andrew Pontzen, a cosmologist at University College London, added: “It’s not often that we get a glimpse of the universe through a totally new lens, but after 15 years of patient work, Nanograv seems to be providing just that. It’s tremendously exciting to see initial evidence for these waves, which will eventually teach us an enormous amount about supermassive black holes, hundreds of millions of times the mass of the sun.” The findings were published on 29 June by Astrophysical Journal Letters. 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.

By Blake Brittain Two U.S. authors sued OpenAI in San Francisco federal court on Wednesday, claiming in a

Fans of The X Files have got a new alien-related US government drama to get stuck into, it seems. Senior Republican Marco Rubio claims that those who have reported alien aircraft being retrieved by the US government “have held very high clearances and high positions within our government." The Florida senator and vice chair of the Select Committee on Intelligence did not reveal who had come forward with claims, but said: “Frankly, a lot of them are very fearful.” Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter “Fearful of their jobs, fearful of their clearances, fearful of their career.” At the start of June, James Comer, chair of the influential House Oversight Committee, said the group was looking into allegations that a top-secret military program already had a fully intact UFO. Republicans Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, a committee member, and Tim Burchett of Tennessee, who is not a committee member but has made claims about a government cover-up on the subject in the past, are to lead the probe. The investigation came after David Grusch, a 36-year-old airforce veteran, made public claims about UFOs. Grusch previously worked at the National Reconnaissance Office, on what is now referred to as Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAPs). Grusch told NewsNation that the government had retrieved a number of “non-human origin technical vehicles,” some of which contained “dead pilots”. “There are people who have come forward to share information with our committee over the last couple of years,” Rubio said on 26 June. Referring to Grusch, he added: “I would imagine some of them are potentially some of the same people perhaps he’s referring to.” Following the NewsNation interview, Department of Defense spokesperson Sue Gough said it had “not discovered any verifiable information to substantiate claims that any programs regarding the possession or reverse-engineering of any extraterrestrial materials have existed in the past or exist currently.” NASA also said that despite one of its priorities being the search for extraterrestrial life, it had not found credible evidence. Rachel Partlow, communications director for Burchett, told Newsweek on 27 June that the congressman was “aware” of Grusch's claims. She declined to comment on whether the veteran would be brought in to provide testimony, with hearing dates not yet set in stone. 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.

President Joe Biden’s chief economic adviser said that inflation numbers should improve through the second half of the

Glastonbury festival-goers used data equivalent to downloading the Rocket Man film in HD 400 times an hour for the entire five-day event, Vodafone has revealed. The festival’s “official connectivity partner” said 169 terabytes of data were consumed during the festival. The firm placed nine masts around the Worthy Farm site to cope with demand. Figures show 450 gigabytes of data were uploaded during Sir Elton John’s Sunday headline performance on the main Pyramid Stage. Over the course of the five-day event, some 20 terabytes of data were consumed at the biggest stage as the audience uploaded videos and pictures to social media. The Glastonbury app was downloaded 208,000 times, with more than 130,729 people using the “My Line-Up” feature, giving attendees reminders to get to pre-selected performances on time. Some 10,500 charging packs were sold through the event’s battery exchange scheme. Max Taylor, Vodafone’s UK chief commercial officer, said: “We are incredibly proud of our network team who boosted the network to its highest ever capacity in our first year as Official Connectivity Partner to Glastonbury. “We wanted to make sure that as many fans as possible could benefit from our reliable, award-winning network on site and we over-delivered on this promise. We can’t wait to bring even bigger and better things to Glastonbury next year.”

BEIJING/HONG KONG China's eastern Hangzhou city has signed a comprehensive strategic cooperation agreement with the e-commerce giant Alibaba