David Hockney has unveiled his latest Christmas-themed artwork to bring “joy and hope” to people in London. The Bigger Christmas Trees artwork at Battersea Power Station depicts two large green and purple striped Christmas trees, each with a gold star at the top. The artwork is being displayed on the landmark’s two chimneys, which measure 100 metres (328 feet) and overlook the River Thames. “Battersea Power Station is such a beautiful building, I wanted to decorate it in a way that I hoped would bring joy and hope to Londoners,” said Hockney, 86. The artist, who is known for using a range of mediums including apps on iPhones, used an iPad Pro and Apple Pencil to create the design. Hockney has used Apple products in his artwork for more than 15 years including the first iPhone model in 2007. Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing Greg Joswiak described Hockney’s artwork as a “gift” for London. He said: “David is one of the world’s most important and influential artists, and we couldn’t be more excited to see his latest creation lighting up Battersea Power Station. “It is a privilege for us that he chooses iPad for his work, and to create this beautiful Christmas gift for the people of London.” Hockney’s other work using an iPad includes a stained glass window and a piece to highlight the natural world, which he created during the Covid-19 pandemic. In November, he unveiled his David Hockney: Drawing from Life exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, in London, which showcases a portrait of singer Harry Styles. Styles is depicted wearing an orange and red cardigan with a pearl necklace and blue jeans in one of 30 displays at the gallery. The Bigger Christmas Trees artwork will be displayed in a 10-minute animation on two of Battersea Power Station’s towers from 5pm to 10pm every evening until Christmas Day. Read More Apple names its App Store apps of the year £16bn Adobe takeover could harm competition in digital design market – watchdog Young people the biggest users of generative AI, Ofcom study shows Software firm Cloudsmith announces £8.8m investment UK and South Korea issue warning over North Korea-linked cyber attacks Data protection watchdog warns websites over cookie consent alerts

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ChatGPT creator OpenAI has updated its company’s core values, replacing words like “thoughtful” and “collaborative” with “intense and scrappy”. The AI firm’s values, published on a careers page of its website, were changed between 25 September and 16 October, according to a screenshot captured by the Internet Archive. The top value is listed as “AGI focus”, referring to artificial general intelligence that is considered to be at the same level or greater than human-level intelligence. “We are committed to building safe, beneficial AGI that will have a massive positive impact on humanity’s future. Anything that doesn’t help with that is out of scope,” the new values state. The Independent has reached out to OpenAI for comment on whether the move signals a shift in company direction. The update, first spotted by Business Insider, comes amid an industry-wide push towards the development of AGI, with some academics and experts accelerating their timelines for it being achieved since the launch of ChatGPT last year. Forecasts suggest that the arrival of AGI could be hugely destabilising for the global economy, with some even warning that it could pose an existential threat to humanity. Swedish philosopher Nick Bostrom, based at Oxford University, previously warned that the arrival of AGI would precede so-called superintelligence, whereby computer intelligence surpasses human intelligence and AI development becomes uncontrollable and irreversible. In one thought experiment involving a rogue AI, Mr Bostrom wrote: “The AI will realise quickly that it would be much better if there were no humans because humans might decide to switch it off.” OpenAI has consistently called for a careful approach to the development of such technology, arguing that it could have profound implications for society, like curing diseases and turbocharging the economy. Last month, OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman wrote in a post on Reddit that his company had achieved AGI “internally”, however he later claimed that it was just a joke. “Obviously this is just memeing, y’all have no chill, when AGI is achieved it will not be announced with a Reddit comment,” he wrote. Read More The mystery AI device that could replace your phone The mystery AI device that could replace your phone Elon Musk’s X may charge some users $1 a year to post on platform Apple just released a new Pencil after days of excitement

Controversial sibling influencers the Island Boys say their mother “doesn’t care” that they kiss each other on OnlyFans. The identical twin brothers caught the attention of internet users last month after a disturbing clip emerged showing them kissing each other. Brothers Kodiyakredd (Franky Venegas) and Flyysoulja (Alex Venegas) shared the clip to promote their newly created OnlyFans account but were instantly hit with backlash from disturbed viewers. In response to the criticism, the pair claimed it was not “that big of a deal” and “really not disgusting” because they’re twins. Now, Flyysouljah has also commented on fans concerns about what their mother thinks, claiming that she “doesn’t care”. In a TikTok clip, he said: “My mom doesn’t care. My mom is proud of me, that I’m successful. I get to take very good care of her. I’m about to give her $10,000 to go invest in her own business.” @flyysouljah Replying to @Mrcalifornia7 #flyysoulja #fyp #islandboys #kodiyakredd He added: “So, she’s proud of me. I bought her an apartment, a car. She doesn’t really care what I do in my personal life, to be honest with you.” The video has been viewed almost one million times, but some fans weren’t buying that their mother did not care at all and questioned his dignity. One TikToker commented: “His mum definitely doesn’t know cuz if she does that’s WILD.” Someone else argued: “Bro your dignity shouldn't have a price tag. There's more to life than money.” Another said: “I would rather my mother cared.” 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.

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Instagram’s team is working on a number of updates for its new Threads app, its management has said. Meta launched Threads – a Twitter rival that is built by the Instagram team and uses its branding – late on Wednesday. It has already gained some 70 million users, capitalising on chaos and technical problems at Twitter. But it is still without a number of major features, including those that are readily available on Twitter. The head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, has been responding to users on the Threads app itself promising that a number of those features are coming. Chief among them is the option to change between accounts. Even though Threads is a separate app from Instagram, users must sign up with an Instagram account – which is then stuck signed in, without the option to quickly switch between other accounts. Mr Mosseri said that and many other additional features were being worked on by its team. Those other tools including a devoted desktop version, better search and hashtags, and better integration between Threads and Instagram so that posts can be shared between the two. But perhaps the biggest request has been for a chronological feed that includes posts only from those accounts that a user actually follows. At the moment, Threads is built around one news feed that is filled with algorithmically chosen content, much of which comes from accounts that a user has not explicitly chosen to subscribe to. Mr Mosseri said that was being worked on, and could arrive in the “next couple weeks”, but it was not necessarily a priority. “I do think a lot of why people are getting so much engagement right now is because you don’t need to follow a bunch of people in order to discover a bunch of new accounts in feed,” he wrote. Threads has ruled out some expected changes, too. That includes direct messages, with Mr Mosseri suggesting that he did not want to give users another inbox to check, with Meta already offering a number of other messaging platforms. Both Mr Mosseri and his boss, Mark Zuckerberg, have ruled out any rush to put ads into Threads. Mr Zuckerberg said that the site would decide on ads when the app was moving towards a billion users, and that for now the company was working on getting even more scale. Read More Threads hits 70 million sign-ups on its second day People are realising something really worrying about Threads Twitter threatens legal action against Meta over new ‘Threads’ app

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