LAS VEGAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun 7, 2023--

In 1993, Elton John had to abruptly end a concert in Melbourne 30 minutes early due to an uninvited swarm of insects.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jul 27, 2023--

ESG investment strategies have been widely criticized this year, so much so that money is leaving the once-thriving

Twitter has launched encrypted messaging, offering select users the ability to communicate more securely

Some iPhone users say that the latest models are losing power unexpectedly quickly. The iPhone 14 and 14 Pro’s batteries are aging more quickly than those in previous versions of the iPhone, the affected users complain. For years, Apple has offered the ability to see an iPhone’s “maximum capacity”. That is a measure of how much energy can be stored in the battery, and therefore indicates how long it will last on a single charge. As with all lithium-ion batteries of the kind used in the iPhone, that battery will gradually lose their capacity over time. A number of factors will influence how quickly they do so, including the temperature and how often that battery has been used and recharged. But owners of the new iPhone 14 and 14 Pro say that process has been happening more quickly. Some users say they have already lost 15 per cent or more of their capacity after less than a year of owning the phone. Joanna Stern, a personal technology columnist at the Wall Street Journal, said that her phone had already reached 88 per cent battery capacity. She said that she had been told by the Apple Store that her heavy use of the iPhone meant that it had already hit 450 charge cycles – which would represent heavy use of the kind that Apple says can reduce the iPhone’s battery life. But she also suggested the problem could be the result of “heat from fast charging”. But she also suggested that the problem could be the result of heat in the world: iPhones and other electronic devices can suffer when they reach high temperatures, and very hot summers in some part of the world could have degraded their performance. Ms Stern was not alone in her complaint: on Twitter, a number of posts in response to hers and others suggested that other users were surprised by how quickly their battery’s capacity had declined. But others still indicated they were seeing performance in line with previous years, and so it is difficult to know whether there is a problem with this generation’s iPhones more generally. Apple has a support page dedicated to the iPhone’s battery and how it relates to the performance of the phone more generally. There, it says that “a normal battery is designed to retain up to 80 per cent of its original capacity at 500 complete charge cycles when operating under normal conditions”. The company also notes that defective batteries are covered by the one-year warranty with the phone. If the battery is out of warranty, then Apple will replace it for a charge – or it can also be done under the third-party and DIY repair programmes that the company has supported in recent years. The iPhone 14 first went on sale on 16 September last year, meaning that owners who bought the new models soon after release will now be approaching the end of that one-year warranty period. Apple is expected to announce a new iPhone 15 and 15 Pro around the same time this year, with an increased battery life. The maximum capacity of an iPhone’s battery can be found by opening up the Settings app, navigating to the “Battery” option and clicking “Battery health & charging”. That will show not only the “maximum capacity” of that battery, but also whether it is still operating at its peak performance and the option for “optimised battery charging”, which will control when the iPhone charges to try and protect it from ageing. Apple added those options in iOS 11.3, as part of a broader set of battery tools that were a response to “batterygate”. That event saw users complain that their iPhones were slowing down because of tools that were added to protect iPhones from problems with ageing batteries – but sparked complaints from users that performance of their phone was being changed without their knowledge. Read More Apple is working on a mysterious new project called ‘Watch X’, report claims Apple is planning a host of powerful new Macs, rumours say Apple’s iPhone 15 release date leaked amid reports of ‘severe shortages’ Apple gives update on its plans for AI – and says it is coming to every product Apple results show sales slumping Apple planning new version of AirTags – but not for some time

If you thought Australia’s spiders were scary, wait until you see the prehistoric version. Scientists have found a fossilised giant trapdoor spider in New South Wales, only the fourth specimen of its kind to be found in Australia. The creature would have roamed and hunted in the surrounding areas which were once a lush rainforest, researchers said in a recently filed report. Last year, scientists unearthed fossils of the rainforest area from millions of years ago, teeming with specimens including plants, trapdoor spiders, giant cicadas and wasps. Now the area is a grassland region known as McGraths Flat. Researchers have named the spider fossil ‘Megamonodontium mccluskyi’. It would have lived in the Miocene period 11m to 16m years ago. “Only four spider fossils have ever been found throughout the whole continent, which has made it difficult for scientists to understand their evolutionary history,” said palaeontologist Matthew McCurry of the University of New South Wales and the Australian Museum. “That is why this discovery is so significant, it reveals new information about the extinction of spiders and fills a gap in our understanding of the past. “The closest living relative of this fossil now lives in wet forests in Singapore through to Papua New Guinea. “This suggests that the group once occupied similar environments in mainland Australia but have subsequently gone extinct as Australia became more arid.” The spider was found among many other Miocene fossils. In some of them, the fossils were so well preserved that subcellular structures could be made out. “Scanning electron microscopy allowed us to study minute details of the claws and setae on the spider's pedipalps, legs and the main body,” said virologist Michael Frese of the University of Canberra. The details meant scientists could confidently place it near the modern Monodontium, or trapdoor spider. However, it is five times larger than its modern day relatives. Megamonodontium mccluskyi's body is 23.31 millimetres long – that is just over an inch. The discovery of the species also tells us something of the past climate of Australia, the report added. The fact that it was found in a layer of rainforest sediment means the region was once much wetter than it is now. That could, in turn, help scientists understand how a warming climate has already altered the country’s life forms – and how it might change them again. "Not only is it the largest fossilized spider to be found in Australia but it is the first fossil of the family Barychelidae that has been found worldwide," said arachnologist Robert Raven of Queensland Museum. "There are around 300 species of brush-footed trapdoor spiders alive today, but they don't seem to become fossils very often. "This could be because they spend so much time inside burrows and so aren't in the right environment to be fossilized." The findings were published in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. 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.

Google Bard, the tech giant’s generative AI platform, can now link with other Google services such as Gmail, Maps and YouTube in order to provide more in-depth responses to prompts from users. Launched earlier this year, Bard is part of the new wave of AI-based chatbots which offer detailed written replies to questions and queries. Google has now announced a major update to the program, called Bard Extensions, which will allow users to link other Google services to collaborate with Bard to provide a response to a prompt – for example, when asking Bard to help plan a holiday, users can ask Bard to get the dates that work for family members from Gmail, use Google Maps to get directions to the airport and find YouTube videos to watch about the best things to do at the destination. It said the update made Bard “the most capable” version of the program so far and would help more people use the app to collaborate. The tech giant said the update would have a strong focus on user privacy, with users required to actively give permission to Bard to access their Google services, and any content lifted would not be reviewable by a human unless the user specifically asked Bard to flag it for review. In a further expansion of the chatbot, Google said it would now also enable users to double-check the responses they receive from Bard using a new “Google it” button, which will check the response against linked Google search results and highlight passages it is confident about the validity of, as well as those where it found differing results. Some experts have raised concerns about the possible spread of misinformation within generative AI platforms, warning some information is being presented to users in an authoritative way when it may be based on inaccurate or outdated information used to train such chatbots. A report by the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) published on Monday which looked into the potential impact of the AI market noted that without proper guiding principles, people and businesses could be harmed through exposure to significant levels of misinformation and AI-enabled fraud. In a blog post on the updates to Bard, Google’s director for product management of Bard, Yury Pinsky, said: “One of the biggest benefits of Bard, an experiment to collaborate with generative AI, is that it can tailor its responses to exactly what you need. “For instance, you could ask Bard to start a trip planning doc for you and your friends, draft up your online marketplace listing, or help explain a science topic to your kids. And now Bard is getting even better at customising its responses so you can easily bring your ideas to life. “Today we’re launching Bard Extensions in English, a completely new way to interact and collaborate with Bard. With Extensions, Bard can find and show you relevant information from the Google tools you use every day — like Gmail, Docs, Drive, Maps, YouTube, and Google Flights and hotels — even when the information you need is across multiple apps and services.” Elsewhere in the update, Google also confirmed that when a link to a Bard conversation is shared online, others will be able to click on that link and continue the same conversation themselves. Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live

Cisco Systems Inc., the largest maker of machines that run computer networks and the internet, gave a strong

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug 10, 2023--

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is considering diluting some of his green policies, according to a person familiar

'Skull and Bones' has been pushed back once again as Ubisoft amits to a tough time financially.