OpenAI, the company behind the viral AI chatbot ChatGPT, is reportedly in talks with renowned Apple designer Jony Ive to create an artificial intelligence device. The venture, which also involves SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son, aims to build the “iPhone of artificial intelligence”, according to the Financial Times. Several brainstorming sessions between Mr Ive and OpenAI boss Sam Altman have already taken place, while Japanese tech giant SoftBank is said to have pledged more than $1 billion towards the project. Few details are given about what form the device might take, with possibilities ranging from a standalone ChatGPT-enabled smart speaker, to headphones that allow wearers to interface directly with the AI bot. Mr Ive left Apple in 2019 after 27 years at the company to form his own design company, called LoveForm, which is involved in the latest collaboration. Alongside the iPhone, Mr Ive played a crucial role in designing other Apple products like the iPad, iPod and MacBook. His latest creation is likely to forego a screen, according to people familiar with the matter. The Independent has reached out to OpenAI for comment. Reports of the partnership emerged in the same week that OpenAI announced that ChatGPT now has direct access to the internet, as well as the ability to “see, hear and speak”. The addition of voice and image recognition tools gives the generative AI similar capabilities to virtual assistants like Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri. The internet connectivity feature also brings it in line with other leading AI tools like Google’s Bard. “ChatGPT can now browse the internet to provide you with current and authoritative information, complete with direct links to sources,” OpenAI announced on Wednesday. “It is no longer limited to data before September 2021. Browsing is particularly useful for tasks that require up-to-date information, such as helping you with technical research, trying to choose a bike, or planning a vacation.” Meta also announced the launch of several new chatbots this week, with chief executive Mark Zuckerberg saying the AI bots will come with different personalities based on real people. The chatbots will work through Meta’s apps, which include Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp. Read More ChatGPT boss says he’s created human-level AI, then says he’s ‘just memeing’ Elon Musk says he’ll live stream himself doing ‘silly stuff’ on X tonight TikTok finds and shuts down secret operation to stir up conflict in Ireland ChatGPT now has direct access to the internet

SHANGHAI (Reuters) -Nio has held exploratory talks with Mercedes-Benz for a tie-up that would see the German automaker invest in

Yelp is suing Texas to ensure it can continue to tell users that crisis pregnancy centers listed on its site do not provide abortions or abortion referrals, opening a new front in the fight between states and the tech industry over abortion restrictions.

REDMOND, Wash.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sep 28, 2023--

Elon Musk plans to live stream himself playing video games on X, formerly known as Twitter, as part of plans to challenge other streaming platforms like Twitch and YouTube. The tech billionaire previously tried to launch the stream late on Wednesday night but ran into technical issues. “Will test X livestream scaling tonight at ~11pm CT (5am BST) with some silly stuff,” he posted to X on Wednesday. “People have asked me to stream myself playing video games, so I will try to speedrun a Tier 99 Nightmare dungeon on Diablo (with no magnificent hearts).” He followed up a few hours later, writing: “Unfortunately, still working. Will have to postpone to tomorrow.” Since taking over Twitter in October 2022, and renaming it to X in April 2023, Mr Musk has repeatedly stated his ambition to transform the social media platform into an “everything app”. Similar to China’s WeChat, the app could eventually incorporate other functions and services like making payments, booking taxis or ordering food. Mr Musk has already secured money-transmitting licences in at least three US states, and has a history of building online payments platforms after co-founding PayPal. X chief executive Linda Yaccarino, who Mr Musk hired in June, laid out what this new version of the app might look like in a series of posts after joining the company. “X is the future state of unlimited interactivity – centred in audio, video, messaging, payments/banking – creating a global marketplace for ideas, goods, services, and opportunities. Powered by AI, X will connect us all in ways we’re just beginning to imagine,” she wrote. “For years, fans and critics alike have pushed Twitter to dream bigger, to innovate faster, and to fulfil our great potential. X will do that and more. We’ve already started to see X take shape over the past 8 months through our rapid feature launches, but we’re just getting started.” Before Mr Musk took over, Twitter had a video streaming feature called Periscope that was shut down in March 2021 due to declining usage. Mr Musk briefly tested the dormant feature in May 2023, though users dubbed him “8-bit Elon” due to the low quality resolution of the broadcast. Read More Elon Musk and the one trillion-dollar algorithm that explains everything he does Reddit will start paying people to post Tesla robot shown practising yoga X is shutting down feature to send posts to select people after privacy concern

Scientists have confirmed that the first black hole to ever be captured on camera is spinning in a major new discovery. The famous doughnut-shaped M87* black hole, 6.5 billion times more massive than the sun, first drew people’s attention in 2019 for becoming the first void to be pictured. Now, it has been confirmed that the M87* black hole is spinning, but experts have yet to determine just how fast. The announcement was made on 27 September. M87* has been observed for the last two decades via a network of radio telescopes. It is located in the Messier 87 (M87) galaxy, which is around 55 million light-years away from Earth in the Virgo constellation. The instruments monitoring the black hole have observed a powerful jet of radiation and particles being expelled from its poles. According to research, the relativistic jets appeared to be on a kind of pendulum that swings every 11 years, observed over decades. Experts believe this is caused by interactions between gravitational interactions between the black hole and the material making up the disk around it. They say this provides “unequivocal evidence” that the black hole is spinning. Cui Yuzhu, a researcher at Zhejiang Lab in China and the study’s lead author explained in a statement: “We are thrilled by this significant finding,” adding, “Since the misalignment between the black hole and the disk is relatively small and the precession period is around 11 years, accumulating high-resolution data tracing M87’s structure over two decades and thorough analysis are essential to obtain this achievement.” Their findings matched with computer simulations, confirming that the jets emitting from the black hole change direction by around 10 degrees every 11 years. 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.

TikTok has uncovered and shut down a secretive operation to influence Irish users and whip up social conflict. The covert influence operation (CIO) network comprised 72 accounts with a total following of almost 95,000 users. The video sharing platform’s work to find and remove the accounts was detailed in a report to the European Commission. TikTok is a signatory of an EU code of practice aimed at combatting disinformation and misinformation online. Ireland from March to June 2023" data-source=""> The latest report covered the timespan from January to June this year. “The network targeted Irish audiences,” TikTok said of the CIO in Ireland. “The individuals behind this network created inauthentic accounts; hyper-posted content with divisive views related to nationalism in Ireland, Japan, Russia, and Taiwan; and hyper-posted comments with similar low-quality content in an attempt to redirect TikTok users off-platform and to intensify social conflict.” TikTok moved against similar covert influence operations in Russia, Poland and Germany. The report also revealed that from March to June 2023, TikTok removed 67,013 fake accounts in Ireland. Those accounts were followed by 296,274 users. In the first half of the year, TikTok removed 218,158 fake followers on accounts in Ireland and prevented 26,034,349 fake follow attempts. There were also 144 accounts banned under TikTok’s impersonation policies. A total of 2,165 videos were removed in Ireland because of violation of harmful misinformation policy. Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live Spotify will not ban all AI-powered music, says boss of streaming giant Vehicle scam reports surged by 74% in the first half of 2023, says Lloyds Bank Standard Life confirms plans for pensions dashboard

An antitrust lawsuit from 17 states and the Federal Trade Commission this week against Amazon represents the US government's biggest regulatory challenge yet against the e-commerce juggernaut.

OpenAI has announced that its viral artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT now has direct access to the internet. The update comes just days after ChatGPT was given the ability to “see, hear and speak” through new voice and image recognition tools, building on its generative AI tools to bring capabilities similar to virtual assistants like Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri. Prior to the latest update, ChatGPT’s knowledge base was limited to a data training set that ended in September 2021. “ChatGPT can now browse the internet to provide you with current and authoritative information, complete with direct links to sources,” OpenAI announced on Wednesday. “It is no longer limited to data before September 2021. Browsing is particularly useful for tasks that require up-to-date information, such as helping you with technical research, trying to choose a bike, or planning a vacation.” The web-connected version of ChatGPT is currently only available for paying ChatGPT Plus and ChatGPT Enterprise customers, but OpenAI said it has plans to expand it to non-paying users “soon”. OpenAI briefly added internet connectivity features for premium ChatGPT users in July, however it was shut off after people exploited it to get around paywalls. This issue appears to have been fixed, along with other ways to misuse the AI bot, through OpenAI’s evolving AI safety measures. The update was announced on the same day that Meta unveiled its own series of AI chatbots, which come with different personalities based on real people. Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg said at the company’s annual Meta Connect conference that the chatbots would be available through its applications Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp. “This isn’t just going to be about answering queries,” he said. “This is about entertainment.” Other social media and messaging apps have also introduced AI chatbots to their platforms, including Snapchat’s My AI tool. Read More ChatGPT boss says he’s created human-level AI, then says he’s ‘just memeing’ ChatGPT boss says he’s achieved human-level AI, then says he’s ‘just memeing’ ChatGPT now has power to ‘see, hear, and speak’ Meta plans to develop ‘sassy robot’ chatbot for young users, report says

Scientists have spent 20 years putting together time-lapse footage offering a stunning window into the past. Two decades of data taken from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory were used by astronomers to create a video of a stellar eruption that actually occurred 180 years ago. Observations from Chandra, taken in 1999, 2003, 2009, 2014 and 2020 were all used, in combination with data from ESA’s XMM-Newton spacecraft. With the combined data, experts were able to capture the stellar explosion, known as Eta Carinae. Eta Carinae is a famous star system containing two large stars, one of which is around 90 times larger than the Sun, while the other is around 30 times as large. The “Great Eruption” from Eta Carinae is believed to be the result of the merging of two stars that were originally part of a three-star system. Eta Carinae Time-Lapse, Chandra X-ray Observatory www.youtube.com It first took place in the mid-19th century and the aftermath is still continuing to be observed today. New footage shows how the explosion has expanded into space with staggering speeds of up to 4.5 million miles per hour. In a statement, NASA officials explained: “During this event, Eta Carinae ejected between 10 and 45 times the mass of the sun. This material became a dense pair of spherical clouds of gas, now called the Homunculus Nebula, on opposite sides of the two stars.” The Homunculus Nebula is the blue cloud visible in the video, while the growing bright orange ring shows how X-ray emissions have grown and expanded over time. “The new movie of Chandra, plus a deep, summed image generated by adding the data together, reveal important hints about Eta Carinae’s volatile history,” the statement read. “This includes the rapid expansion of the ring, and a previously-unknown faint shell of X-rays outside 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.

The human body is an extraordinary thing – and now, one video is proving just that, while simultaneously giving people nightmares. Childbirth is often regarded as one of nature's most incredible events, but have you ever questioned how a baby's face develops while in the womb? Neither have we. But thanks to the BBC, people are divided about how "beautiful" the process actually is. The simulation shows how the baby's face starts with the philtrum, the area between the bottom of your nose and upper lip. During the episode of Inside the Human Body: Creation, Michael Mosley points out: "Down the centuries, biologists have wondered why every face has this particular feature. What we now know is it is the place where the puzzle that is the human face finally all comes together." The footage then recreates a baby's facial development via an animation, which begins with two holes at the top of the head. It appears as though the features then start to merge, though this is the baby's nostrils. (Fast-forward 32 seconds in to the below video to watch:) Face Development in the Womb - Inside the Human Body: Creation - BBC One www.youtube.com "We've taken data from scans of a developing embryo so we're able to show you for the very first time how our faces don't just grow, but fit together like a puzzle," Mosley continues. "The three main sections of the puzzle meet in the middle of your top lip, creating the groove that is your philtrum." He continues: "This whole amazing process, the bits coming together to produce a recognisable human face, happens in the womb between two and three months. "If it doesn't happen then, it never will." The snippet understandably garnered a mixed response, with one viewer writing: "That was so creepy yet amazing..." Another joked: "Makes me feel better that Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise once looked like space aliens." And a third quipped: "Thank you for the enlightening information and the skin-curdling nightmares." 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.

Meta has released two new ways to begin to experience the “mixed reality” that it says is the future. It has revealed its Meta Quest 3, a virtual reality headset that also has “passthrough” to the real world, allowing virtual objects to be layered on top of it. Until now, its headsets have only offered virtual reality. It also released new versions of its smart glasses, made in collaboration with Ray-Ban. They feature a camera that can record, and speakers in the glasses’ arms. Both are a glimpse at what Mark Zuckerberg has suggested will be the future: smart eyewear that let you move between virtual and real worlds, to experience the “metaverse” around which the company is now organised and for which it changed its name from Facebook. But that technology is not yet available, and so the new products are Meta’s best attempt at giving something of a look at that future. Meta’s new releases come soon before Apple’s “Reality Pro”, the mixed reality headset that it revealed in June and says will be coming early next year. Like the new Meta Quest 3, that uses cameras to show the real world and project digital items on top of it, or lets users dial into entirely virtual worlds. Meta has suggested it will be able to stand out from Apple’s competition by offering a more social version of mixed reality. But it has also pointed to its price: the Meta Quest 3 costs $500, or £480, compared with $3,500 for the Vision Pro. The Meta Quest 3 does have considerably lower specs than its competitor, however. While Meta said that its new headset has a 30 per cent increase from its predecessor, even as the headset itself gets smaller, the detail is much less than in Apple’s headset. Meta’s Quest is also focused primarily on gaming and entertainment. It revealed it along with a host of games – including access to Xbox Cloud Gaming, which allows many console games to be played over the internet. The new headset begins by automatically mapping the space around its user, with sensors that are able to understand both the size of the room and any objects that are in it. That can then be used to ensure that wearers don’t crash into their surroundings, but also layer games on top. Pre-orders for the Meta Quest 3 open now, and it will go on sale on 10 October. The new smart glasses cost £299 or $299, the same price as the original version. They bring improved cameras, a lighter design, and new features such as livestreaming. Read More Meta showcases new AR/VR tech at annual Connect conference Meta plans to develop ‘sassy robot’ chatbot for young users, report says Facebook changes logo to ‘make F stand apart’ – but can you tell the difference?