This content originally appeared on Mashable for a US audience and has been adapted for

The number of fires burning in Canada’s top energy-producing province of Alberta declined overnight, bringing some relief to

NASHVILLE, Tenn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sep 1, 2023--

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug 29, 2023--

Scientists have built a breakthrough device that can clean dirty water and turn it into clean hydrogen fuel. The “simple” device could be used in areas without resources or places where people live off the grid. And it is just one example of the many solutions that will be required to respond to pollution and give people access to both clean fuel and water, the researchers behind it say. The system is inspired by photosynthesis, the process where plants turn light into food. But previous versions of those “artificial leaves” have required clean water sources – whereas the new device can be used with polluted water and even produce clean drinking water at the same time. As such, scientists believe that it could help solve two problems at once: making green fuel and cleaning water so that it is ready to drink. “Bringing together solar fuels production and water purification in a single device is tricky,” said Chanon Pornrungroj from the University of Cambridge, the paper’s co-lead author. “Solar-driven water splitting, where water molecules are broken down into hydrogen and oxygen, need to start with totally pure water because any contaminants can poison the catalyst or cause unwanted chemical side-reactions.” The system uses a carbon mesh to absorb light and heat, creating water favour that is then turned into hydrogen for fuel by a photocatalyst. That carbon mesh also repels water, so that the system can float and its important parts can be kept from being damaged by water. The device is also able to harness more of the Sun’s energy than previous examples, which have used only a small portion of the spectrum of light. The new system has a white layer on top to absorb UV rays, with the rest being used lower down to vaporise the water. “This way, we’re making better use of the light – we get the vapour for hydrogen production, and the rest is water vapour,” said Dr Pornrungroj. “This way, we’re truly mimicking a real leaf, since we’ve now been able to incorporate the process of transpiration.” The researchers behind the breakthrough noted that the system was simple to make, and was especially able to deal with very polluted water. As such, it could be a key way of working towards a sustainable future, they said – even though it is just a proof of concept for now. “The climate crisis and issues around pollution and health are closely related, and developing an approach that could help address both would be a game-changer for so many people,” said Cambridge’s Erwin Reisner, who led the work. The device is described in a new paper, ‘Hybrid photothermal-photocatalyst sheets for solar-driven overall water splitting coupled to water purification’, published in Nature Water today. Read More First carbon capture plant opens in the US to help avoid climate catastrophe Breakthrough solar system outperforms military-grade diesel generator Solar panel world record smashed with ‘miracle material’

James Baldwin's novel 'Giovanni’s Room' was rejected by editors and publishers before it was eventually released in 1956.

Georgia election officials have been aware of existing vulnerabilities in the state's voting software for more than two years but continue to insist the system is safe and won't be updated until after 2024, according to a report that was unsealed this week as part of a controversial court case in Georgia.

Male characters in role-playing video games have 50% more dialogue than females, highlighting a “stark gender imbalance” in the gaming genre, scientists have said. In role-playing games (RPGs), the gamer controls one or more characters undertaking quests or missions in an imaginary world. Researchers from the Universities of Glasgow and Cardiff analysed the dialogue of 50 RPGs from 1986 to 2020, including Final Fantasy, Skyrim and Mass Effect. This encompassed 6.2 million spoken words from 13,000 characters. The results, published in the journal Royal Society Open Science, suggest 94% of the games studied had more male dialogue than female dialogue, including ones with multiple female protagonists such as Final Fantasy X-2 or King’s Quest VII. They also found that the proportion of female dialogue is slowly increasing in RPGs at a rate of 6.3 percentage points per decade – from a mean of about 18% in the 1980s to about 40% by 2020. While we expected to find a larger proportion of male dialogue overall, we were surprised to discover how few games - just three of 50 - had more than 50% female dialogue Dr Stephanie Rennick, University of Glasgow However, the researchers said that if this rate were to continue, gender balance would not be reached until 2036. Dr Stephanie Rennick, research associate in philosophy, school of humanities at the University of Glasgow, said: “While we expected to find a larger proportion of male dialogue overall, we were surprised to discover how few games – just three of 50 – had more than 50% female dialogue. “I was also surprised that the lack of female characters compared to their male counterparts persisted at every level, from main player characters through to background NPCs (non-player characters).” For the study, the researchers obtained the transcripts of dialogue used in the games and identified which character said what. Dr Sean Roberts, lecturer at the school of English, communication and philosophy at Cardiff University, said: “We categorised the gender of each character, not assuming binary gender. “This allowed us to count how many words were available for each gender in each game. “For example, we can compare the number of words spoken by female characters to the number of words spoken by male characters.” The researchers found only 35% of words were spoken by female characters and they were more likely to apologise, hesitate or be polite, compared with their male counterparts. They said the proportion of female dialogue ranged from 6% (King’s Quest VI) to 80% (King’s Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella). They discovered one game, Monkey Island, did not pass the Bechdel test, which requires two named female characters to talk to each other about something besides a man. Around half of gamers are female, but they experience a lot of abuse and exclusion. More diverse representation is being called for by players and developers Dr Sean Roberts, Cardiff University The team also found examples of stereotyped gendered behaviour. The researchers said that in Stardew Valley, characters respond differently depending on the player character’s gender. For example, they said, female players are offered a salad, wine, repeatedly described as beautiful and assumed to have little experience of video games, while male players are offered pasta, ale, described as “full of energy” and are assumed to be good video game players. Analysis also showed only 30 out of 13,000 characters belong to the non-binary gender categories, which is about half as much as in real life, the researchers said. Dr Roberts said: “Around half of gamers are female, but they experience a lot of abuse and exclusion. “More diverse representation is being called for by players and developers. “So we hope that developers will consider addressing the imbalances we found in order to create more inclusive games.”

CHELMSFORD, England--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun 6, 2023--

OXFORD, England--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 30, 2023--

Google has unveiled a major new update to its AI chatbot Bard that significantly improves its powers of logic and reasoning. The latest version of the ChatGPT rival is now capable of both writing and executing code by itself, the tech giant announced, allowing it to figure out problems on a far deeper level than current generative AI systems. Google’s artificial intelligence tool is able to perform the new tasks through a new technique called “implicit code execution”, which enables Bard to detect computational prompts and run code in the background. The result is that Bard should theoretically be able to respond more accurately to mathematical tasks and coding questions, as it will have already tested the outcomes that it proposes. Until now, large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT and Bard have been better suited to language and creative tasks, as they draw from their training data to predict what word will come next when talking about a specific subject. This allows them to produce text quickly but without deep thought, making them weaker when it comes to areas like reasoning and mathematics. “Our new method allows Bard to generate and execute code to boost its reasoning and maths abilities,” Google wrote in a blog post on Wednesday. “With the latest update, we’ve combined the capabilities of both LLMs and traditional code to improve accuracy in Bard’s responses. Through implicit code execution, Bard identifies prompts that might benefit from logical code, writes it ‘under the hood,’ executes it and uses the result to generate a more accurate response.” The new method improved Bard’s accuracy for coding and maths problems by roughly 30 per cent during internal tests, Google claimed. Accuracy remains one of the biggest issues with AI chatbots, with Google warning that despite the upgrade, Bard “won’t always get it right”. Unreliable or fabricated information generated by these AI tools is known as hallucinations, and they are typically delivered in a confident way that can be even more misleading for the user. ChatGPT creator OpenAI announced a potential new method to improve AI misinformation last month, involving two AI systems debating each other until they agree on the correct answer. Read More What is superintelligence? How AI could wipe out humanity – and why the boss of ChatGPT is doomsday prepping 10 ways AI will change the world – from curing cancer to wiping out humanity

More than half of broadband customers have experienced problems with their connection over the past year, despite providers inflicting inflation-busting price hikes, a survey suggests. The latest “broadband satisfaction survey” by Which? found that 53% of the nearly 4,000 broadband customers polled had experienced connection issues in the year to January, most commonly frequent connection dropouts, “very” slow speeds and slow uploads and downloads. The issues were “persistent” across all the providers, with narrow margins between the best and worst offenders for poor customer experiences. It's completely unacceptable that customers who have faced these eye-watering increases are also experiencing so many problems with their connection Which? The watchdog noted that the scale of problems added “insult to injury” as many customers saw their bills jump by more than 14% after many providers chose to impose inflation-based price increases earlier this year. Providers often link their annual price rises to January’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) or the Retail Price Index (RPI), which were 10.5% and 13.4% respectively – an amount which would have been unforeseeable for customers signing up to their contract 18 or 24 months previously. The current system forces millions of customers to choose between paying more each month or exorbitant exit fees, which can exceed £200. Industry watchdog Ofcom is currently investigating whether inflation-linked, mid-contract price rises give customers sufficient certainty and clarity when signing up to new contracts. Of the UK’s biggest providers, Sky, Virgin Media, and EE had the lowest proportion of customers who had not experienced any issues, with just 32%, 35% and 37% of their customers not reporting any problems. Of the major providers, BT fared best with 49% of its customers not experiencing a performance issue in the past year. Hyperoptic, Shell Energy Broadband and Utility Warehouse performed better, with half or more of their customers not experiencing any performance issue over the 12 months. However, even with these providers, at least four in 10 customers said they had experienced at least one problem. Frequent connection drop outs were the most common broadband issue, experienced by 19% of those who had suffered a problem. Some 17% suffered slow speeds, while 15% experienced slow uploads and downloads. One in seven (14%) said they had been left without a connection for at least an hour. One in 10 (12%) experienced slow or disrupted streaming when listening to music or watching videos and 8% said they were left without connection for more than a day. Overall, around four in 10 (44%) said they had experienced some kind of customer service issue and 11% said they had either found it difficult to get in touch with their provider or struggled to get their issue resolved. It’s absolutely critical that Ofcom’s review of inflation linked mid-contract hikes results in changes that ensure customers are never trapped in this situation again Rocio Concha, Which? Rocio Concha, Which? director of policy and advocacy, said: “A reliable connection is essential to modern life. Earlier this year, many broadband consumers were hit with mid-contract price hikes of more than 14% – meaning that it’s more important than ever that their provider offers a reliable connection and good customer service. “It’s completely unacceptable that customers who have faced these eye-watering increases are also experiencing so many problems with their connection. Broadband firms need to work harder to resolve these issues and offer a better service. “While some customers are able to switch away to better service and prices, many are trapped in contracts where they either have to accept above inflation price hikes in the spring or pay exorbitant exit fees to leave the contract early. “It’s absolutely critical that Ofcom’s review of inflation linked mid-contract hikes results in changes that ensure customers are never trapped in this situation again.” A Sky spokeswoman said: “We are committed to providing the best service to our customers. “We do not believe this is a representative survey – Ofcom’s quarterly complaints data shows we are consistently one of the least complained about broadband providers and, in Ofcom’s latest report, we received the fewest complaints out of all broadband providers.” A Virgin Media spokesman said: “While these findings are only taken from a small sample of customers, the latest, fuller data from Ofcom shows that our customers benefit from the fastest download speeds, and customer complaints on our broadband services fell by 22% in the first quarter of this year.” EE said: “Ofcom’s latest complaints report shows that we remain one of the least complained about broadband providers, with complaints remaining well below the industry average throughout recent years. “We have proudly led the way with social tariffs since 2008, with around 80% of the total market being supported on BT social tariffs. “Customers who are struggling financially and are eligible for our social tariffs can move penalty-free at any point in their contract, this also includes EE and Plusnet customers. “ Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live Will.i.am hails AI technology as ‘new renaissance’ in music Heart transplant woman’s daughter twice saved her life using Alexa Dolly Parton on AI and not wanting to leave her soul ‘here on earth’