New guidance urging parents not to buy smartphones for their primary school age children has been introduced The Cabinet has approved a memo outlining the proposal which was brought by education minister Norma Foley. The new guidance is available online and will be sent to all primary schools in the country. The aim is to support parents of primary school children who wish to agree collectively on a voluntary agreement on the use of smartphones for their primary school age children. It is based on a project involving eight schools in Greystones in Co Wicklow that saw parents of primary school pupils collectively agree not to buy smartphones for them. Ms Foley’s plan was prompted by concerns around the potential exposure of younger children to cyber bullying, violent and sexual content and other harmful content on phones. The minister said that there were clear benefits to owning a smartphone but the risks they posed to children had to be managed. Ms Foley said: “Principals tell me that online bullying using smartphones happens outside school hours. “They can’t control it. It happens outside of school. “Children can be exposed to violence and sexual content that no parent would want them to see via their smartphone.” The minister’s party leader, Tanaiste Micheal Martin, used his speech at the Fianna Fail ard fheis on Saturday to flag the move. He told party members why he felt it was important to limit children’s exposures to smartphones. “One of the greatest challenges of today is helping children to navigate an online world, one which brings new threats and affects the ability to maintain healthy connections,” he said. “That is why we will be expanding guidelines and controls on smartphone access in schools – and every family and school will receive guidance on how to navigate this challenge with their children to keep them safe and healthy.” Read More William ‘blown away’ by futuristic technology from Singapore start-ups Return of original Fortnite map causes record traffic on Virgin Media O2 network NatWest creates new AI-powered chatbot capable of ‘human-like’ conversations Succession star Sarah Snook says AI use in film industry needs ‘stringent rules’ Sir Paul McCartney: It was magical to feel like I was reuniting with John Lennon Sexist comments on TikTok ‘more liked’ than non-sexist ones – study

The UK, US and other governments have released plans they hope will stop artificial intelligence being hijacked by rogue actors. The major agreement – hailed as the first of its kind – represents an attempt to codify rules that will keep AI safe and ensure that systems are built to be secure by design. In a 20-page document unveiled Sunday, the 18 countries agreed that companies designing and using AI need to develop and deploy it in a way that keeps customers and the wider public safe from misuse. The agreement is non-binding and carries mostly general recommendations such as monitoring AI systems for abuse, protecting data from tampering and vetting software suppliers. Still, the director of the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Jen Easterly, said it was important that so many countries put their names to the idea that AI systems needed to put safety first. “This is the first time that we have seen an affirmation that these capabilities should not just be about cool features and how quickly we can get them to market or how we can compete to drive down costs,” Easterly told Reuters, saying the guidelines represent “an agreement that the most important thing that needs to be done at the design phase is security.” The agreement is the latest in a series of initiatives - few of which carry teeth - by governments around the world to shape the development of AI, whose weight is increasingly being felt in industry and society at large. In addition to the United States and Britain, the 18 countries that signed on to the new guidelines include Germany, Italy, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Poland, Australia, Chile, Israel, Nigeria and Singapore. The framework deals with questions of how to keep AI technology from being hijacked by hackers and includes recommendations such as only releasing models after appropriate security testing. It does not tackle thorny questions around the appropriate uses of AI, or how the data that feeds these models is gathered. The rise of AI has fed a host of concerns, including the fear that it could be used to disrupt the democratic process, turbocharge fraud, or lead to dramatic job loss, among other harms. Europe is ahead of the United States on regulations around AI, with lawmakers there drafting AI rules. France, Germany and Italy also recently reached an agreement on how artificia lintelligence should be regulated that supports “mandatory self-regulation through codes of conduct” for so-called foundation models of AI, which are designed to produce a broad range of outputs. The Biden administration has been pressing lawmakers for AI regulation, but a polarized U.S. Congress has made little headway in passing effective regulation. The White House sought to reduce AI risks to consumers, workers, and minority groups while bolstering national security with a new executive order in October. Additional reporting by Reuters Read More Putin targets AI as latest battleground with West AI breakthrough could help us build solar panels out of ‘miracle material’ OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman ousted as CEO YouTube reveals bizarre AI music experiments AI-generated faces are starting to look more real than actual ones Children are making indecent images using AI image generators, experts warn

An ancient egg-laying mammal named after Sir David Attenborough that was thought to be extinct is actually alive and well, scientists have proved. Attenborough’s long-beaked echidna, which is thought to have been around since the dinosaur era, was caught on camera by an Oxford University expedition to Indonesia. The spiky, furry, beaked creature has been described as a “living fossil” because of how long it has been walking the Earth, about 200m years. Until the video, scientists had relied on a dead, decades-old museum specimen of the creature, as evidence that it was still around. Dr James Kempton, who led the expedition, said: “I was euphoric, the whole team was euphoric.” “I’m not joking when I say it came down to the very last SD card that we looked at, from the very last camera that we collected, on the very last day of our expedition.” Dr Kempton said he had been in touch with Attenborough about the rediscovery, and that the broadcaster was “absolutely delighted”. The expedition also discovered new species of insects and frogs on the trip, which took them through previously unexplored stretches of the Cyclops Mountains, a steep, high-altitude area of Papau, Indonesia. Scientists were twice affected by earthquakes over the course of their expedition, and had to climb narrow ridges with cliffs either side, often in heavy rain. Dr Kempton added: “You're slipping all over the place. You're being scratched and cut. There are venomous animals around you, deadly snakes like the death adder. “There are leeches literally everywhere. The leeches are not only on the floor, but these leeches climb trees, they hang off the trees and then drop on you to suck your blood.” He said he hopes the rediscovery will help promote conservation efforts in the Cyclops Mountains. The species is not currently protected in Indonesia, and scientists don’t know how many there are. “Given so much of that rainforest hasn't been explored, what else is out there that we haven't yet discovered? The Attenborough long-beaked echidna is a symbol of what we need to protect - to ensure we can discover it.” How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel 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.

Antstream Arcade is heading to the Xbox next week.

Sending yourself a text could be the ultimate life hack. It may sound out of

Tristan Tate said, 'It will take them less than 8 seconds to find women from his past to raise criminal charges on him'

Why was a major candidate for the presidency just asked about a lesson set to be taught to middle school students in Florida social studies classes? Governor Ron DeSantis found himself answering yet more questions about his state’s new conservative-friendly social studies curriculum at a press event in Utah over the weekend as the Republican sees continued signs that his record on racial and social issues in the Sunshine State will be an issue in the upcoming GOP primary debates and, potentially, the 2024 general election. Mr DeSantis’s campaign held a summit with donors in Utah this past weekend where top advisers pledged a reboot to the Florida governor’s stagnating presidential bid including cutbacks to pricy expenditures including private events that have not helped his standings in the polls improve. The candidate himself held a press conference on Friday, where the question about Florida schools was directed to him. The Florida Department of Education’s social studies standards for the 2023-2024 school year, released this month, provide lesson topics for middle school teachers including a “benchmark clarification” which instructs educators to teach students that “slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit”. It isn’t clear what “their personal benefit” would be in this scenario. The line is included as part of a broader lesson entitled: “Examine the various duties and trades performed by slaves (e.g., agricultural work, painting, carpentry, tailoring, domestic service, blacksmithing, transportation).” Mr DeSantis has come under fire for the curriculum changes, from both Democrats and Republicans alike. Last week, Vice President Kamala Harris railed against Mr DeSantis without naming the Florida governor. “There is a national agenda afoot. Extremist so-called leaders for months have dared to ban books. … Extremists here in Florida, passing a law ‘Don’t Say Gay,’ trying to instill fear in our teachers … And now, on top of that, they want to replace history with lies.” And former New Jersey Gov Chris Christie, who is seeking the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, also called out the governor for what he claimed was a lack of leadership. While the change to the curriculum itself is subtle — a single sentence added to a much larger document — the news of its insertion played into a larger narrative of Florida’s right-wing shift under the DeSantis administration. Florida schools, in particular, are the biggest battleground for this war, where liberal groups and nonpartisan experts alike warn that students are increasingly the recipients of a whitewashed educational environment devoid of anything that conservatives find unseemly or uncomfortable, such as discussions of the sins of slavery, representation of LGBT+ persons in the classroom or teaching materials, and other narratives that brush up against conservative belief systems. The changes to Florida schools had already earned the state the condemnation of the NAACP and other civil rights groups, something that has enraged conservatives and drawn the state into an ugly national fight against any group or organisation that the governor perceives to have a liberal agenda, including the Disney corporation. Now, he is officially a candidate for president and facing the reality that his loyally conservative record in Florida has failed to allow him to make serious inroads against Donald Trump and his support base, while he remains engaged in fighting off competitive rivals like Vivek Ramaswamy and others in the crowded Republican primary contest. It remains to be seen whether his campaign reset (which continued this week with layoffs of roughly a third of his staff) will be a necessary fat-trimming measure or the sign of his campaign’s early demise; what is certain is that the issue of the quality of education in Florida’s schools is not going away, at least any time soon. Read More Four cars in Ron DeSantis motorcade crash into each other on way to Tennessee fundraisers Biden laughs off impeachment threat after McCarthy teases inquiry Trump goes on late-night Truth Social rampage against ‘loser’ and ‘lowlife’ Mitt Romney Ron DeSantis: The new Jeb Bush Why was Donald Trump impeached twice during his presidency? DeSantis campaign fires aide behind neo-Nazi meme video

Andrew Tate has decided to charge a certain amount for interviews if approached by 'legacy media'

The Fortnite Jack Skellington release date is Monday, Oct. 23, at 8 p.m. ET. The Nightmare Before Christmas star will be available to purchase in the Item Shop.

PISCATAWAY, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sep 14, 2023--

Activision is turning to AI to help it moderate voice chat in Call of Duty

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug 17, 2023--