Shares of Black Knight Inc. drew closer to Intercontinental Exchange Inc.’s takeover offer as Wall Street bolstered bets

We’re sorry to bring you this news, but humans are becoming less attractive. At least that’s according to a facial expert who posted a comprehensive video explaining his findings on TikTok. Shafee Hassan is the founder of facial aesthetics consultancy firm QOVES. He posted a clip on social media sharing his theory that modern living conditions have affected how people look over recent years. He says in the clip: “The average person's face is becoming increasingly disadvantaged by modern diets, sleeping patterns, pollutants and orofacial habits creating a greater inequality in ‘the attractives’ vs ‘the unattractives’.” Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter The video sees Hassan begin by asking the viewer if they’ve ever considered why teenagers in the 1950s looked so much older in pictures than teenagers do now. Picking out one example, he studies one man’s “gonion”, which is the top of the lower jaw and his cheekbone. Considering how people’s face shapes have changed over the years, he said: “There are multiple theories about why this is the case, but the one that makes the most intuitive sense at least to me is presented in Contemporary Orthodontics by [US orthodontist William] Proffit and colleagues using what's know as the functional matrix hypothesis.” He went on to consider that the “development of the face is dependent on the forces you put on it, for the upper and lower jaw” – which according to Hassan are two of the most important things when it comes to attractiveness. The clip then shows the importance of the jaw developing correctly, stating that certain elements can impact upon it and the tongue can “[push it downwards or outwards” before it has grown properly. It focuses on one case involving a young girl who had a sinus infection which means she was forced to breathe through her mouth, thus stopping the bone from developing. “With 70 per cent of the Western world, having some kind of malocclusion or recession, much like this, it's a very good explanation for why faces are becoming less and less attractive as time goes on,” he added, summing up the clip. 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.

Torrential rainfall in the wake of Typhoon Doksuri has been inundating parts of northern China, flooding neighborhoods, damaging

It seems that every day we are hearing about more businesses across the globe adopting the use of AI. While Tim Cook has recently revealed Apple is building AI into ‘every product’, Netflix has listed a controversial AI job paying $900,000 amid strike action from actors against the technology. It’s not just big businesses investing in artificial intelligence, however. Multiple studies are beginning to emerge tauting AI’s benefits. One claimed AI can read breast cancer screening images and another argued it could help revolutionise the way children are taught. So where does this leave us? How worried are we supposed to be about AI? Is it an exciting development in technology or is it a genuine threat to humanity as we know it? Want to keep updated with the latest news in tech? Sign up to our weekly email here As the world continues to increase the exploration, use and development of artificial intelligence The Independent’s tech team is going to examine exactly what it means for our workplaces, our ways of communication and our day to days lives. In The Independent’s virtual event series our tech editor Andrew Griffin will be examining exactly what threat AI poses as it continues to evolve. He will be joined by his deputy Anthony Cuthbertson, as well as a panel of other experts, to comment on the latest from the world of artificial intelligence and to answer your burning questions. The panel will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of AI, the moral and legal issues surrounding it, the latest developments on the horizon and what the future of AI hold for the planet. The event will take place on August 17 on Zoom and will start at 6.30pm. For more information and to sign up for a free ticket click here. You can also post questions in the comments of this article. Read More AI-driven cyberattack can now steal passwords with near 100 per cent accuracy Google Assistant will be ‘supercharged’ with AI like ChatGPT and Bard Tired of proving you’re not a robot? Say goodbye to Captcha boxes

Singapore started its green bond sale to raise as much as S$2.8 billion ($2.1 billion) by reopening an

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun 15, 2023--

If the thought of jetting off to Mars to live doesn’t scare you enough, imagine what it would be like going with people whose personalities you cannot stand. To avoid that happening, scientists have come up with a simulation that can determine the right and, importantly, wrong, personality types to send up to colonize Mars. 28 different simulations of colonies on Mars were run as part of the study to establish which type of people stood the best chance of settlement and survival. While the study was published on pre-print server arXiv, it had not yet been peer-reviewed. The study worked on the assumption that there would already be some kind of infrastructure in place, including power, food, air and water being locally produced and available. As part of the model, there would also be regular supply deliveries from Earth. Those behind the simulation gave each agent their own attributes, skills and personalities and let the simulation run as they interacted, socialised and problem-solved together. In the paper, the researchers explained: “Each agent is granted skills associated with their civilian and military occupational specialities consistent with NASA’s Human Factors and Behavioral Performance Element research.” Different personality types included: “Agreeables” – they score low on levels of competitiveness and aggression. “Neurotics” – these people are highly aggressive, competitive, and are much less able to handle routine change or boredom. “Reactives” – they tend to have a “competitive interpersonal orientation”. “Socials” – people who are extroverted and require a lot of social interaction. As for the groups themselves, the numbers within each simulation differed with the lowest amount being 22 individuals. The study found that the presence of neurotics made the team have a worse chance of survival and that these people in particular “suffered during life on the colony”. The researchers: “Martians with the neurotic psychology and a high coping capacity benefit the least from interaction with other Martians, and are penalized the most if they have a low coping capacity. “Our results suggest that this effect is a driver of the Martian population decline, and once minimized or removed, can produce a stable settlement.” A lot to process there if you identify as neurotic. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter 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.

(Bloomberg Markets) -- In Morocco trucks from a Connecticut logistics company ferry car parts and clothing across the Strait of

Humane has launched its AI Pin, one of the world’s most hyped tech products, and it has immediately made a public mistake. The AI Pin has been the subject of speculation promoted by Humane, a company that has remained somewhat mysterious and includes designers and executives who have worked at Apple and Microsoft. The system is intended to be attached to clothing and then makes use of a range of microphones, speakers and a display that can shine onto its owners hand to give information. That information is provided by artificial intelligence systems built on technology from ChatGPT creator OpenAI and Microsoft. The pin costs $699 and will be available later this year. It has been promoted by its president Imran Chaudhri as a response to both the prevalence of phones and the future of mixed-reality headsets, instead aiming to allow people to engage with the world around them. One of the features intended to do that is access to artificial intelligence systems that can be used to get answers to questions. Users can just press the AI Pin and speak into the air, which will then allow the computer to access the internet and show an answer. During its reveal event, executives showed the pin being used to answer one such question. “I can also use it to ask questions, like: when is the next eclipse, and where is the best place to see it?”, representatives said, explaining that it would be answered by “an AI browsing the web, or grabbing knowledge from all over the internet”. The AI Pin is then showed answering by saying that the best place to view the next total solar eclipse, in April 2024, would be Exmouth in Australia or East Timor. But next year’s solar eclipse will in fact be visible in North America, and in fact has been given the name “the Great North American Eclipse”. It will not be at all visible in Australia, and can only be seen in Mexico, the US and Canada. The system may have made the mistake because a total solar eclipse earlier this year was in fact best viewed from Exmouth and East Timor. That eclipse, in April, brought widespread coverage to the small Australian town – and that coverage was presumably used to train the artificial intelligence system that answered the question. Humane did not say which assistant was being used for that answer. The AI Pin is built specifically to call on a number of different assistants depending on what question is asked. The error recalls a similar error made by Google’s Bard chatbot when it was introduced at the beginning of the year. An ad showed Bard being asked about interesting discoveries by Nasa’s James Webb Space Telescope, and replying that it had taken “the very first pictures of a planet outside of our own solar system” – which is not true. At the time, many noted that the error highlighted a central error with large language models. The systems tend to “hallucinate” – or confidently state falsehoods – and have no real way of being able to check whether the information they are given is true. Read More You can finally use one feature of the Apple Vision Pro headset – sort of ChatGPT creator mocks Elon Musk in brutal tweet Call of Duty launch sparks record traffic on broadband networks

SpaceX will not be cleared to launch its 400-foot-tall (121 metre) Starship rocket until a “mishap investigation” is completed, regulators have said. A statement from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) warned of a launch delay for the biggest rocket ever built, just hours after SpaceX boss Elon Musk said the craft was “ready to launch” on Wednesday. SpaceX made its first and only attempt at an orbital Starship launch in April, with the rocket exploding over the Gulf of Mexico just three minutes into the 90 minute flight. The crewless rocket broke up into pieces over an empty stretch of water, however the debris blast created by Starship’s huge engines at its launchpad drew heavy scrutiny from regulators. Concrete dust drifted more than 10 kilometres from the launch site, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service, while concrete chunks and metal shards were discovered within a 700-acre zone surrounding the pad. SpaceX claimed the mission was a success, as Starship and its Super Heavy booster were able to lift off on its maiden test flight, however the FAA launched an investigation soon afterwards. Following Mr Musk’s latest comments that the latest version of the rocket is ready to launch pending regulatory approval, the FAA warned SpaceX that it would need to wait for the investigation to conclude. “The SpaceX Starship mishap investigation remains open,” the FAA said in a statement. “The FAA will not authorise another Starship launch until SpaceX implements the corrective actions identified during the mishap investigation and demonstrates compliance with all the regulatory requirements of the licence modification process.” SpaceX has made numerous alterations and improvements to Starship and its launch pad, including remedial measures aimed at preventing launch debris and a new method for separating the upper stage from its booster rocket. Nasa has already awarded SpaceX a multi-billion dollar contract to develop Starship for its Artemis program, which aims to return humans to the surface of the Moon for the first time in more than 50 years. Mr Musk also plans to use the rockets for more ambitious longer term goals, including establishing a permanent human colony on Mars before 2050. “As the most powerful launch system ever developed, Starship will be able to carry up to 100 people on long-duration, interplanetary flights,” SpaceX notes on its website. “Starship will also help enable transport of many satellites, large space telescopes, and significant amounts of cargo to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars and beyond.” Read More ‘It’s becoming like an airport’: How SpaceX normalised rocket launches SpaceX abandons YouTube for live streams of launches in favour of X/Twitter Starship ‘ready to launch’, Elon Musk says SpaceX crew streak across sky before splashing down off Florida coast SpaceX smashes rocket launch record as Musk eyes historic Starship mission

WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sep 20, 2023--

China accused the US of infiltrating Huawei Technologies Co. servers beginning in 2009, part of a broad-based effort