Voice actors around the globe are mobilizing against the unregulated use of artificial intelligence (AI) to generate and clone human voices that they fear poses...

LinkedIn, the business-focused social media platform owned by Microsoft, announced on Monday it would be reducing its workforce by approximately 668, becoming the latest tech company to conduct mass layoffs. “Talent changes are a difficult, but necessary and regular part of managing our business,” the company wrote in a blog post adding that the changes were a result of adapting organisational structures and streamlining decision-making. The company said the roles being cut span across engineering, product, talent and finance teams. “We are committed to providing our full support to all impacted employees during this transition and ensuring that they are treated with care and respect,” LinkedIn wrote. This round of layoffs comes just months after LinkedIn laid off 716 employees in May citing a change in their Global Business Organization. In the first half of this year, tech companies like Microsoft, Google, Meta and Amazon saw massive layoffs in part because the sector struggled to keep up with salary maintenance while revenue slowed down. In January, Microsoft announced it would be reducing its workforce by 10,000 following a report showing company growth was at its slowest in six years. Part of that included advertising revenue that performed worse than expected. Microsoft’s advertising revenue partially comes from LinkedIn which makes money from ads on the platform in addition to users who pay a premium membership subscription fee. Though LinkedIn saw revenue and website membership growth over the last year, it is slower than in previous years. In Q4 of 2023, the company’s revenue increased 5 per cent year-on-year – a drop from the previous quarter at 10 per cent. The company also laid off 716 workers in May, after growing massively during the pandemic. Around 40% of LinkedIn’s almost 20,000 workers were hired during the pandemic. The cuts affect approximately 3 per cent of the total workforce at LinkedIn. The company has an estimated 21,000 employees – around 40 per cent of those workers were hired during the pandemic, according to The San Francisco Chronicle. Read More Who is hit hardest by Big Tech job cuts? Cooks and janitors Microsoft spent two years trying to buy Activision Blizzard. For Xbox CEO, that was the easy part IRS says Microsoft may owe more than $29 billion in back taxes; Microsoft disagrees

Microsoft debuted a cornucopia of goodies at the Surface event on Thursday, including the Surface

Nasa has named its new head of research into unexplained phenomena spotted in the sky – after initially saying that it would not. The space agency said that its new head of research into Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, or UAPs, would be kept secret in an attempt to keep them from being abused. Many of the publicly identified members its research panel have been subject to threats and harassment, the space agency has said. Previously, members of the panel said that abuse had kept them from properly examining the phenomena. The announcement of a new head of research came soon during the discussion of the panel’s first report into UFOs. That report said that it needed more scientific research to make firm conclusions – and less stigma and abuse of those doing it. During a panel discussion of that report, Nasa associate administrator Nicola Fox said that the space agency had appointed a new official to oversee the research and work with other federal agencies. But she told reporters that “we will not give his name out” for fear of reprisals. Later on Thursday, however, Nasa released a new blog post in which it identified the new director as Mark McInerney. “McInerney previously served as NASA’s liaison to the Department of Defense covering limited UAP activities for the agency,” it wrote. “In the director role, he will centralize communications, resources, and data analytical capabilities to establish a robust database for the evaluation of future UAP. “He also will leverage NASA’s expertise in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and space-based observation tools to support and enhance the broader government initiative on UAP.” The report did not give any indication of why the space agency had changed its mind on naming the new appointment. It only noted that it had made the decision to update it to “include details about the UAP research director”. In the 33-page report published earlier on Thursday, an independent team commissioned by NASA cautioned that the negative perception surrounding UFOs poses an obstacle to collecting data. But officials said NASA‘s involvement should help reduce the stigma around what it calls UAPs, or unidentified anomalous phenomena.“We want to shift the conversation about UAPs from sensationalism to science,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said. He promised an open and transparent approach. Officials stressed the panel found no evidence that UAPs had extraterrestrial origin. But Nelson acknowledged with billions of stars in billions of galaxies out there, another Earth could exist. “If you ask me, do I believe there’s life in a universe that is so vast that it’s hard for me to comprehend how big it is, my personal answer is yes,” Nelson said at a news conference. His own scientists put the likelihood of life on another Earth-like planet at “at least a trillion.” When pressed by reporters on whether the U.S. or other governments are hiding aliens or otherworldly spaceships, Nelson said: “Show me the evidence.” NASA has said it doesn’t actively search for unexplained sightings. But it operates a fleet of Earth-circling spacecraft that can help determine, for example, whether weather is behind a strange event. The 16-member panel noted that artificial intelligence and machine learning are essential for identifying rare occurrences, including UFOs. No top-secret files were accessed by the panel’s scientists, aviation and artificial intelligence experts, and retired NASA astronaut Scott Kelly, the first American to spend nearly a year in space. Instead, the group relied on unclassified data in an attempt to better understand unexplained sightings in the sky. Officials said there are so few high-quality observations that no scientific conclusions can be drawn. Most events can be attributed to planes, drones, balloons or weather conditions, said panel chairman David Spergel, president of the Simons Foundation, a scientific research group. The government refers to unexplained sightings as UAPs versus UFOs. NASA defines them as observations in the sky or elsewhere that cannot be readily identified or scientifically explained. The study was launched a year ago and cost under $100,000. Additional reporting by agencies Read More We cannot yet explain mysterious sightings in the sky, Nasa panel says Nasa boss says he believes in aliens during UFO hearings Watch as Nasa announces findings of long-awaited UFO study Nasa’s UFO study team reveals first ever report: as it happened Scientists might have seen a ‘life’ molecule on another planet SpaceX crew streak across sky before splashing down off Florida coast

Google can now use public data to help train and create AI products, according to

Paige Spiranac starts the British Open with a 'eye contact' joke about Phil Mickelson

By Josh Ye, David Kirton and Chen Lin HONG KONG/SHENZHEN, China Psst! Where can a Chinese buyer purchase

Scientists have cooked up the "alien haze" of distant planets, in an effort to help with the search for alien life. The haze is a simulation of the hazy skies that appear on water-rich exoplanets, or worlds outside of our solar system. That haziness can get in the way of observations of those planets, making it difficult to understand what is happening there. Haze can also affect conditions on the planet themselves. If the atmosphere has hazes or other particles then it can drastically change the temperature, amount of light an other factors – some of which might be make or break for alien life there. Scientists hope the homemade haze will let them better understand the atmospheres of other planets, and model how the planets themselves form and grow. They could allow us to better understand how the have distorts our picture of those planets – distortions that could give us the wrong understanding of the makeup of their atmospheres. Getting that wrong could mean potentially missing habitable worlds, for instance. The observations are used to come up with the estimates about the temperature and atmospheric conditions that are then used to determine whether a planet might be able to host alien life. “The big picture is whether there is life outside the solar system, but trying to answer that kind of question requires really detailed modeling of all different types, specifically in planets with lots of water,” said co-author Sarah Hörst, from Johns Hopkins University. “This has been a huge challenge because we just don't have the lab work to do that, so we are trying to use these new lab techniques to get more out of the data that we’re taking in with all these big fancy telescopes.” The team cooked up the haze using a custom-designed chamber in Hörst’s lab. The haze they made is formed out solid particles, suspended in gas, which changes how light interacts with the gas itself. To test the hazes they made, scientists shot ultraviolet light through them, measuring how much they absorbed and reflected. They found that hate haze matched the chemical signatures of a well-studied exoplanet. Scientists hope to develop yet more hazes, with different gas mixtures, that will let them better understand different atmospheres. The work is described in a new paper, 'Optical properties of organic haze analogues in water-rich exoplanet atmospheres observable with JWST', published in the journal Nature Astronomy. Read More SpaceX rockets are punching holes in atmosphere, causing blood-red ‘auroras’ Chinese rocket that slammed onto Moon may have carried mysterious undisclosed payload Nasa’s ‘Message in a Bottle’ will send your name into space

Owners of new Ford vehicles will be able to tune in to AM radio in their cars, trucks and SUVs after all

Black Friday brings many discounts. Here are the leading retailers selling PlayStation 5 consoles at discounted prices.

'Let Bronny be who he wants to be with,' Adin Ross said in support of Bronny James after the latter received racial slurs following the prom

FC 24 Trailblazers leaks including every player already announced, the new card design, release date and more for the Ultimate Team promotion.