List of All Articles with Tag 'tech'

Excitement about a possibly revolutionary new material has continued to grow – even without any firm proof that it exists. Last week, two new papers published by researchers in South Korea claimed that they had been able to create a room temperature, ambient pressure superconductor. Until now, all superconductors have required cold temperatures and high pressure, and their practical use has been limited as a result. Such a breakthrough would achieve one of the holy grails of engineering and physics. It would allow for vastly more efficient energy transfer and the development of products such as powerful maglev trains. But almost as soon as the paper was released, experts urged caution about its findings. The claims in it could represent a significant breakthrough – but they were still far from confirmed, and similar reports have been released in the past that were later debunked. And there is still no clear indication that the breakthrough described in the original paper is definitely real. And despite numerous attempts to replicate the study, none have yet done so convincingly. Some new work has suggested that the findings could at least be possible. In a new paper published on Monday, Sinéad Griffin from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory simulated the material and suggested that it was at least theoretically possible. She shared the paper in a tweet accompanied by a “mic drop” gif. And it immediately had what was presumably the intended effect: leading to an increase in discussion of a topic that had already generated tremendous excitement. Around the same time, new videos appeared from China that claimed to show the work of a team who had successfully replicated the material. That showed the levitation effect that happens with superconductors – but not the low resistance that is required for the claims to be verified, and the material to be useful. Work to verify whether the original paper is correct and the material is actually as claimed is ongoing. But each of those videos only served to make the claims of a new breakthrough become louder, even as there was no firm proof that it had actually happened. For a period on Tuesday, the betting markets implied that the most likely result was that the papers would be replicated. Polymarket, a prediction market that lets people bet on a wide array of events, suggested that people tended to think there was a roughly 60 per cent chance the result would be replicated – but a couple of hours later it slid back, and more bets had been placed on the outcome that the superconductor is not real.

Uber Technologies Inc. is developing an artificial intelligence-powered chatbot to integrate into its app, joining the long list

Amazon's virtual clinic is now available in all 50 states and Washington, D.C., the company announced on Tuesday.

(Reuters) -Meta Platforms said on Tuesday it has begun the process to end access to news on Facebook and Instagram

In the week that it was announced that Rishi Sunak will be granting new oil and gas licences in the North Sea, new commitments to renewable energy are being made elsewhere in the world. The China Three Gorges Corporation just turned on a mega wind turbine with blades twice the size of a football pitch in the Taiwan Strait. The state-owned energy firm has activated the biggest wind turbine on the planet offshore in a move which could produce up to 16 megawatts of energy, and it’s now been connected and hooked up to the energy grid. The MySE 16-260 turbine stands at an incredible 500ft (152m) tall and it could power thousands of homes every year. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter In fact, it’s thought that around 36,000 homes will be served by electricity from the turbine. It’s not surprising given that each blade weighs around 54 tons and covers nearly 540,000 square feet when they rotate. Mingyang Smart Energy is the company that designed the turbine, and they released a message on LinkedIn making clear just how much wind the structure could deal with – stating that it can withstand “extreme wind speeds of 79.8 [meters per second]”. It’s a staggering feat of engineering and it’s thought that the turbine could save around 54,000 tons of carbon dioxide compared to coal power plants. More structures like one are being planned, too. Executive Director Lei Lei Zengjuan told the media: “In the next step, the 16 [megawatt] unit will be applied in batches in the second phase of the Zhangpu Liuao Offshore Wind Farm Project constructed by China Three Gorges Corporation.” It comes a few weeks after work was stopped on one of the UK’s largest offshore wind farms after its developer said that the cost of the project had soared by so much that it no longer made financial sense to push forward. Swedish energy giant Vattenfall, one of Europe’s biggest wind producers, shut down work on the development of the Norfolk Boreas site. 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.

A controversial cryptocurrency started by the founder of ChatGPT has surged in price in the days following its launch, with market commentators referring to it as both “outlandish” and “revolutionary”. Worldcoin, launched last week by OpenAI boss Sam Altman, offers people a free share of the crypto token WLD in exchange for their biometric data. More than 2 million people have signed up through an iris-scanning orb, which is currently operating in 35 cities across 20 countries. The biometric data collected by Worldcoin is used to verify an individual’s “unique personhood” to ensure noone signs up more than once. It also offers a way to differentiate humans from AI bots, which Worldcoin claims is a core offering of its technology. Regulatory and legal challenges mean people are unable to sign up in certain markets, however Mr Altman claimed shortly after its launch that one person every eight seconds was signing up for the crypto project. A spokesperson for Worldcoin told The Independent that 1,500 orbs were being distributed around the world to meet demand, including to London, New York and Paris. Crypto market commentators have said that a 50 per cent price surge in the day following its launch showed the level of interest and demand in the WLD token despite concerns surrounding its rollout. “OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman’s Worldcoin project might just be one of the most ambitious cryptocurrency projects in recent years,” Louis Schoeman, a managing director at Forex Suggest, told The Independent. “The main aim of this global digital identification is to connect your World ID to websites and apps rather than traditional logins, proving you’re a real person without having to share personal data like names and emails. This sort of digital ID will be necessary in the development of AI, in order to tell the difference between humans and AI bots online. “A global digital ID enabling private identity verifications is undeniably revolutionary, however, it’s certain to stir up controversy, with many already calling the exchange of biometric data for crypto tokens an outlandish bribe.” The Worldcoin cryptocurrency spiked from $1.90 to $3.15 on the day of its launch, before dropping back below $2. It has since surged again and was trading above $2.30 on Tuesday, bucking broader market trends. Read More ChatGPT creator launches bitcoin rival that scans people’s eyeballs Meta is secretly building an AI chatbot with the personality of Abraham Lincoln Google Assistant to be ‘supercharged’ with AI like ChatGPT and Bard ChatGPT will now know who you are and what you want

Uber Technologies Inc. reported its first-ever operating profit, fueled by demand for rides and delivery and marking a

Facebook owner Meta is working on a ChatGPT-style chatbot with the personality of Abraham Lincoln, according to reports. The new AI bot is part of a series of prototypes under development at the tech giant, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday, with each one featuring a different human-like persona. The new chatbots form part of the company’s attempts to boost its engagement with its social media platforms, according to the report, citing people with knowledge of the plans. Beyond the chatbot based on the former US president, the California-based social media giant is also exploring a chatbot that advises on travel options in the style of a surfer. The purpose of these chatbots, which Meta employees have dubbed ‘personas’, will be to provide a new search function as well as offer recommendations. The report comes as Meta executives are focusing on boosting retention on its new text-based app Threads, after the app lost more than half of its users in the weeks following its launch on 5 July. The Facebook parent reported a strong rise in advertising revenue in its earnings last week, forecasting third-quarter revenue above market expectations. The company has been climbing back from a bruising 2022, buoyed by hype around emerging AI technology and an austerity drive in which it has shed around 21,000 employees since last fall. Meta launched a new version of its open-source artificial intelligence model in July called Llama 2 for commercial use, which will be distributed by Microsoft through its Azure cloud service and will run on the Windows operating system. Bloomberg News reported in July that Apple is working on AI offerings similar to OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard, adding that it has built its own framework, known as ‘Ajax’, to create large language models and is also testing a chatbot that some engineers call ‘Apple GPT’. Reports of a ‘Chat with an AI’ feature first emerged in June, when app researcher Alessandro Paluzzi shared screenshots of a new tool that offers users the option to ask questions and seek advice from up to 30 different AI chatbots on Instagram. Meta reportedly plans to launch the new AI chatbots in September. The Independent has reached out to Instagram for comment, though the company typically does not speak about unreleased products. Additional reporting from agencies Read More ‘I’ve got Elon Musk dying’: Voice clone baffles tech billionaire

A teenage boy was sent to a hospital with an unusual problem - a USB cable was stuck inside his penis. The incident, which was first documented in a urology case report in Science Direct in November 2021, apparently saw the 15-year-old arrive at the hospital as he had apparently been trying to use the cable to measure the inside of his penis. However, the cable had become tangled and knotted while it was inside of him causing him to lose blood through his urine. In the report, the doctors wrote: "The two distal ports of the USB wire were found to be protruding from the external urethral meatus whilst the middle part of the knotted wire remained within the urethra. The patient was an otherwise fit and healthy adolescent with no history of mental health disorders." Sign up to our new free Indy100 weekly newsletter The teenager who is from the UK had been taken to the medical facility by his mother and confessed to the medical experts when she was out of the room that he had used a cable instead of a ruler as a means of 'sexual experimentation'. An attempt to fish the cable out using a metal rod proved unsuccessful to the amount of knotting that had occurred, forcing the team to do surgery on the boy in order to retrieve the cable. They did this by cutting open the section between the genitalia and the anus so they could access the area where the cable was stuck. In the report, the doctors explain the procedure as follows: "A longitudinal peno-scrotal incision over the palpable foreign body was made and careful dissection was undertaken through deeper tissues, splitting the bulbospongiosus muscle. Both ends of the wire were pulled out successfully through the external urethral meatus." They add: "Both ends of the wire were pulled out successfully through the external urethral meatus." Thankfully the young man recovered well from the surgery and was discharged shortly afterwards. In their notes, the urology doctors admit that although cases like this are not out of the ordinary, particular cases like this are considered to be unusual. They state: "Sexual experimentation and gratification, as well as underlying mental disorders, are considered the main causes of retained foreign bodies in the urethra and bladder. Management varies depending on the shape and size of the object, and the mechanism of insertion." 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.

A mind-boggling video has shown people just how far down the deepest place on Earth is, and it is utterly terrifying. The jaw-dropping video came from a trailer for a film that features Titanic director James Cameron, who seems to have a thing about the deep ocean. In the documentary, Long Way Down: Mariana Trench for National Geographic, Cameron took part in what was called the Deepsea Challenge which saw him dive to the bottom of the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific Ocean. The Mariana Trench is some 7 miles down and is deeper than Mount Everest would be if it were pointing down into the Earth. The bottom of the trench is called the Challenger Deep and is the deepest point known on our planet. For the attempt, a submersible was built to withstand the pressure in the deepest part of the ocean and trailers for the documentary terrifyingly showed just how far down the trench is. The video revealed it took Cameron around 90 minutes to reach the bottom of the 7-mile deep trench. In a condensed 1-minute video summarising the descent, the clip continued to give facts about the ocean in a graphic. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Long Way Down: Mariana Trench | National Geographic www.youtube.com 90 per cent of all ocean life lives between the depths of 0 and 660ft. A depth of 800ft is the dive depth of a nuclear submarine. Continuing on from that, 1,044ft down is the deepest ever recorded scuba dive, while at 3,300ft the last trickle of sunlight begins to fade. As has been in the headlines recently following the implosion of the OceanGate submersible, the Titanic sits at a depth of 12,467ft – just over one-third of the depth of the Mariana Trench. At 36,070ft, the bottom of the Mariana Trench has been visited by only a handful of people, one of whom is Hamish Harding, the British billionaire who died onboard the Titan submersible in June 2023. 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.

Uber has reported that its revenue ticked up 14% last quarter, marking a slower pace of growth than recent quarters when sales surged as riders returned to pre-pandemic habits.

Discover the most commonly mispronounced tech terms and brand names, and settle once and for all whether it’s ”jif or ”gif.”