List of All Articles with Tag 'tec'

A battery breakthrough made by researchers in Japan could pave the way for next-generation batteries to finally enter mass production. A team from Tokyo University of Science discovered a way to build sodium-ion batteries with an equivalent performance to conventional lithium-ion batteries. Lithium-ion, or li-ion, batteries are found in everything from electric cars to smartphones, however they are made from difficult-to-extract and expensive resources, while also containing liquid electrolytes that are toxic and flammable. By contrast, sodium-ion batteries are cheaper, offer stability against extreme temperatures, and pose no risk of overheating. Until now, their main limitation has been a lower energy density compared to li-ion batteries. To overcome this limitation, the scientists developed a high-capacity electrode made from nanostructured hard carbon, which they were able to optimise and then incorporate into an actual battery. The researchers said the new electrodes deliver “unprecedented performance” and offer a viable option for producing next-generation batteries for consumer electronics and electric vehicles. “This value is equivalent to the energy density of certain types of currently commercialised lithium-ion batteries... and is more than 1.6 times the energy density of the first sodium-ion batteries, which our laboratory reported back in 2011,” said Professor Shinichi Komaba from Tokyo University of Science. The breakthrough could also make sodium-ion batteries viable for other practical applications, such as low carbon footprint energy storage systems for solar and wind farms. The research was detailed in a study, titled ‘New template synthesis of anomalously large capacity hard carbon for Na- and K-ion batteries’, published in the journal Advanced Energy Materials. Read More Breakthrough solar system outperforms military-grade diesel generator

LONDON Britain's interior ministry has told food delivery firms Uber Eats, Deliveroo and Just Eat to implement stricter

Meta said it will start allowing users to delete or deactivate their Threads accounts without also closing down their Instagram accounts. Instagram boss Adam Mosseri said in a Threads post that the change is rolling out on the platform. Threads was launched in the summer as a rival to Twitter, with Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg hoping to scoop up Twitter users unhappy with Elon Musk’s changes to and management of the app, which is now known as X. Despite early success, with millions of people signing up, many voiced their frustration due to Threads requiring an Instagram account to complete registration, which also meant anyone wishing to delete their Threads account also had to shut down their Instagram account. We heard feedback that you want more control over the experience, so we’re rolling out a way to opt out of being featured outside Threads Instagram boss Adam Mosseri Mr Mosseri said in the weeks after launch that Meta was looking to changing the requirement, and in a post to Threads, the Instagram boss confirmed a new option in the app’s settings will enable users to close their Threads profile only. He said the update is “based on feedback from our Threads community”. He said a second update is also rolling out to users, which will allow them to switch off a recent feature that sees Threads post also appear on the feeds of other Meta apps – Facebook and Instagram. “We heard feedback that you want more control over the experience, so we’re rolling out a way to opt out of being featured outside Threads,” Mr Mosseri said.

It’s happened to us all. Maybe you’re walking down the street, or sitting on the bus, or even just sending an email – then suddenly, you realise you’ve been here before. Déjà vu can be a puzzling thing. It literally means already seen in English, and it remains pretty mysterious as to why we feel it. Now, scientists have a couple of theories. Sanam Hafeez, a clinical psychologist, told Fox News: "It refers to the eerie and distinct feeling that one has already experienced the current situation or event, even though it’s a new and unfamiliar occurrence. "It feels like a powerful wave of familiarity with the present moment as if the person is re-living a past experience. "Some suggest it may be linked to how memories are processed in the brain, potentially involving delays or errors in memory retrievals." She added that it may be because the brain is processing information through multiple pathways at the same time, creating the illusion of a memory when you are living in the present moment. She said: "Regardless of the precise mechanism, déjà vu is a transient and common experience that lasts only briefly, affecting people of all ages and not considered a pathological condition. "While it remains a puzzle, déjà vu continues to be a fascinating facet of human consciousness." "It is also important to note that déjà vu is not associated with any particular medical or psychological condition. It is usually a brief and transient experience and is considered a normal aspect of human perception and memory." About two-thirds of people in good health experience déjà vu during their lifetime, according to WebMD, though it is more likely to happen to people aged 15 to 25. The website explains: "A familiar sight or sound can trigger the feeling. You may walk into a room in a building you’ve never visited yet feel like you know it intimately." Health.com adds: "People with more education, those who travel a lot and people who can recall their dreams are also more likely to experience déjà vu." 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.

Netflix is a popular streaming platform with over 250 million subscribers, but there's one feature that the majority of users do not use at all. The streaming services are not only home to thousands of TV series and films, but there are also plenty of video games to play. Gaming studios such as Night School Studios, which developed the Oxenfree games were acquired by the company. Despite the development of Oxenfree 2 exclusively for Netflix, the statistics show that most subscribers are not aware of or just don't use this feature that comes free with their subscription. There are up to 70 games on the app which are on the Netflix app under the 'Mobile Games' section, where there are games based on the most popular shows such as Squid Game, Stranger Things, The Queen's Gambit, Black Mirror, and reality shows such as Love Is Blind and Too Hot To Handle. Other award-winning titles also include Immortality, Kentucky Route Zero and Before Your Eye. Only 2.2 million Netflix subscribers (0.88 per cent approximately) play one of the streamer’s games daily, as per a CNBC report. But it appears there is a struggle to get subscribers to return to the video games after trying them, since more than 70 million subscribers at some time have downloaded a game. Perhaps, this issue could be due to games taking up more download space, and commitment for users. Although stats show subscribers are not playing video games, the streaming giant has been splashing the cash in this area since in the last year, the quantity of games available has tripled. But Co-CEO Greg Peters, says this is all part of the "crawl, walk, run" strategy that has successfully worked in the past. “This trajectory is not dissimilar from what we’ve seen before,” Peters said on the company’s prerecorded earnings call on Wednesday, CNBC reported. “When we’ve launched a new region, or when we launched new genres, like unscripted” we had to “crawl, walk, run, but we see a tremendous amount of opportunity to build a long-term centre value of entertainment.” 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.

(Removes repetition in paragraph 8) By Zeba Siddiqui, Christopher Bing and Raphael Satter SAN FRANCISCO/WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Federal Bureau

Google’s decision to delete millions of inactive Gmail accounts could erase millions of photos and other irretrievable memories, users have warned. The purge, which comes into effect next month and will hit any account that has not been used for more than two years, could impact parents who have set up email addresses for young children in order to share and mark milestones with them. It could also inadvertently affect people who continue to manage the online accounts of deceased relatives. Googleannounced the policy in a blog post earlier this year, claiming that the move aims to protect active users from security threats like phishing scams and account hijacking. The mass closure will also free up significant amounts of server space, which will also save the US tech giant money and resources. Google warned that the new policy applied to personal Google accounts, which includes content within Google Photos and Google Workspace tools like Docs, Drive, Gmail, Meet and Calendar. Nicholas Worley, founder and chief executive of digital archiving platform Inalife, urged people to take action immediately in order to risk losing access to the accounts. “If you have a Google account set up for your kids and have been emailing them, or if you manage the account of a deceased loved one... Login, save or backup any important memories and stories,” he wrote on LinkedIn. Mr Worley told The Independent that he began recording memories when he learnt he was having his first child in 2019. “I have friends and now Inalife users who had set up emails for their kids and hadn’t known about the deletion issue before being told,” he said. The Independent has reached out to Google for further information about whether any impacted accounts will be retrievable once the purge has taken place, and the exact number of accounts potentially impacted. In its May blog post, Google’s vice president of product management Ruth Kricheli said that users would be able to keep their account active by reading or sending an email, using Google Drive, watching a YouTube video while logged in, downloading an app on the Google Play Store, or using Google Search. “[The] update helps us continue our advancements in account security, and helps reinforce our commitment to keep your private information private,” she wrote. “This update aligns our policy with industry standards around retention and account deletion and also limits the amount of time Google retains your unused personal information.” Google has already begun sending notifications to both the main email addresses and recovery emails of any accounts at risk of deletion. Read More Google is about to ditch passwords forever Google issues three-week warning to Gmail account holders One of the world’s most hyped tech products just launched – and made a big mistake ‘Is AI dangerous?’ UK’s most Googled questions about artificial intelligence

(Corrects year-on-year comparison in penultimate paragraph to a loss of 624 million euros, not a loss of 467.2 million euros)

SpaceX’s Starship should take off for the second ever time this week, Elon Musk has said. The world’s most powerful and tallest rocket is aiming to launch this week, he tweeted. The rocket will attempt to fly around the Earth and then drop into the ocean in a major test. Eventually, SpaceX hopes that Starship will help carry humans to the Moon and onto Mars. But first it must prove that it is safe for orbital flight in an uncrewed test. Friday’s flight would mark the second launch after a spectacular failure in April that saw the rocket blow up soon after launch. Since then, the private space company has been working to secure regulatory approval for another test. Now Elon Musk says that those approvals should be granted in time to launch on Friday, 14 November. Earlier, SpaceX had only said the rocket “could launch as early as Friday”. It may still be delayed, and previous tests have been pushed back mere seconds before launch. The first orbital test flight was attempted in April this year. Soon after it took off, Starship began to tumble, and the rocket exploded. Since then, SpaceX has been working to fix a number of issues with both the rocket and the launchpad. The FAA required that 63 fixes were needed before it would give permission for the rocket to launch again. Those changes have led to a series of improvements that SpaceX says should reduce the chance of another failure, as well as protecting the humans who will eventually fly in the spacecraft. “Starship’s first flight test provided numerous lessons learned that directly contributed to several upgrades to both the vehicle and ground infrastructure to improve the probability of success on future flights,” SpaceX says on its website. “The second flight test will debut a hot-stage separation system and a new electronic Thrust Vector Control (TVC) system for Super Heavy Raptor engines, in addition to reinforcements to the pad foundation and a water-cooled steel flame deflector, among many other enhancements. “This rapid iterative development approach has been the basis for all of SpaceX’s major innovative advancements, including Falcon, Dragon, and Starlink. Recursive improvement is essential as we work to build a fully reusable transportation system capable of carrying both crew and cargo to Earth orbit, help humanity return to the Moon, and ultimately travel to Mars and beyond.” Read More ChatGPT creator mocks Elon Musk in brutal tweet Elon Musk’s new AI bot will help you make cocaine which proves it’s ‘rebellious’ Elon Musk weighs in on the scooped bagel debate How Elon Musk’s ‘spicy’ Grok compares to ‘woke’ ChatGPT Elon Musk unveils new sarcasm-loving AI chatbot for premium X subscribers Elon Musk mocks politicians at AI summit

(Corrects second paragraph to say revenue fell, not rose) China's Tencent Music Entertainment topped third- quarter revenue estimates

AI-generated faces of white people now seem more real than actual ones, according to a new study which raises concerns that the technology may be used to fool people. More people thought AI-generated white faces were human than the faces of real people, while the same wasn’t true for the images of people of colour, according to research published recently in the journal Psychological Science. “If white AI faces are consistently perceived as more realistic, this technology could have serious implications for people of colour by ultimately reinforcing racial biases online,” study co-author Amy Dawel from the Australian National University, said. One of the reasons for this discrepancy, according to researchers, is that AI algorithms are being trained disproportionately on white faces. “This problem is already apparent in current AI technologies that are being used to create professional-looking headshots. When used for people of colour, the AI is altering their skin and eye colour to those of white people,” Dr Dawel explained. The study also found that the people who identified AI faces as real were most often confident that their judgements were correct, indicating people may not know they are tricked using such images. This kind of AI “hyper-realism” when misused may lead to people not realising they’re being fooled, scientists warn. While there are still physical differences between AI and human faces, researchers say people tend to misinterpret them. For instance, the study found that white AI faces tend to be more in proportion which people mistake as a sign of humanness. However, we can’t rely on these kinds of physical cues for long, researchers say. With AI technology advancing rapidly, they say the differences between AI and human faces could “disappear soon”. When that happens, scientists warn that it could have serious implications for the proliferation of misinformation and identity theft, urging for action to be taken seriously. “AI technology can’t become sectioned off so only tech companies know what’s going on behind the scenes. There needs to be greater transparency around AI so researchers and civil society can identify issues before they become a major problem,” Dr Dawel said. “Educating people about the perceived realism of AI faces could help make the public appropriately sceptical about the images they’re seeing online,” she added. Read More Trump’s Truth Social warns company may be forced to shut down amid huge losses Solar panel world record smashed with ‘miracle material’ AI among biggest threats to next UK election, cyber security agency warns Trump’s Truth Social warns company may be forced to shut down amid huge losses Solar panel world record smashed with ‘miracle material’ AI among biggest threats to next UK election, cyber security agency warns

Truth Social’s parent company lost almost $23m (£18.7m) in the first half of this year alone, according to a new securities filing that raises concerns about its “ability to continue”. The filing released on Monday marks the first time any financial details about Donald Trump’s social media platform have been shared publicly, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Truth Social was launched in February last year after Mr Trump was banned from most social networks in the aftermath of the 6 January 2021 Capitol riots. The former US president – who announced his candidacy for the 2024 elections in November last year – has since returned to X (formerly known as Twitter), but says Truth Social is still his primary social media platform and that he won’t post anywhere else until six hours after he sends a “Truth”. Having Mr Trump on board has not translated into revenue for the platform’s parent company Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), however. Over the first half of 2023 it has lost $23m while bringing in only $2.3m in net sales, the filing showed. This has raised doubts about the viability of the company and its social media startup, according to the filing. “TMTG’s independent registered public accounting firm has indicated that TMTG’s financial condition raises substantial doubt as to its ability to continue as a going concern,” the company noted in the filing. The company said the “management has substantial doubt that TMTG will have sufficient funds to meet its liabilities as they fall due, including liabilities related to promissory notes previously issued by TMTG”. The remarks were made in its assessment of business till the end of December last year and as of 30 June 2023. Concerns have also been raised over Digital World Acquisition Corporation (DWAC), a Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC), that had some years ago announced plans to merge with TMTG. An SPAC is a shell corporation which raises money by listing itself on a stock exchange with the aim of using the funds for a merger with a different and usually more well-known entity. The filing said DWAC has “until 8 September 2024 to consummate a business combination”. It raised concerns that both TMTG and DWAC may not survive unless this merger is completed. “It is uncertain that Digital World will be able to consummate a business combination by this time. If a business combination is not consummated by this date, there will be a mandatory liquidation and subsequent dissolution of Digital World,” the filing said. “TMTG believes that it may be difficult to raise additional funds through traditional financing sources in the absence of material progress toward completing its merger with Digital World,” the filing further said. “A number of companies that had licence agreements with President Trump have failed. There can be no assurances that TMTG will not also fail,” the filing said. TMTG also cited a number of risks to its business in the new filing, including a dedicated section titled “Risks related to our chairman, president Donald J Trump”. The section lists his ongoing legal hurdles. “TMTG’s success depends in part on the popularity of its brand and the reputation and popularity of its chairman, president Donald J Trump,” the filing said. “The value of TMTG’s brand may diminish if the popularity of President Trump were to suffer. Adverse reactions to publicity relating to President Trump, or the loss of his services, could adversely affect TMTG’s revenues, results of operations and its ability to maintain or generate a consumer base.” Read More Return of original Fortnite map causes record traffic on Virgin Media O2 network Elon Musk unveils new sarcasm-loving AI chatbot for premium X subscribers Elon Musk mocks politicians at AI summit Tesla to offer ‘beast mode’ version of Cybertruck with bulletproof panels X now valued at $19bn – less than half of what Elon Musk paid for it Solar panel world record smashed with ‘miracle material’