Chinese tech giant Tencent on Thursday claimed its new chatbot had some capabilities on par with top US rival ChatGPT, as the global...

GENEVA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug 21, 2023--

It's the most ghoulish time of the year — which means it's the ideal time

Parents should be held accountable for the actions of children taking part in criminal social media crazes, the chairwoman of the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners (APCC) has said. Donna Jones said she believes parents could be fined over the behaviour of youngsters who take part in incidents such as the mass looting seen in London’s Oxford Street last week. She said it is a sign of “societal breakdown” and parents should be disciplining their children and teaching them that such acts are “morally abhorrent” to prevent further incidents. The Hampshire Police and Crime Commissioner also highlighted a craze in Southampton in which a “handful” of 15 to 17-year-olds took paracetamol to see who could stay in hospital the longest. The former magistrate told the PA news agency: “This is a real indication of societal breakdown. “This has not just suddenly appeared from nowhere. We’ve seen the warning signs of this coming for a really long time. We know these type of incidents are happening in America, and what happens in America very often gets here within a 12-month period. “Hundreds of young people rampaging through London shops, which are putting their security shutters down… You know, this is Britain in 2023. “This is incredibly worrying, and somebody needs to call it out. The draw on police resources is wholly unacceptable APCC chairwoman Donna Jones “The Home Secretary has said this has got to stop, it’s not good enough. I support her in that but I’m going one step further to say the draw on police resources is wholly unacceptable. “This is mindless vandalism, and it’s also criminal activity in terms of shoplifting and theft, looting, mass looting. “This is taking away police hours from operational policing that they should be doing to keep genuine people that need protecting safe. “We need to send a clear message – this is not acceptable and the parents need to be held accountable.” Ms Jones said parents could be forced to pay the fines for the criminal behaviour of their children under the age of 16, or under 18 if in full-time education. It's criminal, and morally it's also an abhorrent thing to do APCC chairwoman Donna Jones She added: “There have to be formal sanctions taken. We also have to call out the lack of discipline – parents need to be parenting their children and teaching them right from wrong. “Any parent or guardian of a young person who believes that they were in central London last week and could have been involved with that should be sitting down with that young person, having a really strong conversation with them about exactly what they have done, how it’s completely unacceptable. “It’s criminal, and morally it’s also an abhorrent thing to do. That’s certainly what I would be doing if it was my children. “And I’d like to think that’s what all decent good parents and guardians of young people should be doing, otherwise this is never going to stop.” Ms Jones also called on social media companies such as TikTok to investigate and crack down on posts orchestrating flashmobs which encourage criminal behaviour or explain publicly what action they are already taking. TikTok has been approached for comment. Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live Hackers ’emptied’ victims’ accounts and tried to blackmail GTA maker, court told AI can predict Parkinson’s subtype with up to 95% accuracy, study suggests Oxford scientists find no evidence to suggest Facebook not good for wellbeing

Mark Zuckerberg wants a cage match with Elon Musk.

Some congressional Democrats say three large tax preparation firms sent “extraordinarily sensitive” information on tens of millions of taxpayers to Facebook parent company Meta over at least two years

The Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III countdown is underway as fans have less than 3 months until the title, featuring Zombies, red dots, and slide cancelling, releases.

Chimpanzees are our closest relatives, so it’s not surprising that they can do many of the things that we can. They’re able to create tools and can even use sign language, plus they share 98.8 per cent of their DNA with humans. It is, therefore, no wonder that the question has often been asked: could humans and chimps ever produce offspring? The answer, according to one evolutionary psychologist, is yes – and it’s already happened. Gordum Gallup made the eyebrow-raising claims in an interview with The Sun Online back in 2018. He told the news site that a human-chimpanzee hybrid – which he dubbed a “humanzee” – was born in a Florida lab 100 years ago. And if you’re wondering how the scientists behind the experiment managed to keep it hushed up for decades, it’s because – according to Gallup – they swiftly killed the infant when they realised the implications of what they’d done. Gallup, a professor at New York’s University at Albany, said his former university teacher told him that the secret birth took place at a research facility in Orange Park, where he used to work. “They inseminated a female chimpanzee with human semen from an undisclosed donor and claimed not only that pregnancy occurred but the pregnancy went full term and resulted in a live birth,” the psychologist told The Sun. “But in a matter of days, or a few weeks, they began to consider the moral and ethical considerations and the infant was euthanised.” Putting Gallup’s unsubstantiated story to one side, it’s unclear whether a human-chimpanzee hybrid is even possible. Some experts believe that our human ancestors and chimpanzees may have been capable of interbreeding as late as 4 million years ago according to IFL Science, which notes that our last common ancestor lived 6-7 million years ago. However, the website also notes that this theory is widely contested. It also points out that other animals with similar genetic differences to that of humans and chimps, such as horses and zebras, have been able to reproduce. And yet, the offspring are often infertile. Nevertheless, back in the 1970s, plenty of people believed that a chimp called Oliver was a human-monkey hybrid thanks to his humanistic walk, intelligence and physical features (he was said to have a smaller, flatter face than his ape peers, according to Historic Mysteries). It wasn't until tests were conducted on Oliver in 1996 that the matter was finally settled: he had 48 chromosomes so was categorically not a humanzee but a regular chimp. Oliver The Humanzee www.youtube.com Still, one certainty is that scientists continue to tread an ethical tightrope when it comes to investigating chimps and their potential to further biomedical research. In 2021, scientists created the first (publicly documented) part-monkey, part-human embryo by growing human stem cells in a macaque monkey. The aim of the work, which was carried out at California’s Salk Institute, was to help create organs for transplants and improve our understanding of human development and disease progression. In 2020, a team of German and Japanese scientists spliced human genes into the brains of marmosets, resulting in the monkey fetuses having larger, more human-like brains, according to the study, which was published in the journal Science. Once the experiment was complete, the team destroyed their creations “in light of potentially unforeseeable consequences with regard to postnatal brain function”. One thing’s for sure, no scientist wants to find themselves the architect of a real-life Planet of the Apes. Sign up for 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.

Phil Spencer said Microsoft buying Nintendo would be "a good move for both companies".

LE BOURGET, France--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun 21, 2023--

France moved closer to securing a carve-out from the European Union’s plans to massively scale up renewable energy

REDWOOD CITY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun 7, 2023--