Britain says may clear restructured Microsoft-Activision deal
Microsoft's restructured acquisition of Activision Blizzard "opens the door" to the deal being cleared, Britain's antitrust regulator said on Friday.
2023-09-22 14:15
X is shutting down feature to send posts to select people after privacy concern
X is shutting down Circles months after some users flagged glitches with the privacy-focused tool that lets users send posts to a select audience. The Elon Musk-owned company that was earlier called Twitter said on Thursday that Circles will be disabled by 31 October. “After this date, you will not be able to create new posts that are limited to your Circle, nor will you be able to add people to your Circle,” X wrote in a post. “You will, however, be able to remove people from your Circle, by unfollowing them,” the company said. Once unfollowed, users previously part of one’s Circle “can no longer see your past Circle Posts,” it said. The feature – similar to Instagram’s Close Friends stories – was officially launched in August 2022 when the platform was called Twitter, and before the Tesla billionaire took over the company. “Twitter Circle is a way to send Tweets to select people, and share your thoughts with a smaller crowd,” the company had said after the feature’s launch. “You choose who’s in your Twitter Circle, and only the individuals you’ve added can reply to and interact with the Tweets you share in the circle,” it had then said. Then in April, a software glitch exposed the private posts of some users to other followers and strangers not part of their Circle, sparking widespread privacy concern. Users began noticing their private Circle posts began appearing on the algorithmically generated “For You” timeline, meaning these posts were being noticed by people outside the intended audience. In some cases, users noticed their Circle posts were even reaching people who don’t even follow them. In emails sent to affected users, X said a “security incident” was behind the public display of their Circle tweets, adding that the issue was “immediately fixed” so these posts were no longer visible outside of the user’s Circle. “We’ve conducted a thorough investigation to understand how this occurred and have addressed this issue,” the company said. “We understand the risks that an incident like this can introduce and we deeply regret this happened,” it said at the time. The software bug added to the number of issues that plagued Twitter following Mr Musk’s takeover of the company and the multibillionaire laying off nearly two-thirds of its workforce. The glitch was likely due to the platform’s recommendation algorithm likely failing to filter out Circle posts before sharing them with others on the site, former Twitter engineer Theo Browne told TechCrunch at the time. Now, in a new update, X said in a post that it is “deprecating Circles as of Oct 31st, 2023”, without delving into why the company is shutting down the feature. Read More Two dead and dozens injured after bus carrying high school band crashes on I-84 in New York Tourist calls police after being charged £500 for chilli crab in Singapore Scientists discover world’s oldest human-built structure, built by an extinct species ChatGPT can now generate images and create illustrated books Man drives off bridge ‘following Google Maps’ Solar panel breakthrough could supercharge ‘miracle material’ production
2023-09-22 12:59
Despite China’s iPhone Ban, Buyers and Scalpers Are Flocking to Apple Stores
Chinese customers flocked to Apple stores to buy the latest iPhone 15 despite government restrictions and local competition,
2023-09-22 12:58
Once Silicon Valley’s Star, Cisco Looks to Splunk for Fresh Mojo
Cisco Systems Inc.’s Chuck Robbins, who has spent years working to restore the networking company to its former
2023-09-22 08:46
YouTube unveils a slew of new AI-powered tools for creators
YouTube on Thursday unveiled a slew of new artificial intelligence-powered tools to help creators produce videos and reach a wider audience on the platform, as companies race to incorporate buzzy generative AI technology directly into their core products.
2023-09-22 05:18
TikTok's Rules Deter Researchers From Crunching Data on Users, Misinformation
As TikTok gets more popular, researchers at leading academic institutions want to study what users are doing there.
2023-09-22 04:22
Cisco is Buying Splunk for $28 Billion. Here's What Splunk Does
If the deluge of data in the modern world is increasingly overwhelming, cybersecurity company Splunk claims to have
2023-09-22 03:15
Missing nuclear bomb off the US coast could still explode
On February 5, 1958, two Air Force jets collided in mid-air during a train mission. Fortunately, all involved survived the crash, but one of the jets carried a Mark 15 thermonuclear bomb, as was "common practice" during training missions. The weapon is now believed to be hidden 13 to 55 feet below the ocean and sand, and the Air Force and Navy divers have been looking for it ever since. The nuclear weapon is somewhere off the coast of Tybee Island, Georgia, and every once in a while, a high reading of radioactivity is recorded in the area. This causes the US government to scramble in efforts to find the bomb, likely buried in the seafloor. For two months after the jets collided, the Air Force and Navy divers searched a 24-square mile area in the Wassaw Sound, a bay of the Atlantic Ocean near Savannah, using handheld sonar. On April 16 1958, the military decided the bomb was "irretrievably lost." The Air Force said the weapon wasn't fully assembled and "there was no danger of an explosion or radioactivity." Forty years later, a retired Air Force officer began to search for it. "It's this legacy of the Cold War," said Stephen Schwartz, author of 'Atomic Audit: The Costs and Consequences of US Nuclear Weapons Since 1940'. "This is kind of hanging out there as a reminder of how untidy things were and how dangerous things were." However, some experts say that the bomb may be better left buried, even if someone finds it. Whilst there was little chance of the bomb spontaneously exploding, there was a chance of it exploding during retrieval, and experts would have to remove and dispose of the uranium first. A 2001 report on the bomb suggested recovery cost would start at $5 million. "The whole Air Force perspective is, it's just not worth it," Schwartz said. "Trying to move it could create bigger problems than if we just leave it where it is." Schwartz said the only way the weapon will be found is by chance or if a powerful storm dredges it up. "I won't say it's lost for the ages because I don't think it is," he said, but "so many people have searched for it for so long using some fairly sophisticated equipment and not found it." 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.
2023-09-22 00:24
Cisco taps new M&A firm Tidal for $28 billion Splunk deal
By Milana Vinn and Anirban Sen NEW YORK A new mergers and acquisitions advisory firm launched last year
2023-09-22 00:24
TikTok was built off of Black creators. Black employees say they faced discrimination
Nnete Matima said she was attracted to work at TikTok because of how the social media platform was "really built upon Black culture" and the work of Black creators.
2023-09-21 23:59
Thailand's new PM meets Tesla chief Musk in New York
BANGKOK (Reuters) -Thailand's new Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin said on Thursday he met with Tesla chief Elon Musk in New
2023-09-21 23:58
ChatGPT can now generate images and create illustrated books
OpenAI has integrated its AI image generator into its hugely popular ChatGPT chatbot. The Microsoft-backed company unveiled its latest version of DALL-E, named DALL-E 3, on Wednesday, allowing users to generate images with “significantly more nuance and detail” compared to previous systems By converging the capabilities of its two distinct generative AI tools, OpenAI researchers claim that users will now be able to “brainstorm” ideas with the artificial intelligence. OpenAI boss Sam Altman gave an example of how the dual functionality could be used, saying that it could write and illustrate a children’s bedtime story from a few simple prompts. Current text-to-image systems, such as Midjourney or OpenAI’s Dall-E 2, often misinterpret commands from users due to their inability to understand specific requests. This has resulted in the emergence of prompt engineers, also known as prompt wizards, who train to optimise the results of generative artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT and Dall-E. “Our new text-to-image model, DALL-E 3, can translate nuanced requests into extremely detailed and accurate images,” OpenAI stated. “DALL-E 3 is built natively on ChatGPT, which lets you use ChatGPT as a brainstorming partner and refiner of your prompts. Just ask ChatGPT what you want to see in anything from a simple sentence to a detailed paragraph.” The latest version of DALL-E will only be available for paying users, with ChatGPT Plus and ChatGPT Enterprise receiving the upgrade in October. OpenAI has also introduced improved safety features to its AI image generator, which it claims will prevent people from creating lewd or hateful images. These protections include ignoring certain words and denying requests to depict public figures. Earlier this month, AI pioneer Mustafa Suleyman warned that AI could be misused to potentially generate synthetic viruses that could trigger pandemics. “The darkest scenario is that people will experiment with pathogens, engineered synthetic pathogens that might end up accidentally or intentionally being more transmissible or more lethal,” he told The Diary of a CEO podcast. “That’s where we need containment. We have to limit access to the tools and the know-how to carry out that kind of experimentation.” Read More Amazon Alexa gets new AI powers, with the same kind of brain as ChatGPT Amazon Alexa is getting the same brain as ChatGPT UK competition regulator proposes guiding principles to make AI market safe Chatbots ‘able to outperform most humans at creative thinking task’
2023-09-21 23:51