List of All Articles with Tag 'tech'

Happiness is one of life’s most elusive gifts – it is an emotion that can’t be pinned down. And yet, an animation showing a protein molecule “walking along”, carrying a large sphere, is widely credited with being a visual representation of joy itself. The gif has trended online for almost a decade but continues to breed delight in those who see it. Many people believe that it is – to use the technical terms – a myosin transporting endorphins in the brain. In other words, it is a scientific portrayal of the actual processes that give us that warm and fuzzy feeling. Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter However, though we’d hate to dampen the mood, this isn’t quite accurate. In fact, the real brain behind the original clip, medical artist John Liebler, set out the truth back in 2014. @mommyca713 AMAZING! #cells #innerlife #happiness #lookslike #facts #fact #fyi #fyp #brain #research #facts #animation #myosin #interesting #education #viral #fypシ #humanbrain #mentalhealth #science #stem He explained that he, his team at medical technology company XVIVO, and two Harvard University researchers created the 3D computer animation in 2006 for a biology classroom video called ‘The Inner Life of the Cell’, as Science Alert reports. The educational clip wasn't intended to depict a brain process at all but to take the viewer "on a journey through the microscopic world of a cell, illustrating mechanisms that allow a white blood cell to sense its surroundings and respond to an external stimulus,” according to Liebler himself. So this is all about a protein in a white blood cell, not a protein in a neuron. The Inner Life of the Cell Animation youtu.be At any rate, happiness doesn’t just come about through a single process. So even if the clip did show endorphins being delivered to our brains, this wouldn’t offer a full picture. Dopamine, other neurotransmitters (for example, serotonin), biological health and genetics all play a part in cementing our feelings of contentment. We don’t just rely on jolly little myosin proteins lugging around bundles of cheer. Still, the internet is now awash with jovial variations on the clip and it can’t be denied that the scene-stealing strutting protein is pretty damn cute. So if that’s enough to bring a smile to your face, maybe it is a representation of happiness after all. 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.

E-commerce giant Amazon has said it uses artificial intelligence systems to prevent fake reviews on the platform that can intentionally mislead customers. While the company already uses machine learning models to detect risks such as links to other accounts, sign-in activity, review history, and other indications of unusual behavior that point to fake reviews, the tech giant said on Tuesday that is further investing in sophisticated fraud-detection tools. Using several such methods, the company said it “proactively blocked over 200 million suspected fake reviews” from its stores in 2022. “We will continue to build sophisticated tools that protect customers, our selling partners, and our store from bad actors that attempt to profit by proliferating fake reviews globally,” Amazon said. In the new statement, the e-commerce giant warned of the emergence of an illicit industry of “fake review brokers,” who approach consumers via social media channels, and messaging services, soliciting them to write fake reviews in exchange for money or other incentives. These brokers, according to Amazon, portray themselves as legitimate businesses with networks of hundreds of employees stationed worldwide. So far, it has taken legal action against over 90 such bad actors around the world who facilitated fake reviews and sued more than 10,000 Facebook group administrators who attempted to put fake reviews. It also reported over 23,000 abusive social media groups, with over 46 million members and followers, that facilitated fake reviews in 2022, the company added. These high-volume fake review brokers a “global problem” impacting multiple industries, according to Amazon, which called on the private sector, consumer groups, and governments to work together to stop fake review brokers. “Through cross-industry sharing – including information on bad actors’ tactics and techniques, who they are targeting, the services they provide, and how they operate – we can more effectively shut down these schemes, thereby protecting more consumers across different industries,” the company said. In countries that already have laws against soliciting fake reviews, it said regulators could do more to use their authority to take action against fake review brokers. “We also support greater funding for law enforcement to build further technical expertise to investigate and take down these brokers,” the multibillion-dollar conglomerate said. “Amazon will continue to protect our stores from fake reviews by investing in proactive tools to detect and stop fake reviews from impacting a customer’s buying decision,” it added. Read More Revealed: The delivery apps charging you double for your food shop Amazon staff spied on women private through Ring cameras, officials say ‘Last Beatles record’ was created using AI, says Paul McCartney Best Amazon deals and offers to buy now, from air fryers to Apple watches Jeff Bezos mocked for spending $4k on bottle of ‘engagement wine’ worth just $650 Elon Musk is once again world’s richest person

Sir Paul McCartney said artificial intelligence has been used to create “the last Beatles record”, which is set to be released later this year. The 80-year-old former Beatle said technology was used to extract late bandmate John Lennon’s voice from an old demo and “get it pure” for what he said will be the final song from the Liverpool band. He told Martha Kearney on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that AI is an “interesting thing” and “something that we’re all sort of tackling at the moment” and trying to deal with. “When Peter Jackson did the film (The Beatles) Get Back, where it was us making the Let It Be album, he was able to extricate John’s voice from a ropey little bit of cassette and a piano. He could separate them with AI, he’d tell the machine ‘That’s a voice, this is a guitar, lose the guitar’. “So when we came to make what will be the last Beatles record, it was a demo that John had that we worked on and we just finished it up. It will be released this year. “We were able to take John’s voice and get it pure through this AI so then we could mix the record as you would do. It gives you some sort of leeway.” Sir Paul said there is a “good side” to AI but also a “scary side”. “We will just have to see where that leads,” he said. The singer-songwriter also spoke about his forthcoming exhibition to mark the reopening of the National Portrait Gallery, titled Paul McCartney Photographs 1963-64: Eyes Of The Storm, which incorporates unseen photographs taken by Sir Paul during the early days of The Beatles. The archive features more than 250 images taken between November 1963 and February 1964, which capture the emergence of Beatlemania through the personal lens of Sir Paul’s Pentax camera. The exhibition will run from June 28 to October 1 at the gallery, which has undergone three years of major refurbishment. It features portraits of Sir Ringo Starr as well as late bandmates George Harrison and Lennon, and manager Brian Epstein. Sir Paul said: “It is very poignant, it’s great because, whenever you lose someone, I think your natural thing is ‘Well, we’ve got beautiful memories’, and you hold fast those memories of the good times. “I don’t tend to dwell on the fact that you’ve lost someone. After a while – it’ll maybe take a year or two – and then you can look back and you just remember where you met them, things you did… “And when it came to The Beatles, and you have this overwhelming stuff happening to you, you knew each other so well that you could lean on each other – that’s what I see in these pictures.” Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live Put ‘public good’ at heart of AI and new tech, Starmer to say Ukrainian schoolboy to buy home for his mother after selling Minecraft server Legislation needed to protect data from AI ‘ghostbots’, say researchers

The Indian government fired back at Twitter Inc.’s former chief executive officer after he said authorities had threatened

Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey has accused the Indian government of putting pressure on the social media company to block accounts critical of the government amid the long-running farmers’ protest in 2021. Mr Dorsey, who was still the platform’s chief at the time before its takeover by Elon Musk, said India placed “many requests” during the months-long farmers protests. “India for example, India is one of the countries which had many requests around farmers protests, around particular journalists which were critical of the government,” the former Twitter chief, who stepped down from the company’s board last year, said in a new interview with the YouTube channel Breaking Points. “It manifested in ways such as ‘we will shut Twitter down in India’… ‘we would raid the homes of your employees’, which they did; ‘we will shut down your offices if you don’t follow suit’. And this is India, a democratic country,” Mr Dorsey said. The protests in 2021 forced the Indian government to repeal laws that would have seen the biggest reforms to Indian agriculture in decades. Farmers drove tractors from agrarian states surrounding Delhi to block traffic on major roads into the capital city. Amid the protests, the Indian government allegedly threatened to punish Twitter employees with fines and jail terms of up to seven years for failing to suspend accounts deemed critical of the Modi administration. It demanded that Twitter block over a thousand accounts, including those tweeting under the hashtag “ModiPlanningFarmerGenocide”, arguing that the phrase was inflammatory. Following this, the social media company made over 250 accounts inaccessible to its India-based users, including that of the investigative news magazine The Caravan. The move was later reversed after a major public outcry. Twitter told the Indian government at the time that it would not comply with the directive to ban some accounts and tweets as they either constituted “free speech” or were “newsworthy”. Mr Dorsey compared India’s behaviour to that of Turkey. “We had so many requests from Turkey. We fought Turkey in their in their courts and often won but they threatened to shut us down constantly,” he said. Indian IT minister Rajeev Chandrashekar rejected the former Twitter chief’s claims that the Modi government put pressure on the social media company, calling it “an outright lie,” and “an attempt to brush out that very dubious period of Twitter’s history.” “Twitter under Dorsey and his team were in repeated [and] continuous violations of India law. As a matter of fact they were in non-compliance with law repeatedly from 2020 to 2022 and it was only June 2022 when they finally complied,” Mr Chandrashekar said. The minister alleged that Twitter had a problem accepting the “sovereignty of India law,” and behaved “as if the laws of India did not apply to it”. “No one went to jail nor was Twitter ‘shut down’ ... India as a sovereign nation has the right to ensure that its laws are followed by all companies operating in India,” Mr Chandhrashekar said. “During the protests in January 2021, there was a lot of misinformation and even reports of genocide which were definitely fake,” the minister said, adding that the Indian government “was obligated to remove” them from the platform as it had the potential to “further inflame the situation based on fake news”. Mr Dorsey also commented on Twitter’s regime under Tesla and SpaceX chief Elon Musk, calling some of his moves “fairly reckless”. After taking over Twitter in October, Mr Musk proceeded to cut costs at the company and slash over three quarters of the firm’s workforce. “I think it set up a dynamic where he had to be very hasty, he had to be impatient, and he had to move as quickly as possible with features even if they weren’t fully thought out... It all looked fairly reckless,” Mr Dorsey said. Read More Twitter’s new chief echoes Elon Musk’s goal in first memo to employees Put ‘public good’ at heart of AI and new tech, Starmer to say Elon Musk is hilariously shut down by his ‘favourite’ podcast Bluesky, championed by Jack Dorsey, was supposed to be Twitter 2.0. Can it succeed? Jack Dorsey endorses Robert F Kennedy Jr for president Jack Dorsey says Twitter ‘went south’ after company’s sale to Elon Musk

By Lisa Pauline Mattackal and Medha Singh It's a rough time to be an altcoin. Insecurity reigns. A

Twitter’s new chief Linda Yaccarino has sent her first memo to employees which echoes Elon Musk’s goal for the company to be a “global town square”. “From space exploration to electric vehicles, Elon knew these industries needed transformation, so he did it,” Ms Yaccarino, who led global ad sales for NBCUniversal in her previous stint, wrote. “More recently it has become increasingly clear that the global town square needs transformation – to drive civilization forward through the unfiltered exchange of information and open dialogue about the things that matter most to us,” she added in the memo. The longtime advertising executive is expected to oversee Twitter’s ads business that has crumbled since Mr Musk took over the company in October last year. Meanwhile, the Tesla titan said he would be overseeing Twitter’s product and engineering teams. Reiterating Mr Musk’s goal of a “Twitter 2.0”, Ms Yaccarino said the company is on a mission to become “the world’s most accurate real-time information source and a global town square for communication”. “That’s not an empty promise .... That’s our reality,” she said in the memo, which was also shared with some tweaks on her official Twitter account. “Have you ever been talking with someone particularly insightful and thought, you should have the freedom to speak your mind?.... We all should,” the new Twitter chief wrote. Ms Yaccarino told Twitter employees that they now had “the opportunity to reach across aisles, create new partnerships, celebrate new voices, and build something together that can change the world”. Since the Tesla and SpaceX chief’s takeover of Twitter, the platform’s ad revenue in the US plunged by over half. The New York Times reported last week that the social media company made $88m worth of ad sales between April and May this year – marking a 59 per cent drop from the same period last year. Within weeks of the “free speech absolutist” taking over Twitter, several key executives at the social media giant were fired, and controversial people like Donald Trump and Andrew Tate were allowed to return to the platform. Following many of his moves reflecting a change in content moderation policy on the platform, several high profile brands said they would stop advertising via Twitter. Following Mr Musk’s $44b takeover deal, Twitter’s value plunged, with the Tesla titan saying in March that the company was worth $20bn. In April, the multibillionaire said Twitter was “roughly breaking even”, adding that “almost all advertisers have come back or said they are going to come back”. Then last month, the Tesla titan said he would be stepping down as Twitter’s chief to focus on overseeing product, software and sysops as company’s chief technology officer. Ms Yaccarino, who seems to be selected based on her connections with the advertising world, would be the company’s new chief. “It’s rare to have the chance to put a new future into the hands of every person, partner, and creator on the planet. That’s exactly why I’m here – with all of you,” she wrote in the memo. Read More Elon Musk is hilariously shut down by his ‘favourite’ podcast Elon Musk refuses to pay Twitter’s Google bill, leaving site in peril Elon Musk responds to bizarre AI images of him as baby Elon Musk is hilariously shut down by his ‘favourite’ podcast Twitter is a troll’s playground — and Elon Musk wants to make life even easier for them What to know about Twitter's new CEO Linda Yaccarino

By David Shepardson (Reuters) -The Federal Trade Commission asked a court to temporarily block Microsoft Corp's acquisition of Activision Blizzard

Artificial intelligence (AI) and other new technologies could worsen inequality and leave some communities poorer than before if not used for the “public good”, Sir Keir Starmer is set to warn. The Labour leader, who will offer his own vision for how to address fast-paced technological changes at a tech conference on Tuesday, is also expected to question whether the Prime Minister is actually doing enough to make the UK a world leader in AI. Sir Keir, whose appearance at the London Tech Week conference follows Rishi Sunak’s own speech on Monday, will raise the legacy of the de-industrialisation of recent decades to warn that the same mistakes cannot be made again as technology advances. The Labour leader is expected to argue that while the UK has a unique opportunity to lead the world in this area, it will require partnerships with business for the “public good”. This moment calls for Labour values, of working in partnership with business, driving technology to the public good, and ensuring people and places aren't left behind Sir Keir Starmer's expected speech He will say: “Our country is facing a choice about who benefits from the huge disruption that tech will bring. “Will it be those who already hold wealth and power, or will it be the starter firms trying to break in and disrupt the industry, the patients trying to book an appointment with their GP, the worker using technology to enhance and improve their role.” Sir Keir will argue that despite the UK’s success in science and research, a lack of certainty from the Conservatives and a missing industrial strategy are ensuring that the country’s advantages are being wasted. Discussing AI, he is also expected to say: “The question facing our country is who will benefit from this disruption? Will it leave some behind, as happened with de-industrialisation across vast swathes of our country? “Or can it help build a society where everyone is included, and inequalities are narrowed not widened?” “This moment calls for Labour values, of working in partnership with business, driving technology to the public good, and ensuring people and places aren’t left behind. “Labour would take a whole-economy approach, recognising that tech is not just a sector, but every job and every business must become digital if we are to address the UK’s productivity problem. “Diffusing the latest technology across our economy and public services will be as important as supporting the latest unicorns.” Sir Keir will tell the tech industry audience that Labour would make the harnessing of new technologies central to government. “I will harness technology as the great accelerator of our five missions for Government, working in partnership with business to face the future and deliver growth, prosperity and opportunity across the UK,” he will say. “We will form a new agenda on digital skills, through our ‘growth and skills’ levy to ensure people are equipped for the jobs of the future. “Labour’s industrial strategy, combined with good regulation, will secure and create good jobs, and responsible and ethical development of new technology.” Mr Sunak has long been enthusiastic about the opportunities of AI and wants the UK to be home to a global AI regulator. Promoting his planned major summit on the issue in the autumn, Mr Sunak on Monday also warned measures are needed to protect against the “extreme risks” AI could pose. But Labour has accused the Government of already being behind and its white paper on AI already out of date. “I do say to him, it’s all very well having these ambitions, but if they’re not matched with actions at home, we won’t have credibility on the world stage,” Mr Starmer will say. Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live Ukrainian schoolboy to buy home for his mother after selling Minecraft server Legislation needed to protect data from AI ‘ghostbots’, say researchers Banking app feature allows economic abuse survivors to mute malicious messages

COPENHAGEN Denmark aims to raise the age limit for the collection of personal data from children by tech

Oracle Corp. reported quarterly revenue that topped estimates, signaling the software maker’s cloud business is benefiting from heightened

Google is set to be hit with a formal antitrust complaint from the European Union that could pave