List of All Articles with Tag 'tec'

Amazon said Tuesday it launched a new service that will allow customers to purchase physical products while playing video games or interacting in virtual reality

Future space missions might use all-female crews because they are more “efficient”, a new study has suggested. Many space agencies around the world are already preparing for the first human trips to Mars and perhaps other planets. But those trips will be incredibly resource-intensive, with the food and other material required to support a crew over years being an important consideration. One way to minimise that demand on resources would be to send all-female crews, a new study conducted by the European Space Agency suggests. It found that female astronauts would be likely to need less water to stay hydrated, expend less energy, need less oxygen and carbon dioxide and produce less heat than their male counterparts. That in turn would require less space to store the equipment needed to allow those astronauts to live, and therefore make the journey theoretically easier for engineers. The exact difference between a male and female crew would depend on the stature and other details of the astronauts that were chosen. But in all situations, the all-female crew were found to use less energy. That was because they are lighter than their male counterparts, and tend to use less oxygen when they are exercising. The difference remained true even when the astronauts were modelled as if they were engaging in the kind of exercise that astronauts have done on the International Space Station, which is required to ensure they stay fit and healthy without the usual gravity on Earth. The fact that women also tend to be smaller would be another advantage the scientists note, since it would mean that engineers would be able to build them smaller space habitat modules. “There may be a number of operational advantages to all-female crews during future human space exploration missions,” the team conclude in a new paper. The work was theoretical and used already published data on female astronauts and physiological research. The research is published in a new paper, ‘Effects of body size and countermeasure exercise on estimates of life support resources during all-female crewed exploration missions’, in Scientific Reports. Read More Why is Elon Musk purging Twitter accounts? Apple finally launches two professional apps on the iPad AI robots figure out how to play football in shambolic footage

Elon Musk is “purging” old accounts on Twitter, he has said, in yet another controversial change to the service. He said that accounts with “no activity at all for several years” would be removed from the platform. He noted that the result is likely to be a decrease in people’s follower account. But the move has already led to widespread criticism from users who say that it could remove important personal and social history from the site, as well as being yet another ill-explained move from Mr Musk. Much remains unclear about the plan. Mr Musk did not clarify what would mark an active account, for instance – whether it would need its owner to sign in, or if they might have to post – and gave no information about the timescale of the “purging”. But here’s everything we do know about what will be happening to those old Twitter accounts. Why would Elon Musk do this? Mr Musk suggested that the focus is on “free[ing] up abandoned handles”. Many Twitter users who joined the site in its early years were able to claim much-desired usernames – such as those with only three characters – and have not used them since. Even before the purge, people have gone to considerable lengths in order to get those accounts. Those holding particularly valuable handles have spoken about being subject both to hacking attacks and considerable monetary offers to get access to them. It also has the benefit of giving an indication that staying as an active member of Twitter is valuable – or, at least, that it might be problematic not to use an account at all. That in turn could mean that more people log in to more Twitter accounts more regularly, which is a key metric at advertising-driven companies such as Twitter. Why is it being criticised? Many users have suggested that getting rid of those old, inactive accounts will mean deleting history. That might mean deleting accounts that were run by dead loved ones, or simply removing posts that have had a substantial impact on the world. In response, Mr Musk has indicated that the accounts will be “archived”, in a tweet replying to one such critic. He did not give any information about what this might mean, but other comments suggested that the posts may stay available on Twitter but not at the old handle. Many also suggested that the plan had not been fully thought through when it was announced, noting that Mr Musk had given no information to those who might have accounts removed, such as those that use them only to follow developments on Twitter and not post their own tweets. Read More Elon Musk threatens to reassign inactive Twitter accounts Elon Musk says Twitter will let media outlets charge users per article view Jack Dorsey says Twitter ‘went south’ after its sale to Elon Musk Bluesky might be the hottest and most controversial app in the world Apple finally launches two professional apps on the iPad AI robots figure out how to play football in shambolic footage

Fox Corp. moved to a loss in its fiscal third quarter, weighed down by Fox News’ nearly $800 million settlement with Dominion Voting Systems

The Federal Trade Commission has been investigating potential antitrust concerns over Tempur Sealy International Inc.’s proposed deal with

The US and allied countries have disrupted a wide-ranging Russian hacking operation that spied on its adversaries over

Meta Platforms Inc. is giving Facebook and Instagram creators a way to make money based on how many

Michael Novogratz, the founder of crypto financial services firm Galaxy Digital Holdings Ltd., said his company is moving

Apple will bring Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro to the iPad, answering questions about the future of its high-powered tablets. The professional video and music editing apps have been remade for Apple’s tablets, with new touch interfaces and additional features added from the Mac counterpart. Apple has been making the iPad Pro for years, with the first released in 2015. Recent models have brought them in line with Apple’s laptops, using the same chips for faster performance. But at the same time, Apple has been relatively slow in adding professional apps to the platform that can make use of that computing capability. That had led some to wonder whether Apple was truly committed to its iPads being a professional platform. Now Apple has put its two main professional and creative apps onto the platform, and they will arrive later this month. “We’re excited to introduce Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro for iPad, allowing creators to unleash their creativity in new ways and in even more places,” said Bob Borchers, Apple’s vice president of worldwide product marketing, in a statement. “With a powerful set of intuitive tools designed for the portability, performance, and touch-first interface of iPad, Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro deliver the ultimate mobile studio.” The new versions of the app are largely similar to their Mac counterparts. They include the same basic design and similar functionality. The updates do however add some tools within the iPad version, such as a new sound browser in Logic Pro. And they also include new options that are built specifically for the tablet, such as support for the Apple Pencil. Customers will have to pay for the iPad versions of the app separately, even if they own the desktop one, with each app costing £4.99 per month or £49 per year. Final Cut Pro requires an M1 chip or later, and Logic Pro needs an A12 chip or later, and the apps must be updated to the latest operating system. Both of the apps will be available from 23 May. Apple’s announcement is unusual in that it comes just a month before its big software event, the Worldwide Developers Conference, which is held at the beginning of June. Apple usually announces new updates to its own apps at that event. Read More Apple announces shock results Tim Cook reveals his thoughts on AI – and Apple’s plans to use it Google gets rid of passwords in major new update

JetBlue Airways Corp. orchestrated a campaign to flood the government with thousands of online comments in favor of

Robots fitted with AI developed by Google’s DeepMind have figured out how to play football. The miniature humanoid robots, which are about knee height, were able to make tackles, score goals and easily recover from falls when tripped. In order to learn how to play, AI researchers first used DeepMind’s state-of-the-art MuJoCo physics engine to train virtual versions of the robots in decades of match simulations. The simulated robots were rewarded if their movements led to improved performance, such as winning the ball from an opponent or scoring a goal. Once they were sufficiently capable of performing the basic skills, DeepMind researchers then transferred the AI into real-life versions of the bipedal bots, who were able to play one-on-one games of football against each other with no additional training required. “The trained soccer players exhibit robust and dynamic movement skills, such as rapid fall recovery, walking, turning, kicking and more,” DeepMind noted in a blog post. “The agents also developed a basic strategic understanding of the game, and learned, for instance, to anticipate ball movements and to block opponent shots. “Although the robots are inherently fragile, minor hardware modifications, together with basic regularisation of the behaviour during training led the robots to learn safe and effective movements while still performing in a dynamic and agile way.” A paper detailing the research, titled ‘Learning agile soccer skills for a bipedal robot with deep reinforcement learning’, is currently under peer-review. Previous DeepMind research on football-playing AI has used different team set ups, increasing the number of players in order to teach simulated humanoids how to work as a team. The researchers say the work will not only advance coordination between AI systems, but also offer new pathways towards building artificial general intelligence (AGI) that is of an equivalent or superiour level to humans. Read More 10 ways AI will change the world – from curing cancer to wiping out humanity DeepMind boss says human-level AI is just a few years away Apple finally launches two professional apps on the iPad UK-based tech company claims quantum computing ‘breakthrough’

Wendy’s Inc. will begin testing an artificial intelligence-powered chatbot next month that will talk to customers and take