Check out all the details surrounding the Fortnite x Futurama collaboration, including skins and in-game updates, coming on July 26.

Conspiracy theorists have been turning their attention to Antarctica more than you’d expect over recent years. First, there was the case of the “bleeding waterfalls”, which remains one of the strangest natural phenomena you're likely to see, and there’s also the mystery of a so-called “pyramid” which has been found on the continent. Only, it’s not a pyramid at all – in fact, it’s a mountain. The Ellsworth Mountains are the highest mountain range in Antarctica and stretch 400km and the mountain in question was discovered by the British Antarctic Expedition of 1910-1913 It was called “The Pyramid” to keep the true nature of the discovery hidden from others at the time. Over the last hundred years, however, people have been speculating about the true nature of the location (even though it’s very much a mountain, poking up out of the ice) and now a second interesting geographical feature has bee discovered and got them talking all over again. The location in question is found at the coordinates 79°58’39.25?S 81°57’32.21?W, which has been a much-searched spot on Google Earth. Speaking to IFL Science, geologist at the German Research Centre for Geosciences in Potsdam, Dr Mitch Darcy, said: “The pyramid-shaped structures are located in the Ellsworth Mountains, which is a range more than 400 km long, so it’s no surprise there are rocky peaks cropping out above the ice. The peaks are clearly composed of rock, and it’s a coincidence that this particular peak has that shape. “It’s not a complicated shape, so it’s not a special coincidence either. By definition, it is a nunatak, which is simply a peak of rock sticking out above a glacier or an ice sheet. This one has the shape of a pyramid, but that doesn’t make it a human construction.” So, the new location is just that – a mountain poking out the top of the ice in Antarctica, and not a mysterious pyramid at all. Antarctica has been the subject of more than its fair share of speculation recently, after conspiracy theorist Eric Hecker described the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station by the south pole as an “air traffic control” hub for aliens earlier this year. Hecker claimed that in 2010 Raytheon, the US aerospace and defence conglomerate chose him to be a contractor on the research centre operated by the United States National Science Foundation. There was “much more” to the station that first met the eye, according to Hecker. 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.

Batteries in older Nissan Leaf electric vehicles are getting a new life as portable power sources that can be used to run gadgets on the go or deliver emergency power in disasters

The official account for Elon Musk’s X app has switched from @Twiter to @X, after the previous owner of the account moved to a new one. The single-letter username had been registered to Gene X. Hwang, the co-founder of photo firm Orange Photography, for more than 16 years before Twitter’s sudden rebranding on Monday brought the account under scrutiny. On Tuesday, Mr Hwang said that neither Mr Musk nor X had reached out to him, however by Wednesday the account was under the control of the tech billionaire’s company. “Alls well that ends well,” Mr Hwang posted from a new account, @x12345678998765. It is unclear how much Mr Musk or X paid for the one-letter account, if anything at all. The Independent has reached out to both X and Mr Hwang for further information. Mr Musk has reportedly taken over other accounts without permission since he took over the platform in October 2022. According to Platformer editor Zoe Schiffer, the world’s richest person took over the username @e shortly after acquiring the company for $44 billion, despite the original owner of the account being unwilling to part with it. The @e account remains inactive, featuring the name ‘John Utah’ – the same as the protagonist of the 1991 film Point Break – and following just three accounts: Elon Musk, LAist and Nasa. X has also changed its other official accounts to ditch the Twitter branding, renaming its subscription service to @XBlue, and @TwitterSupport to @Support. The company’s Twitter signage was also removed from its San Francisco headquarters on Monday. The website domain X.com also now redirects to Twitter.com, while all of the site’s blue bird logos have been replaced with a crowd-sourced X logo. The hasty switch from one brand to another may result in legal difficulties for Mr Musk, according to trademark lawyers, after it was revealed that the billionaire does not own the intellectual property rights for the letter X when it relates to social networking. Tech rivals Meta and Microsoft both own trademarks for ‘X’ in different domains, with Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg currently controlling the federal trademark for a blue-and-white letter ‘X’ for “social networking services”. “There’s a 100 per cent chance that Twitter is going to get sued over this by somebody,” one US-based IP lawyer said on Tuesday. Read More What is Elon Musk’s ‘everything app’ X? What is Elon Musk’s ‘everything app’ X? Elon Musk red-faced as police halt Twitter sign removal leaving firm called ‘ER’ Twitter to X: Why Elon Musk rebranded the social networking platform

China’s Guangzhou Automobile Group Co. said it has developed the world’s first car engine that runs on ammonia,

The European Union is backing its commitment to spur a nascent hydrogen market in the region by unlocking

Google hopes that people in decades to come “shrug” at the technology it is working on, according to its chief executive. Sundar Pichai, the boss of both Google and parent company Alphabet, revealed the importance of making technology go from “extraordinary to ordinary” in a memo to staff written to celebrate the company’s 25th anniversary. Traditionally, Google celebrates its birthday on 27 September, for largely arbitrary reasons. The company undertook a number of firsts through the summer and autumn of 1998, meaning that it has a range of options to choose as its official launch date. This year, however, Google appears to be celebrating throughout the whole month. Mr Pichai’s note was intended as a way of kicking off those celebrations, according to an editor’s note attached to it. Mr Pichai said that it is a “huge privilege to reach this milestone, made possible by the people who use our products and challenge us to keep innovating, the hundreds of thousands of Googlers past and present who have given their talents to building those products, and our partners who believe in our mission as much as we do”. And he looked forward to the future technology that the company is building, which revolves largely around artificial intelligence. But it hopes that those technologies become normal, Mr Pichai said. “Ideas my dad marveled at as science fiction — taking a call from your watch, or telling your car to play your favorite song — make my children shrug,” he wrote. “Those shrugs give me great hope for the future. They set a high bar for what the next generation will build and invent... and I can’t wait to see what will make their children shrug, too. “An essential truth of innovation is that the moment you push the boundary of a technology, it soon goes from extraordinary to ordinary. That’s why Google has never taken our success for granted.” Concluding the note, he said that he hoped that the contested questions of artificial intelligence will eventually elicit the same kind of response. He noted that the technology has undergone sustained questioning and criticism in recent months, but indicated that he hopes it becomes ordinary in the same way. “As these new frontiers come into view, we have a renewed invitation to act boldly and responsibly to improve as many lives as possible, and to keep asking those big questions,” he wrote. “Our search for answers will drive extraordinary technology progress over the next 25 years. “And in 2048, if, somewhere in the world, a teenager looks at all we’ve built with AI and shrugs, we’ll know we succeeded. And then we’ll get back to work.” He also revealed the importance of lobsters to Google. The first company to use its advertising platform was a “mail-order business selling lobsters”, he said – and that platform has since gone on to contribute the vast majority of Google’s revenues. Read More Why is Elon Musk obsessed with the letter X? Elon Musk ‘borrowed $1bn from SpaceX’ at same time as Twitter acquisition Sonos releases Move 2, its chunky speaker for the outdoors Why is Elon Musk obsessed with the letter X? Elon Musk ‘borrowed $1bn from SpaceX’ at same time as Twitter acquisition Sonos releases Move 2, its chunky speaker for the outdoors

North Korean hackers were likely behind the theft of at least $35 million from a popular cryptocurrency service, multiple crypto-tracking experts told CNN Tuesday.

Hundreds of thousands of British homes will miss out on flood protections in the next few years as

Grimes, who described herself as an "AI popstar" recently on social media, is reportedly one of the people to have signed a statement warning of its risks to humanity. The singer signed the message from Center For AI Safety (CAIS) delving into the potential dangers of AI, according to Ars Technica. OpenAI and DeepMind’s executives also signed the message, which read: “Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.” A CAIS press release also stated that it wanted to “put guardrails in place and set up institutions so that AI risks don’t catch us off guard.” Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter “We need to be having the conversations that nuclear scientists were having before the creation of the atomic bomb,” Dan Hendrycks, CAIS’ director, also said. Grimes has been vocal in her support for the use of AI among her fan base recently, even sharing a how-to guide that helps people use her voice to create AI songs. The singer, real name Claire Elise Boucher, offered fans a chance to not only create their own music but to earn 50/50 royalties by distributing it. Writing on the singer said: “Grimes is now open source and self replicating.” Her Twitter bio also currently reads: “Self-replicating A.I. Popstar for the Martian Ministry of Propaganda.” 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.

SPRING GROVE, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sep 13, 2023--

Parents aren't alone in feeling the extra pinch in the wallet this year in paying for back-to-school necessities. Teachers, too, are digging deeper to meet their classroom needs out of pocket.