BERLIN Volkswagen plans to build its Trinity electric vehicles (EV) at its factory in Zwickau, the company said

Semiconductor designer Arm Ltd. has found its calling card for the rest of the year as it builds

Tesla titan and multi-billionaire Elon Musk has reportedly warned US senators at a private meeting that unregulated artificial intelligence technology poses a “civilisational risk” to society. Senate majority leader Chuch Schumer convened a meeting of the most prominent tech executives in the US to help pass a bipartisan legislation encouraging both the rapid development of AI technology and also mitigating its biggest risks. The closed-door meeting was attended by some of the tech industry’s biggest names, including Tesla and SpaceX boss Mr Musk, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, former Microsoft chief Bill Gates, Alphabet’s Sundar Pichai, as well as OpenAI founder Sam Altman. As Mr Musk left the Capitol building following several hours of the meeting, he told reporters that “we have to be proactive rather than reactive” in regulating AI as its consequences of going wrong are “severe”. “The question is really one of civilizational risk. It’s not like … one group of humans versus another. It’s like, hey, this is something that’s potentially risky for all humans everywhere,” he said, according to NBC News. Mr Musk also reportedly called for a government AI agency, similar to the Securities and Exchange Commission or the Federal Aviation Administration to oversee developments in the sector and ensure safety. Leaders in the tech industry also called for a balanced approach towards regulating AI. In his prepared remarks, Mr Zuckerberg said the two defining issues for AI are “safety and access”, adding that the US Congress should “engage with AI to support innovation and safeguards”. “New technology often brings new challenges, and it’s on companies to make sure we build and deploy products responsibly,” the Meta chief said. “This is an emerging technology, there are important equities to balance here, and the government is ultimately responsible for that,” he added. The Facebook founder called for policymakers, academics, civil society and industry to work together to minimise the potential risks of AI, but also to maximise its potential benefits. Some of the measures he suggested for building safeguards into AI systems included “selecting the data to train with, extensively red-teaming internally and externally to identify and fix issues, fine-tuning the models for alignment, and partnering with safety-minded cloud providers to add additional filters to the systems we release”. As lawmakers at the US Capitol Hill interacted with tech giant chiefs about potential AI regulations, companies including Microsoft, OpenAI, Meta, Alphabet, and Amazon were also being probed on the conditions of the workers behind tools like ChatGPT, Bing, and Bard. Lawmakers are reportedly probing the working conditions of data labelers who are tasked by companies, often at outsourced firms, to label data used to train AI and for rating chatbot responses. “Despite the essential nature of this work, millions of data workers around the world perform these stressful tasks under constant surveillance, with low wages and no benefits,” lawmakers, including Elizabeth Warren and Edward Markey, said in a letter to tech executives. “These conditions not only harm the workers, they also risk the quality of the AI systems –potentially undermining accuracy, introducing bias, and jeopardizing data protection,” they said. Read More Elon Musk was on brink of death after catching malaria on South African safari, book claims Fatherhood, rows with Amber Heard and ‘the woke mind virus’: 6 big revelations from Elon Musk’s biography Putin praises Musk as ‘outstanding person’ days after report Tesla boss stopped Ukrainian attack Long-form video content is here to stay, says YouTube UK boss Cybertruck sparked Tesla revolt that saw secret design plan, Musk biography reveals Everything Apple killed off at iPhone 15 event

Annabelle Ham had more than 73,000 followers on Instagram and an additional 77,000 subscribers on YouTube

Our canine companions could soon be enjoying much longer lifespans, if a drug which claims it can extend dogs’ lives eventually gets approved. The drug, made by a tech firm in California, just cleared a vital hurdle to doing just that, after it got partial approval by regulators in the US. Loyal, a San Francisco-based company founded in 2020, has been researching how it can increase dogs’ lifespans – in particular larger breeds, which tend to die younger. Large and “giant” breeds tend to live to between eight and 12 years. Smaller dogs, such as Chihuahuas, can keep going to the ripe old age of 20. Loyal’s main product, the catchily-titled LOY-001, is designed not only to extend dogs’ lives but also maintain their quality of life. Now, it has passed the “reasonable expectation of effectiveness” test, set by regulators at the US’ Food and Drug Administration. Loyal’s chief executive, Celine Halioua, said: "Loyal was founded with the ambitious goal of developing the first drugs to extend healthy lifespan in dogs. "This milestone is the result of years of careful work by the team. We'll continue to work just as diligently to bring this and our other longevity programs through to FDA approval." Selective breeding of dogs has caused higher levels of hormones which help the animals grow faster. That is also believed to reduce their lifespan, the company said. Big dogs tend to have more of this hormone than their smaller counterparts. Animal rights activists are not yet convinced. Some experts fear it will only serve to extend animals’ suffering. Loyal, on the other hand, says the drug aims to treat doggy diseases which are associated with ageing through preventing them, rather than waiting for the animals to get sick before treating them. The company said that the drug could be available to US customers as early as 2026. So that’s plenty of time for walkies between now and then. 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.

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(Reuters) -Investors pulled about $956 million from crypto exchange Binance over the past 24 hours, data firm Nansen reported on

HANGZHOU, China--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sep 12, 2023--

NOVI, Mich.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sep 6, 2023--

TL;DR: As of May 9, get the AIR NEO AI-Powered Autofly™ Camera Drone for $149.99

Infertility is a problem that afflicts more than a billion people across the world, which is why treatments such as IVF are so important. The procedure (in vitro fertilisation, to use it’s full name) involves the extraction of an egg from the woman's ovaries to be fertilised with sperm in a laboratory and returned to the woman’s womb. The goal is that the resulting embryo will then grow and develop into a foetus, blessing the parent or parents with a baby. However, success rates for IVF – as in, the percentage of treatments that result in a live birth – remain somewhat unencouraging: 32 per cent for women aged under 35; 25 per cent for women aged 35 to 37, with the numbers continuing to drop the older you get, according to the NHS. Nevertheless, a major new study has revealed a striking new finding which could help boost the hopes of countless aspiring mums and dads across the world. Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter After analysing 3,657 frozen embryos over a period of eight years, researchers in Western Australia found that IVF was much more likely to work when eggs had been harvested in the summer. The team clarified that it didn’t seem to matter when the embryos were transferred to the mother’s womb, just when the eggs were collected. Indeed, the likelihood of babies being born when the eggs had been retrieved in the summer was 30 per cent higher than when they had been retrieved in the autumn, according to the scientists. The team also found that the temperature on the day of egg collection didn’t seem to have an impact on success rates, but the number of sunny hours did. Of the embryos they tested, those harvested on days that had the most sunshine were 28 per cent more likely to result in a live birth compared to the darkest and most overcast days. “Our study suggests that the best conditions for live births appear to be associated with summer and increased sunshine hours on the day of egg retrieval,” the study’s lead, Dr Sebastian Leathersich, of Perth’s King Edward Memorial Hospital, said about the paper, which was published in the journal Human Reproduction. Still, he noted: “There are many factors that influence fertility treatment success, age being among the most important. “However, this study adds further weight to the importance of environmental factors and their influence on egg quality and embryonic development." He further explained: “We effectively separated the conditions at the time of egg collection from the conditions at the time of transfer, demonstrating that environmental factors when the eggs are developing are as, if not more, important than environmental factors during implantation and early pregnancy.” The expert obstetrician and gynaecologist added: “Optimising factors such as avoiding smoking, alcohol and other toxins and maintaining healthy activity levels and weight should be paramount. However, clinicians and patients could also consider external factors such as environmental conditions.” Despite Dr Leathersich and his colleagues concluding that the temperature on the day of egg collection had little bearing on the success of the process, they also found that the temperature on the day of embryo implantation did make a difference. The chances of a live birth rate decreased by 18 per cent when the embryos were transferred on the hottest days (when average temperatures measured between 14.5C and 27.8C) compared to the coolest days (0.1C to 9.8C), and there was a small increase in miscarriage rates, from 5.5 per cent to 7.6. The finding that miscarriage rates were highest when embryo transfer took place on the hottest days is consistent with other studies showing higher rates of miscarriage in the summer months. “This suggests that the negative effects of high temperature are more likely related to early pregnancy rather than egg development,” Dr Leathersich concluded. When it comes to the disparity in success rates between eggs retrieved in summer and autumn, he and his team pointed out that melatonin levels could be at play. Differences in lifestyles between the winter and summer months may also play a role, he and his colleagues acknowledged. "It is possible that there are differences in activity, diet, and lifestyle in different seasons which could underlie the observed differences in live birth rates, though such data were not collected in this study," they wrote. "It is also possible that other environmental factors, including pollutants, may impact clinical outcomes." Whilst the study’s findings are compelling, Dr Leathersich and his team admitted that it did have its limitations. The research was done in hindsight, using eggs that had been frozen, then thawed, so it could not draw watertight conclusions. “Ideally, these findings should be replicated in other sites with different conditions and different treatment protocols to confirm the findings,” Dr Leathersich said. “It would also be interesting to look at the impact of season and environmental factors on sperm parameters, as this could have contributed to our observations.” He added: “We are now planning to analyse this same group of patients using air quality data, as there may be seasonal changes in exposure to harmful pollutants which could negatively affect reproductive outcomes. “Finally, given the huge increase in so-called 'social egg freezing' for fertility preservation and the fact that this group generally have flexibility about when they choose to undergo treatment, it would be very interesting to see if these observations hold true with frozen eggs that are thawed and fertilised years later. “Any improved outcomes in this group could have big impacts for women making decisions about their future fertility, but the long-term follow-up required means it is likely to be some time before we can draw any conclusions for this population.” 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.

RAYMONDVILLE, Texas & MILPITAS, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug 30, 2023--