Scientists have been peering into the depths of space, looking right back at the early days of the universe, and they’ve found something very interesting indeed. Researchers using the James Webb Space Telescope have come across a discovery that indicates some of the very earliest stars to ever form in the universe were staggering in scale, measuring 10,000 times bigger than the Sun. "Today, thanks to the data collected by the James-Webb Space Telescope, we believe we have found a first clue of the presence of these extraordinary stars," says astrophysicist Corinne Charbonnel of the University of Geneva in Switzerland, in research published in Astronomy & Astrophysics. These features are huge collections of between 100,000 and 1 million stars known as globular clusters, which all feature similar properties. Scientists estimate that they were all formed at the same time. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter They’re remnants of the ancient universe and have been described by researchers as "fossils". The cores of these stars are much hotter than those we see in stars today, and scientists suggest it could be down to an excess of hydrogen burning at high temperatures. It’s thought that smaller stars collided with the supermassive stars and relished their energy. However, now most of these global clusters are approaching the very end of their life spans. "Globular clusters are between 10 and 13 billion years old, whereas the maximum lifespan of superstars is two million years," said Mark Gieles, previously at the University of Surrey but now at the University of Barcelona, back in 2018. "They therefore disappeared very early from the clusters that are currently observable. Only indirect traces remain." The researcher states: "If the supermassive star scenario can be firmed up by future studies, this would provide an important step for our understanding of globular clusters and for the formation of supermassive stars in general, with numerous important implications.” 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.

YouTube has revealed a host of new, musical artificial intelligence experiments. The features let people create musical texts by just writing a short piece of text, instantly and automatically generating music in the style of a number of artists. Users can also hum a simple song into their computer and have it turned into a detailed and rich piece of music. The new experiments are YouTube’s latest attempt to deal with the possibilities and dangers of AI and music. Numerous companies and artists have voiced fears that artificial intelligence could make it easier to infringe on copyright or produce real-sounding fake songs. One of the new features is called “Dream Track”, and some creators already have it, with the aim of using it to soundtrack YouTube Shorts. It is intended to quickly produce songs in people’s style. Users can choose a song in the style of a number of officially-licensed artists: Alec Benjamin, Charlie Puth, Charli XCX, Demi Lovato, John Legend, Papoose, Sia, T-Pain, and Troye Sivan. They can then ask for a particular song, deciding on the tone or themes of the song, and it can then be used in their post on Shorts. Another is called Music AI Tools, and is aimed to help musicians with their creative process. It came out of YouTube’s Music AI Incubator, a working group of artists, songwriters and producers who are experimenting with the use of artificial intelligence in music. “It was clear early on that this initial group of participants were intensely curious about AI tools that could push the limits of what they thought possible. They also sought out tools that could bolster their creative process,” YouTube said in an announcement. “As a result, those early sessions led us to iterate on a set of music AI tools that experiment with those concepts. Imagine being able to more seamlessly turn one’s thoughts and ideas into music; like creating a new guitar riff just by humming it or taking a pop track you are working on and giving it a reggaeton feel. “We’re developing prospective tools that could bring these possibilities to life and Music AI Incubator participants will be able to test them out later this year.” The company gave an example of one of those tools, where a producer was able to hum a tune and then have it turned into a track that sounded as if it had been professionally recorded. The tools are built on Google Deepmind’s Lyria system. The company said that was built specifically for music, overcoming problems such as AI’s difficulties with producing long sequences of sound that keep their continuity and do not break apart. At the same time, Deepmind said it had been working on a technology called SynthID to combine it with Lyria. That will put an audio watermark into the sound, which humans cannot hear but which can be recognised by tools so that they know the songs have been automatically generated. “This novel method is unlike anything that exists today, especially in the context of audio,” Deepmind said,. “The watermark is designed to maintain detectability even when the audio content undergoes many common modifications such as noise additions, MP3 compression, or speeding up and slowing down the track. SynthID can also detect the presence of a watermark throughout a track to help determine if parts of a song were generated by Lyria.” The announcement comes just days after YouTube announced restrictions on unauthorised AI clones of musicians. Earlier this week it said that users would have to tag AI-generated content that looked realistic, and music that “mimics an artist’s unique singing or rapping voice” will be banned entirely. Those videos have proven popular in recent months, largely thanks to online tools that allow people to easily combine a voice with an existing song and create something entirely new, such as Homer Simpson singing popular hits. Those will not be affected straight away, with the new requirements rolling out next year. Read More AI-generated faces are starting to look more real than actual ones Elon Musk unveils new sarcasm-loving AI chatbot for premium X subscribers New tech listens to your belly gurgling and monitors how well you are New tech listens to your belly gurgling and monitors how well you are SpaceX is launching the world’s biggest rocket – follow live Instagram users warned about new setting that could accidentally expose secrets

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Kris Jenner's latest Instagram post has posed a few questions about her flawless appearance. The reality star and famed momager of the Kardashian-Jenner clan took to the app on Monday (28 August) to showcase a glam look by make-up artist Samer Khouzami. The clip shows the 67-year-old innocently smiling for the camera – but many have gone as far as to accuse her porcelain skin as being "AI". One person hit back at MUA Khouzami: "Please post an unfiltered photo so we can see her true beauty. Being a master makeup artist this just gives clients the wrong illusion and this is things they expect instead of seeing pours which is totally normal." Another added: "She is f***ing stunning - but please show us this look without the ridiculous filter though? She doesn’t need it." "What the hell is happening that’s not her face," one fan quipped. Meanwhile, the editing app Facetune, which has become a popular hit among influencers and celebrities, snubbed: "This is a great time to tell everyone we have Facetune for videos." This isn't the first time eagle-eyed fans have accused the family of editing their photos online. Kim Kardashian even admitted to one hilarious mishap that got the internet talking. In a post last year, the SKIMS founder confessed to replacing Kylie Jenner's daughter, Stormi, with Khloe Kardashian's daughter, True. At the time, Kim shared the original image at Disneyland to her Instagram story, writing: "The original pics were Stormi! However, I asked @kyliejenner if I could post them and she said [insert crying face] she wasn't really feeling posting at the moment and so I respect that! But it wasn't going to mess up my IG feed. Chi was wearing pink and it matched perfectly." She continued: "It wasn't the aesthetic I was going for and I can own up to that! You know how much a good aesthetic means to my soul and I will be dammed if Kylie will ruin that for me and mess up my IG grid. So thank you True for taking one for the team!" Sign up for 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.

Meta has unveiled a new series of artificial intelligence chatbots to challenge the likes of OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard. Speaking at the tech giant’s annual Meta Connect conference, chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said the AI chatbots would feature different “personalities” based on celebrities. Among those to have already lended their personalities are the rapper Snoop Dogg, NFL star Tom Brady and YouTuber Mr Beast. The Meta AI virtual assistants, which will only be available in the US initially, will be able to answer queries or craft responses in a fashion similar to ChatGPT and other programmes. The firm also announced plans to launch an AI studio where users could custom build their own AIs. Users will be able to access the assistant and any created within its new AI studio from within any of Meta’s messaging platforms. This is where Meta is looking to differentiate itself from its rivals, by using its already extensively used social platforms to put AI chatbots in front of users, many for the first time. The company said it did not believe there will be “one single super-intelligent AI that everyone uses”, but rather “different AIs for different things”. This was the reason for creating AI Studio, Meta said, to enable users to “create your own AI that’s aligned with your goals, whether you’re a small business, a creator, or anyone really”. The company demonstrated several AIs it had created already, including a sous chef who could offer meal suggestions and a “personal editor and writing partner” called Lily. Meta said these different chatbots would be given their own profiles on its platforms to enable users to interact with them. Elsewhere at the conference, Mr Zuckerberg unveiled the newest version of the company’s virtual reality headset – the Meta Quest 3 – and reiterated his belief that the future of the internet would be based in the virtual world of the metaverse. In this space, users in such headsets will be able to interact with avatars of others as well as AI bots. Mr Zuckerberg said the metaverse would see the “physical and digital world come together”. The Facebook founder also unveiled a new pair of Meta smartglasses made by Ray Ban, which will be powered by the new Meta AI. “Smart glasses are the ideal form factor for you to let an AI assistant see what you are seeing and hear what you are hearing,” Mr Zuckerberg said. Over the last week, both Microsoft and Amazon have used live events to demonstrate their latest innovations in AI, with Microsoft announcing a new tool called Copilot is coming to Windows which users can call up at any time to help them with any computing, work or social task. While Amazon used its product event last week to unveil improvements to voice-based AI assistant Alexa that make it more natural and conversational, and better at understanding context and inference to help users complete tasks. On the same day as Meta’s announcement, OpenAI also unveiled a major update to ChatGPT that will give the viral chatbot direct access to the internet for the first time. Additional reporting from agencies Read More Meta unveils new Quest 3 headset and smart glasses that allow for virtual experiences in the real world Meta just took a step towards its dream of the metaverse Meta showcases new AR/VR tech at annual Connect conference Meta plans to develop ‘sassy robot’ chatbot for young users, report says

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SYDNEY Australia will make search engines like Google and Bing take steps to prevent the sharing of child