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Since Instagram’s text-based alternative to Twitter, Threads, rolled out last week, a handful of memes and conspiracy theories have surfaced around the app’s unusual ‘at symbol’-like logo – from the inaccurate suggestion it was predicted by The Simpsons (it wasn’t), and now, to claims it’s actually linked to the devil (it isn’t). The baseless theory - seemingly backed by Twitter owner Elon Musk himself, if his public tweet likes are anything to go by – suggests the swirly icon secretly contains the number ‘666’, often referred to as “the number of the beast” and considered a link to the Antichrist. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Claiming they “can’t stop seeing it”, one Twitter user asked: “Does anyone else think the Threads logo just looks like 666? The first 6 is forward and white, then the second one is smaller and backwards, and the third one is the black space inside.” “How to put 666 ‘the number of the beast’ into a logo,” wrote another, in a tweet liked by Musk. Several other accounts have branded Threads “satanic” over the supposed link. In fact, the baseless claim became so popular that Instagram boss Adam Mosseri shared a thread on Friday explaining the real meaning behind the logo. “The Threads logo, in Instagram Sans, is inspired by the @ sign, which stands for someone’s username, the individual, and voice. “It’s a single unbroken line, inspired by the loop seen in the app when a thread is started,” he wrote. When one user commented that it “would have been entertaining” if Mosseri jokingly confirmed the conspiracy to be true, the exec replied: “It was tempting, but I feel like that kind of sass would just blow up in my face.” Sensible. Of course, this is just one fact which dispels this conspiracy theory as nonsense and baseless, but one lesser-known bit of historical trivia also exposes just how outlandish the claim is. All the way back in 2005, it was reported that a newly discovered fragment of the oldest version of the New Testament – the second part of the Bible – from the third century gave a different number entirely for the number of the beast. Found in historic dumps near Oxyrhynchus in Egypt, the text from the Book of Revelation indicates it’s not 666 which is the fiendish number we should all be fearing, but the far less aesthetically pleasing 616. Professor David Parker, Professor of New Testament Textual Criticism and Paleography at the University of Birmingham, said: “This is an example of gematria, where numbers are based on the numerical values of letters in people’s names. “Early Christians would use numbers to hide the identity of people who they were attacking: 616 refers to the Emperor Caligula.” This is in contrast to the far more popular 666, which is understood to have referred to Emperor Nero. 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.

MIAMI--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jul 27, 2023--

By Gopal Sharma KATHMANDU A Nepali sherpa guide climbed Mount Everest for the 26th time on Sunday, hiking

Even with one of the world’s most powerful green politicians in charge, Germany is failing on almost all

SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sep 19, 2023--

By Jonathan Allen and Brad Brooks LAHAINA, Hawaii Officials in Hawaii on Tuesday implored residents to submit DNA

ChatGPT has a new upgrade that lets the viral artificial intelligence tool “see, hear, and speak”, according to OpenAI. The update for OpenAI’s artificial intelligence chatbot will allow users to have voice conversations with the AI chatbot and interact with it using images as well, the firm said in a blog post on Monday. “ChatGPT can now see, hear, and speak,” the firm also said in a post on X/Twitter. The features will be rolled out “over the next two weeks” and enable users to “use voice to engage in a back-and-forth conversation” with the AI assistant. With the new features, ChatGPT can be used to “request a bedtime story for your family, or settle a dinner table debate,” according to the company, bringing it closer to the services offered by Amazon’s Alexa or Apple’s Siri AI assistants. Providing an example of how the feature works, OpenAI shared a demo in which a user asks ChatGPT to come up with a story about “the super-duper sunflower hedgehog named Larry”. The chatbot replies to the query with a human-like voice and also responds to questions such as “What was his house like?” and “Who is his best friend?” OpenAI said the voice capability is powered by a new text-to-speech model that generates human-like audio from just text and a few seconds of sample speech, the company said. “We collaborated with professional voice actors to create each of the voices. We also use Whisper, our open-source speech recognition system, to transcribe your spoken words into text,” the company said. The AI firm believes the new voice technology is capable of crafting realistic-sounding synthetic voices from just a few seconds of real speech, and could opens doors to many creative applications. However, the company also cautioned that the new capabilities may also present new risks “such as the potential for malicious actors to impersonate public figures or commit fraud”. Another major update to the AI chatbot allows users to upload an image and ask ChatGPT about it. “Troubleshoot why your grill won’t start, explore the contents of your fridge to plan a meal, or analyze a complex graph for work-related data,” OpenAI explained. This new feature, according to the company, also lets users focus on a specific part of the image using a drawing tool in the ChatGPT mobile app. This kind of multimodal recognition by the chatbot has been forecast for a while, and its new understanding of images is powered by multimodal GPT-3.5 and GPT-4. These models can apply their language reasoning skills to a range of images, including photographs, screenshots and documents. OpenAI said the new features will roll out within the next two weeks in the app for paying subscribers of ChatGPT’s Plus and Enterprise services. “We’re excited to roll out these capabilities to other groups of users, including developers, soon after,” the AI firm said. Read More Spotify makes AI voice clones of podcasters and uses them to speak other languages Meta plans to develop chatbot with ‘sassy robot’ persona for young users, report says ChatGPT can now generate images and create illustrated books Meta plans to develop ‘sassy robot’ chatbot for young users, report says Fossil fuels ‘becoming obsolete’ as solar panel prices plummet New discovery is ‘holy grail’ breakthrough in search for aliens, scientist say

Kai Cenat said that Twitch used to ban him frequently during his early days and many of his fans believed it was due to racial prejudice

Social media star Joe Bartolozzi has been the victim of a viral hoax after rumours of his alleged death began to circulate online. Fans became concerned when the words “Joe Bartolozzi dead” trended online, but who is the influencer and why was he a victim of the death hoax? Who is Joe Bartolozzi? 21-year-old Bartolozzi is an American YouTuber, TikToker and streamer who has grown a social media following thanks to his amusing commentary and content. He boasts a staggering 22.5 million followers on TikTok where his clips have racked up 1.8 billion likes. Since creating a YouTube channel in 2020, Bartolozzi has gained 1.46 million subscribers, while his other social media platforms also have millions of followers and lots of engagement. So, when fake rumours suggested that Bartolozzi had died, it didn’t take long for the phrase “Joe Bartolozzi dead” to start trending as people tried to get to the bottom of it. But, his fans were quickly reassured when Bartolozzi continued to post on his social media channels. In one TikTok which has been viewed over 11 million times, Bartolozzi addressed the death hoax saying that it had become very annoying for him. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter @joe.bartolozzi @river its been a week and im over it He yelled: “I didn’t die because it would be impossible for me to talk about how I died. It has been one week – one week, seven days – it’s already really f***ing annoying.” In the comments, fans poked fun at the rumours, joking that his video was produced by artificial intelligence. One fan joked: “This Ai stuff is getting out of hand let him rest.” “AI is getting too far…” another said. Someone else mocked: “He made backup videos so we won't be sad that he is not here. Fly high joe.” Bartolozzi has posted regularly since the rumours began so it’s safe to say he is alive and well. 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.

Pokimane reveals most people pronounce her name wrong