List of All Articles with Tag 'tech'

Owners of Google’s latest premium smartphone are experiencing strange bumps and ripples that appear on the device’s screen. Google claims the issue with the Google Pixel 8 Pro has “no functional impact to Pixel 8 performance or durability”, though some users have already returned their new phone in an effort to resolve it. Pixel owners shared their experiences with the issue across social media and on Google forums, expressing their frustration that there appears to be no fix. “I had this on mine as well,” a user called Constanza Juarez wrote. “Not visible on natural light but extremely visible under artificial light, both with screen on and/or off.” Another user wrote: “Even with a glass screen protector, I can see the same bumps when I examine the edges of my Pixel 8 Pro.” Bumps and ripples have been reported on the top and bottom left of the screen, above the SIM card tray, near the fingerprint scanner, as well as the top and bottom right of the display. Some even reported sending their bumpy phones back to Google, only to have the same issue occur with the replacement device. A video showing the Google Pixel 8 Pro being taken apart suggests that the internal mechanics of the smartphone are responsible for the screen bumps, which could complicate any attempts by the phone maker to rectify the issue on this particular model. “Notice how the spring clips in the right side of the Pixel 8 Pro line up exactly with the indents in the foil on the display side of the phone,” one owner noted. “It seems to be pretty clear that these clips are the cause of the bumps we are seeing in our displays.” Google has not revealed the exact internal phone part causing the uneven surface, however did acknowledge that some users may see them on their new smartphones. “Pixel 8 phones have a new display,” a company spokesperson said. “When the screen is turned off, not in use and in specific lighting conditions, some users may see impressions from components in the device that look like small bumps. There is no functional impact to Pixel 8 performance or durability.” Read More Google issues one-week deadline to Gmail account holders Gmail users receive urgent warning before account purge Don’t believe your eyes: how tech is changing photography forever Gmail users receive urgent warning before account purge

SYDNEY Australia's government said on Monday it would bring Apple Pay, Google Pay and other digital payment services

By Gram Slattery and Nichola Groom WASHINGTON Electric vehicles are a "hoax," they do not work, and they

Vladimir Putin has unveiled what he calls Russia’s new strategy to counter Western dominance of the field of artifical intelligence, claiming that new AI models “cancel Russian culture”. The president addressed an AI conference in Moscow on Friday where he said Russian investment in AI development was being increased across all sectors. Citing the example of Gazprom Neft, Mr Putin said one of Russia’s largest oil producers was using AI to slash the cost of oil well development and to address complicated logistics safety issues. “I hope we will be more active in this area. When I say ‘we,’ I am referring not only to the government but also to the regions and industries, and individual plants,” Mr Putin said. The Russian leader said the country would intensify its research into the domains of generative AI and large language models which currently lag behind the leading Western-developed tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard chatbots. Speaking about such AI models, he said their full potential had only started to emerge in the past year, while he criticsed “Western search engines” and generative AI models, calling them “very selective and biased”. “They do not take into account and sometimes simply ignore and cancel Russian culture. In simple terms, the machine is given some creative assignment and performs it using only the English language database,” he said. “Thus, the algorithm may tell the machine that Russia, our culture, science, music and literature simply do not exist. They are cancelled in the digital space, as it were,” the Russian president said at the conference. AI created according to “Western standards”, he said, may emerge as a “kind of xenophobe”, he said. “Our domestic models of artificial intelligence must reflect the entire wealth and diversity of world culture, the heritage, knowledge, and wisdom of all civilisations,” he said. English speaking countries currently dominate AI development, with Stanford’s Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI) claiming the US and UK were further ahead in the technology than the rest of the world. The Russian president said that the “monopolistic dominance” of the technology was “unacceptable, dangerous and inadmissible”. “Our innovations should rest on our traditional values, the wealth and beauty of the Russian language and languages of other peoples in Russia,” Mr Putin added. To achieve such development, he called for the scaling up pf Russia’s supercomputing power and to improve its top-level AI education. Read More AI breakthrough could help us build solar panels out of ‘miracle material’ OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman ousted as CEO YouTube reveals bizarre AI music experiments AI-generated faces are starting to look more real than actual ones Breakthrough ‘safe’ liquid fuel cannot start accidental fires, scientists claim Meta sued over ‘open secret’ of ‘pursuing,’ signing up millions of underage users

Facebook‘s parent company Meta disabled only a small fraction of the over one million reports it received of underage users on Instagram since early 2019, a lawsuit filed by 33 US states reportedly said. The newly unsealed legal complaint accused the tech giant of carrying an “open secret” that it had millions of users under the age of 13, and that Instagram “routinely continued to collect” their personal information such as location without parental permission. The complaint stated that within the company, Meta’s actual knowledge that millions of Instagram users were under the age of 13 was an “open secret” that was routinely documented, rigorously analyzed and confirmed, and zealously protected from disclosure to the public, according to a New York Times report. Last month, attorneys general from 33 states, including New York’s AG Letitia James, filed a lawsuit against Meta alleging that the tech giant designed harmful features contributing to the country’s youth mental health crisis. The lawsuit alleged Meta created addictive and “psychologically manipulative” features targeting young people while assuring the public falsely that the platform was safe to use. “Meta has profited from children’s pain by intentionally designing its platforms with manipulative features that make children addicted to their platforms while lowering their self-esteem,” Ms James said. Meta’s spokesperson responded to the lawsuit, saying that the company was committed to providing teens with “safe, positive experiences online,” and that it had already introduced “over 30 tools to support teens and their families” such as age verification and preventing content promoting harmful behaviours. “We’re disappointed that instead of working productively with companies across the industry to create clear, age-appropriate standards for the many apps teens use, the attorneys general have chosen this path,” the spokesperson added. However, a significant portion of the evidence provided by the states was obscured from public view via redactions in the initial filing. The new unsealed complaint filed last week provided fresh insights from the lawsuit, including the accusation that Instagram “coveted and pursued” underage users for years and that Meta “continually failed” to make effective age-checking systems a priority. The lawsuit reportedly argued that Meta chose not to build effective systems to detect and exclude underage teen users, viewing them as a crucial next generation demographic it needed to capture. It also accused the tech giant of “automatically” ignoring some reports of under 13 users and allowing them to continue using the platform while knowing about such cases via the company’s internal reporting channels. The company responded that the now publicly revealed complaint “mischaracterizes our work using selective quotes and cherry-picked documents.” It said verifying the ages of its users was a “complex” challenge especially with younger people who likely do not have IDs or licenses. Meta recently said it supports federal legislation requiring app stores to get parents’ approval whenever their teens under 16 download apps. “With this solution, when a teen wants to download an app, app stores would be required to notify their parents, much like when parents are notified if their teen attempts to make a purchase,” the company said. “Parents can decide if they want to approve the download. They can also verify the age of their teen when setting up their phone, negating the need for everyone to verify their age multiple times across multiple apps,” it said. The tech giant holds that the best solution to support young people is a “simple, industry-wide solution” where all apps are held to the same standard. “By verifying a teen’s age on the app store, individual apps would not be required to collect potentially sensitive identifying information,” Meta recently said. Read More Russia places Meta spokesperson on wanted list Meta to allow users to delete Threads accounts without losing Instagram Nasa has received a signal from 10 million miles away Nasa has received a signal from 10 million miles away Elon Musk set to meet Netanyahu and hostage families in Israel Elon Musk weighs in on Dublin riots claiming country’s PM ‘hates the Irish people’

(Reuters) -Australia's competition watchdog said on Monday new competition laws were required in response to the rapid expansion of digital

Metal detecting can be a pretty thankless task, with most enthusiasts lucky if they find a couple of quid or an old belt buckle. But for one man in Australia, the experience was out of this world. David Hole was out digging for gold in Maryborough Regional Park, near Melbourne, back in 2015 when his trusty detector alerted him to a strange, red-brown rock embedded in some yellow clay. Hole took the mysterious boulder home with him and did his utmost to crack it open, using a rock saw, a sledgehammer, a drill, and even dousing it in acid, according to Science Alert. And yet, nothing left so much as a dent. Admitting defeat years later, in 2018, Hole took his find to the Melbourne Museum, hoping someone there could explain its impenetrability; convinced it contained a golden nugget. However, the discovery was far more significant than a precious metal: it was a 4.6 billion-year-old glimpse at the birth of our solar system – a rare meteorite that had crashed down to Earth. The museum’s geologists, Dermot Henry and Bill Birch, said they grew excited as soon as Hole pulled the enigmatic rock from his rucksack. Speaking to the Sydney Morning Herald back in 2019, Henry recalled: "It had this sculpted, dimpled look to it. "That's formed when they come through the atmosphere, they are melting on the outside, and the atmosphere sculpts them." Meanwhile, Birch told the paper he knew the specimen was special as soon as he held it. “If you saw a rock on earth like this, and you picked it up, it shouldn’t be that heavy,” he said. Testing soon confirmed their suspicions, as well as the composition of this extraordinary chunk of history. In July 2019, the two colleagues published a scientific paper describing the meteorite, which they christened “Maryborough”, after the area where it was found. The space rock, which measures 38.5cm by 14.5cm by 14.5cm, weighs a staggering 17 kg, and after using a diamond saw to slice through it, the experts discovered that it is what is known as an H5 ordinary chondrite. This means that it contains tiny crystallised droplets (chondrules), that were created by flash heating of dust clouds in the early solar system. "Meteorites provide the cheapest form of space exploration. They transport us back in time, providing clues to the age, formation, and chemistry of our Solar System (including Earth)," Henry said in a statement published by Museums Victoria. "Some provide a glimpse at the deep interior of our planet. In some meteorites, there is 'stardust' even older than our Solar System, which shows us how stars form and evolve to create elements of the periodic table. "Other rare meteorites contain organic molecules such as amino acids; the building blocks of life." The scientist added that the Maryborough Meteorite was most likely formed in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Despite all of Henry and Birch’s work, plenty of questions surrounding the rock remain unanswered. They don’t know for sure when it landed on Earth, with carbon 14 testing it was between 100 and 1,000 years ago. Still, multiple meteor sightings were reported in the Maryborough district between 1889 and 1951, so it could have crashed down within this relatively recent time period. Whatever its precise origins, the researchers insist it’s worth more to science than its weight in gold. "This is only the 17th meteorite found in Victoria, whereas there's (sic) been thousands of gold nuggets found," Henry told Channel 10 News at the time. "Looking at the chain of events, it's quite, you might say, astronomical it being discovered at all." Birch echoed this sentiment, adding: “When you consider all the events this chunk of rock has experienced since its formation 4.6 billion years ago, it's really mind-boggling that we get the opportunity to hold it and study it today. How good is that?" 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

BEIJING (Reuters) -China's Huawei said on Sunday it will move core technologies and resources in its smart car unit, which

Scientists are challenging the way many people think about ancient hunter gatherers, after finding that women may have been better hunters than men. New findings have shown that while there are clear differences between the sexes when it comes to biology, the idea of men being naturally better suited to hunting is a myth. New research from professor Cara Ocobock points to women being metabolically better placed to hunt. Ocobock is an assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology and director of the Human Energetics Laboratory at the University of Notre Dame. She published a study on the subject alongside anthropologist Sarah Lacy at the University of Delaware. The research also points to female hunters dating back to the Holocene period which were uncovered buried with hunting tools – and they’re challenging widely held assumptions over gender roles with the study. Ocobock said in a statement: "This was what everyone was used to seeing. This was the assumption that we've all just had in our minds and that was carried through in our museums of natural history." “Here we review and present emerging physiological evidence that females may be metabolically better suited for endurance activities such as running, which could have profound implications for understanding subsistence capabilities and patterns in the past,” the pair wrote. That’s due to the fact that the presence of the hormones estrogen and adiponectin give women the upper hand when it comes to endurance – a factor which would have been “critical in early hunting because they would have had to run the animals down into exhaustion before actually going in for the kill”. The presence of those hormones is better for modulating fat and glucose. As such, estrogen makes the body use stored fats for energy before turning to carbohydrates. “Since fat contains more calories than carbs do, it’s a longer, slower burn, which means that the same sustained energy can keep you going longer and can delay fatigue,” Ocobock said. “Estrogen is really the unsung hero of life, in my mind. It is so important for cardiovascular and metabolic health, brain development and injury recovery.” “With the typically wider hip structure of the female, they are able to rotate their hips, lengthening their steps. The longer steps you can take, the ‘cheaper’ they are metabolically, and the farther you can get, faster.” “When you look at human physiology this way, you can think of women as the marathon runners versus men as the powerlifters.” Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel 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

CAIRO Gulf Air said its data was breached on Friday but its operations and vital systems were not

Peloton has apologised to its customers after technical issues kept them from joining its special Thanksgiving ride. The rides had been held to break the Guinness World Records for the largest live streamed cycling and running classes. But they also had the effect of breaking Peloton’s systems, with riders unable to join the “Turkey Burn” class with instructor Robin Arzón for the first 20 minutes. Peloton’s relatively new chief executive, Barry McCarthy, apologised for the experience on the company’s official Facebook page. “We set out to create an amazing annual Turkey Burn Ride experience, and we let you down,” he wrote on the page. The number of riders “overwhelmed our technical infrastructure”, he said. “I know for many of you, this has become an annual tradition, and we owe you the best possible Member experience,” he wrote. “On behalf of the team, we apologise.” Despite the issues, Peloton was able to set the records for the largest live streamed cycling and running class. The company brought in Guinness World Records officials to verify the count, and were given the record for the ”Most viewers of a static cycling lesson live stream on a Bespoke platform”, as well as for running. The cycling class had 27,550 live participants, a spokesperson said. That was lower than the number that had been seen on the leaderboard, though it is not clear whether the discrepancy was the result of the technical problems. Despite the official recognition, the ride and run is not actually Peloton’s biggest live ride: 2021 and 2020 saw more, with the latter seemingly setting the record at more than 50,000 people, according to Peloton news website Pelobuddy. Peloton saw rapid growth through 2020 and 2021, spurred in large part by the move to work out at home during lockdowns. But it has experienced a number of issues since, including recalls of its bikes and seemingly lower interest as people head back to gyms. It has lost around 80 per cent of its share price value since it was listed towards the end of 2019. And its stock has fallen almost 97 per cent since its record highs in late 2020. Read More Nasa has received a signal from 10 million miles away Nvidia sued over ‘stolen’ data revealed in video conferencing mishap AI breakthrough could help us build solar panels out of ‘miracle material’

A new lawsuit filed against Nvidia alleged that a file accidentally left on display by one of its employees during a video conference contains data stolen from the car tech company Valeo. The lawsuit alleged that employee Mohammad Moniruzzaman downloaded the “entirety of Valeo’s advanced parking and driving assistance systems source code” in early 2021 without authorization. It says he also downloaded “scores of Valeo Word documents, PowerPoint presentations, PDF files, and Excel spreadsheets explaining various aspects of the technology” before leaving to join Nvidia in August of that year. Valeo is accusing Nvidia of having benefited from the stolen trade secrets. “Mr Moniruzzaman ended his employment at Valeo and took the stolen source code and technical documentation with him to Nvidia, receiving a promotion to a senior position working on the software development for the very same project,” the lawsuit alleged. The alleged data theft reportedly came to light the following year when staff from both Nvidia and Valeo were working over a Microsoft Teams video conference call on a joint parking assistance project. Nvidia was developing the software, while Valeo was providing ultrasonic sensor hardware in the collaborative project for an unnamed automotive parts manufacturer. “On March 8, 2022, one of these videoconference meetings was scheduled. Mr Moniruzzaman, now employed by Nvidia, attended the video conference call… and shared his computer screen during the call,” the lawsuit noted. “When he minimized the PowerPoint presentation he had been sharing, however, he revealed one of Valeo’s verbatim source code files open on his computer,” it said. Valeo participants on the conference call recognised the source code and took a screenshot of it, the company said. “So brazen was Mr Moniruzzaman’s theft, the file path on his screen still read ‘ValeoDocs,’” the lawsuit noted. Mr Moniruzzaman had admitted to stealing Valeo’s software and using it while employed at Nvidia when he was questioned by German police, according to Valeo’s lawsuit. Nvidia has responded that it has no interest in using the stolen code, according to The Verge. But Valeo alleged that its competitor has benefited from the data, which it says would save “millions of dollars in development costs”. Citing these reasons, Valeo is seeking recovery of damages and an injunction to stop Nvidia and its staff from using its trade secrets. The Independent has reached out to Mr Moniruzzaman through Nvidia for a comment. Read More Trump’s Truth Social sues 20 media outlets over financial loss reports AI breakthrough could help us build solar panels out of ‘miracle material’ ‘We let you down’: Peloton apologises for Thanksgiving ride AI breakthrough could help us build solar panels out of ‘miracle material’ ‘We let you down’: Peloton apologises for Thanksgiving ride HSBC app not working on one of the biggest shopping days of the year